Weekend Event Planner

More Garth and Fourth of July fun top best weekend events in Houston

With the Fourth of July falling on a Saturday this year, there is a dearth of new, non-Independence Day events happening in Houston. But that doesn't there's nothing else going on; in addition to the fireworks, you can catch a great rock concert, see a couple of new theater productions or catch of one of the four remaining performances from a certain country music superstar.

Below are the best options for your precious free time Thursday through Sunday. Don't like what you see? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, July 2

CityCentre presents Fourth of July Weekend Celebration
You can enjoy Independence Day all weekend long at CityCentre, as they will host different activities each day through Sunday. Grady Gaines will perform on Thursday, the Texas Unlimited Band will take the stage on Friday, the Marcus Eldridge Band will perform on Saturday prior to the big fireworks show, and The Coconuts will finish off the weekend on Sunday.

Third Eye Blind and Dashboard Confessional in concert
Co-headlining tours are all the rage during the summer, and this one pairing two turn-of-the-century bands will surely draw its fair share of fans. Third Eye Blind, which recently released its fifth album, Dopamine, and Dashboard Confessional, which hasn't put out any new music since 2009, will play at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, both hoping to regain some of their former glory.

Latin Jazz Jam
The Diaz Music Institute will present the inaugural Latin Jazz Jam with special guest Ignacio Berroa. Berroa is a Grammy Award winner and international star considered one of the greatest drummers of all time. Berroa will be joined at Miller Outdoor Theatre by some of the most innovative, influential, and cutting-edge Latin jazz artists in the world today.

Friday, July 3

Garth Brooks in concert with Trisha Yearwood
Having a big time band or musician put on multiple shows in the same city isn't unheard of, but what Garth Brooks is doing at the Toyota Center is unprecedented. For the second week in a row, he, along with wife Trisha Yearwood, will perform four times over the course of two days. Those in attendance on the Fourth of July will surely be in for some special musical fireworks, if not the actual kind.

Alley Theatre presents The Foreigner
For its last production in its temporary home at the University of Houston, Alley Theatre will present one of the most popular comedies in the company's history, The Foreigner. The play is set in a remote fishing lodge, where the socially awkward Charlie discovers intriguing and dangerous secrets under the guise of a foreigner who speaks no English. It will run through August 9.

Saturday, July 4

Southwest Airlines Freedom Over Texas
While there are plenty of great Fourth of July events happening on Saturday, this one at Eleanor Tinsley Park is always one of most popular. This year’s festivities include a kids zone, a beer garden, an area with set-ups from multiple Houston professional sport teams and performances from Clint Black and Josh Turner. And you'll get all of that before you even get to the exciting fireworks finale; talk about a full day.

Houston Wave presents Fourth of July Burgers & Brews Bus
Burgers and beers are at or near the top of the list for many people on the Fourth of July anyway, so why not combine them in a special tour? The Houston Wave will host the bus tour that starts at Silver Street Studios, heads to BRC Gastropub for burgers and beers, stops at Buffalo Bayou Brewery for a tour and more beer and finishes back at the Wave for yet more beer and fireworks viewing.

Sunday, July 5

AWJ Production presents The Gentlemen
This play at Stafford Civic Center is a special one-night-only event from AWJ Production that tackles a difficult issue. Fed up with the cycle of destructive choices among male young adult offenders, Judge Michael decides to do something about it, ordering a group of men into a type of life rehab before they can go back into the free world.

Garth Brooks will perform four more times at Toyota Center on July 3 and 4.

Photo by J. Thomas Ford

Garth Brooks will perform four more times at Toyota Center on July 3 and 4.

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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.

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