Houston's top 10 entertainment stories of 2024 spotlight Ren Faire and Rodeo

Amid scandals covered by multiple documentaries, the nation's largest Renaissance festival opens for its golden season.

Ren Faire, the HBO docuseries about the Texas Renaissance Festival, led this year's most read entertainment articles.

Photo courtesy of the Texas Renaissance Festival

Editor's note: Houston had a lyrical year in 2024, with RodeoHouston concert reviews dominating CultureMap Houston’s most-clicked entertainment articles. Readers soaked up the details of performances by Bun B, Nickelback, 50 Cent, and other famous artists, including record-breaking crowds. The Texas Renaissance Festival landed in the national spotlight through HBO’s docuseries, with Houstonians closely following how their local ren faire was portrayed.

Here are the 10 most popular entertainment stories of the year:

1. Texas Renaissance Festival distances itself from viral HBO docuseries. Ren Faire, HBO’s three-part docuseries, brought the story of festival founder “King” George Coulam to the small screen where viewers watched as he ruminated on retirement and attempted to woo younger women. The local organization issued a somewhat confusing statement distancing itself from its staff’s eccentric portrayal.

2. Bun B, Drake, and hip hop all-stars cowboy up at historic RodeoHouston performance. Houston cultural ambassador and entrepreneur Bun B reclaimed his title as the most-attended male rap performer in RodeoHouston history with 75,005 paying attendees. Drake, Nelly, Rick Ross, Eve, and DMC of Run-DMC were among the international stars that took the stage with Bun B for a 33-song, 90-minute set that had Houstonians dancing in the stands.

3. Legendary WWII warplane unearthed from 268 feet of ice lands at Houston museum. Houstonians glimpsed history when the Glacier Girl, a World War II plane uncovered from 268 feet of ice in Greenland, made a stopover at the Lone Star Flight Museum. The plane was the only one from its squadron recovered in 1992, nearly 50 years after its crash.

4. Nickelback burns Houston to the ground with sold out RodeoHouston debut. The much-maligned Canadian rock band Nickelback made its debut at RodeoHouston to a sold-out crowd of 75,036, second only to Los Tigres Del Norte. Though often mocked, their energetic performance proved why Nickelback has sold more than 50 million albums.

5. 50 Cent and special guests take Houston to Da Club in packed Rodeo debut. Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson took the stage for his inaugural Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo performance on March 1, providing fans with an uncensored, lively production. The audience sang along with the Houston resident who has become an HSLR regular, selling his own wine at record prices.

6. Affluent Houston suburbs top list of biggest holiday spenders in U.S.U.S. Everyone wanted to befriend residents of The Woodlands after WalletHub’s survey ranked the Houston-area city at No. 13 in its annual report on U.S. cities with the biggest holiday budgets in 2024. Shoppers in The Woodlands are expected to spend $3,395 on Christmas gifts. Sugar Land earned the No. 14 spot, while Houston proper landed at No. 241.

7. Dramatic new docuseries on the Texas Renaissance Festival could be the next Tiger King. Ren Faire, the HBO docuseries, premiered to a packed house at South by Southwest (SXSW). Journalist Brianna Caleri likened it to Netflix’s Tiger King, as both explore charismatic leaders in niche, dedicated organizations.

8. Massive new entertainment complex lights up Houston suburb. The announcement of Lumos, a 45,000-square-foot entertainment hub opening in 2025, made waves with readers in September. The family-friendly venue in New Caney will feature cutting-edge technology, such as virtual reality experiences and 40-foot LED screens, along with familiar favorites of bowling, karaoke, and laser tag.

9. College Football Championship weekend kicks off in Houston with free concerts, events, and more. Houston hosted the College Football Playoff National Championship game at NRG Stadium on January 8. Thanks to family-friendly free events, including performances by Megan Moroney and 2 Chainz, locals could enjoy the festivities even without a ticket to the big game.

10. Yellowstone star Lainey Wilson enthralls at sold-out RodeoHouston debut. Lainey Wilson, the ‘Hillbilly Hippie’ queen of modern country-rock, made headlines for her sold-out matinee at HLSR. The musician and actress made a dramatic exit by riding a horse around the stage before galloping out of NRG stadium.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

movies film

Top 10 Entertainment Stories

Houston's top 10 entertainment stories of 2024 spotlight Ren Faire and Rodeo

Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess