weekend event planner

Here are the 14 best things to do in Houston this weekend

It’s time to get revved up this weekend.

While a lot of folks will be decked out in their finest threads for White Linen Night (look for an article with details on Thursday), this weekend features not one, but two events devoted to souped-up automobiles: the Hot Wheels Legends Tour and the All-Stars Car Show. We also have live music from Counting Crows, Jesse Murph, and “Weird Al” Yankovic, a special Star Trek appearance from William Shatner; and – for parents of kids who like to do crazy stuff in roomy vehicles — The Fun Bus over at City Place.

Thursday, July 31

William Shatner Live On Stage with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Bouncing back from the disastrous Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, the crew of the USS Enterprise returned on the big screen in 1982 for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which many consider to be the best installment in the franchise. Following the screening, William Shatner — Captain James T. Kirk/Sergeant T.J. Hooker himself — takes the stage to share fascinating and humorous behind-the-scenes stories from his life and illustrious career, including answering audience questions. 6 pm.

Counting Crows in concert
It was 32 years ago when Bay Area alt-rock band Counting Crows bopped their way into top-40/MTV heavy rotation with their 1993 seven-times-platinum debut August and Everything After, which featured their breakout single “Mr. Jones.” The Crows are still out there crowing. They’ll be at Smart Financial Centre, in support of their eighth, recently-released studio album, Butter Miracle, The Complete Sweets!, a follow-up to their 2021 EP Butter Miracle, Suite One. 7:30 pm.

Houston Shakespeare Festival: Henry V
A young king dares to claim the French throne, setting out on a journey that will define his legacy and take his place in history. King Henry faces impossible odds on his unwavering quest to unify his people, lead his troops to victory, and become a true leader. Shakespeare’s masterpiece of the turbulence of war, Henry V delivers a gripping evening of theatre filled with battles, betrayal, comedy, and love. The production will run in repertory with As You Like It. Though Friday, August 8. 8:15 pm.

Friday, August 1

Brick Fest Live
Brick Fest Live is all-in on imagination with stations and attractions designed to inspire creativity and play. Families can get hands-on with different brick challenges throughout the event as well as explore community collab builds and master creations from all over the world. The three-day event will feature a Guinness World Record Challenge where visitors can help create a massive floor mosaic. There will also be a Giant Brick Pit, where everyone can explore a play area filled with over 200,000 colorful bricks. 9 am.

Jurassic Quest
The three-day Jurassic Quest is back in Houston, once again taking visitors through 165 million years of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. Families can go on “The Quest,” a self-guided scavenger hunt-style activity where budding paleontologists can become Jr. Park Rangers, and learn all about the dinosaurs and time periods with the help of a fun and fact-filled video tour, including the towering fan-favorite Spinosaurus. 9 am.

Abilities Expo Houston
Abilities Expo is a celebration designed to increase independence and accessibility for people with disabilities. The three-day event will include interactive exhibits, adaptive activities, informative workshops, and appearances by YouTube stars Hannah and Shane Burcaw as well as transformational speaker Dominika Staniewicz. They’ll be sharing their stories, answering questions, and offering perspectives on life, love, accessibility, and everything in between. 11 am.

"Weird Al" Yankovic in concert
When it comes to pop stars who clearly look like they’re having fun whenever they perform, "Weird Al" Yankovic is a veteran party animal. For over four decades, the accordion-wielding pop parodist has dropped such classic song spoofs as “Eat It,” “My Bologna,” and “I Love Rocky Road.” Yankovic comes to Houston as part of his Bigger and Weirder tour, returning to the big stage for the first time in six years. He will play his iconic hits as well as some fan favorites which have never been performed live. 8 pm.

Saturday, August 2

Mattel presents Hot Wheels Legends Tour
The Hot Wheels Legends Tour, the world’s largest traveling car show and global contest offering custom car builders the opportunity to have their passion projects turned into the next Hot Wheels die-cast toy car, rolls into the Houston area. Hot Wheels designers and local celebrity judges will examine each vehicle based on three key categories: authenticity, creativity, and garage spirit. The winner of the event will move on to the national semi-final later this year for a chance to represent the U.S. in the global finale. 8 am.

All-Stars Car Show
The inaugural All-Stars Car Show at Daikin Park is set to make history as the first-ever car show inside a Major League Baseball stadium. The Astros’ home ballpark will be transformed into a full-scale car show, featuring more than 380 vehicles in exhibits from the outdoor lots to the stadium concourses to the field warning track. Headliners include multiple U.S. first unveilings, legendary classics, and some of the rarest hypercars ever produced — such as a Pagani Huayra, Ferrari F40, Porsche 918 Spyder, and more. There will also be celebrity appearances and a show-stopping Diamond Club display, curated by Daniel & Co. 10 am.

