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

Offbeat drama Pillion features command performance by Alexander Skarsgård

Photo courtesy of A24

Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in Pillion.

Describing the new movie Pillion is almost an act of futility. It contains a variety of seemingly disparate parts that coalesce into a whole to make it utterly fascinating. Few other recent films have been able to walk the line between filthy and wholesome in quite the way this one does, and that’s only because few other filmmakers would actually dare to try.

It centers on Colin (Harry Melling), a meek man in his mid-thirties who still lives at home with his parents, Pete (Douglas Hodge) and Peggy (Lesley Sharp), while working a dead-end job giving out parking tickets. While performing in a barbershop quartet at his local pub, Colin catches the eye of biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who summons him for a clandestine hook-up the following day (which just so happens to be Christmas Day).

With barely a word exchanged between them, Ray establishes a dominance over Colin that quickly leads to them starting a relationship in which Colin does anything Ray asks. And that means more than just sex: Colin, whether desperate for any kind of affection or unlocking a side of himself he hadn’t known, readily agrees to cook, clean, shop, and basically do whatever else Ray wants him to do.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton, the film is astonishing in the way it’s able to mine humor from Colin and Ray’s atypical bond. To call Ray “unfeeling” might not be totally accurate, but the way he treats Colin borders on cruel. However, the way Lighton structures the film, it’s easy to understand why someone like Colin would be willing to go along with the situation. It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking to see Colin debase himself in a variety of ways.

On the flip side is Colin’s heartfelt arc with his parents. It’s established right away that Peggy, who is sick with cancer, is a bit too involved with Colin’s love life, with the opening scene featuring her setting him up on a blind date. But their easy acceptance of his queerness and desire to see him find love is as heartwarming as it gets. The juxtaposition between the wholesomeness of their family and Colin’s new life is also the source of a good amount of comedy.

Lighton does not shy away from the sexual side of Colin and Ray’s relationship, and the scenes he depicts are as graphic as you are likely to see in an R-rated film. Some go up to and a little past what might be expected in a mainstream movie (including the use of a certain fake appendage). Other times they play out in a comical way to illustrate just how far Colin has progressed from the person he was when the film started.

Skarsgård, who stole the show in the Charli XCX movie The Moment, is the attraction in more ways than one in this film. The part calls for someone who’s not only impossibly handsome, but also a person who can stop dissent with just a glance, and he lives up to both qualities equally well. Melling, best known for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies, also embodies his role perfectly. He plays Colin as weak enough to be run roughshod over by Ray, but not so hopeless as to not be worth rooting for.

Pillion (which is the name of the secondary seat on a motorcycle on which Colin rides multiple times in the film) operates at a storytelling level that is difficult to achieve. Many people will not fully understand the film’s central relationship, but the way it is showcased by Lighton makes it compelling, gut-wrenching, and sexy.

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Pillion is now playing in theaters.

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