weekend event planner

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

Enjoy the view and a final summer weekend happy hour at The Grove's upstairs patio.

Photo by © Debora Smail

Film fans can look for several throwback movies popping up in multiplexes this Labor Day weekend. At Edwards Marq*E and Edwards Greenway Grand Palace, three of Quentin Tarantino's most iconic works — Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 — will be screening in the RPX auditorium from Friday through Wednesday.

And between Friday and Thursday, AMC theaters will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Matrix by showing it in their Dolby Cinemas, complete with state-of-the-art Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos audio.

Of course, there's plenty more happening this Labor Day weekend.

Thursday, August 29

Cultural Taste of Houston at Lynn Eusan Park
The University of Houston Council for Cultural Activities's Cultural Taste of Houston provides students, staff, faculty, and visitors the opportunity to experience the richness of flavors and sounds from the city of Houston. Attendees will be able to enjoy a variety of food from Houston's best restaurants for only $1 per sample and also get a free shirt. You will also get pop-up shirts and live performances. 11 am to 3 pm.

Garrison Brothers Pairing Dinner at Doris Metropolitan
Enjoy a sumptuous dinner while learning about the wide, wild world of bourbon. Doris Metropolitan will host a special pairing dinner where Garrison Brothers Distillery will be passing out samples of fine bourbon whiskey. Founder Dan Garrison will share the story of how Garrison Brothers became the first legal bourbon distillery outside of Kentucky. And if you're not feeling the whiskey, there will also be Texas wine on deck. 6:30 pm.

Friday, August 30

BrewMasters Craft Beer Festival at Galveston Island Convention Center
Now in its tenth year, the BrewMasters Craft Beer Festival is an immersive, multi-day event where craft beer fans flock to Galveston Island in the pursuit of hoppiness and a craft beer experience unlike any other. With hundreds of craft beers, rare “Taste it First” selections, beer education seminars, and a Brew-B-Que to boot, the three-day event offers endless opportunities to meet and learn from the men and women behind the craft. 7 pm (2 pm Saturday; 11:30 am Sunday).

Mo Amer at Improv Houston
Comedian Mo Amer may be of Palestinian descent, but he's a Houston boy through and through. His family fled Kuwait during the Gulf War and settled in H-Town, where he attended Piney Point Elementary. These days, he's been killing it on the stand-up scene. He dropped his first Netflix special The Vagabond last year, and he's also a co-star on Ramy Youssef's acclaimed Hulu show Ramy. Welcome Amer home by checking out his three-night stint at the Improv. 7:30 pm and 9:45 pm (7 pm and 9:30 pm Saturday; 7:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, August 31

Free Chicken Sandwiches at Killen's Burgers
Chances are you're kinda over this whole chicken-sandwich war between Popeyes and Chick-Fil-A. (We at CultureMap recently had a taste test — and they were both ... a'ight.) If you're tired of waiting in line at a Popeyes, only to have them say they're all out when you get to the counter, Killen's Burgers in Pearland will be offering a free chicken sandwich — regular or Nashville hot — with purchase to the first 1,000 customers. It's one per customer, and you must be there to get it. 11 am.

Tree House Happy Hour at Discovery Green
When we first saw Discovery Green will be holding a "Tree House Happy Hour" at the Grove, our first thought was, "When did Discovery Green get a treehouse — and is it like the treehouse from that Ludacris video?" It turns out it'll be the final, summer happy-hour event at its upstairs, second-floor patio, which is usually reserved for private events. The Grove invites the downtown crowd and anyone checking out a certain boy-band concert this weekend to swing by beforehand and enjoy the view. 4-7 pm.

Sunday, September 1

Poison Girl Quinceañera Party
Montrose watering hole Poison Girl will be celebrating 15 years of business this weekend. So, how have they decided to celebrate it? Why, they're gonna have a quinceañera, of course. We don't know if this means women will be decked out in ornate dresses and beating on a piñata at some point, but there will be mariachis, an employee talent show, drink specials, and performances from such artists as Ruiners, Young Mammals, Platinum Trophy, Bodyfat, and Laser Kittenz. 3 pm.

Biz Markie at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge
Keep it real: Back in middle school, you couldn't stop singing "Just a Friend," the hilariously tone-deaf, she-done-'em-wrong rap classic from the one-and-only Biz Markie, huh? Well, for those who long for those good ol' days when hip-hop was simple and you could understand what the hell rappers were talking about, the Clown Prince of Hip Hop will be the headlining performer at a day party Midtown hangout Alley Kat Bar & Lounge will be throwing this weekend. 4-10 pm.

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.

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