weekend event planner

Here are the top 10 things to do in Houston this weekend

Houstonopoly boasts a 10,000-square-foot game board with Houston-themed stops.

Courtesy of Houstonopoly

This weekend's forecast predict soggy days, but before the rain sets in, look for some events.

Expect a fun summer kickoff event with beach volleyball, water games, and more, steak night, Houston-themed Monopoly, a filthy-mouthed TV dad, and a juicy tomato festival.

Here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, June 3

Balmoral Summer Kickoff Event
Balmoral has already opened up its lagoon to the public for this week-long, summer-kickoff event. Tickets include access to a free seating area, beach volleyball, lawn games, hammock, and putting green. Premium seating and water activities are available for an additional fee, including cabanas, beach umbrella set-ups, stand-up paddle boards, Hobie boards, kayaks and an inflatable trampoline. 11 am.

Thursday Steak Night at Axis Sports Bar
If you’re in the mood for some hearty cuts of meat this weekend, Axis Sports Bar has got you covered with its weekly steak night. We’re talking filet mignon, ribeye, salmon — all that good stuff. You can also get a steak and a beer for $15 or steak and lobster for $30. DJ Aggravated will be around to provide music for your certain-to-be-amazing dinner. No reservations are necessary. 6 pm.

Friday, June 4

Frost Bank presents Drive-Thru Spring Fling - Third Ward
Frost Bank will present a drive-through, socially distanced, Spring Fling event. There will be free breakfast tacos from Brunch Box and cookies from Ella Russell’s Crumbville, TX bakery. (We hope there will be some of those delicious, Amazin’ Craisin cookies around.) Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Houston/Galveston will provide games and a DJ will be on hand with music. 7:30 pm.

Houstonopoly Summer Pop-Up Exhibit
This fun, kid-friendly, summer pop-up will feature a 10,000-square-foot game board where visitors become the actual game pieces, traveling from space to space, with nods to the Bayou City at each stop along the way. Houstonopoly will feature more than 13 stops for photo ops, from Houston’s favorite music artists and events to iconic landmarks like the Historic Third Ward. Through Saturday, July 31. 10 am.

Improv Houston presents Bob Saget
Yes, America’s favorite, filthy-mouthed dad is coming to town, people! Bob Saget has starred in the successful TV shows Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos, but he’s also been an out-of-his-mind, Grammy-nominated standup comedian for over 30 years. From his cable specials to his scene-stealing cameos in Entourage and The Aristocrats, it’s always effective as Saget embraces his dark side. 7:30 and 9:45 pm (7 and 9:30 pm Saturday).

Saturday, June 5

Urban Harvest Farmers Market’s Annual Tomato Festival
Celebrate the peak of the tomato harvest with this annual fest. Tomato expert Dr. Bob Randall, will be on hand answering tomato questions. Guests can stop by the info booth for a specially curated tomato recipe from Tony’s chef Austin Waiter. They will be giving away olive oil from Tony's to the first 5 customers who come to the booth and sign up for the newsletter with their email address. There will also be live music from Dem Roots. 8 am.

Archway Gallery presents Joe Hale Haden: "Found Objects" opening reception
Joe Hale Haden grew up in Houston and has been making art ever since he can remember, obtaining degrees in both mechanical engineering and visual communication. He spent much of his adolescence creating drawings of life around him, as well as highly detailed blueprints for imagined homes. In this exhibition, Haden juxtaposes organic and non-organic shapes, marrying their superficial differences. Through Wednesday, July 7. 10 am.

ElectroBounce - 6 Year Anniversary of Soul Control
After a year-plus-long hiatus, the “movement-based healing” known as ElectroBounce is officially back in action this weekend, over at Shrine of the Black Madonna. This party also serves as this six-year anniversary of Soul Control, aka the ruckus-bringing duo of DJ Anarchy and DJ Elevated. It’s going to be an eclectic dance party, complete with an open bar. 10 pm.

