weekend event planner

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

Jay Leno brings the laughs to Houston.

Photo courtesy of Society for the Performing Arts

Don't look now, but it's December. Christmas. Hanukkah. Kwanzaa. Festivus. A month of nothing but holidays. Tinsel. Peppermint lattes. Frenzied shopping inquiries for "Baby Yoda."

What's a Houstonian to do? Relax and enjoy these calming weekend events.

Thursday, December 5

Cocktails & Conversations Series: Wines From Around the World - Sake: A Culturation Exploration at The Health Museum
To all the wine connoisseurs, cowboys, and novices out there, celebrate the history and health benefits of wine at this lovely, little mixer. Thanks to the Japan America Society of Houston, guests will be able to taste sake, explore Japanese culture, sample Japanese snacks and enjoy Passing the Baton, a documentary on sake brewing that has been selected for Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2019. 4 pm.

Aaron Sanchez at 40 Below
Aaron Sanchez is an award-winning celebrity chef (you might've seen him on Chopped or Chopped Jr.) and Texas native who'll be in town promoting his new memoir Where I Come From: Life Lessons from a Latino Chef. This event will feature Sánchez and good friend Shakey Graves (who will perform afterwards) as they share stories, answer culinary quandaries and basically talk about being two proud Mexicans from Texas. All guests will receive an autographed copy of the memoir and tasty bites. 6 pm.

Friday, December 6

Mozart and Aucoin at Hobby Center for the Performing Arts
Da Camera of Houston's 2019–20 season continues with Mozart and Aucoin, a compelling performance by the world-renowned Brentano Quartet. The ensemble returns to Da Camera for the premiere of a new work by composer Matthew Aucoin, for Da Camera and Carnegie Hall. The ensemble will also perform Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s String Quintet No. 2 in C Minor, K. 406/516. So, you're definitely in for an evening of sophisticated strings. 7:30 pm.

Jay Leno at Jones Hall
Jay Leno hasn't had a good couple of weeks. While he was a guest judge on America's Got Talent awhile back, he allegedly told an offensive joke (it didn't make air) that judge Gabrielle Union complained about. Unfortunately, she ended up getting fired, which Variety claimed was because of her speaking up about the toxic working environment. Do you think he'll talk about it during his Society for the Performing Arts show? Not likely. You think he'll do jokes about stupid people and airplane food? Hmmm. 8 pm.

Saturday, December 7

Segments & Spaces at Archway Gallery
Venezuelan artist Veronica Dyer will be showing off her latest paintings and sculptures at this new exhibit. Dyer creates dynamic paintings and sculptures in a style that she refers to as “abstract, with an industrial tendency.” In both her paintings and sculptures, areas of the composition are defined with geometric forms. The paintings incorporate the additional element of bold — and sometimes unconventional — color palettes. On view through Thursday, January 2, 2020. 5-8 pm.

Pride & Joy at Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church
The Gay Men's Chorus of Houston and the Bayou City Women's Chorus, collectively known as the Bayou City Performing Arts, will present this concert, which echoes the tolerance, social justice, and inclusiveness this organization promotes. This event, which will have unique arrangements of well-known Christmas carols, mixes the comical with the serious, the beautiful with the meaningful and weaves together the pride and joy of the season with threads of hope for a bright future ahead. 7 pm.

Sunday, December 8

Silent Santa at Santa's Workshop at Rice Village
For the next two Sundays, Rice Village will begin a new tradition this holiday season by giving children with autism the opportunity to visit Santa in a calm and comfortable environment. This will be hosted prior to Santa’s workshop opening, in which the lights will be dimmed, music turned off and stimulus turned down. The Village is introducing this initiative to make the experience of visiting Saint Nick inclusive and accessible to children who may become anxious around excessive noise and crowds. 9 am-noon.

Brazil at Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra
This weekend will be a good one for fans of filmmaker and Monty Python alumni Terry Gilliam. His 1998 adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, starring Johnny Depp as Thompson himself, will be this weekend's midnight movie at Landmark River Oaks. And, on Sunday afternoon, Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra will screen his futuristic, Orwellian satire from 1985, with Jonathan Pryce as a daydreaming bureaucrat who unfortunately becomes an enemy of the state. 3 pm.

event-planner

Oh, Brother

McConaughey and Harrelson comedy series 'Brothers' premieres this fall

Photo courtesy of Apple TV

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in Brothers on Apple TV.

Imaginary siblings and real life best friends Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are finally about to bring the joke home with a new Apple TV series, Brothers, out globally September 23.

The first two episodes will come out together, and one new episode will be added every Wednesday through November 4, a press release says. There will be eight episodes in total.

In a rumor that gets harder to search for the closer Brothers comes to fruition, McConaughey and Harrelson have leaned into ideas that they might be half-brothers, partially because of their longtime friendship and partially because they have a similar look that gets even stronger in old photos. The topic sprung up when Brothers was in its infancy as a project called Brother from Another Mother, and McConaughey's mom validated it by insinuating that she and Harrelson's father once had a fling.

In Brothers, a heartfelt comedy, McConaughey and Harrelson play fictionalized versions of themselves living out almost the same drama, with much more serious repercussions.

When Harrelson's family needs a place to get away after his daughter's wedding falls through, they travel to Austin to accept the hospitality of a friend, McConaughey. But when McConaughey's mother, Ma Mac (Holland Taylor) accidentally reveals that they might be half-brothers, Harrelson becomes obsessed with learning the truth. Simultaneously, McConaughey considers running for Governor of Texas. (Is this getting too real?)

Other members of the ensemble cast include Natalie Martinez, Brittany Ishibashi, Nolan Almeida, Ella Grace Helton, Noah Carganilla, Highdee Kuan, and Oona Yaffe.

Brothers is produced by Paramount Television Studios, and showrun and executive produced by Lee Eisenberg, best known for producing The Office. McConaughey and Harrelson are also both executive producers alongside Natalie Sandy, David West Read, Trish Hofmann, Bill Bost, Jason Winer, David Finkel and Brett Baer, and Jeremy Plager, the release says. Multiple episodes are directed by Trent O’Donnell, including the pilot.

Austinites were keyed into the production early when locals spotted McConaughey and Harrelson with a film crew on South Congress Avenue. Photographers also caught them in different costumes, this time on South Congress and West Riverside Drive, so it seems like recognizable places around town will be on display multiple times throughout the series.

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