weekend event planner

Here are the top 13 things to do in Houston this weekend

TKTK Tokyo Night Festival

Photo courtesy of Tokyo Night Festival

For Houston Astros fans, this weekend offers a chance to get up close and personal with three star players, and also with the World Series trophy at a popular golf tournament.

Meanwhile, a beloved shopping event returns for the holidays, we salute our veterans with a parade, an art and music fest celebrates unity, and the Galleria gets lit with an annual tree ceremony.

Fans of Japan can celebrate the nation that dominates pop culture at a two-day festival featuring music, food, cars, anime, and even sumo wrestling. And the biggest traveling inflatable attraction in the world brings more bounce for the ounce to town.

Enjoy; here are your best bets for the weekend.

Thursday, November 10

Astros Golf Foundation presents 2022 Cadence Park Houston Open

The Astros Golf Foundation is set to host this four-day golf extravaganza at Memorial Park Golf Course. To go along with the world-class golf play, there are also a lot of exciting giveaways and events off the course for fans to enjoy. This is also the first chance for fans to see and take a photo with the Astros 2022 World Series trophy. Popular Texas country musician Pat Green will do a performance at the Memorial Park Driving Range, immediately following the final putt on Sunday. 7 am.

Houston Ballet presents Nutcracker Market

With its signature, ruby-red carpet and larger-than-life towering Nutcrackers setting the scene, the Houston Ballet’s 42nd anniversary Nutcracker Market returns this weekend. This four-day event will host more than 270 merchants from across the country, including more than 50 new merchants, showcasing a curated collection of unique holiday items, gourmet food, apparel, jewelry, accessories, home décor, gifts, toys and more. Come celebrate as one of Houston’s favorite traditions transforms NRG Center into a shopper’s paradise. 10 am.

Bacardi Rum Room at Wooster's Garden Houston

Following a hiatus due to the ongoing pandemic, Bacardi is excited to bring back its popular Rum Room series for a new multi-city tour, which kicked off in NYC last week and will make a stop this weekend in H-Town, highlighting the brand’s premium rum portfolio and staple Bacardi Reserva Ocho. Designed to introduce and educate consumers about the versatility of rum, Rum Room is curated by the Bacardi Rum Society, an exclusive group of celebrity rum enthusiasts and ambassadors and previously attended by brand fans including Jhene Aiko, Karrueche Tran, Omari Hardwick and more. 7 pm.

Friday, November 11

Houston Salutes American Heroes Veterans Day Celebration

Mayor Sylvester Turner invites Houstonians to attend the annual Veterans Day ceremony and parade. This celebration will feature a 21-gun salute, a moment of silence in honor of the signing of the WWI Armistice, and a keynote address by Colonel David J. Lewis, U.S. Air Force veteran. Local veteran organizations, ROTC and Junior ROTCs, bands and supporters will march in the parade to show respect and honor our veterans. This parade is open to the public, and all are welcomed along the parade route. 10 am.

Tokyo Night Festival

Tokyo Night Festival originally started as an idea to bring all the chefs who have been inspired from Japan to create their version of Japanese street food. Now in its second year, the two-day festival will support Japanese communities to represent Japanese food and culture. With over 30 food vendors and 180 total vendors, the goal of the festival is to bring a piece of Japan to Houston. The fest has teamed up with Japanese-owned and operated organizations to help represent and bring the Japanese community together in Houston. 3 pm.

Houston Symphony presents Holst’s The Planets

Fasten your seatbelts and blast off to the stars when acclaimed conductor Gemma New leads Holst’s sonic, celestial showpiece, which vividly portrays each planet’s astrological persona, from menacing Mars to jolly Jupiter and beyond. Young cello star Camille Thomas is conquering the world stage, and Elgar’s poignant Cello Concerto is the perfect showcase for her talents. The concert will also feature Alissa Firsova’s poetic reflection on love, Bride of the Wind. 8 pm (2:30 pm Sunday).

Ninja Sex Party: Up Close and Personal

Ninja Sex Party, consisting of Danny Sexbang (Dan Avidan, vocals) and Ninja Brian (Brian Wecht, keyboards), is one of the most popular comedy bands of all time. After three years not touring for some reason, Ninja Sex Party is back with an all-acoustic show. With the help of the Super Guitar Bros and producer Jim Roach, Danny and Brian are doing their first-ever live acoustic tour, featuring your favorite NSP songs plus some amazing (yet somehow totally believable) new surprises. 8 pm.

Saturday, November 12

The Big Bounce America

Featuring the world’s largest bounce house, The Big Bounce America tour (open on weekends this month) is the largest touring inflatable event in the entire world. The world’s largest bounce house, the featured attraction on the tour, is the planet’s preeminent bounce castle. It includes a basketball court, giant slide, and a massive ball pit. At the center of the fun is a world-class DJ playing a carefully selected soundtrack with nightclub quality sound and lights. Additionally, guests will be able to enjoy airSPACE, a 25-foot-tall space-themed spectacle with a five-person slide and a 50-foot-wide play space for younger bouncers. 9 am.

Community Artists' Collective presents FestEve!35

The Community Artists’ Collective will celebrate its 35th anniversary of serving the arts and cultural community. The evening, which begins with a VIP reception, will feature works of art, performing artists, a silent and a live auction, a dinner and refreshments. Guests will be treated to entertainment during the evening, capturing the spirit of traditional to contemporary genres of the cultural community, including Houston’s poet laureate Outspoken Bean, the Carver High School stilt walkers, solo instrumentalists and vocalists, dance troupes and jazz bands. 6 pm.

