weekend event planner

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

Sinatra and Beyond brings Rat Pack charm to Houston.

It's a new year — and a new decade.

It's time to reflect on the past and think about the future. It's time to have a positive outlook, go outside and get some exercise, eat healthy, set new goals, lay off the social media, and do something meaningful with our time.

It's also time for some fun, especially on the first weekend of the New Year:

Thursday, January 2

13th Annual Houston Film Critics Society Awards
It’s time once again for the Houston Film Critics Society (HFCS) to hand out honors during the group’s ticketed, “awards-style” program. But not only will they be awarding the best films and performances of the past year. They will also honor B-movie legend Roger Corman. First, they’re gonna give him a lifetime achievement award. Then, the following night (also at MFAH), there will be a screening of his 1964 film, The Masque of the Red Death, at 7 pm. Corman will be around afterwards for a post-screening discussion/Q &A, moderated by longtime, local film scribe Joe Leydon. 7 pm.

Steve Byrne at Improv Houston
Coming from New Jersey (aka Springsteen territory), comedian Steve Byrne has built a nice career out of being a half-Irish, half-Korean comic for the people. He starred as a lawyer who goes back to his working-class roots and takes over his father's bar in the short-lived TBS sitcom Sullivan & Son (which he also co-created). And, since he's a big supporter of the troops, he's also headlined several USO tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and more. Catch him doing some red-blooded jokes this weekend. 8 pm (7:30 and 9:45 pm Friday; 7 and 9:30 pm Saturday).

Bewitched '90s Goth Klub Party at Etro Lounge
Who wants to start off the New Year by going back in time to the '90s, when Houston kids were truly goth, reading Sylvia Plath, dressing in black and mostly hanging out at Numbers? Well, this retro party will be playing all things goth, industrial, darkwave, and more — from Nine Inch Nails to The Cure to Type O Negative to Siouxsie and the Banshees. DJs Damon & Franki will play the music, while art-house films, classic horror chillers, and music docs will play on the screens all night. 10 pm-2 am.

Friday, January 3

Every Night's a Saturday Night: The Bobby Keys Story at 14 Pews
Hailing from Slaton, Texas, Bobby Keys was considered one of the best rock-and-roll saxophonists in the world. He played with The Rolling Stones (that was him on "Brown Sugar"), John Lennon, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and a number of Texas musicians, including Joe Ely. He passed away in 2014 from liver cancer, at the age of 71, but you can find out more about the man and his musical legacy with this documentary, which covers everything from playing with Elvis to his heroin addiction to playing with the Stones in the last decade. 7 pm.

Sinatra and Beyond at Jones Hall
Who wants to ring-a-ding-ding the New Year in? Houston Symphony will be serving that up with a weekend of shows. Tony DeSare, one of today’s leading Sinatra interpreters, recreates the Rat Pack swagger and timeless magic of Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, delivering showstoppers like "Come Fly with Me" and "New York, New York." All we gotta say is if he doesn't do Sinatra's swinging, Quincy Jones-arranged version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Wives and Lovers," we'll be really bummed. 8 pm (2:30 pm Sunday).

Saturday, January 4

Saturday Discovery Camp at The Health Museum
For kiddos between the ages of 5 to 13, The Health Museum will host a one-day, Saturday Discovery Camp for all curious youngsters. Participants will take part in a full day of science and medical-focused experiences, including viewing a real human brain, live dissections of a sheep brain, practicing basic surgical skills such as suturing and stitching, learning how to start an IV and take blood, as well as how to properly read and analyze x-rays, among various others. 9 am-3 pm.

"Urban Observations: Joel Anderson" at Archway Gallery
It seems Joel Anderson is a big fan of "encaustic painting" — beeswax mixed with damar resin — which was practiced by Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C., and later revived by Diego Rivera and Jasper Johns. Anderson incorporates modern digital methods in his new show, which captures his love for this city. He even became a FAA-certified drone pilot to get a bird’s eye view high above the power lines. Will run through January 30. 5-8 pm.

Sunday, January 5

Texas Center for the Missing Fundraiser at Poison Girl
Yes, Poison Girl is a nice, little hangout where people can go after work, drink and look at all the velvet paintings they have. But, once in a while, they'll put on a gathering that's more about doing some good in this community. This weekend, the bar will hold a fundraiser for Texas Center for the Missing, which provides crisis intervention, prevention and community education to the missing and their families. Food will be for sale between 4 and 7 pm. 3 pm.

Moonrise Kingdom at Alamo Drafthouse LaCenterra
While people may feel that The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won several Oscars in 2015, is the best film acclaimed filmmaker (and proud Houstonian) Wes Anderson dropped this past decade, excuse us for having a soft place in our hearts for this 2012 romantic comedy. An all-star cast (we're talking Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, etc.) basically turn a New England island upside down trying to find a couple of missing preteens in love. 3:15 pm.

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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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