Sunday, June 6

Children At Risk presents Big Brunch: "Bright Futures"
At this event, guests will enjoy a brunch with fried chicken, champagne & other delicacies, wine tasting games and more, all to raise support for children. The gathering will also honor some special heroes who have made extraordinary efforts throughout their careers to serve children. Special honorees include Dr. David Callender, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Health System, Stephen Williams, director of the Houston Health Department and others. Noon.

Sunday Fund Daze Pop-up Volume 2
It’s volume two for the Sunday Fund Daze Pop-Up shop, a collabo between All Blaq Everythang and Cassy’s Kitchen. They will be rounding up local, Black-owned businesses to showcase their products and services and spotlight the incredible brands that some of their favorite entrepreneurs have built. There will be vendors, food (from Cassy’s, of course), a live DJ and a cash bar. Noon.

event-planner

Movie Review

Action-packed Kraven the Hunter showcases gritty Marvel antihero

Photo by Jay Maidment

Aaron Taylor-Johnson in Kraven the Hunter.

One of the oddest things about the blockbuster era we live in is that while Disney owns the rights to the majority of Marvel comic book characters, Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-Man and any affiliated characters. Since they’re sharing Spider-Man himself with Disney, Sony has been trying to capitalize on those rights by making stand-alone films using niche characters that only comic book fanatics would know.

Having exhausted Venom and whiffed on attempts with Morbius and Madame Web, they’re trying again with Kraven the Hunter. Also known as Sergei Kravinoff, Kraven (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a self-styled vigilante who, as the film tells it, travels the world exacting vengeance on the truly bad people of the world. He’s the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a hard-edged Russian oligarch, and brother to Dmitri (Fred Hechinger), who is relatively weak compared to the rest of his family.

The origin story has Kraven gaining his animal-like powers - including super-strength, speed, and jumping abilities - as a teenager from a mysterious serum given to him by a girl named Calypso (played as an adult by Ariana DeBose) after he was mauled by a lion. The two maintain a tenuous partnership as adults, with Calypso helping him hunt down other villains like Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola) and The Foreigner (Christopher Abbott).

Directed by J.C. Chandor and written by Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, the film looks and feels enormously lazy, something made merely to hold on to potentially valuable intellectual property. Other than the tense family dynamic between the Kravinovs, little makes sense in the story. Kraven has an indecipherable moral code that has him going after poachers - because he’s part lion? - in addition to other high-powered criminals, with no clear goal except to … get back at his father?

The laziness extends to the action scenes, which feature Kraven being mostly impervious to any damage, whether it’s hand-to-hand combat, knives, or guns. The CGI-heavy scenes don’t even allow moviegoers to enjoy an R-rated bloody free-for-all, as all of the blood splatter is computer-generated, too. Since apparently one Spider-Man villain is not enough, three others make appearances with abilities that are under-explained and CGI that is poorly done.

That’s not even counting Calypso, another Spider-Man villain whose purpose in this film is nebulous at best. Her early connection with Kraven is so coincidental as to be laughable, and her continued reasons for helping him as an adult strain credulity as well. The only saving grace of her presence is that the filmmakers don’t try to shoehorn romance into the plot; perhaps they’re saving that for the (inevitable?) sequel.

Taylor-Johnson has had one of the most prolific-yet-anonymous careers in modern Hollywood, with appearances in big films like The Fall Guy, Bullet Train, and Tenet that have made very little impact. Even as the star here, he fails to hold your attention, with the story and visuals doing him no favors. DeBose has followed up her Oscar win for West Side Story with schlock like I.S.S., Argylle, and this, which doesn’t bode well for her career. At least Crowe gets to chew the scenery.

With a contractual inability to mention the name “Spider-Man,” movies like Kraven the Hunter exist in a weird area that forces filmmakers to make up stories for characters to which most people have no attachment. And just like Sony’s previous efforts, it is a very poor way to spend two hours in a movie theater; avoid at all costs.

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Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

movies film