weekend event planner

Here are the top 12 things to do in Houston this weekend

Millions of Lego bricks make for cuddly animals at Bricklive Houston: Animal Paradise.

Photo courtesy of Brick Live Group Limited

This weekend, baseball fans will be rallying around the Houston Astros as the team looks to close out the series against the Boston Red Sox either Friday or Saturday.

But before and after the games, plenty of happenings are vying for your attention. Look for a limited-edition bourbon party, a night at the symphony, a bike trip around Galveston Bay, cuddly animals made of Lego bricks, or a celebration of chocolate — perfect for Sunday Funday.

Here are your best bests for the weekend.

Thursday, October 21

Bayou & Bottle Bourbon Release Party
This exclusive event will debut Bayou & Bottle’s four-and-a-half-year-old single barrel, picked in partnership with Garrison Brothers master distiller Donnis Todd and Four Seasons Hotel Houston team Tom Segesta (general manager) and Michael Rodriguez (director of food and beverage). This limited, single-barrel release yielded a total of 48 bottles, so bourbon lovers beware. If you would like to taste this creation, this is the only place it will be featured this year. 5 pm.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston presents 33rd Annual Great Futures Dinner
The Great Futures Dinner is the premier annual fundraiser of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston. Included in the festive evening will be the silent and live auctions, the Big Board, pre-event cocktails, a seated dinner and entertainment provided by BGCGH Youth. All proceeds benefit programs of Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston to ensure that all Club members are on track for success and great futures. 5:30 pm.

Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino presents Liz Cohen: "The Poet" opening reception
Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino presents the gallery's first solo exhibition for contemporary artist Liz Cohen. Cohen's constructivist installation Him features photographs, collages, weavings, and masks that grew out of the collaborative research project and 12-hour improvisational performative environment produced by the artist in collaboration with her friend Eric Crosley, a poet who began a failed gender reassignment surgery 20 years ago, which "explores the constantly shifting definitions of 'self' of both artist (Cohen) and subject (Crosley)." On display through Saturday, December 18. 6 pm.

Friday, October 22

Bricklive Houston: Animal Paradise
Bricklive Houston: Animal Paradise is Houston's first and only animal safari paradise that will feature animals made out of more than a million bricks. As guests explore the imaginary plains, they'll see an array of life-size, brick-built animals, including breeds of alligators, dolphins, elephants, pandas, giraffes, rhinos, lions, tigers, bears, and more. Through Friday, December 31. 11 am.

Alley Theatre presents 72 Miles to Go…
The play follows one family over a decade as they come of age, fall in love, fight in wars, and fight for each other, against the backdrop of deportation, DACA, and changing immigration laws. The gripping family drama by Hilary Bettis returns to the Alley following development in the 2019 Alley All New Festival and its world premiere Off-Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company. Through Sunday, November 14. 8 pm (2 and 8 pm Saturday; 2:30 and 7:30 pm Sunday).

Houston Symphony presents Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony
Houston Symphony presents Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, where audiences will be transported to a world of ancient ruins and windswept Highland beauty, inspired by the composer’s trip to the British Isles. Acclaimed British conductor Jane Glover leads these performances, which also feature music of Ethel Smyth, and Prokofiev’s effervescent Symphony No. 1. Plus, principal bassoon Rian Craypo shines in Variations on an Arietta by Pergolesi. The Saturday performance will be available to livestream. 8 pm (2:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, October 23

Galveston Bay Foundation presents Bike Around the Bay
Galveston Bay Foundation, a non-profit conservation organization that works to preserve and enhance Galveston Bay as a healthy and productive place for generations to come, will highlight the natural beauty of Galveston Bay during this fully supported, two-day, 175-mile ride. This unique cycling event takes riders in a complete loop around the largest and most productive estuary in Texas. A one-day, 97-mile option is also available. 9 am.

Daughters of the British Empire presents 47th Annual British Bazaar
Over at Arabia Shrine Center Ballroom, this British Bazaar celebrates all things British. Local Anglophiles will enjoy performances from the Houston Highlanders Pipe Band, traditional British food, a pub lunch and afternoon tea service, along with several British-themed vendors. There will also be a raffle featuring 75 door prizes. 10 am.

Levy Park presents the Prelude Concert Series
Families with young children are invited to sing and dance as Levy Park presents this concert series, sponsored by Primrose School at Greenway Plaza and Primrose School of Upper Kirby. For 45 minutes, babies, toddlers, preschoolers and their grown-ups can join in live music classes with a curriculum aimed at nurturing creativity, self-expression and the development of children through a variety of musical styles. 4:30 pm.

Sunday, October 24

The Women’s Fund for Health Education and Resiliency presents 11th Annual Rockin’ Resiliency Luncheon
The Women’s Fund for Health Education and Resiliency, along with Luncheon co-chairs Lara Bell and Aliza Dutt, and honorary chair Edna Meyer-Nelson, will present the 11th Annual Rockin’ Resiliency Luncheon. The afternoon will feature Olympic medalist and world champion boxer Marlen Esparza as the keynote speaker, a silent auction, a baubles and bubbles champagne raffle, and more. 11:30 am.

Emery Entertainment presents An Evening with C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien
An Evening with C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien is a play set in Oxford’s Eagle & Child pub. Aging and legendary authors Tolkien and his great friend Lewis meet for what turns out to be the very last time. They were lions of 20th century British fantasy, giants of a literary genre that reached millions of readers, young and old alike, with mystifying adventures to entertain and deep truths to move people’s hearts. 2 pm.

Cosmic Creature Events presents Melt My Heart: A Celebration of Chocolate
Melt My Heart will feature a special selection of chocolates all made by Cosmic Creature Events, one of Houston’s very own bean-to-bar chocolate makers. A ticket will include a chocolate merch bag, two signature chocolate bars, a sample pack of chocolate tea (five-count package), stickers, BOGO coupon, and access to the chocolate fountain buffet. 3 pm.

event-planner

Movie Review

Glen Powell stumbles in remake of sci-fi classic The Running Man

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Glen Powell in The Running Man.

For all its cheesy ‘80s greatness, the original version of The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very loose adaptation of the novel by Stephen King. For the new remake, writer/director Edgar Wright has tried to hue much closer to the story laid out in the book, a decision that has both its positive and negative aspects.

Glen Powell takes over for Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a family man/hothead who can’t seem to hold a job in the dystopian America in which he lives. Desperate to take care of his family, he applies to be on one of the many game shows fed to the masses that promise riches in exchange for humiliation or worse. Thanks to his temper, Ben is chosen for the most popular one of all, The Running Man, in which contestants must survive 30 days while hunters, as well as the general population, track them down.

Given a 12-hour head start, Ben earns money for every day he survives, as well as every hunter he eliminates. Since he only has a relatively small amount of money to use as he pleases, Ben must rely on friendly citizens who are willing to put their own lives on the line to help him. That’s a task made even more difficult as the gamemakers, led by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), use advanced AI to manipulate footage of Ben to make him seem like a guy for which no one should root.

Co-written by Michael Bacall, the film is shockingly uninteresting, working neither as an exciting action film, a fun quippy comedy, or social commentary. The biggest problem is that Wright seems to have no interest in developing any of his characters, starting with Ben. Our introduction to the protagonist is him trying to get his job back, a situation for which there is little context even after we’re beaten over the head with exposition.

The situation in which Ben finds himself should be easy to make sympathetic, but Wright and Bacall speed through scenes that might have emphasized that aspect in favor of ones that make the story less personal. The filmmakers really want to showcase the supposed antagonistic relationship between Ben and Dan (and the system which Dan represents), but all that effort results in little drama.

Ben has a number of close calls, and while those scenes are full of action and violence, almost every one of them feels emotionally inert, as if there was nothing at stake. It doesn’t help that Wright doesn’t set the scene well, making it unclear how far Ben has traveled or who/what he’s up against. There are times when Ben feels surrounded and others when he can walk freely, weird for a society that’s supposed to be under almost complete surveillance.

Powell has been touted as a movie star in the making for several years following his turn in Top Gun: Maverick, but he does little here to make that label stick. With no consistent co-star thanks to the structure of the story, he’s required to carry the film, and he just doesn’t have the juice that a true movie star is supposed to have. Nobody else is served well by the scattershot film, including normally reliable people like Brolin, Colman Domingo, Michael Cera, and Lee Pace.

The Running Man is a big misfire by Wright and a blow to Powell’s star power. On the surface, it has all the hallmarks of an action thriller with a side of social commentary, but nothing it does or says lands in any meaningful way. Schwarzenegger’s one-liners in the original film may have been goofy and over-the-top, but at least they made the movie memorable, which is way more than can be said of the remake.

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The Running Man opens in theaters on November 14.

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