The Galleria presents 33rd Annual Ice Spectacular and Tree Lighting

The Galleria is kicking off the holiday season with the 33rd Annual Ice Spectacular, including an ice skating show, musical performances, and the lighting of the center’s 55-foot tree. Leah Marlene, a songwriter, artist and producer with a deeply rooted desire to create art unlike anything you have heard before, will be performing. Beginning at noon, there will be family and children’s activities including face painting, balloon art and a coloring station, as well as live, holiday, musical performances throughout the center. 6 pm.

Sunday, November 13

Fall Fresh Plant Party & Farmers Market at The Plant Project Houston

The Fall Fresh Plant Party & Farmers Market, now in its second year, is a free, family-friendly event to bring the community together and celebrate everything fall with market-inspired local businesses and artisans, fresh, organic products from produce to teas and breads, to wellness, beauty and hand-crafted gifts, along with plants, a fall-inspired succulent bar, pumpkin painting for kids, farm-to-table complimentary cocktails with Traveling Spirit Bar, a fall floral bar by Bree Blooms, beats by DJ Good Fat and so much more. 11 am.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "Alberto Giacometti: Toward the Ultimate Figure" opening day

This touring exhibition presents an ensemble of 60 masterpieces highlighting Alberto Giacometti’s major achievements of the postwar years (1945-66), exploring the artist’s creative process and how he came to produce his iconic figures. Giacometti (1901-1966) reasserted the validity of the figure and figural representation at a time when abstract art had grown dominant in the international art world. It unfolds in 12 thematic sections that illuminate Giacometti’s focus on the human form and the development of his signature style. Through Sunday, February 12, 2023. 12:30 pm.

The Bryan Museum Member's Opening Reception

I Am Texas is now the largest book published in the world, earning it a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Standing more than 7-feet tall, spanning 11-feet wide when open, and weighing almost 500 pounds, Bryan Museum members and RSVP guests are invited to view the book at its first stop on a statewide tour that will take it to the Alamo and other locations. The museum will also celebrate the opening of the exhibitions: Working Hands: The Photography of Rick Williams and Revealing Character: The Tintypes of Robb Kendrick. 2 pm.

Movie Review

Star TV producer James L. Brooks stumbles with meandering movie Ella McCay

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Emma Mackey in Ella McCay.

The impact that writer/director/producer James L. Brooks has made on Hollywood cannot be understated. The 85-year-old created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, personally won three Oscars for Terms of Endearment, and was one of the driving forces behind The Simpsons, among many other credits. Now, 15 years after his last movie, he’s back in the directing chair with Ella McCay.

The similarly-named Emma Mackey plays Ella, a 34-year-old lieutenant governor of an unnamed state in 2008 who’s on the verge of becoming governor when Governor Bill (Albert Brooks) gets picked to be a member of the president’s Cabinet. What should be a happy time is sullied by her needy husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), her agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), and her perpetually-cheating father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson).

Despite the trio of men competing to bring her down, Ella remains an unapologetic optimist, an attitude bolstered by her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), her assistant Estelle (Julie Kavner), and her police escort, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani). The film follows her over a few days as she navigates the perils of governing, the distractions her family brings, and the expectations being thrust upon her by many different people.

Brooks, who wrote and directed the film, is all over the place with his storytelling. What at first seems to be a straightforward story about Ella and her various issues soon starts meandering into areas that, while related to Ella, don’t make the film better. Prime among them are her brother and father, who are given a relatively small amount of screentime in comparison to the importance they have in her life. This is compounded by a confounding subplot in which Casey tries to win back his girlfriend, Susan (Ayo Edebiri).

Then there’s the whole political side of the story, which never finds its focus and is stuck in the past. Though it’s never stated explicitly, Ella and Governor Bill appear to be Democrats, especially given a signature program Ella pushes to help mothers in need. But if Brooks was trying to provide an antidote to the current real world politics, he doesn’t succeed, as Ella’s full goals are never clear. He also inexplicably shows her boring her fellow lawmakers to tears, a strange trait to give the person for whom the audience is supposed to be rooting.

What saves the movie from being an all-out train wreck is the performances of Mackey and Curtis. Mackey, best known for the Netflix show Sex Education, has an assured confidence to her that keeps the character interesting and likable even when the story goes downhill. Curtis, who has tended to go over-the-top with her roles in recent years, tones it down, offering a warm place of comfort for Ella to turn to when she needs it. The two complement each other very well and are the best parts of the movie by far.

Brooks puts much more effort into his female actors, including Kavner, who, even though she serves as an unnecessary narrator, gets most of the best laugh lines in the film. Harrelson is capable of playing a great cad, but his character here isn’t fleshed out enough. Fearn is super annoying in his role, and Lowden isn’t much better, although that could be mostly due to what his character is called to do. Were it not for the always-great Brooks and Nanjiani, the movie might be devoid of good male performances.

Brooks has made many great TV shows and movies in his 60+ year career, but Ella McCay is a far cry from his best. The only positive that comes out of it is the boosting of Mackey, who proves herself capable of not only leading a film, but also elevating one that would otherwise be a slog to get through.

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Ella McCay opens in theaters on December 12.

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