Live Music Now

These are the 5 best concerts in Houston this week

A big welcome back is in order to one of H-towns best bands, The Tontons.

The local five-piece recently released new single, "Sychophant," featuring the airy, sultry vocals of charismatic singer Asli Omar over the chiming guitar jangle and melodic rhythym section we've come to love (concluding with a killer guitar solo). It is rumored the group is working on new music for a potential full-length to follow-up 2014's acclaimed Make Out King and Other Stories of Love. The song is available to listen to on Spotify and other streaming services. It's about time.

The Tontons just announced a December 28 show at the Heights Theater with psych-soul Austin band Black Pumas. Tickets are on sale now.

Meanwhile, here are CultureMap's best, biggest, and most notable shows for the week ahead.

Manchester Orchestra at HOB
Manchester Orchestra is neither from Manchester, nor an orchestra. (Discuss.) The Atlanta-based group fills the same sphere as War on Drugs, Cloud Nothings, and Gaslight Anthem in that they make sonically pleasing music that critics adore and sound great at festivals, but don't necessarily make a huge impact on the mainstream. That said, their latest, 2017's A Black Mile to the Surface, was darkly majestic alt-rock at its finest, one of last year's best offerings.

Manchester Orchestra is at House of Blues, located at 1204 Caroline St., on Tuesday, November 27. The Front Bottoms and Brother Bird open. Tickets start at $30. Doors open at 6:30 pm.

CultureMap show of the week: Cat Power
Cat Power aka Chan Marshall rolls into town and offers up a live performance of songs from of one of the best albums of 2018 in the gorgeous Wanderer, which harkens back to her earlier creative peak. Marshall started her career suffering from crippling stage fright, but she's since overcome it to become one of the better performers on the indie circuit. She's attracted collaborators among some of the most famous musicians in the world, including Lana Del Rey and Dave Grohl. In other words, she's a gem, producing some of the most compelling music of the last 20 years. Don't miss this one.

Cat Power headlines White Oak Music Hall, located at 2915 N. Main St., on Wednesday, November 28. Tickets start at $32 plus service fees. Doors open at 7 pm.

Travis Tritt and Charlie Daniels Band
Those who like their country music gritty and as Southern fried will want to be sat around the rotating Arena Theatre stage this Thursday when country legends Travis Tritt and the Charlie Daniels Band team-up to bring their long line of hit C&W songs to what will surely be receptive Houston audience. Tritt and Daniels can both be described as flag bearers for the rebel country movement, replete with conservative values that neither are shy to share up-and-front through their song lyrics. In other words, there's a lot to like here for those of a particular side of the political spectrum or those who appreciate a dose of rock riffs and astute storytelling with their country music.

Travis Tritt and The Charlie Daniels Band co-headline Arena Theatre, located at 7326 Southwest Fwy. on Thursday, November 29. Tickets start at $49.50. Show starts at 8:30 pm.

CultureMap recommends: Gary Clark Jr. at Revention
The ghost of Stevie Ray Vaughn lives on in Austin performer Gary Clark Jr., one of the most respected guitarists in the game right now. Anyone who saw him tear it up at his Super Bowl Live performace in early 2017 knows the guy can wail on the six-string and fill a big space. His show at Revention will feel positively intimate compared to that gig, but fans will all be better for it as he'll likely be playing new cuts from his yet-to-be-named new album, set for release in 2019. Clark has been on the verge of blowing up nationally in a big way - this might be his smallest concert in Houston for some time to come.

Gary Clark Jr. performs at Revention Music Center, located at 520 Texas Ave., on Friday, November 30. Tickets start at $45. Doors open at 7 pm.

Gregory Porter at Cullen Theater
Known for his distinctive headwear, the ultra-talented jazz vocalist Gregory Porter brings his entrancing voice and sound to Cullen Hall. Porter is a two-time Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammy Award winner for Liquid Spirit (2014) and 2017's Take Me to the Alley (2017). His rich baritone and merging of jazz, gospel, soul, and R&B has earned him fans around the world. Porter will be a part of KPVU's Holiday Jazz and Gospel Fest alongside co-headliner Avery Sunshine.

Gregory Porter is at Cullen Theater at the Wortham Center, located at 501 Texas St., on Sunday, December 2. Tickets start at $90. The show starts at 5 pm.

Manchester Orchestra is at House of Blues this Tuesday, November 27.

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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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