october on the rooftop

Houston's Rooftop Cinema Club scares up new Halloween lineup with dog-friendly nights and more

Rooftop Cinema Club Houston night skyline

Scare up some fun on the rooftop this October.

Photo by Rooftop Cinema Club Houston

If the return of pumpkin spice lattes and masses of candy, costumes, and decorations in stores are any indicator, Houston is gearing up for Halloween.

Now, the city’s only rooftop cinema club has released its new lineup perfect for locals to get spooked while enjoying scenic Post Oak skyline views.

Rooftop Cinema Club Uptown’s new schedule kicks off October 4 at the popular BLVD Place locale in Uptown. Guests who show up in their best Halloween costumes at any October showing will be treated to free candy to enjoy while they watch seasonal flicks, another favorite, and even dog-friendly “Wooftop” screenings.

This new schedule runs (appropriately) through October 31 with tickets now on sale; some screenings are already sold out, according to the cinema. As is the case with the club, themed nights abound, including:

Grease Sing-Along: October 4
“Wooftop Cinema Club” (dogs invited and must be cleaned up after and leashed) featuring Ratatouille and Jurassic Park: October 9 and 22
Open-caption screenings (for deaf and hard-of-hearing guests) featuring Coming to America, Beetlejuice, and Hocus Pocus: October 9, 15, and 25
Back to the Future Day (which marks the day of Marty's fateful trip in Doc's DeLorean): October 21
Scream double bill (back-to-back billing of Scream and Scream 2 with discounts available for second screening): October 28
People’s Choice — Stephen King (guests vote online for the King film to feature): October 29

Naturally, all this culminates with Halloween weekend with screenings starting October 30 with favorites including Monsters, Inc., Practical Magic, a late-night screening of The Exorcist, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and, natch, the original Halloween from 1978.

Tickets (find them here) include a single lounge seat with or without popcorn, a new beanbag option with popcorn, or an Adirondack chair that comes with popcorn and a side table to share starting at $17.50 for adults and $13.50 for kids under 12 during matinee screenings, per a release.

Here is the October movie lineup:

October 4: Grease; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

October 5: La La Land; A Quiet Place Part II

October 6: Cruella; A Nightmare on Elm Street

October 7: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial; Urban Cowboy; House Party

October 8: The Goonies; Love Jones; The Great Gatsby

October 9: Ratatouille; Hocus Pocus; Coming to America

October 10: The Sandlot; Black Panther; Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood

October 11: Pretty Woman; Zombieland

October 12: Poetic Justice; Step Brothers

October 13: A Quiet Place Part II; Get Out

October 14: Corpse Bride; Cruella; Donnie Darko

October 15: The Nightmare Before Christmas; Beetlejuice; Blade

October 16: Space Jam; The Princess Bride; Top Gun; The Thing

October 17: Night at the Museum; Hocus Pocus; Death Becomes Her

October 18: The Notebook; The Lost Boys

October 19: Ghost; Texas Chain Saw Massacre

October 20: Clue; Child's Play

October 21: Back to the Future; Hocus Pocus; Candyman

October 22: The Addams Family; Jurassic Park; Friday The 13th

October 23: Paranorman; Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone; Beetlejuice; Poltergeist

October 24: Casper; Labyrinth; The Rocky Horror Picture Show

October 25: Hocus Pocus; It

October 26: Edward Scissorhands; Carrie

October 27: The Craft; Eve's Bayou

October 28: Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets; Scream; Scream 2

October 29: Coraline; T.B.D. (People’s Choice); Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight

October 30: Monsters, Inc.; Halloweentown; Practical Magic; The Exorcist (theatrical cut)

October 31: The Nightmare Before Christmas; Hocus Pocus; Halloween

uptown kids families movies

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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