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

Steven Spielberg captivates with new aliens drama Disclosure Day

Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

Tommy Martinez, Emily Blunt, and Josh O'Connor in Disclosure Day.

With the release of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg has now directed 17 feature films over 26 years in the 21st century, the exact same number over the exact same period of time he did in the 20th century. The first half of his career was mostly defined by his blockbuster films, while the second half has seen him exploring a lot more serious material. Disclosure Day marries the two for an experience only he could deliver.

The film starts in medias res, as Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) is being pursued by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) and a team of henchmen for stealing intellectual property from Wardex, a government contractor for which he works. As the audience gradually discovers, Daniel is a cyber-security programmer who has discovered evidence of alien life in the company’s servers. He and others within the company, including Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), are determined to release the information to the public.

Concurrently, television meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) starts experiencing weird things, including the ability to speak multiple languages and read people’s minds. Without either of them actively trying to seek each other out, Daniel and Margaret are set on a path to meet, with Scanlon (with the help of a mysterious alien device) trying to track their every move.

Directed by Spielberg and written by David Koepp, the film is an almost even mix between classic Spielberg wonder and a deep story about what it is to be human. By starting the film in the middle of the story, Spielberg immediately ramps up the excitement level. While the movie has relatively little action, that sequence and a few others deliver the type of propulsiveness for which Spielberg is revered, keeping the 145-minute film moving at a brisk pace.

Of the different types of alien movies Spielberg has made over the years, this one is closer to Close Encounters of the Third Kind than E.T. The story ponders the ethical, religious, political, and sociological effects that revealing the existence of aliens could have on the world. The debates had by various characters purposefully take the film out of being a sheer popcorn flick, forcing the audience to grapple with issues that they may have never considered before.

Unlike some other Spielberg films, he and Koepp don’t hold the audience’s collective hand throughout the story. There are a lot of times when viewers have to use context clues to understand exactly what is happening. That especially goes for an extremely important aspect of the world in which the story takes place that could pass you by if you’re only paying attention to the main characters’ dialogue. Spielberg’s using only subtle allusions for an element which would be the main focus of most other films is a fascinating choice.

O’Connor (Wake Up Dead Man, Challengers) has that everyman quality that a story like this needs. It always feels like it's him against the world, and does a terrific job of exuding both confidence and fear. Blunt delivers a fantastic performance, switching between confusion and composure with ease. Firth makes for a solid villain, and the story is helped by great turns from Domingo and Eve Hewson.

The idea that the nearly 80-year-old Steven Spielberg is still making blockbuster-style movies over 50 years after he made Jaws is astonishing, and the fact that he still knows how to make them work is even more impressive. Disclosure Day may not be the type of alien movie many were expecting, but it’s another high water mark in a career that has been full of them.

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Disclosure Day opens in theaters on June 12.

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