A Cultural Party

Your cheat sheet to Museum District Day: Food trucks galore, free rides fromEllen & more tips

Houston Museum District/Facebook
Houston Museum District/Facebook
Houston Museum District/Facebook
Photo by © Alice Lam 2010/Flickr

Ready. Set. Museum!

It's that time of the year again when 18 cultural institutions welcome a curious artsy crowd to explore their métier free of charge, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It's true that some of the venues taking part in Museum District Day 2012 on Saturday are free everyday of the week, but with special programs, performances and interactive activities, the event is more akin to an aesthetic crawl than a typical stroll through the galleries.

Courtesy of Ellen DeGeneres, METRORail transportation will be free for the duration of the festival. And with the addition of free pedicabs between four walking zones, taking in what each respective collection has to offer is more convenient than on a regular visit.

If and when your stomach calls for some sustenance, a brigade of food trucks are ready, willing and able and satisfy your hunger.

So dress in comfortable clothing, bring an umbrella just in case Mother Nature doesn't cooperate and prepare yourself for a cultural adventure.

FINDING THE ART

More than just forging stemware or windows, artists featured in Glass Graphica at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft are dexterous at manipulating glass in endless ways. For those curious about crafts in general, a diverse groups of smiths will congregate at the Annual Gathering of the Guilds and offer demonstrations all day long.

More hand-on activities can be found at Lawndale Art Center, where sketchbooking complements a walk to the north exterior wall to view the "F" Team mural, a collaboration between Daniel Anguilu, James Burns, Tierney L. Malone, Angel Quesada, Michael C. Rodriguez, Roland Saldaña and Dandee Warhol. Gorgeous images are waiting to be discovered at the Houston Center for Photography.

Charge your cell and delve deep into the works by calling in for an audio tour.

Too many exhibitions to list are ongoing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, including Scandinavian Design, Public Dress and The Art of Exaggeration. You could also broaden your visit by attending a lecture with Diane Lovejoy, author of The Cat Lady Chronicles, or a talk by curator Edgar Peters Bowron about the aesthetics of Japanese Gardens.

At the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Jane Alexander: Surveys (from the Cape of GoodHope) depicts the impulse behind human behavior through the lens of the South African experience. Tradition Redefined: The Larry and Brenda Thompson Collection of African American Art at the Rice University Art Gallery surveys various facets of American art.

A DOSE OF CULTURE

Asia Society Texas Center has conveniently planned its Family Day: Central Asia and The Silk Road during Museum District Day. There, you and the little ones can learn about the oldest trade route, from China to Europe, and the many countries that were influenced by this busy merchant caravan.

The impressionist works of Czech-American painter Kamil Kubik are on view at the Czech Center Museum Houston.

Maori representatives will be onsite at the Menil Collection leading workshops and activities, titled "Gifts of the Spirit - Gifts of Healing," that reach beyond the physical artifacts on view. Relax inside St. Paul's United Methodist Church and bask in the Gothic architecture while the kids play in the al fresco labyrinth.

KNOW YOUR HISTORY

All day, re-enactors will bring to life The Buffalo Soldier Story by Trooper Biggs at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum. Through Holocaust Museum Houston's exhibition Blood Memory: A View from the Second Generation and Inheritance: Stories of Memory and Discovery, survivors share personal accounts of their struggle to endure.

SOUND SCIENCE

Make time to peruse the new paleontology hall at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where your favorite KHOU Ch. 11 anchors will be meeting guests. At the Weather Museum, it's all about atmospheric pressure in the exhibitions When Weather Goes Wild! and Extreme Weather Guide. Learn about expressive writing, typology and dreams at the Jung Center.

MUSIC IN THE GALLERIES

At the Menil Collection, music escapes the confines of a traditional concert hall into the galleries from 3 to 5 p.m. Paying homage to John Cage's centennial, Da Camera of Houston ushers an assemblage of musicians to perform many works of the avant garde composer, in addition to other pieces by Cage's contemporaries. At the Rothko Chapel, Landscape Scrolls will be presented throughout the day. The piece was commissioned from Peter Garland by percussion John Lane, who will perform the work as part of Rothko's Intersection New Music Collective series.

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's front lawn is set for live music and hands-on workshops led by the museum's Teen Council.

LITTLE PEOPLE FUN

Anything and everything is interactive at the Children's Museum of Houston, and that includes Instructables: Made in your Mind, a do-it-yourself play station that fosters problem-solving skills. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston hosts mask-making, detective games, family crafts and Japanese rice paper screen making. Head to the Health Museum to test your hearing abilities at Sonic Sensation 2012, an interactive exhibition that explores all the scientific characteristics of sound.

About sound: Asia Society Texas Center's percussion workshop will keep children artfully occupied, alongside the crafts, story time and tours.

unspecified

Movie Review

Cillian Murphy examines Ireland’s past in Small Things Like These

Photo by Enda Bowe/Lionsgate

Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These.

Last we saw actor Cillian Murphy, he was starring in the titular role of Oppenheimer, a role that would go on to earn him a Best Actor Oscar, not to mention many awards for the film itself. Instead of a big, flashy follow-up to build on that momentum, Murphy has gone in the opposite direction with the small and personal Small Things Like These.

Set in the 1980s in Murphy’s native Ireland, the film centers on Bill (Murphy), who owns a coal delivery company. One of his clients is the local convent, and during a delivery he witnesses a young pregnant woman being forced into the convent against her will by her mother. The scene triggers memories from his own childhood when he was raised by a single mother.

Every subsequent delivery to the convent has him questioning his own morality, although his taciturn nature doesn’t allow him to share his misgivings with his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh). With the Catholic Church an all-encompassing entity in Ireland, even if Bill wanted to help the girls who are trapped and mistreated at the convent, he’s not sure of any way to go about it.

Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Enda Walsh, the film has a slow build to it, so slow that it is a little difficult to ascertain the point of the story. The filmmakers go back and forth between scenes showing Bill as an adult and Bill as a child, and even though they each contain elements of trauma for the characters, the connection between the two timelines is not as strong as they might want it to be.

Even when it’s not part of a scene, the power of the church is the driving force of the film. Bill is clearly having a crisis of faith given his history and what he sees, but his wife seems to be willfully ignorant of any faults of the church and remains a true believer. The few segments that take the audience inside the convent are full of unforgiving nuns, with Sister Mary (Emily Watson) as their ultra-stern leader.

Given that this is an Irish film featuring all Irish actors, heavy accents accompany the majority of the dialogue, making it difficult to understand at times. While it helps with the verisimilitude of the story, anyone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with the Irish accent may find themselves a little lost and/or disengaged with the emotions of the story.

Murphy’s role in Oppenheimer and this one don’t share much in common save for the fact that he clearly put his whole self into each of them. This is a testament to Murphy’s skills and dedication that he cares as much about an inherently local story as he did about a world-changing one. Walsh and Watson are also great as two women who have a huge influence on Bill’s outlook on life.

Small Things Like These, based on the book by Claire Keegan, is not as huge a takedown of the Catholic Church as some other films, but it’s still a searing indictment of its arcane practices. It’s one made even more effective by using a smaller story of one man’s lonely fight against injustice.

---

Small Things Like These opens in theaters on November 8.

movies