Prep for the plastic bubble crowd surf

The five acts you absolutely cannot miss at Summer Fest

How about a plastic bubble crowd surf?
Summer Fest is two days of summer heat and music parties.
Slim Thug isn't getting his usual opening act.

Music festival season is upon us and Houston finally has a first-rate event to call our own. Granted, Free Press Summer Fest doesn't measure up to the grand scale of Austin City Limits or Bonnaroo, but its affordability, accessibility, and focus on out-of-the mainstream regional acts along with a few indie stalwarts makes it a notable addition to the growing summer festival circuit.

It's also a winner in terms of the diversity of performers, with artists representing everything from thrash metal (Cro-Mags) and hip-hop (Slim Thug) to indie pop (Stars) and worldbeat (D.R.U.M.).

Sure, it'll be hotter than Hades this weekend at Eleanor Tinsley Park (especially with up to 30,000 people there last year), but for any discerning music fan it's a no-brainer. Here are five acts worth braving the heat and crowds to catch:

Listen Listen

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Safe Home, Safe in Port"

Proudly flying the freak-folk flag, this ragtag bunch from Houston play an assortment of instruments, ranging from piano to banjo and everything in between. With a spirit that conjures images of deep, dark woods from a bygone era, Listen Listen’s sound is communal, often featuring a chorus of chanting voices bolstered by gently plucked guitars, swelling horns, and swirling strings.

The band’s debut full-length album, Hymns From Rhodesia, bristles with a tasty combination of Neutral Milk Hotel’s Balkan bent and Incredible String Band’s Renaissance ramblings. It’s an adventurous set that reveals added surprises with each listen.

Detroit Cobras

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Hey Sailor"

One of the earliest of the Detroit garage revival bands that sprung up like weeds in late '90s, the Cobras have been churning out consistently thrilling batches of updated vintage R&B and primitive rock & roll sides for the better part of the last decade. With impeccable taste and a sexy swagger, the Detroit Cobras attack the golden nuggets of yesteryear with wild abandon.

The tagline emblazoned on their first record reads, "NOW for the uninhibited broad-minded swinging set!!" Indeed, this band will have the throngs in Eleanor Tinsley Park swinging to their crackling new versions of old soul classics.

Stars

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "The Night Starts Here"

Boasting members of the indie-supergroup Broken Social Scene, Stars specialize in lushly orchestrated pop music with thoughtful lyrics that will appeal to fans of Belle & Sebastian and Sufjan Stevens. With giant hooks and sunny melodies, I can envision a day when Stars is a household name featured on a slew of TV and movie soundtracks.

It'll be interesting to hear the sugary songs while surrounded by hoards of Slim Thug fans arriving early to get a prime spot for the local hip-hop legend who is slated follows the Stars' set. I guess that's what makes an event like Summer Fest so unpredictable and intriguing.

Medeski, Martin & Wood

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Rolling Son"

Don't let their "jam band" pedigree turn you off as the trio is comprised of stellar downtown NYC jazz experimentalists who defy easy categorization. MM&W's music is a joyful mashup of dense electronic funk, avant-garde freakouts, soul grooves and straight ahead jazz trio explorations.

As good as they are on record, the band really shines on stage so make sure you grab a prime spot for MM&W's mid-afternoon set on Saturday.

The Flaming Lips

Adobe Flash Required for flash player. "Money"

There are few bands as entertaining as the Flaming Lips. Part carnival, part circus, and part fiesta, the Lips' show is a vibrant display of whimsy, showmanship and playful psychedelia.

Don't be surprised if you witness dancers clad in full animal costumes, confetti cannons, or frontman Wayne Coyne crowd-surfing in a giant plastic ball. At a Lips show, anything's possible. This weekend the band will be performing their own twisted take on the legendary Pink Floyd classic "Dark Side of the Moon," a happening that alone is worth the price of a two-day ticket.

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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