weekend event planner

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

Stroll and shop the Heights Mercantile Farmers Market on Sunday.

Photo courtesy of Zulu Creative

Film buffs: In case you haven’t heard, QFest, Houston’s one-and-only LGBTQ+ film festival, will be going virtual this year. From Thursday through Monday, the fest will show six competition feature films, three special feature presentations and various shorts.

Elsewhere, look for some cool art shows, fun flicks at the drive-in, virtual opera, and the first anniversary of a local farmer's market. Here are your best picks for the weekend.

Thursday, September 24

Evolution by Design: Virtual Art & Interior Design Show with Artist Bari Jenks
Artist Bari Jenks has gotten together with Angela Lee (of Evolution by Design) for this virtual art and interior design show. Viewers will have the opportunity to get a first look at Jenks' artwork (available for purchase online), as well as take away a few interior design tips, such as how to design a space around an original art piece, how to use art to personalize a room, how to successfully combine an original piece with stock images, and more. 6:30 pm.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston presents The Great Futures Dinner
The 32nd annual Great Futures Dinner supporting Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston (BGCGH) will be going virtual this year. It will be an evening of celebration and inspiration, as they honor Phillips 66 and The George Foundation for their partnerships with BGCGH. So don your finest stay-at-home gala attire, prepare your snacks, libations, and other tasty things and tune in from the comfort of your own home. 7 pm.

Friday, September 25

Houston Grand Opera presents HGO Digital: Studio Showcase
For those looking to dip their toe in the wonderful world of opera, the Houston Grand Opera will be giving people the opportunity to do so with this virtual event. Young artists (aka tomorrow’s opera stars) have been selected to train in the prestigious HGO Studio, as they perform a variety of scenes from legendary operas (yes, Georges Bizet’s Carmen will make an appearance!) at their new home, the Wortham Theater Center. 7:30 pm.

Guardians of the Galaxy and Batman Returns at the Drive-In at Sawyer Yards
Friday is National Comic Book Day, and the Drive-In at Sawyer Yards will be celebrating with a double feature. First off, we head over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the outer-space avengers known as Guardians of the Galaxy. After that, go all the way to the early ’90s for Batman Returns, the sequel to Tim Burton’s iconic Batman, where Michael Keaton goes toe-to-toe with Danny DeVito’s Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. 7:45 pm.

Saturday, September 26

Voter Registration Event at La Grange
Yeah, people need to go and register to vote now more than ever, and La Grange is making sure that happens with this booze-filled event. Drink and dining specials will include $2 blue margaritas, $20 red margaritas and a brand-new menu item, called the Birria Tacos, for $7.50 (originally, they’re $8.50 — but they’re taking a dollar off!). Hopefully, all these items will lure in people who have yet to register, so they can finally be prepared on Election Day. 5 pm.

Amy C. Evans: coronavirus crazy quilt exhibit at Koelsch Gallery
Houston-based artist Amy C. Evans is an artist who apparently has a thing for the comforting joys of food. For her latest work, she has created a COVID-inspired quilt covered with food items. She will debut that new work this weekend, along with signing copies of A Good Meal is Hard to Find: Storied Recipes from the Deep South, a cookbook which she co-authored with Martha Hall Foose. On display through Thursday, October 15. 5 pm.

Sunday, September 27

Donate Life Texas 2nd Chance Run
In light of you know, the pandemic, the 2nd Chance Run is going virtual this year. Hundreds of transplant recipients, donor family members, healthcare professionals and donation advocates will support the nearly 11,000 Texans waiting for a second chance. Participants will run in memory of an organ/tissue donor, to honor a transplant recipient or as a sign of support for an individual. Transplant recipients and living donors also will participate. 7 am.

Heights Mercantile Farmers Market 1st Anniversary Celebration
Heights Mercantile Farmers Market will celebrate its first anniversary with a socially distanced, open-air celebration to support over 40 local farmers, ranchers, chefs, bakers, and community organizations. The anniversary celebration features a dunking booth, giving shoppers an opportunity to support a local charity. DJ Chaney will be spinning tunes from the roof of his retro-themed party van, The Chaney Machine. 9 am.

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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