Weekend Event Planner

Here are the top 9 things to do in Houston this weekend

This upcoming weekend is full of events that will kick off the celebratory holiday season, as well as take advantage of the cooler weather we are finally experiencing.

The Houston Cinema Arts Festival, The Cellar Classic, and and the GR8 Taco Challenge are just a few of the events highlighted in this round-up. Our CultureMap Events Calendar has a full list of other events that you can sift through when planning out your weekend.

Thursday, November 10

Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market

"The 12 Days of Christmas" is the theme for the 2016 Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market. This yearly market, which continues through Sunday, plays hosts to over 280 vendors from across the country selling unique goods, gifts, food, jewelry, home decor and more. This year will see new vendors at the ,arket, but loyal visitors can expect to see mainstays like Toffee To Go and decorations from Clutter Yule Love.

Houston Cinema Arts Festival

Honky Tonk Heaven: Legend of the Broken Spoke is the opening night film for the 2016 Houston Cinema Arts Festival with a live performance by Dale Watson following the screening. This eight-day festival features a wide array of films and other events at various locations like The Menil Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts, the Asia Society Texas Center, and the Museum of Natural Science.

Friday, November 11

Children's Museum of Houston presents Mission After Dark

Kids take on their R.I.V.A.L. as agents on a special task force, S.E.C.R.E.T., at the Children's Museum. The covert mission gives these undercover agents the opportunity to collect intel, shoot down security bots, track down and block subsonic emitters, and so much more as well as offering a entertaining, learning experience.

Saturday, November 12

AIA Houston Heights Bicycle Tour

This bicycle tour will explore the Houston Heights from a point of view that many may not have stopped to experience yet. The Heights is home to 120 of the 215 National Register of Historic Places that can be found in Houston and is the first mixed-use community in Texas. Historic and contemporary architecture and how it fits into the fabric of the Heights will also be explored on the tour.

Hermann Park Conservancy: Run in the Park

Run in the Park at Hermann Park starts at the Molly Ann Smith Plaza and circles the park on the Marvin Taylor Trail. This annual run is for the entire family, with a 5k walk/run and a 1k kids fun run. After you've finished the race, while being cheered on by family and friends, join in the post fun party with music, food, and drinks.

2016 Genesys Works Houston Cellar Classic

The 2016 Houston Cellar Classis features samples from over 100 of the finest wines from around the world and food provided by some of Houston's most popular restaurants. While you wine and dine, keep in mind that 100 percent of the net proceeds will benefit Genesys Works Houston, a non-profit that offers skills training and internships to disadvantaged high school students. CultureMap food editor Eric Sandler is one the judges to decide the Media Favorite and there will be a People's Choice, too. To keep the evening rolling, The Revelators will provide live entertainment.

The Galleria Tree Lighting and Ice Spectacular

No holiday season in Houston is complete without the lighting of the 55-foot tall Christmas tree at The Galleria ice rink. Houston-raised Mary Sarah, finalist from Season 10 of The Voice, will perform for guests as they watch the tree illuminated with over 450,000 lights. A skating Santa, fireworks, face painting, and other in-store retailer activities will also entertain shoppers.

Sunday, November 13

EaDo Vintage Fest

Selected local vendors will be featured for a day of vintage fashions at the EaDo Vintage Fest. Vistiors will find everything, ranging from '50s to '90s vintage streetwear, as well as music, food, and beer.

GR8 Taco Challenge

Some of the city's top restaurants, including State Fare, Americas, and Bernie's Burger Bus, will battle it out to produce the best "taco" in H-Town using 8th Wonder beer as an ingredient. Tickets include 4 beer tokens, a souvenir pint glass, 1 taco sample from each challenger, and access to a premium Michelada bar (what goes better with tacos than a great Mexican beverage of beer, lime juice, and assorted sauces, spices, and peppers?). A portion of the proceeds will benefit Kids Meals, Inc.

Have fun this weekend at this events around town! And let us know about your experiences.

The holidays are just around the corner with the Galleria Christmas tree lighting.

Photo by Gary Fountain

The holidays are just around the corner with the Galleria Christmas tree lighting.

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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