Reviewing Parts Unknown Houston

Anthony Bourdain dispels Houston stereotypes, adds some surprises, in Parts Unknown episode

Anthony Bourdain with Congolese farmers at Plant It Forward in Montrose.

Photo by a CultureMap reader

On Sunday night, Anthony Bourdain, the chef-turned author and traveler, debuted the Houston episode of his highly-rated CNN show Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown.

Thanks to social media and a few preview clips, we’ve known for awhile some of the places Bourdain visited during his week-long stay in June: dinner at the Plant It Forward farm in Montrose with Congolese refugee farmers; lunch at acclaimed Indo-Pak restaurant Himalaya; a Bollywood dance party at Keemat Grocers; and barbecue at Burns BBQ followed by a slab party with Houston hip hop artist Slim Thug.

Still, the episode held a few surprises that the previews only hinted at in the form of a quinceanera in Pasadena, a trip to a Lee High School, time with a Vietnamese shrimper in Palacios, and a cricket match in Richmond.

From the beginning of the episode, Bourdain confronted and dismissed his stereotypes about the city he visited. Instead, he showed the diverse array of immigrants who have come to the city over the last 40 years, and let them tell stories about how they’ve been welcomed into the community.

“Texas, Houston in particular, is a very different place than you might imagine from the stereotypes and the sound bites of its national political figures,” Bourdain says in a voice over. “Immigrants, refugees and non-white Americans have been transforming the city, the food, and culture of Houston for years.”

On Parts Unknown, Houston becomes the ultimate melting pot, a place that accepts people from all over the world and makes them feel welcome. Nowhere is this point driven home more clearly than when Bourdain visits Lee High School with principal John Trinh and sits in on an ESL class where the day’s lesson is learning introductions with an emphasis on proper handshakes. Then Trinh hosts Bourdain at his home in Pearland, where Trinh’s extended family serves an only-in-Houston smorgasboard of Vietnamese food, Salvadoran tamales and pupusas, and, of course, Cajun-Viet crawfish.

Almost as interesting as where Bourdain went and whom he interacted with are the people and places that are missing from the episode. Even people from outside the city who have been paying attention to some of the national food coverage lavished on Houston over the last year by writers like Washington Post critic Tom Sietsema or Eater’s Bill Addison might be surprised not to see Underbelly chef-owner Chris Shepherd appear on the screen. Those looking for Bourdain to dine on the tasting menu at Oxheart or validate Anvil’s place in the global cocktail movement might be disappointed by these omissions, but the high-profile place didn’t fit with the story he wanted to tell.

Rather than seek out the chefs who are interpreting the food created by Houston’s immigrant communities, Bourdain went to the immigrants themselves. In doing so, he saw a side of Houston that even most residents don’t see.

Of course, Bourdain has a political point to make, too. With the presidential election barely a week away, his final voiceover weighs in on the current debate over immigration.

“Some people say make America great again. I say American was great all along,” Bourdain states. “Some of us just forgot why. It’s great because your grandfather and my grandfather and just about everybody’s damn grandfather or great-grandfather crammed, snuck, bought or was dragged onto a boat and allowed themselves eventually to dream. You still can. There’s still room. In some places in America, apparently, you are still welcome. Welcome, stranger. This land is your land.”

No matter what a person might think about that statement, all people should be able to agree that the city comes off very well in the episode. Starting Monday, expect Burns BBQ and Himalaya to get a whole lot busier.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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