weekend event planner

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

Texas' biggest comic/pop culture spectacle is back this weekend.

Photo by Ferni Cabello

This Memorial Day weekend, we reflect on those who lost their lives in service to our country. As we pause and reflect, there's also fun to be had afterwards.

Comic book geeks, sci-fi fans, anime types and cosplayers, and more will descend upon downtown for Comicpalooza — where Captain Kirk/William Shatner himself will beam down.

Some classic funk stars take the stage, Motown gets down at Miller Outdoor Theatre, and a water festival offers a moment of zen. Enjoy; here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, May 25

Center for the Healing of Racism presents Make Some Noise for George Floyd

Center for the Healing of Racism will commemorate the anniversary of the murder of George Floyd at this special event. Spoken word artists, poets, singers, or other performing artists are invited to contribute to the ceremony. Performers include spoken word artist Isabella Zavala, an 11th grade student at Cristo Rey Jesuit College Preparatory School; Alisa and Alejandro Magallon, former members of the Houston Grand Opera chorus; and more. This event takes place at 3412 Crawford St. 6 pm.

4th Wall Theatre Company presents Fairview

At the Frasier family household, party preparations are underway. Beverly is holding on to her sanity by a thread to make sure Grandma’s birthday is perfect, but her sister can’t be bothered to help, her husband doesn’t seem to listen, her brother is M.I.A., her daughter is a teenager, and maybe nothing is what it seems in the first place. Fairview is a searing examination of families, drama, family dramas, and the insidiousness of racism in America. Through Saturday, June 17. 7:30 pm (3 pm Sunday).

Stages presents Sin Muros: A Latinx Theater Festival

The Sin Muros Festival at Stages has been celebrating and lifting up Latinx artists for six years. More than 300 Latinx artists have benefited—both financially and creatively—from participating in the festival. This year, a committee of some of the most influential Latinx voices in Houston has selected four plays by Latinx playwrights, and nominated three individuals who serve the Latinx art community to be celebrated in this weekend-long show. 7:30 pm (7 pm Friday; 9 am Saturday; 11 am Sunday).

Friday, May 26

Memorial Day Weekend at Margaritaville Lake Resort

What better way to usher in the start of summer than spending Memorial Day weekend at Margaritaville Lake Resort at Lake Conroe. The resort has plenty of activities for the entire family, including a chance to meet the Margaritaville Mermaid. Margaritaville Lake Resort’s mermaid will swim ashore at the Splash Pad in Jolly Mon Water Park to delight kids of all ages. 11 am.

Comicpalooza

Comicpalooza features creators, panelists, cosplayers, stars, and spectators coming together for a weekend celebrating anime, comics, gaming, literature, cosplay, and more. Fans can expect to see a bustling exhibition floor with vendors from all over the galaxy, programming covering a multitude of fandoms, special attractions intriguing the curious minds, guest panels, and other geeky entertainment. 3 pm (10 am Saturday and Sunday).

Foto Relevance presents Abelardo Morell: "Liminal Spaces" opening reception

This solo show from contemporary photographer Abelardo Morell, spotlights Morell's "Camera Obscura" works. Morell’s use of the camera obscura technique is inspired by his long fascination with the passage of time and how it can be captured through photographic mechanisms. His classic camera obscura works bring the outside in, creating a new and fleeting environment meant for our eyes only. Through Saturday, July 8. 6 pm.

Miller Outdoor Theatre presents Forever Motown

Direct from New York is the original cast of this soulful show, happening all this weekend at Miller Outdoor Theatre. We’ve got all-star performers, featuring Theo Peoples of both The Four Tops and The Temptations, Glenn Leonard of The Temptations, and Traci Robinson, former lead singer of The Marvelettes, along with an all-star live band. This full-stage production includes all of your favorite hit songs from all the Motown legends and is sure to have the audience dancing in their seats. 8:15 pm.

Saturday, May 27

Crunchloaf Records and Cool Heads Prevail present Beat Cypher

If you like listening to some bad-to-bone beats while perusing through some vinyl LPs, Cool Heads Prevail will host a beat event this weekend featuring a slew of DJs. Scheduled to spin: JREDOU_KO!, Regore, Run CT, wheards, .rael_one, Heavy The Bluebird, Ben Buck, and Pajama Sam. There’s no cover, and since Cool Heads is also a record store, expect a lot of vintage, hot fire coming out of the bins. 4 pm.

Water Lantern Festival

The Water Lantern Festival is a floating lantern event that is all about connections. The night will include food, games, activities, vendors, music and the beauty of thousands of lanterns adorned with letters of love, hope and dreams reflected upon the water. This is a family-friendly event that can be shared by everyone. Friends, families, neighbors, and lots of people that you haven't met can come together to create a peaceful, memorable experience. 5:30 pm.

Flashback Funkfest featuring Morris Day & The Time

People will definitely have a funkin’ good time at this funkalicious fiesta. Flashback Funkfest will feature performances by headliners Morris Day & The Time, as well as Zapp, Ohio Players, Rose Royce, and Atlantic Starr. So, expect a lot of people to get drunk off the Crown Royal they snuck in, talking about all the times they grooved to these tunes back in their younger days. It’s going to be a throwback show where a lot of people might throw their backs out. 5 pm.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Chocolat

Celebrated filmmaker Claire Denis drew on her childhood experiences in 1960s French colonial Africa for her absorbing feature-film debut that introduced themes she’s revisited throughout her career. After many years living in France, a White woman (Mireille Perrier) returns to her hometown in Cameroon and reflects on her relationship with a Black servant (Isaach De Bankolé), with whom she formed a friendship while not fully grasping the racial divides that governed their worlds. 7 pm (5 pm Sunday).

Sunday, May 28

Harvest Green presents Village Farm Tours

The fourth Sunday of each month, visitors can tour the Village Farm at Harvest Green for an up-close look at what it takes to keep a farm running. The Richmond community’s farm educators teach visitors about seasonal produce as they guide them around the farm. Stops will be made to sample produce and visit with Harvest Green’s chickens and Nubian goats. 1:30 pm.

Alley Theatre presents Torera

This play is written by a stunning new voice in the American theatre, Monet Hurst-Mendoza. Bullfighting in Yucatán, Mexico is a world nearly exclusive to men — yet for Elena Ramírez, it is her life's ambition. With the help of her best friend, a matador's son, Elena begins secretly training to compete with the greatest. But when she discovers that her inherent talent can beat even the most accomplished toreros, this young woman must choose between accepting society's limits or breaking boundaries. Through Sunday, June 4. 2:30 and 7:30 pm Sunday.

Lone Star Flight Museum presents The Spot Experience: Eat Where No One Has Before

The Spot Experience brings everyone a dining experience in an unexpected location. Guests can step into Lone Star Flight Museum for an exclusive dining experience in an intimate and unique setting. Enjoy a meal inside a plane hangar, with more than 10 planes around you. Feast on a menu inspired by international tastes, sending you on a worldwide culinary expedition, specially curated by local chefs for this event. Buckle your seat belts because you’re about to travel around the world without even having to pack a bag. 5 pm.

Movie Review

Camp Miasma puts a comedic twist on the classic slasher movie

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing the slasher subgenre that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death — a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask — may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference — Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard — to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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