Happy Campers

5 virtual and in-person camps to keep Houston kids occupied this summer

MECA Houston's Sunburst Arts Camp includes both in-person projects and virtual trips.

Photo courtesy of MECA Houston

Some people are comfortable returning to semi-normal daily life in Houston while others prefer to continue staying home, but there is one thing everyone can agree on: the kids need to be entertained by someone else this summer.

So we've rounded up the available summer camps — mostly online, but also one that's in-person — so parents and caregivers can get a much-deserved break now that school's out.

Online options

Andy Roddick Foundation
This eight-week virtual program is free and offers hands-on learning activities for students in kindergarten through fifth grade around an "Explore Your World" theme. Over the summer, students will explore space, earth, world travel, cultures and language, oceans, jungles, deserts, and animals through engaging videos and lesson plans. Designed by elementary school teachers, all activities are aligned to the Texas Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards. ARF Summer at Home begins June 8 and continues through July 31, and you can register here.

Camp Gladiator CG Victory
The wildly popular workout has a nonprofit arm that does plan to open its in-person day and overnight camps in Texas starting in July, but before this happens the organizers decided to create CG Victory: Game Time as a June option for kids entering the third through eight grade nationwide. For $49 a week per family (a rate that does not increase per child), kids get a daily 90-minute session from Monday-Friday. Because it is live, kids will know their counselors and fellow campers and will have personal connections and relationships rather than just watching a video. More info and registration can be found here.

The Galveston Bay Foundation
Study Texas' impressive marine life with the interactive Camp at Home sessions, which run throughout June and July. The four-day sessions are exclusively available to students in the Greater Houston-Galveston area, because the $100 cost includes delivery of the $50 Camper Kit with all the materials needed to get truly hands-on. Classes are divided into ages 9-12 and 13-18, ensuring students are learning at their age level. Registration open until June 12, for sessions running June 22-26, July 6-10, and July 13-17. More information and registration can be found here.

Houston Arboretum & Nature Center
Children ages 4-12, grouped in classes by age, can explore everything from arachnids to the wonders of water in these five themed camps. Kids can watch pre-recorded video lessons from Arboretum naturalists, do hands-on crafts and experiments, participate in family-friendly outdoor activities, and take part in mindfulness moments to encourage reflection on each day's theme. The virtual camps run June 8-August 7, at a beginning cost of $125 per child (member rates are available). More information and registration can be found here.

In-person option

Multicultural Education and Counseling Through the Arts (MECA) Houston & MECA at Talento Bilingue de Houston (TBH) Center
MECA's Sunburst Arts Summer Camp is an eight-week course that provides youth (kindergarten through ninth grade) with broad arts exposure through virtual trips to the theater and museums, opportunities to meet professionals in engineering and the arts, and a virtual performance as the finale. To follow safety precautions, staff will be screening children each morning, limiting the number of children per class, and all kids will be practicing social distancing while wearing face masks at all times, having lunch in individual classrooms, and practicing hand hygiene throughout the day.

The summer camps run June 8-July 31, Monday-Friday from 8:30 am-5:30 pm. The cost contains a $30 registration fee, followed by a weekly fee on a sliding scale depending on family household income. More information and registration can be found here.

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Movie review

Messy Frankenstein movie The Bride! stitches camp and confusion

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in The Bride!.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.

Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.

After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.

It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.

One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.

Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.

Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.

Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.

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The Bride! is now playing in theaters.

movies film maggie gyllenhaal annette bening christian bale jessie buckley peter sarsgaard penélope cruz movie review