weekend event planner

Here are the top 12 things to do in Houston this weekend

Rock out, shop, and check out some vibrant art at Saturday's Hot August Night.

Photo illustration courtesy of Emily Jaschke/Mid Main

Heads up, breakdancing fans: Red Bull BC One (aka the world's largest breaking competition), will be in town on Saturday. Watch the best b-boys and b-girls of Houston go head-to-head on the battle floor, with only one winner to be crowned.

Meanwhile, the weekend offers plenty of fun, including plenty of cool concerts, beer olympics (if you still need that Olympic fix), massive dinosaurs, Indian-meets-Spanish dance, and a punk rock garage sale. Here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, August 12

Positivity Popup Benefiting Kids Meals and Animeals
Houston Heights realtor Caroline Schlemmer will partner with Generation Serve to host her latest Positivity Popup at A 2nd Cup this weekend. The free event is designed to promote volunteerism and will include fun DIY projects for kids that will benefit Kids Meals and Animeals. Examples include preparing lunch bags and making pet toys. Recent Positivity Popups have seen over 300 attendees. This event is ideal for kids and families preparing for back-to-school. 3 pm.

Holocaust Museum Houston presents Dr. Alan Schlesinger
Holocaust Museum Houston and its Boniuk Library will host Dr. Alan Schlesinger for a free author talk. Dr. Schlesinger will discuss his new book, Resilience: The Story of How My Father Survived the Holocaust. Dr. Schlesinger will tell the story of his father Joe’s three-year journey of survival that included 17 months of forced laborer on the eastern front followed by deportation to Auschwitz, where he survived for six months before spending an additional four months in five other concentration camps. 6 pm.

Friday, August 13

Kem in concert with Babyface and Musiq Soulchild
Get ready for a primo-soul experience at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion this weekend. First off, we've got smooth-as-hell, adult-contemporary R & B star Kem, who'll be here promoting his 2020 album Love Always Wins. Then, we have R &B legend Babyface, who has written and performed hit songs for such artists as Whitney Houston, Madonna, Ariana Grande, Usher and himself. Finally, we have Musiq Soulchild, who practically made it cool to listen to neo-soul in the early 2000s. Oh, this is gonna be sweet! 7 pm.

Zach Person in concert
Before he takes off on his first European tour, new Texas artist Zach Person will have his Houston LP release show at House of Blues this weekend. The Austin-based, 24-year-old guitar-playing phenom has a brand-new, self-titled record, produced by Will Loconto (Information Society/T-4-2), that dropped in April. Person got his start playing music in Houston (at the House of Blues, specifically), so this show is very much a homecoming for him. 7 pm.

Silambam Houston presents Sharing Stories
With cross-cultural conversation and collaborative storytelling, Sharing Stories incorporates Indian classical dance, flamenco and theater arts into a unique, family-friendly experience for diverse audiences. Act One is a Kathak-Flamenco curtain-raiser featuring two dynamic dance ensembles, accompanied by live musicians from Indian classical and Spanish folk tradition. Act Two is the feature presentation, which tells the story of a 16-year old warrior who fought fearlessly in the epic Kurukshetra war of Indian mythology. 8:30 pm.

Saturday, August 14

Revelry Summer Beer Olympics
Revelry on Richmond will be hosting this "Olympic" event — so grab your family, friends or fellow coworkers. (All you need is a team of 4 and $20.) There will be fun events such as giant beer pong, cornhole, golden tee closest to the pin, b-ball shootout, flip cup tic-tac-toe, and speed connect-4. Plus, there will be bonus points if your team dresses alike. The first-place winner will receive $400 in cash, $100 dollars in cash & a $100 gift card for second place, and a $100 Revelry on Richmond gift card for third place. 1 pm.

Community Artists' Collective presents "Third Ward Special" opening reception
For its August exhibit, Community Artists' Collective will highlight Houston’s iconic Third Ward neighborhood through the lenses of six photographers with deep roots in the area. This will feature the works of Marc Furi, Flash Gordon Parks, Rabéa Ballin, Risky Cereal, Brian Ellison, and Derrell Boson. The art is inspired by the many facets of the cultural, historic epicenter and is curated by Miles Payne and Marc Newsome. On display through Saturday, September 25. 5 pm.

Mid Main's Hot August Night
Mid Main lofts will host a "hot" night of entertainment, starting with music by Shakin’ All Over at Double Trouble along with drink specials at the Brass Tap — for those who mention Hot August Night.

Stop, shop and sip at the Mid Main Lofts Gallery for the FULL METAL JASCHKE art show (by frequent CultureMap contributor, Emily Jaschke), as well as My Flaming Heart, and grab the perfect disco outfit at the Fashion Time Machine. Both stores and the gallery will be open late.

Later, event headliners Disco Expressions will perform “A touch of Neil Diamond” at the Continental Club starting at 9 pm. The fun kicks off with Mid Main Lofts Gallery Open House featuring the FULL METAL JASCHKE Art Show from 6 pm-8 pm.

Road to River Revival Music Fest
Downtown District will close out its Road to River Revival Music Fest, a free monthly concert series at Market Square Park, this weekend. Presented in collaboration with Houston record label Splice Records and Saint Arnold Brewing Company, these concerts presented regional performers that showcased the genres represented at Splice Records’ River Revival Music Festival, taking place this September in New Braunfels. This month’s concert features Money Chicha with Mia Borders. 7:30 pm.

Sunday, August 15

Jurassic Quest at NRG Center
Sunday will be the last day to check out this dinosaur-full spectacle, which will be happening this weekend at NRG Center. Jurassic Quest features over 100 realistic life-size dinosaurs, including Apatosaurus, Spinosaurus, T-Rex, and a 50-foot-long Megalodon. Guests can interact with walking dinosaurs and baby dinos, ride enormous dinosaurs, experience a giant fossil dig, face painting, bounce house, games, and more. Let's hope a lot of folks show up dressed as Laura Dern or Jeff Goldblum. 9 am.

Punk Rock Garage Sale at Brash Brewing
You know, it's been a hot minute since we last checked in on our favorite garage sale devoted to anything punk-related. More than 24 individual vendors (both inside and outside) will be offering up music equipment, toys, zines, DVDs and VHS, albums and cassettes, clothing, art, and all kinds of weird stuff. Vendors will be spaced out to allow for proper social distancing, and masks are required to enter venue and when approaching vendors. Kids and dogs are always welcome. 1 pm.

Mutiny Wine Room's St. Roch Day "Yappy Hour" benefiting PupSquad Animal Rescue
Celebrate St. Roch, the Patron Saint of Dogs, for a "Yappy Hour" benefiting PupSquad Animal Rescue. Guests will receive a complimentary glass of sparkling wine and light bites at the event honoring PupSquad and the people who work so hard to save Houston's homeless animals. 4 pm-6 pm.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 doesn't match the first movie's enthusiasm

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2.

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films like M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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