weekend event planner

Here are the top 8 things to do in Houston this weekend

Colossal "candyfloss constructions meld with a tantalizing taffy twistedness" at Candytopia, opening this weekend.

Photo courtesy of Candytopia

Sunday is Father’s Day, and brand-new fathers might want to check out Treasure Truck, Amazon’s rolling retail experience for new parents, which will make its third stop in Houston on Saturday and Sunday at Silver Street Studios.

On top of that pop-up, here are the top things to do this weekend — which include a colorful anime convention, beer and music bashes, and a candy wonderland.

Thursday, April 13

Anime Matsuri at George R. Brown Convention Center
It's that time again when all the anime lovers in H-Town (and other places) convene to George R. Brown and just swim in the Japanese pop-culture paradise that is Anime Matsuri. The second-largest Japanese pop-culture convention in America is celebrating its 13th year, and they're going all out. There will be over 800 hours of panels, workshops, concerts, a cosplay contest, guests, and Japanese fashion, as well as a performance from kawaii metal group Ladybaby. 4 pm (11:30 am Friday; 9:30 am Saturday and Sunday).

Saint Arnold 25th Anniversary Grand Cru Night at The Ginger Man
The Saint Arnold Brewing Company is having its 25th anniversary this month, and it's celebrating by throwing a bunch of parties all over Texas and Louisiana. This one offers up Saint Arnold's special, 25th Anniversary Grand Cru brew on tap. It's a blend of three bourbon barrel aged beers: Belgian-Style Quadrupel, Russian Imperial Stout, and English-Style Barleywine. So, expect everyone to get messed up after one sip of this. 6 pm.

Friday, June 14

Candytopia Houston
Listen, we know you need to watch your weight and sugar is evil and everything. But there is an actual candy explosion opening this weekend. This candy-coated experiential adventure, where "colossal candyfloss constructions meld with a tantalizing taffy twistedness," features more than one dozen rooms with larger-than-life interactive art installations and full sensory experiences. This confectionery wonderland will be in Houston until September 29. 10 am (11 am Sunday).

A One-Night-Only Dinner at The Wheel Kitchen
Friends and collaborators Hilda Ysusi, owner and executive chef of Broken Barrel, and Thelma Portillo, executive chef and entrepreneur of The Wheel Kitchen, will join forces for a dining experience that melds Broken Barrel’s vibrant approach to global dishes with The Wheel’s modern take on Mediterranean cuisine. The whole thing costs $80, and that includes a Good Night Loving vodka cocktail and Ferrari-Carano wine pairings. 6:30 pm.

Saturday, June 15

147th Annual Juneteenth Celebration at Emancipation Park
Emancipation Park Conservancy (EPC), a non-profit 501(c)(3) charitable corporation established to restore, manage and enhance Emancipation Park, will host their 147th Annual Juneteenth Celebration at the park. This free event, which commemorates the freedom of African Americans, will have musical performances, a parade, guided tours, kid-friendly entertainment and education, art displays, complimentary barbecue, vendors, and more. 10 am to 5 pm.

Local Brews, Local Grooves at House of Blues
Beer and live music — is there anything that clearly goes more hand-in-hand? House of Blues will be filling up the venue heavily with both those things this weekend. We're talking over 20 local craft breweries, with more than 40 beers and rare releases, along with 16 local bands and DJs. And let's not forget the brew-inspired, pub food pairings. Sampling wristband ($15) and sampling tickets ($3) are available for purchase at the door and throughout the venue. 3 pm.

Sunday, June 16

John Cusack and Say Anything... at Jones Hall
It was 30 years ago that Cameron Crowe wrote and directed one of the more essential rom-coms, Say Anything..., where smart-ass slacker Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) won over valedictorian Diane Court (Ione Skye) — and future generations of audiences — with a boombox over his head, playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes." The Society for the Performing Arts will hold a screening of the movie, along with Cusack himself showing up for a post-screening discussion and Q&A. 4 pm.

Stagecoach at Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra
The late, great John Ford made many iconic Westerns throughout his career: My Darling Clementine, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Searchers, etc. But his 1939 film Stagecoach is the one that proved that Westerns can be more than pulpy shoot-'em-ups. Starring John Ford in his breakthrough role as the Ringo Kid, this movie is really an ensemble piece, as it follows a group of strangers riding through dangerous Apache territory in the titular mode of travel. 6 pm.

event-planner

Movie Review

'I Know What You Did Last Summer' reboot lacks energy or thrills

Photo by Brook Rushton

Sarah Pidgeon, Madelyn Cline and Chase Sui Wonders in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

When the original I Know What You Did Last Summer came out in 1997, it was riding the coattails of Scream, which came out in 1996. Like that film, it featured hot young actors of the time, albeit with a story that was much more standard than the inventive Scream. Still, it made enough of an impact for some studio executive to think it was worth reviving nearly 30 years later with its own legacy-quel.

In the new I Know What You Did Last Summer, a group of five high school friends — Danica (Madelyn Cline), Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), Milo (Jonah Hauer-King), Teddy (Tyriq Withers), and Stevie (Sarah Pidgeon) — have reunited at the engagement party for Danica and Teddy on the 4th of July. While on an impromptu trip to watch fireworks on a twisty road in the nearby hills, Teddy goofs off in the middle of the road, causing a truck to swerve and drive off the cliff.

A year later, having sworn to each other to not speak of the accident to anybody, they start getting stalked by a mysterious person in a fisherman’s slicker carrying a hook. With Teddy’s rich father, Grant (Billy Campbell), actively trying to cover up what his son did (as well as the fallout), it’s up to the group to figure out who is coming after them and how to stop that person.

Written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and co-written by Sam Lansky, the film doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel; in fact, it barely builds something that can roll. It might just be the laziest and most incompetent attempt to capitalize on an existing piece of intellectual property. There is almost zero effort put into establishing a connection between the members of the friend group, making them feel like strangers for the entire film.

It doesn’t help that the young male actors in the film — which grows to include Wyatt (Joshua Orpin), a new fiance for Danica — serve no purpose other than to be generically good-looking. The most impactful of the men in the film is the returning Freddie Prinze, Jr., who — along with Jennifer Love Hewitt — has his old character from the first two films shoehorned into the new story. The filmmakers undercut any good feelings from their return by giving them hardly anything to do and then having Hewitt deliver the line, “Nostalgia is overrated.”

The film as a whole never has a sense of momentum. The inciting incident is so tame — they even attempt to save the driver before the truck goes off the cliff — that the guilt they feel and the anger of the person going after them doesn’t feel warranted. Once the attacks start, it is shocking at how low-energy the sequences are, providing no sense of suspense or thrills. The filmmakers resort to the lamest of horror movie tropes, turning the film into a paint-by-numbers affair.

Cline (one of the stars of Netflix’s Outer Banks) and Wonders (The Studio on Apple TV+, Bodies Bodies Bodies) are the clear stars of the film, but their characters are made into inert scream queens, negating any acting talent they possess. Hauer-King, Withers, and Pidgeon don’t bring anything interesting to their characters, existing merely to have someone else for the killer to go after.

Even the worst films can have some kind of redeeming value if you look hard enough, but the only thing I Know What You Did Last Summer has to offer is that it becomes so comically bad by the end that you can’t help but laugh at its ineptitude. Both fans of the original and fans of horror movies in general will feel cheated by the experience.

---

I Know What You Did Last Summer opens in theaters on July 18.

movies film