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    art cars are back

    Houston's wildest and wackiest wheels rev up for Art Car Festival & Parade 2023

    Craig Lindsey
    Feb 21, 2023 | 3:33 pm

    Get ready to catch those outrageously made-up machines out on these city streets once again – art car season is back.

    The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art has announced the line-up for The Orange Show’s 36th Annual Houston Art Car Festival & Parade. Following a record year in 2022, the oldest and largest celebration of art cars in the world will take over the city of Houston from Thursday, April 6 to Sunday, April 16, with the big parade being held on Saturday, April 15.

    As always, the beloved fest will showcase more than 250 mobile masterpieces from across the country, including nearly 100 new, never-been-seen creations, while engaging the public with over 10 days of opportunities to express their personal artistic vision.

    Starting this year, the Orange Show will honor three individuals annually during the festival that have made lasting impacts on the Houston arts community. This inaugural year, the honorees will include sculptor and painter Sharon Kopriva, Northside High School art teacher Anna Bass, and business leaders and arts philanthropists The Mafrige Family.

    More favorites include the Easter Orange Art Car Hunt (Saturday, April 8), The Main Street Drag (Thursday, April 13), the Art Car Sneak Peek at Discovery Green (Thursday, April 13), and the Art Car Awards Ceremony (Sunday, April 16). Kind-and-family-friendly events abound this year; check the official site for a full schedule.

    Back for another year is The Legendary Art Car Ball, which will dazzle guests on Friday, April 14 at The Orange Show World Headquarters (2401 Munger St.). Expect wild costumes, rockin' tunes, interactive and performance art, food, drinks, and a huge selection of illuminated and fire-breathing art cars. This year's entertainment includes New Orleans avant-garde “rap cabaret” sensation Boyfriend, Austin’s lauded electro-pop performer Caleb de Casper, Houston’s DJ Amarji, the high energy Free Rads 2nd Line, and more, per a release.

    Art offerings for the ball include immersive and interactive art installations by INPUT/OUTPUT, Moon Papas, and Maria Chavez, fire performances from Ms. YET & The Renegade Carnies, and more. That's all on top of the entire 8-acre campus full of hundreds of glittering, twinkling, bouncing, and pulsating art cars. Tickets start at $40 and are available at www.thehoustonartcarparade.com.

    ) Partygoers danced to Calliope Musicals, who rocked the Legendary Art Car Ball stage
      
    Photo by F. Carter Smith
    It's quite the ride at the Art Car Ball.

    This highly anticipated vehicular art spectacle will also prominently feature a contingent of art bikes — decked out, modified, and artistically designed bicycles — in advance of The Second Annual Houston Art Bike Festival, taking place on Saturday, May 13 at MacGregor Park and the Orange Show World Headquarters.

    For the uninitiated, the fest features more than 100 student-led, art bike projects of all shapes and sizes. The public is also invited to create their own art bikes and register to participate.

    Additionally this year, the Houston Art Bike Parade will incorporate the 50-year-old Moonlight Ramble, an evening bike cruise around the city.

    More information on the Art Car Festival & Parade can be found here.

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    Movie Review

    Houston native Wes Anderson shows off comedic side in The Phoenician Scheme

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 6, 2025 | 4:00 pm
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme
    Photo courtesy of TPS Productions/Focus Features
    Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme.

    If you were to do a poll of the best comedy filmmakers of the 21st century, writer/director Wes Anderson is not the obvious choice to come out on top, but there’s an argument to be made for him. His quirky style doesn’t yield the guffaws that more broad comedies do, but the absurd situations he creates in his films are often more consistently funny than anything else.

    Anderson’s inimitable approach is once again on full display in The Phoenician Scheme. At its center is Zsa-Zsa Gorda (Benicio Del Toro), a much-hated businessman who’s looking to complete a number of big projects in the fictional country of Phoenicia. As he seems to be the target of multiple assassination attempts, he appoints his daughter, Liesl (Mia Threapleton), as his heir to try to ensure his legacy.

    Both she and his new assistant, Bjorn (Michael Cera), accompany him around the country as he tries to enact a scheme to have others cover the bulk of the cost for the various projects. Those he attempts to convince include Phoenician Prince Farouk (Riz Ahmed), brothers Leland (Tom Hanks) and Reagan (Bryan Cranston), fellow businessman Marseille Bob (Mathieu Amalric), ship captain Marty (Jeffrey Wright), his Cousin Hilda (Scarlett Johansson), and Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch).

    Put in Andersonian terms, the film is a mix between the madcap antics from The Grand Budapest Hotel and the impenetrable storytelling of Asteroid City. If you were to try to understand every detail of what’s going on in the story of The Phoenician Scheme, it might take three or more viewings to do so. But the film is still highly entertaining because Anderson fills its frames with his typical visual delights, great wordplay, and his particular version of slapstick.

    Much of the comedy of the film derives from Anderson inserting moments that initially come as a surprise and then utilizing them as running jokes. The film features more blood than usual for the filmmaker, but each time a character gets wounded (or worse), it gets funnier. The assassination attempts get broader as the film goes along, and the matter-of-fact way in which they’re treated by Gorda and others is also hilarious.

    Of course, Anderson is the cinephile’s comedy director, so the film is also full of high-brow things like allusions to paintings, tributes to other filmmakers, and classical music. Each time Gorda has an attempt on his life, he briefly finds himself in a version of limbo, depicted in black-and-white by Anderson. The cast of characters Gorda finds there - including Bill Murray as God - could come straight out of a 1950s Ingmar Bergman movie.

    Del Toro has delivered some great performances over the years, but this one is near the top for him. This is his second Anderson film (following The French Dispatch) and he nails the deadpan method. Also great is Cera, who uses a ridiculous accent to make a big impression. Threapleton, the daughter of Kate Winslet, makes the most of her first big film role. The list of supporting actors is too deep to properly laud everyone, but they all fit in seamlessly.

    Opinions will differ, but for this critic’s money, Anderson is at his best when he fully leans into the comedy of his films. He does just that in The Phoenician Scheme, to the point that it doesn’t matter that the story is overly complex. The combination of his eye for visual detail, a witty script, and committed performances make it a success.

    ---

    The Phoenician Scheme is now playing in theaters.

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