Fall Festival Guide

6 hottest fall music festivals in Houston and beyond

UPDATE: Sound on Sound Fest, scheduled for November 10-12 in McDade, Texas, has been canceled. The story has been updated.

---

Feel that? It’s the waning days of summer. Admittedly, our fall weather isn’t as glorious as that of our friends in the northern U.S., but cooler temperatures sure do have us feeling a lot more like being outside. Especially when it involves music. In Houston and beyond, here are our picks for seven fabulous fall music fests.

Utopia Fest
Utopia, September 22-24
Now in its ninth year, Utopia Fest has managed to retain the magic of its first year. With a cap on attendees, BYOB policy, cool artisan market, late-night acoustic events at after-hours stage Tank Good Times, and a lineup that spans from Dr. John to Suzanna Choffel, it’s no wonder that this festival inspires cult-like devotion. Limited tickets are still available. Note: This is the final year it will be held at Four Sisters Ranch.

Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love
Marfa, September 28-October 1
Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love is an amalgamation of music, camping, art, and magical mystery under the big stars of Marfa. It all happens at desert lodge El Cosmico and reflects the bohemian nature of the place — think Burning Man meets the Wild West. Attend workshops, score free Topo Chico, and take advantage the opportunity to stay in a yurt while listening to the likes of Jenny Lewis, Roger Ellis, and Lee Ann Womack.

Gruene Music & Wine Festival
Gruene, October 5-8
Gruene is a small town with mass appeal. It’s just the kind of place to stroll around while listening to music, glass in hand, at The Gruene Music & Wine Festival. The lineup includes Americana and Texas country by Ray Benson, Cory Morrow, Walt Wilkins, Jack Ingram, and a host of other similar artists. You can buy into the whole weekend or pick a day. Wine lovers will want to hit up the Tastings and Tunes event on Saturday, while ice-cold brew aficionados will prefer the Craft Beer Tasting on Sunday. Proceeds benefit the United Way and Hurricane Harvey victims.

Austin City Limits
Austin, October 6-8 and October 13-15
ACL boasts two jam-packed weekends with multiple stages, artists, and vendors, plus fare from Austin food trailers and tons of booze. You can also expect a lot of out-of-town visitors. Because who wouldn’t want to descend upon our Zilker Park to laze about in the sun and listen to some sweet jams? Approximately 450,000 folks attend the festival each year, and the headliners just keep getting bigger. This year, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Killers close out both weekends.

Houston Open Air
Houston, October 14-15
Sister fest to Chicago Open Air, the recently debuted Houston Open Air is every metalhead's dream. Held at at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, the fest showcases high-profilers like Avenged Sevenfold, Mastodon, Five Finger Death Punch, Prophets of Rage, Marilyn Manson, and lots more headbanging heavy rockers.

Mala Luna Music Festival
San Antonio, October 28-29
Mala Luna Music Festival in San Antonio presents a Halloween weekend of rap and EDM tunes at Nelson Wolff Stadium. Only in its second year, Mala Luna attracts big acts like Future, Lil Wayne, and Wiz Khalifa. There's also multiple food vendors and art installations. As you might expect, attendees get creative with costumes, especially those inspired by Dia de Los Muertos. A portion of the proceeds benefits the Network for Young Artists (NYA.)

Sound on Sound Fest
McDade, November 10-12
Enjoy three full days of music and camping at The Lost Pines Forest, a medieval-style village located 35 miles from Austin, via popular new fest Sound on Sound. All genres take the stage, from indie to punk to hip-hop to metal and to dance, along with comedians, podcasts, and panel discussions. Notable names this year are Grizzly Bear, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Iggy Pop, and The Shins. In order to get the full experience, pop up a tent, rent a glamping spot, or bring your RV. Campgrounds have hot showers, water refill stations, and late-night performances.

The recently debuted Houston Open Air is every metalhead's dream.

Houston Open Air Music Fest, September 2017

Courtesy of Houston Open Air/Facebook

The recently debuted Houston Open Air is every metalhead's dream.

festivals austin-city-limits music

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.

---

Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film