weekend event planner

Here are the top 14 things to do in Houston this weekend

Toast FM Kitchen & Bar's fifth birthday this weekend.

This weekend offers some theatrical and musical fun starring two of our most beloved stage companies. Raise a glass to two beer-themed Pride events, celebrate a popular watering hole and restaurant's anniversary, and go bananas (literally) at a cherished nature center. And for anime fans, a trek to Conroe offers a chance to dress up and even lend your voice to an upcoming movie.

Enjoy; here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, June 2

Vita Living presents Pearls of Wisdom
This fundraising dinner will celebrate Vita Living's 40 years of service to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization’s mission is to provide lifelong services for people with IDD through three core programs: residential services, an activity center, and case management. The event includes a silent auction featuring local artists, a Mexican buffet, and a speech from Gabe Cazares, Director of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities. 6 pm.

Alley Theatre presents Noir
A heartbroken man never leaves his apartment, finding his only solace in the music on the radio. Then, a couple moves in next door.  Eavesdropping becomes his new entertainment — and his new obsession. Inspired by early radio plays and classic film noir, this world-premiere musical is written by Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) and Kyle Jarrow (SpongeBob SquarePants) and directed by Darko Tresnjak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder). Through Sunday, July 3. 7:30 pm (8 pm Friday and Saturday; 2:30 and 7:30 pm Sunday).

Friday, June 3

PrintMatters Houston presents PrintHouston 2022 opening reception
PrintMatters Houston will celebrate the eighth PrintHouston, a biennial city-wide celebration of original prints, the artists who create them and the people who collect them. Tamarind Institute will be the featured guest of this event. Houston-area galleries, museums and institutions (Archway Gallery, Burning Bones Press, The Community Artists’ Collective, Ellio Fine Art, etc.) will showcase the diversity of printmaking art forms with exhibits, artist talks and workshops. 6 pm.

Chloe Dao Boutique M-K-T Heights presents A Royal Night Out
Join fashion designer/Project Runway winner Chloe Dao and author Katharine McGee for an evening of royal fashion. They will also be celebrating Rivals, the latest book in McGee's New York Times-bestselling American Royals series. In this third installment, a meeting of monarchs will test everyone's loyalty to the crown…and their own hearts. Relationships will be tested, strangers will become friends, and enemies will become allies! 6:30 pm.

Steely Dan in concert with Snarky Puppy
Legendary band Steely Dan comes to The Woodlands, as part of their Earth After Hours summer tour. They'll be joined by special guest Snarky Puppy. Fans can expect to hear all the hits from the Dan, like “Reelin’ In The Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Dirty Work,” “Do It Again,” and more. We'd love it if Donald Fagen and company would play all the numbers from the 1977 album Aja. "Peg," "Josie," "Deacon Blues" — that album had some classics, man! 7:30 pm.

Memorial Hermann Broadway at the Hobby Center: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
Carole King fought her way into the record business as a teenager and, by the time she reached her twenties, had the husband of her dreams and a flourishing career writing hits for the biggest acts in rock ‘n’ roll. This musical tells the inspiring true story of King’s remarkable rise to stardom, from being part of a hit songwriting team with her husband Gerry Goffin to becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history. 8 pm (2 and 8 pm Saturday; 2 and 7:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, June 4

KimoKawaii anime convention
The first ever anime convention in Conroe puts fans and attendees at the center of the action through interactive run-up events, social media challenges, competitions, and on-site activities. Attractions include anime game shows, art contests, cosplay contests, drag show crossplay contests, an improv comedy show, a karaoke sing-off and dance hall, and ramen bowls.

A big draw: fans can pay to add their voices to an upcoming anime film Kushi & the Annunaki to be screened later on Amazon Prime. Don't miss the giant Totoro (Japan's version of Mickey Mouse) and a live art auction benefitting Texas Children's Hospital. 9 am.

FM Kitchen & Bar 5 Year Anniversary Weekend Bash
This Saturday and Sunday, FM Kitchen & Bar will celebrate their five-year anniversary in style, starting the day off with yoga and brunch on the FM patio with Southern Flow Yoga (free workout). On Saturday, Tenfold Coffee in The Heights will be having a brunch-time pop-up, serving their popular lattes, flat whites and cappuccinos. There will also be live music and DJs, free FM Burger & Ranch Water giveaways and other specials. 9:30 am.

Houston Botanic Garden presents Go Bananas!
We all love bananas, right? Well, if you adore the appealing (pardon the pun!) tropical fruit, discover all there is to know about the banana during Houston Botanic Garden's day-long festival. We're talking about banana tastings, a cooking demonstration with fried plantains, a world-of-bananas presentation, etc. And don't forget about the upscale mid-morning brunch with curated banana and plantain dishes, as well as the cocktail competition later that evening. 10 am.

Be Queer, Drink Beer HTX!
Join Urban South HTX for their annual Pride Party, kicking off Pride Month. Don't miss three very special, limited releases, including two fruited sours, Beaming and Triple Spilled: Rainbow, along with their newest N/A soda, Proud Punch. There will also be drag performances from Angelina DM Trailz, Alyanna IV Bones and Kalani Ross Khalo. Blank Flag Project, Tilde Means Tilde and TeaGu Cafe will be around with the food. 2 pm.

Texas Folklife presents 33rd Annual Accordion Kings & Queens Concert
This event features a lineup of the best in Texas accordion music genres, including norteño, zydeco, Cajun, and more. Performers include Houston-based norteño superstars Las Fenix, Zydeco act RJ & Kreole Smoove, Grammy-nominated Cameron Dupuy & the Cajun Troubadours, and Texas Folklife’s 2022 Big Squeeze champions in conjunto, zydeco, polka and Cajun categories. The show will simultaneously be livestreamed via Facebook. 7 pm.

Sunday, June 5

Pride Houston Market at Karbach Biergarten
One of Houston's most popular breweries is hosting a Pride event promising shopping from local vendors, a 2022 Pride glass and special merchandise, a live set from DJ Athenz, and more. Raise a glass to the community and drink responsibly, friends. 11 am.

I’ll Have What She’s Having presents Rock & Roll Picnic
I’ll Have What She’s Having (IHWSH) raises funds for women and men in the hospitality industry to receive healthcare. HWSH’s 1973 Project raises funds for Texas organizations that will help people get abortion care. To benefit its 1973 Project, IHWSH will host its first event that combines mouthwatering food with captivating music. A silent auction will take place throughout the event. Experiences like private, chef-prepared dinners, as well as artisan culinary creations, are among the donated items. 2 pm.

Cultural Center Our Texas presents Oleg Poliansky: From Beethoven to Stravinsky
Cultural Center Our Texas will host this piano concert, presented by acclaimed, worldwide Ukrainian pianist Oleg Poliansky. The program consists of a variety of music that has touched the hearts of millions throughout time and regardless of borders. The first part will include masterpieces from the composers of the 19th and 20th centuries — Beethoven, Liszt, and Prokofiev. The second part will include works of 20th-century music innovators — Debussy, Scriabin, and Stravinsky. 6 pm.

Murray & Peter present Alyssa Edwards: Life, Love & Lashes Tour
From Mesquite, Texas to the global stage, Alyssa Edwards is unstoppable. Her life is a spectacle: from RuPaul’s Drag Race to her web series Alyssa's Secret, her own Netflix series Dancing Queen and America's Got Talent. Now, the smash hit show direct from London's West End comes to America. Life, Love & Lashes - Memoirs of a Queen is a must-see, all-ages, tell-all story about her life, drag and finding love. 8 pm.

event-planner

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film