Weekend Event Planner

Top things to do in Houston this weekend: arcade expo, Honeyland fest, and tree lighting spectacular

Galleria Ice Spectacular Nov 2015 Santa and skater

It begins to look a lot like Christmas at The Galleria this weekend.

Photo courtesy of Dave Rossman

The holidays arrive in Houston this weekend with the big lighting of the Galleria Christmas tree. Before that, though, there's a big film festival, an arcade expo, a show by a hit comedian, and much more.

Below are more best ways to spend your precious free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, November 9

Houston Cinema Arts Festival
The Houston Cinema Arts Festival will screen/premiere short films and feature length movies from Houston and around the world. Highlights include opening night film Lost Soulz; a 25th anniversary screening of Rushmore; The Herricanes, about 1970s women's football team Houston Herricanes; and more. Screenings will take place at multiple venues, including the DeLUXE Theater, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Rooftop Cinema Club. For the full schedule, go to the festival website. 7 pm. (12:30 pm Saturday; Noon Sunday).

Friday, November 10

2023 Houston Arcade Expo
Expect a weekend of fun and free play as The Houston Area Arcade Group (HAAG) is holding its 20th Annual Arcade Expo. There will be hundreds of classic and current coin-op pinball machines, video arcade games, penny arcades, and console video games ready for attendees to play on free play or buy them for their home. There will also be tournaments, events, music and workshops to keep the young (and young at heart) entertained. Noon (10 am Saturday and Sunday).

Reeves Art + Design presents "Terry Suprean: Futurescapes" opening reception
In "Futurescapes," a solo exhibition of new paintings by Terry Suprean, the artist presents a large and diverse body of work utilizing the experimental artist-manufactured paints he has developed and worked with over the last decade to mimic and mirror geological processes, engage with the language of abstraction in the digital age, and probe the meaning of landscape painting in the Anthropocene. Through Thursday, November 30. 6 pm.

DACAMERA presents Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones with the E-Collective and Turtle Island Quartet
Terence Blanchard’s opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones made history in 2021 as the first opera written by a Black composer to be staged at the Metropolitan Opera. This “opera in jazz” tells the true coming-of-age story of a young boy growing up in the face of great adversity and forging his personal identity. Now, Blanchard presents a new suite of music from the opera, performed by the celebrated trumpeter and his E-Collective, the Grammy-winning Turtle Island Quartet, and vocalists Nicholas Newton and Adrienne Danrich. 8 pm.

Saturday, November 11

Canstruction and Houston Food Bank presents Canstruction Houston
Canstruction Houston is an annual design-build event that benefits the Houston Food Bank and features top Houston architects, engineers, designers, contractors, and mentored students from across greater Houston. They will showcase their talents and creativity by building can-structures that range from replicas of iconic Houston landmarks to popular locations around the globe to favorite characters in pop culture. Through Sunday, November 19. 8 am.

The Galleria presents 34th Annual Tree Lighting and Ice Spectacular
The Galleria's 34th Annual Ice Spectacular will kick off the holiday season with the lighting of its 55-foot Christmas tree, featuring 450,000 twinkling lights and 5,000 ornaments in a variety of colors and shapes. A time-honored holiday tradition, the 45-minute tree-lighting show will feature a performance by The Voice Season 21 contestant Jershika Maple. The event will culminate with the lighting of the tree by Skating Santa and a fireworks display. Noon.

Honeyland Festival
Honeyland is a festival celebrating the best of Black expression, where the top restaurateurs, beverage makers, and artists get together to remix, refresh, and create more of what ﬂavors the world. The two-day fest is led by food curator Marcus Samuelsson, spirits curator Fawn Weaver, and Houston ambassador Tobe Nwigwe. The music side of the event will feature performances by Nwigwe, Mary J. Blige, Miguel, Jazmine Sullivan, Tems, Lucky Dave, Chloe, Coco Jones, Scarface, Slim Thug, Paul Wall, and more. Noon.

Sunday, November 12

PrintHouston presents Rockin’ Rollin’ Prints
PrintHouston’s biennial Rockin’ Rollin’ Prints returns. The event will feature approximately 50 artists from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New York, and London. Each artist will bring a carved 3’ x 5’ woodblock, which will be inked and printed using a two-ton steamroller as a printing press. PrintHouston’s first From Press to Table print fair will also be held on Sunday, in tandem with the Rockin’ Rollin’ Prints event. Kids will have their own space and inked up board to ride bikes and skateboards over to create monotypes. 10 am.

Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land presents Ali Wong
Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress. She’s best known for her two hit Netflix specials, Baby Cobra, Hard Knock Wife, and Don Wong. Wong has done a lot for Netflix: she voiced the co-lead and executive-produced the animated comedy Tuca and Bertie, alongside Tiffany Haddish; starred in the movie Always Be My Maybe, which she co-wrote with longtime friend and creative collaborator Randall Park; and executive-produced the dark comedy Beef, where she co-starred with Steven Yeun. 8 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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