weekend event planner

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

Enjoy a fruitful wine party on Thursday.

Courtesy photo

The start of the weekend is always a little better with a libation, and with that in mind, a local wine and cheese shop is throwing a three-day wine party. The weekend also offers a film fest and an international music performer's intimate digital performance. Get a head start on your Dia de Muertos festivities at a local gallery or hit up a new farmers market.

Hat lovers can shop, stroll, and shop at cool local venue, a national comedian hits up a drive-in, and a film discussion reminds us why this year, it's really, really important to vote. Here are your best picks for the weekend.

Thursday, October 22

2020 Fall Release Party with Southold Farm + Cellars at Montrose Cheese & Wine
The Houston Mac & Grilled Cheese Fest was supposed to happen on Saturday. As cheese aficionados, we're quite disappointed about this. Thankfully, Montrose Cheese & Wine will be around with the three-day "Natural Desires: A Weekend Dedicated to the Fruitful Pursuit." Things will kick off with a Southold Farm + Cellars' Fall Release Party, which will include a by-the-glass takeover, as well as special bottlings available for retail. 5 pm.

2020 Next International Film Festival at Next Actor Studio
On Wednesday, the sixth-annual, four-day, Next International Film Festival kicked off with a couple of shorts at Next Actor Studio, which was showing films at a 50-percent capacity. Things will continue on Thursday with the documentary Don't Forget Them, where a doctor travels to the refugee camps near Duhok, Kurdistan in order to help with medical needs. Later in the weekend, there will be screenings of The One and Only Jewish Miss America and Tuscaloosa. 7:30 pm.

Friday, October 23

Dia de Muertos 11th Annual Group Show at the Hardy & Nance Studios
Even though Dia de Muertos (aka the Day of the Dead) won't pop off until the end of the month, that doesn't mean you can't start celebrating it now. You can begin by heading over to Hardy & Nance Studios, which will have a group show until November 1st. The studios will reflect upon the last six months, mourning the loss of life and honoring and celebrating life through art and tradition. You can also remember departed loved ones by leaving a copy of a photo on their community altar. 4 pm.

Miller Outdoor Theatre presents In The Studio with Zeshan B
From his home studio in New York, Zeshan Bagewadi (aka Zeshan B) joins the Asia Society Texas Center and Miller Outdoor Theatre for an intimate digital performance of his Indo-Pakistani soul music. Through an intimate conversation with The Suffers frontwoman Kam Franklin, Zeshan will perform and share insights into the songs from his latest album, Melismatic. This event will be livestreamed on Facebook, YouTube, and MillerOutdoorTheatre.com. 7:30 pm.

Saturday, October 24

The Market at Redemption Square
Redemption Square is bringing a farmer's market to its area because, well, people need to get out of the house and this will be an open-air, socially distanced gathering where people hopefully won't get sick. The market is set to take place every fourth Saturday of the month in the Redemption Square plaza. Enjoy live music and a curated selection of artisan vendors offering food, art, jewelry, and everything in-between. 11 am.

Meet The Milliner at Magpies & Peacocks
After seven months of being closed, Magpies & Peacocks are opening the doors to the warehouse again with its first event: an up-cycled hat and headband line with noted milliner Philip Hannel. This will go down at the new hat bar inside the retail store. You can meet the designer, shop the hats and this fall's up-cycled clothing collection, and sip on their fall speciality drink. You still have to wear a mask, and your temperature will be checked upon arrival. 1 pm.

Sunday, October 25

Houston Film Critics POTUS Forum
In case you haven't heard, now is the time to decide who's gonna run this country for the next four years. And while all this election talk may make you feel like moving to another freaking country, the Houston Film Critics will be having a Zoom forum to remind you of all the good and noteworthy films about presidents you can watch and enjoy. HCFS members Joe Leydon, Joshua Starnes, and Dr. Donna Copeland will be on hand for the free discussion. 3 pm.

Nate Bargatze at Showboat Drive-In
Nate Bargatze — aka "The Tennessee Kid" — is known as the kind of generally clean, all-ages comic that the whole family can enjoy. And families all over the country have been getting the chance to enjoy Bargatze's humor ever since he starting playing drive-ins and parking lots, doing live sets in a setting where people can't instantly get COVID. He will be making sure Houstonians don't get stuck with the 'Rona when he performs at Showboat Drive-In this weekend. 7:30 pm.

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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