weekend events planner

Here are the top 11 things to do in Houston this weekend

News, Shelby, Pet Set Gala, Sept. 2015, Tena Lundquist Faust, Carmina Zamorano, Tama Lundquist

Join the party animals at Houston PetSet's Fierce & Fabulous Soiree.

Sure, tropical storms might be looming. But that doesn't mean you have to stay in — not when there's such an array of hot happenings. Expect a super-chic fashion show, a hot party that's gone to the dogs, a masterful merge of classical and hip-hop music, and more. Here's a rundown of several things to get you out of the house this damp weekend.

Thursday, September 6

Chic fashion at the Junior League of Houston's Opening Style Show
Ladies, the Junior League of Houston will be giving you two chances this weekend to check out the most stylish clothing you should be draped in this fall. The League has partnered with swanky fashion house Elizabeth Anthony to do two style shows, as well as provide a delicious meal courtesy of The Junior League Tea Room. 11 am and 7 pm.

Brushstrokes and burgers at "Paint Nite"
There are painting parties going on all over the place these days. So, why don't you go to one where you can eat a nice burger while also creating art? On Thursdays, the fine folks at Balls Out Burger throws a "Paint Nite" for people and, to tell you the truth, we're shouting this one out simply because we had no idea there is a burger joint around here called Balls Out Burger. 7-10 pm

Friday, September 7

FM Kitchen And Bar's new weekend market
We don't know if the "FM" in FM Kitchen and Bar means "Friday Market," but that's exactly what'll be happening on the premises this weekend. Local artists and creatives are welcome to show off what they have to offer — whether it's artisanal items or fresh local produce — at this new event, which will run every Friday until December 14. 11 am-2 pm.

Party fur a good cause at Houston PetSet's Fierce & Fabulous Soiree
According to its website, Houston PetSet is an umbrella organization whose goal is to help those who are "in the trenches" rescuing, spaying, neutering, fostering, adopting, and protecting Houston's animals. PetSet is also throwing a fun party, complete with cocktail reception, dinner, and silent and live auctions, benefiting Houston's animal non-profits. 7 pm.

Frat hijinks with the National Lampoon's Animal House movie party
This year, National Lampoon's Animal House celebrates its 40th anniversary. It seems like just yesterday this crude, raucous, uninhibited comedy had John Belushi leading an uncouth frat house into doing just-plain-wrong stuff on the campus of Faber College, officially igniting the gross-out comedy genre. So, dress up in your toga and just go nuts at this movie party. 7:30 pm.

Saturday, September 8

The Catastrophic Theatre toasts 25 years with "Get Loud at the Library"
The Catastrophic Theatre has been staging "madly dangerous drama" for a quarter of a century now. So, what better way for them to celebrate their 25 years of disturbing the Houston theater scene by holding an anniversary soiree — in a library? There will be drinks and light bites at this shindig, which also doubles as the induction of their archives into the UH Libraries Special Collections. 5 pm.

Fotofest opens Seeing Harvey: Personal Stories, Public Responses
It's one year later and Hurricane Harvey and its aftereffects still cast a painful, lingering pall over this city. For its latest exhibit, FotoFest gathered over 500 images from an open call on social media and the web, in order to give a visual capsule on how much this natural disaster affected the region's landscape, infrastructure and communities — and, of course, also brought people together. 5-8 pm.

Hip-hop and classical music collide with "B-boy meets Beethoven"
While Cypress Hill and the London Symphony Orchestra are still trying to make that collabo they once had in cartoon form a reality, you can see hip-hop orchestra collective Thee Phantom and the Illharmonic Orchestra meld strings and brass with scratches and rap verses for a night of music they refer to as "B-boy meets Beethoven." 7-9 pm.

Sunday, September 9

Barbecue for a good cause at the Drive-Thru BBQ Fundraiser
There's something about the fact that you can sample some dynamite barbecue and help a charity, all while not leaving the comfort of your car, that sounds downright amazing to us. The crew at Bottomless Pit BBQ will be serving up plates with chicken, sausage, potato salad, and more benefiting the Counseling Changes for Change Inc. Mental Health Services Program. 11:30 am-1:30 pm.

Divisi Strings inspires kids with the violin at My First Music Lesson
You don't see a lot of aspiring, young violin players out there, do you? Where are the future Itzhak Perlmans of today? String collective Divisi Strings is getting together with Discovery Green to see if any of them are still out there with this monthly class. Children from first to eighth grade can pick up a violin and see if they have what it takes to rosin up that bow and get to fiddlin'. 3-4 pm.

The A Fistful of Soul team spins at "Hi-Fashion Dub"
The A Fistful of Soul DJ crew might've shut down their monthly, Friday-night residency at The Continental Club earlier this year, but that doesn't mean they've stopped spinning retro grooves for the masses. Their latest happening is this night filled with rocksteady, regga, and early dancehall records, which they will do on the second Sunday of every month. 4-8 pm.

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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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