CultureMap at 5

5 best CultureMap celebrity spottings: Gaga in the pool, Beyoncé at Target, Manziel on the runway

Face it, we love to read about celebrities. So when CultureMap spots a notable doing regular things in Houston, readers clamour for details. To celebrate CultureMap's fifth birthday, we look back at some of our best celeb spottings:

Lady Gaga

At the height of her popularity, Lady Gaga came to Houston for two concerts in the summer of 2010. But she didn't spend all her time in the Toyota Center, as we discovered.

Lady Gaga dines late at Spanish Flowers and goes unnoticed (published July 26, 2010)

"While Lady Gaga ignited plenty of excitement at Toyota Center on Sunday, she caused barely a ripple at Spanish Flowers after her show when she and her stage crew showed up for margaritas, nachos and platters of Tex-Mex," Shelby Hodge wrote.

Tracking Lady Gaga's Houston adventure: From the St. Regis pool to Dirt Bar (published July 27, 2010)

"The pop sensation stayed at the St. Regis (OK that's not such an eye-opener, there are only so many five-star hotels to go around). But Gaga's Monday afternoon fun in St. Regis' pool certainly was — with photos of it acquired by TMZ," Chris Baldwin wrote.

"Even after Lady Gaga finished her second high-energy, sold-out show at the Toyota Center Monday night, she still wasn't done with Houston. Post concert, Gaga hit Dirt Bar in the Heights, her second trip to the area in as many nights."

Anna Wintour

Vogue editor Anna Wintour regularly spends the Christmas holidays in Houston with her main squeez, Shelby Bryan, and his family. But we didn't expect to see her in the vitamin aisle at Central Market.

Celebrity on Aisle 9: Vogue's Anna Wintour spotted at Central Market — but not in the magazine section (published Dec. 24, 2012)

"In Christmases past, Anna Wintour has been spotted at the Avalon Diner, Tiny Boxwoods and the River Oaks Theatre. But who would have guessed that the icy Vogue magazine editor is a supermarket shopper? Our CultureMap spies snapped this grainy shot of Wintour in a print dress (at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week she often wears such short-sleeved dresses) and gold chain necklace, carrying her trademark Chanel sunglasses, as she perused the vitamin aisle virtually unnoticed," Clifford Pugh wrote.

Beyoncé

Houston's favorite celebrity continually swoops into Houston, often without notice, to see family. But when she was in town two times for concerts, she was a little more high-profile.

Surprise! Beyoncé pops up all over Houston — the Target shopping trip is just the beginning (published July 15, 2013)

"Beyonce is hardly hiding out in her luxury hotel room on her visit home to Houston," Chris Baldwin wrote. "The music superstar is being spotted all over town in advance of Monday night's much-anticipated, sold-out show at Toyota Center. She hit the Galleria-area Target on San Felipe on Sunday, with incredulous fans snapping Twitpics of Beyonce browsing in the hats section as a bodyguard in a polo shirt and jeans looked on. Hey, one can never have too many reasonably-priced accessories.

Even if your net worth is an estimated $350 million."

Beyoncé and Jay Z's H-Town weekend: After-concert antics, art tour and brunch with Blue Ivy (published July 23, 2014)

Surprise! Beyoncé, Solange & Tina Knowles take a tour through The Menil, talk of new album (published July 3, 2012)

Johnny Manziel

Johnny Manziel's surprise Houston visit is full of meaning: Potential No. 1 pick wouldn't miss this night (published Feb. 4, 2014)

"It was a surreal evening with the A&M quarterback and a posse of rangers milling around a high-end women's department store," Shelby Hodge wrote.

Michelle Obama

Surprise! Michelle Obama and a friend enjoy a low-key meal at a trendy Houston restaurant (published April 10, 2014)

"As Triniti chef/owner Ryan Hildebrand understands the process for deciding which restaurant to visit, Obama's team selects six possible candidates, and then the First Lady chooses the one that's most appealing to her. Hildebrand found out she'd selected his restaurant around 5:30 p.m.," Eric Sandler wrote.

Honorable mention:

Justin Bieber's strip club visit
Keri Russell's stop at the Children's Museum of Houston
Sandra Bullock's dinner at Eddie V's

Lady Gaga frolics in the St. Regis Hotel swimming pool.

Photo by Sandy Pictorica/NPG

Lady Gaga frolics in the St. Regis Hotel swimming pool.

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Movie Review

Rachel McAdams goes feral in Sam Raimi's gory new comedy Send Help

Photo by Brook Rushton

Rachel McAdams in Send Help.

Director Sam Raimi has gone through different phases as a filmmaker, including leading the first Spider-Man trilogy and joining the MCU with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But he first gained notice with the gory and funny Evil Dead movies, a sensibility he’s returning to with his latest film, Send Help.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a meek and eccentric middle manager at a financial firm that’s just named Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) as its new nepo CEO. Bradley’s dad had promised Linda a promotion to vice president, but she gets passed over in favor of one of Bradley’s frat buddies, sending her into a mild rage. Still, she gets invited along on a planned business trip to Thailand, during which she hopes to prove her worth.

Unfortunately for most of the passengers on the private plane, it crashes into the ocean, leaving only Linda and Bradley alive on a deserted island. Linda, who has privately developed survival skills, adapts quickly to the forbidding environment, while Bradley tries to revert to bossing her around. But Linda quickly understands the power dynamic has shifted, and she uses this knowledge to try to keep Bradley in line, turning their stranding into a battle of wills.

Directed by Raimi and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the film is the classic “so bad it’s good” kind of experience. McAdams, inarguably an attractive and charming person, is given stringy hair, an antisocial personality, and quirks like eating tuna fish at her desk to make her as off-putting as possible. Bradley, along with almost everyone else at her office, is stereotyped just as hard in order to set up the twist of fate.

When the action shifts to the island, things get even more over the top. The audience has already been primed for Linda to demonstrate her survival expertise, but the film does way more than just show her making fire. Whether it’s flawlessly building a shelter or hunting a wild boar, everything Linda does is portrayed in a slightly off-kilter manner. Then they turn everything up to 11, indulging in gore that is so unnecessary that you can’t help but laugh.

The filmmakers prove they’re in on the joke the rest of the way, including a variety of preposterous but hilarious scenarios that would cause massive eyerolls if they were actually trying to take the film seriously. While they do a great job of showing Linda’s ability to handle herself in the wild, they also show that she is somehow the only person in the world who could get a glow up after a plane crash and weeks living in nature.

McAdams, an Oscar-nominated actor for Spotlight, is way too high class for a movie like this, which makes her presence here all the more interesting. She is all-in on whatever Raimi wants her to do, and she’s at her most fun when she goes the animalistic route. O’Brien, who was great in the recent Twinless, doesn’t get as much of an opportunity to show his range, but he still proves to be an interesting foil for her.

Were it released in any other month, Send Help might be looked at as bottom of the barrel material. But with the movie year just getting started, it’s easier to forgive its outrageous plot twists and just have fun, especially since Raimi and his team put the rest of the film together so well.

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Send Help opens in theaters on January 30.

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