Now in its eighth year, Latin Wave: New Films from Latin America is bigger and better than ever. Standout hits from the 2013 festival included emerging Argentine writer/director/producer Carlos Sorin's Días de Pesca (Gone Fishing). The family drama about a man searching for his estranged daughter received a Special Jury Prize at La Habana Film Festival. This is the second Latin Wave outing for Sorin, who made a splash at the first year's screenings with El Perro. Juan de los Muertos (Juan of the Dead), sort of a Shaun of the Dead zombie comedy set in Cuba, was also on the schedule. Latin Wave is produced by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Fundación Proa (Buenos Aires) and Tenaris.

The Silo is such an alternative venue it's barely even open. In fact, the converted rice mill deep in Fifth Ward is open to the public only on rare occasions, such as when the Art Car Ball (almost) got rained out earlier this year. Billing itself on Facebook as "the place where the improbable becomes the possible," the Silo's seven-acre spread is home to an automobile graveyard, urban farming, film productions and screenings, experimental theater and tribal performance art, as well as the more traditional weddings and massive dance parties. But nothing about this place is traditional, really. If you ever want to get married in a backdrop that could have come from The Road Warrior or are looking for somewhere to hold an event that involves the words "Let's Burn Some Shit" on the flyer, then the Silo is the place you want. That almost certainly makes it the only venue of its kind in town.

On the first and fourth Fridays of the month, this is totally the place to get your geek on. Joystix, which adjoins the neighboring 1820 Bar, is a veritable nerd-fest in its own right, and when they open those doors and allow for open play while you sip on stout drinks from next door, it's a gamer's utopia. From the sweet old-school pinball machines and classic arcade games like Pac-Man and Galaga that line the walls, this place is a rad trip down memory lane, only this time you're old enough to drink while playing Centipede.

Red Cat Jazz Cafe is the kind of place you'd imagine a jazz club would look and sound like, and it now looks even more chic since recently moving into its new quarters a block or two from Buffalo Bayou. With crimson walls and tablecloths, ebony accents and Neimanesque pastel portraits of past jazz greats, the Red Cat is an ideal spot to see regional jazz talents such as Theresa Grayson or Stephen Richard, or occasional out-of-town ringers like HSPVA-reared Grammy winner Robert Glasper. Needless to say, it also makes a damn fine date spot.

Following her spectacular performance in Stanton Welch's La Bayadère earlier this year, Caracas native Karina Gonzalez was promoted to principal dancer of the Houston Ballet. It was just one of a long string of successful performances Gonzalez has enjoyed over the three years she's been with the company. Along with principal roles in Welch's Indigo, Divergence, Clear and Tapestry, Gonzalez recently appeared in the world premiere of Edwaard Liang's Murmuration, a work specially commissioned for the Houston Ballet. Delicate and lithe onstage, she performs with great emotion and technical prowess.

With a decent amount of local talent, Houston deserves more stages to feature homegrown comics. Thankfully, Rudz has stepped forward to devote one night a week to nurturing newcomers and showcasing seasoned vets with its "A Couple of Stand Up Guys" shows. Every Monday at 8 p.m. (as of this writing), you can check out a rotating cast of characters, for free — you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find a more fun way to spend a Monday night. Especially if your next Monday night involves going to a funeral. Trust us, this'll be waaaay funnier.

A pre-WWII converted house with an actual rose garden out back, the Rose Garden could also be Houston's leading time warp. The north Heights beer joint resembles somebody's den — toaster oven, mini-fridge, pool table, dusty dartboard in the corner — but the room is dominated by the jukebox, an imposing six-foot-tall piece of amusement equipment that may be the most recent bit of technology on the premises. It's almost surprising that it doesn't play 45s, really, but the juke is stocked with dozens of CDs. Some are greatest hits by artists well known to the Garden's older clientele (Faron Young, Diana Ross & the Supremes, The Eagles), but the vast majority are custom jobs that usually run more than 30 songs a pop, all manner of icehouse-approved artists like Jo-El Sonnier, Boogie Kings, Dwight Yoakam, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Dale Watson, Dean Martin, Roy Orbison, Johnny Rodriguez, Marvin Gaye, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Johnny and Rosanne Cash, and way too many more to list here. That's thousands of songs, any of which sounds perfect with a cold one at Rose's cozy little corner of Houston.

Anvil doesn't have bartenders; it has bar superheroes. From the Anvil-exclusive cocktail list to their ability to read minds and build a custom cocktail based on your taste preferences, these guys (and gals) are the real deal. Think barkeep of old; they're trained in their craft, and they're trained well. So well, in fact, that they have been described as being reminiscent of a prohibition-era speakeasy, with the bar ambience to boot. From the spicy Pliny's Tonic to the house-made ginger beer, Anvil is a virtual cocktail utopia aimed at the grown-ups in the crowd.

Peter Lucas repeats as Best Curator. Last year's win was based on his work with Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's "Perspectives 178: CINEPLEX," while this year it was his work with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Jazz on Film series, a monthlong showcase of classic and rarely seen films that illustrated the long and sometimes tenuous relationship between jazz music and the movies. Feature films in the series included Martin Ritt's 1961 drama Paris Blues, which starred Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as American expats trying to find their way as jazz musicians in Paris. French cinematographer Christian Matras's images added to its gritty luster. Also on the schedule was Shirley Clarke's 1985 documentary Ornette: Made in America and Arthur Penn's 1965 Mickey One starring Warren Beatty (a pre-Bonnie and Clyde collaboration between the two). Lucas was able to secure all the films on 35-mm and 16-mm film.

The William Reaves Fine Art gallery specializes in Texas art, from early (Jose Arpa) to modern (John Biggers) to contemporary (Laura Lewis). Home to the ongoing "Texas Aesthetic" exhibition series, the gallery hosted "Broadening the Texas Perspective: Rediscovered Paintings by Emma Richardson Cherry," "The Paths to Abstraction: Paintings by Otis Huband and Jim Woodson" and "North Texas Recalled: The Painterly Chronicles of Jack Erwin" during the past year. Each was another step in unraveling the sometimes tangled history of Texas art.