Project Row Houses presents Summer Studios Opening & Community Market
Project Row Houses will present the opening of the Floyd Newsum Summer Studios culminating showcase for this year's cohort of artists from local universities who have spent the summer in studios on the row. The artists will speak about their works during porch talks. Ten diverse undergraduate and recently graduated artists will show work speaking directly to the urgency, complexity, and fragility of our times. Through Sunday, September 21. 4 pm.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents The Unbearable Lightness of Being
In this 1988 adaptation of Milan Kundera’s “unfilmable” novel, Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff) achieves a delicate, erotic balance by focusing on three central characters. A womanizing surgeon (Daniel Day-Lewis) struggles with his free-spirited mistress (Lena Olin) and his childlike wife (Juliette Binoche) as they navigate the political and social upheavals of life in 1960s Europe. Tracy Stephenson, MFAH Films assistant programmer and coordinator, will introduce the film. 5 pm.

Sunday, August 3

City Place presents The Fun Bus
The Fun Bus makes a stop at City Place this weekend, for a complimentary mobile gym experience designed for kids, ranging from 18 months to seven years old. With enthusiastic instructors leading games, obstacle courses and themed activities, children can swing, bounce and climb in a colorful, 35-foot refurbished school bus. The bus never moves with children on board and is climate controlled (heat and a/c) to ensure a comfortable environment. 9 am.

River Oaks Theatre presents The Seventh Seal
This weekend, River Oaks Theatre kicks off a month-long film series saluting Swedish filmmaking great Ingmar Bergman. Film/TV critic Chris Vognar will introduce all five films, which includes Wild Strawberries, The Magician, Persona, and Hour of the Wolf. It all begins with his 1957 groundbreaker, starring Max von Sydow as a medieval knight playing a life-or-death game of chess with one very grim reaper (Bengt Ekerot). 2:45 pm.

Jessie Murph in concert
Now that Texas’ own Kacey Musgraves made it cool for country chanteuses to get old-school dolled up, here comes Jessie Murph taking it to a whole other level. Born in Tennessee and raised in Alabama, the 20-year-old singer can go from country to pop to even rap – and always rocking a gigantic bouffant while doing it. Murph will be making a stop at 713 Music Hall, as she tours the country promoting Sex Hysteria, her just-released second album. 8 pm.

Photo by Danny Clinch

Counting Crows perform at Smart Financial Centre on Thursday.

weekend events event-planner

Movie Review

Cookie Queens goes behind the scenes of Girl Scout Cookie season

Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions

Girl Scouts in Cookie Queens.

Few people are strong enough to resist the lure of Girl Scout cookie season every year, with the cookies’ limited availability and unique flavors a strong incentive to indulge. But only the girls and their families who have sold the cookies know the joys and stresses of trying to get people to buy them, a process that is detailed in the new documentary, Cookie Queens.

The film by documentarian Alysa Nahmias uses the stories of four different girls to represent the nationwide ritual for the Girl Scouts. They include 12-year-old Olive in Charlotte, North Carolina, a longtime top seller; 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wants to earn the reward of going to camp; 5-year-old Ara in San Diego, California, whose goal is modest compared to most other girls; and 9-year-old Nikki in Chino, California, who has to compete with her older sisters in the cookie-selling bonanza.

The girls represent a cross-section of both ages and backgrounds, with some girls coming from wealthy families and some girls dealing with more limited means. And how much money your family has makes a big difference, as not only does someone richer have more freedom with their time and supplies, but all scouts are required to reimburse the organization for every box they take in, regardless of whether they’re able to sell it or not.

That caveat makes the journeys of the four featured girls feel wildly different. It’s clear from the start that Olive and Nikki’s families don’t give a second thought to the personal economics of selling cookies, with each girl taking in thousands of boxes at the beginning of the six-week selling season. With both Olive and Nikki rightfully confident that they’ll have no problem offloading their supply, their stories turn to how selling is personally affecting them, with each trying to reconcile the fun of doing it with the pressure they feel from their family members.

Shannon Elizabeth’s story is more harrowing, as her parents feel a strong desire to help her accomplish her lofty goal, but worry that the cost might literally be too high for the family as a whole. More than once, the parents are shown fretting that they won’t have the money to pay back what they owe should they fall significantly short in their sales. Their selling approach, which includes walking through an empty swap meet and standing outside a chain restaurant at night, only adds to their stress.

The most fun story to watch is that of Ara, whose innocence is matched by her confidence. Her parents teach her how much money they’ll owe with her small goal of 55 boxes, but right away she takes on more responsibility than expected. She’s shown making sales pitches and tallying the total number of boxes she’s sold with little-to-no help from either her mom or dad. With her high voice, glasses, and a monitor on her arm to manage her diabetes, she becomes the cute and sympathetic part of the film.

There are times that the film starts to feel more than a little manipulative, however. While many of the moments documented come off as organic, some of them seem like Nahmias is actively guiding the participants in order to get a better story. This is especially evident with Shannon Elizabeth and her family, whose early struggles turn into a miraculous feel-good story by the end, a turnaround that seems implausible at best. Everything with them might have been aboveboard, but Nahmias and her team edit the family’s journey in a way that pushes a bit too hard for emotion.

Cookie Queens, which was produced by a company owned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, helps to give insight into the business of selling Girl Scout cookies for those who’ve only been on the purchasing end of the transaction. The dedication of each girl toward selling their allotted supply proves fun and interesting, even if the filmmaker tries to gild the lily on occasion.

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Cookie Queens is now playing in theaters,

movies girl scout cookie film