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

New horror movie Faces of Death puts a modern twist on cult classic

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy — in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks — is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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