This Week In Music

This week in music: 5 shows bring the rock and local love to Houston

Oscar nominated singer-songwriter Aimee Mann will perform at The Heights Theater Saturday, January 20.

Photo courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art

For those about to rock, we salute you.

This week in music is chockfull of great rock shows across town, including internationally known touring acts, and a fundraiser show with some of the best local talent of early 2018.

Here are the best of the bunch:

Best place to see critically acclaimed indie-rock
San Diego’s Pinback will perform downstairs at White Oak Music Hall, bringing its electronically tinged indie rock to Houston. The band’s music — think early Modest Mouse — has built a solid fanbase on the back of great melodies, and vocal harmonies created by the duo of Armistead Burwell Smith IV and Rob Crow. The latter threatened to retire from music a few years ago, and they haven’t produced an album in years, but the band is doing a string of shows, presumably behind the 10th anniversary of one of its most beloved albums, Autumn of the Seraphs.

Pinback performs Friday, January 19, downstairs at White Oak Music Hall, 2915 N Main St. Major Entertainer opens. Tickets are $20 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

Best display of rock 'n' roll swagger
One of the hardest working bands in music, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, returns to Houston after a killer show back in late-2016, this time promoting its best album in years, Wrong Creatures. No band does rock 'n' roll quite like B.R.M.C. these days. The San Francisco trio is almost a throwback to a time where bands wore black leather, and wrote dark songs about temptation, broken hearts, and making deals with the devil. Their new album recalls their still-great first two albums, B.R.M.C. and Take Them On, On Your Own with slow-burners and exhilarating rockers that wouldn’t be out of place on the soundtrack of Twin Peaks. That they have survived band shake ups, and the sudden passing of their sound engineer — who was the father of guitarist Robert Levon Been — is a testament to the staying power of a great live act.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club performs Saturday, January 20, at the House of Blues located at 1204 Caroline St. Night Beats opens. Tickets start at $25 plus fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Best chance to see a real-life Oscar nominee
Singer-songwriter Aimee Mann has had a prolific career. First, she fronted the '80s act 'Til Tuesday (remember “Voices Carry”?), then embarked on a critically acclaimed solo career that found her music adored by Hollywood producers. Her Oscar nomination for her song, “Save Me,” for the film Magnolia, and her subsequent appearance at the awards ceremony, was a surreal experience up against established film songwriters. It boosted her career, and she’s put out several fine folk-rock albums since, the latest being another critical hit in 2017’s acoustic-driven Mental Illness.

Aimee Mann performs Saturday, January 20, at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th St. Jonathan Coulton opens. Tickets are sold out, but are available on the resale market. Doors open at 7 pm.

Best show to feel good about seeing local bands
Some of the best local bands will come together for a good cause Saturday, January 20, for Ashstock: Radiation Rock. The proceeds of the show will go to local dancer and teacher, Ashley Clos, who is fighting two separate forms of cancer. Thankfully, she has a great lineup supporting her cause, headlined by the fabulous, melodic Wild Moccasins. They’ll be joined by other local acts Buxton, BLACKIE, Narcons, Young Mammals, and Limb. If you want to see what’s going on in the Houston music scene, this is the show to attend.

Ashstock: Radiation Rock kicks off Saturday, January 20, at Walter’s Downtown, 1120 Naylor St. Tickets are only $10 at the door. Show starts at 7 pm.

Best comeback after a dumb move
Shock-rocker Marilyn Manson makes up a canceled show from late 2017, after a piece of his live stage set fell on him. He attempted to climb it mid-show — and had to be carted off to the hospital following the accident. He's back, after recuperating, to bring his brand of oft-controversial, glam-inflected, industrial rock to a sea of Manson devotees. He is touring behind last year’s Heaven Upside Down.

Marilyn Manson climbs the stage on Wednesday, January 24, at the House of Blues, 1204 Caroline St. New Years Day opens. Tickets start at $59.50 plus fees. Doors open at 8 pm.

San Francisco's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will play the House of Blues Saturday, January 20.

Austin Photo Set: tom_black rebel motorcycle club_march 2013_1

Photo by James Minchin III

San Francisco's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will play the House of Blues Saturday, January 20.

music concerts

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.

---

Kraven the Hunter opens in theaters on December 13.

movies film