There are lots of things to celebrate today: avocados, chili dogs, and lifeguards among them. Amid all that appreciation, here are a few more things coming up this week to appreciate. This weekend, we’ve got the return of our hometown Shakespeare Festival, the best cat videos a cat video expert could find, and an opportunity to get up close and personal with dinosaurs. Keep reading for these and more that made this week’s list of best bets.
It’s been argued that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan remains – after 40 years and a JJ Abrams-Justin Lin reboot trilogy – “the greatest Star Trek movie.” Tonight, Thursday, July 31, at 6 p.m., you can see a screening of Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 film at the House of Blues with special guest William Shatner. The man who originated the role of Captain James T. Kirk recently described the film to the Houston Press as “a meaningful film, as it a very emotional film – it tugs at your heart,” adding that after the film, he talks “to the audience for an hour or more to answer questions and tell stories about the making of the film. The audience and I then have a mystical connection.” Tickets are available here for $55 to $105.
In 2003, Algeria-born director Alexandre Arcady published Le petit blond de la casbah, a memoir of his childhood in Algiers before his family fled the war-torn country when Arcady was in his teens. Arcady later adapted his story into the 2023 dramedy The Blond Boy from the Casbah, which not only screened during this year’s Houston Jewish Film Festival back in March but won the festival’s Audience Choice Award. Tonight, Thursday, July 31, the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston will bring back the semi-autobiographical film, in which Arcady’s filmmaker stand-in Antoine returns to the country to show a film about his childhood with his young son in tow, for an encore showing at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available here for $16 to $21.
This year, Houston Shakespeare Festival will bring the Bard’s Henry V and As You Like It to Miller Outdoor Theatre to play in repertory starting tonight. University of Houston alum Michael Thatcher, who is playing the title role in Henry V, recently told the Houston Press that “Shakespeare is still as relevant today as it was when it was written. It’s also just a good time.” Henry V will be performed on July 31 and August 2, 4, 6 and 8, while As You Like It will be performed on August 1, 5, 7 and 9. Each night, curtain is scheduled for 8:15 p.m. with a pre-show Bard Talk at 7:45 p.m. Tickets are free, but covered seating can be reserved at 10 a.m. the day of the performance. Two performances will also be livestreamed on the Miller Outdoor Theatre website, YouTube channel and Facebook page.
If there’s one thing this summer’s release of Jurassic World Rebirth has taught us, it’s that the general public’s appetite for dinosaur-related content is as strong as ever. If you’re one of those dino-lovers and you’re in need of a family-friendly activity, you might want to check out Jurassic Quest on Friday, August 1, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the NRG Center. The interactive dinosaur experience promises life-size dinosaurs (like an 80-foot-long Apatosaurus), rides, fossil digs, a Baby Dinosaur Show, Raptor Training Experience, and more. The fun continues Saturday, August 2, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, August 3, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets (which are also good for LEGO-extravaganza Brick Fest Live) can be purchased here for $30.08 to $92.86.
Celebrate the works of a celebrated Japanese filmmaker at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, when they open Akira Kurosawa: The Eternal Master on Friday, August 1, at 7 p.m. with a screening of his “scalding 1949 cop thriller” Stray Dog. In the film, which features an “extended closeup shot of a mad dog snarling into the camera over the opening credits,” the search for a stolen gun “leads us on a tour of the city scene by scene into a world of poverty, cynicism and violence” over the course of “one sweltering summer in postwar Tokyo.” The series continues through August 24 with screenings of Ikiru, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and High and Low. Tickets for individual screenings can be purchased for $7 to $9.
The latest book from New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus, Angel Down, has been called a “thunderous gallop of a war novel,” and “a stylistically delightful literary novel and a best-in-class example of speculative fiction,” as it does find a heavenly creature suddenly in the midst of “the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I.” On Friday, August 1, at 7:15 p.m., Brazos Bookstore will welcome Kraus to River Oaks Theatre for a screening of a film selected by Kraus himself: Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 adaptation of Humphrey Cobb’s 1935 novel Paths of Glory, considered “among the most powerful antiwar films ever made.” Kraus will introduce the film and follow it with a Q&A and book signing. Tickets are available here for $15.
Since 2016, Will Braden, who by Roger Ebert’s estimations created the “best internet cat video ever made,” has been curating Cat Video Fest, a yearly compilation of feline-featuring videos that you can catch at River Oaks Theatre on Saturday, August 2, at 11 a.m. Braden has said that “the whole point of Cat Video Fest is taking this individual thing of watching cat videos — whether you’re doing it on your computer at work when you’re supposed to be working or on your phone or on your iPad — and turning it into a communal experience.” The 75-minute reel of cat videos will also be screened at 1:30, 3:45, and 6:15 p.m. Tickets are available here for $12 (with a portion of all proceeds going to Friends for Life – Houston).
