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.

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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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