The end of the year is fast approaching, but we’ve still got you covered for all your things-to-do needs. This week, we’ve picked a handful of events, including classic films (two seen in entirely new ways), carols with a mariachi twist, and more, so keep reading before making your plans for the weekend.
If you’re in the mood for a contemporary holiday classic, you can find a certain Will Ferrell comedy over at Market Square Park on Thursday, December 19, at 6 p.m. when Downtown Houston presents Elf as part of their Movies Under the Stars series. The 2003 film, which stars Ferrell as William “Buddy” Hobbs, a suspiciously oversized elf who discovers he’s human and journeys from the North Pole to New York City to find his real father, was an immediate hit at the box office that turned into an instant classic, one which has spawned a video game, an animated special, and a Broadway musical. Be sure to bring a blanket to sit on for the free film screening, which you can register for here.
On Thursday, December 19, at 7:30 p.m., Mercury Chamber Orchestra will bring early carols from the British Isles to Saengerhalle in the Heights during English Baroque Christmas. The hourlong concert will feature a seven-piece ensemble made up of Mercury musicians and four vocalists: alto Michael Skarke, bass Joshua Wilson, soprano Melanie Piché Miller, and tenor Cody Ryan Arthur. Limited tickets to the performance remain and can be purchased here for $35 (with student tickets also available for $10). If you can’t make it, the concert, part of Mercury’s Neighborhood Series, will travel around the area all weekend, with additional stops at places like the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Dosey Doe Big Barn in Spring. You can find more information here.
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Jacques Demy’s 1964 Palme d’Or-winning film, is “one of the most famous non-Hollywood musicals of all time,” and on Friday, December 20, at 7 p.m., you can catch it on a big screen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Starring Catherine Deneuve as the daughter of an umbrella seller who is separated from her beloved by war, the whole film is sung and “ripples across the screen in a rainbow of pretty pastel colours and a breathy susurration of high notes.” It also spawned a song covered by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Cher: “I Will Wait for You.” The film will also be screened on Saturday, December 21, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, December 22, at 2 p.m. Tickets to any of the screenings can be purchased here for $7 to $9.
Though it may be up for debate whether it’s a Christmas movie, now’s the time to experience John McClane’s epic fight against terrorists as a one-man poetry play in Yippee Ki Yay: The Parody Celebration of Die Hard on Friday, December 20, at 7:30 p.m. The show, brought to the Wortham Theater Center by Performing Arts Houston, was created by Richard Marsh during lockdown. Marsh recently told the Houston Press that his ideas “often start with something that makes me laugh,” saying too that “everyone comes to this for Die Hard, but they leave having laughed their asses off and seeing these crazy stunts done by one person on stage.” The show will also be performed on Saturday, December 21, at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available here for $39 to $69.
Yet another holiday tradition returns on Friday, December 20, at 7:30 p.m. when the Houston Symphony, under Conductor Jonathan Cohen and with the Houston Symphony Chorus and four vocalists, presents Handel’s Messiah at Jones Hall. Rebecca Zabinski, the Symphony’s senior director of artistic planning, says the piece tells the “nativity story through Christ’s passion and crucifixion and death, and eventually his resurrection and victory over sin” and, of course, includes the “iconic” Hallelujah Chorus. The concert will be performed two additional times, on Saturday, December 21, at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday, December 22, at 2 p.m. Tickets to the in-hall performances are available here for $54 to $145. The Saturday night performance will also be livestreamed, and access can be purchased here for $20.
You could spend Christmas Day checking out Bill Skarsgård’s take on Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’s remake of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror classic, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, or you can head over to River Oaks Theatre on Sunday, December 22, at 5:15 p.m. to see the original as never before – with a score pulled entirely from Radiohead. Yes, during Silents Synched: NOSFERATU x RADIOHEAD, you can see the hundred-year-old, “legally problematic Dracula rip-off” starring Max Schreck set to music by the band Rolling Stone dubbed “rock’s most innovative,” specifically, Radiohead’s 2000 album Kid A and their 2001 album Amnesiac. The film will be screened a second time on Sunday, December 22, at 10 p.m. Tickets are available here for $11.11 to $13.89.
People tend to have set plans for the holidays, but we’ve got a suggestion for a little pre-Christmas Eve fun – especially if you like your holidays with a little mariachi flavor. If so, you’ll want to head over to Jones Hall on Monday, December 23, at 7:30 p.m. when Mariachi Sol De Mexico de José Hernández presents: José Hernández’ Merry-Achi Christmas. Hernández, a Grammy-nominated, seven-generation mariachi musician, founded Mariachi Sol De México in 1981, and on Monday you can hear the longtime group put their mariachi spin on a number of seasonal classics, like “Little Drummer Boy” (or “El Niño del tambor”), “A Song of Joy,” and a medley of music from The Nutcracker. Tickets can be purchased here for $52 to $125.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
