Film

Chron • 14th September 2023

'Cassandro' tells the story of El Paso’s most flamboyant luchador

In the late 1980s, El Paso-born luchador Saúl Armendáriz was finding middling success working across the border in Juarez, one of hundreds of wrestlers on the grueling, low-paying lucha libre circuit. Armendáriz performed as a rudo, known to American wrestling fans as a heel, and almost always wrestled in a mask that hid his true identity. Then, under the advice of his mentor Babe Sharon, he decided to reveal himself—a queer Mexican American man trying to make it big in a hypermasculine industry

Chron • 27th July 2023

What to know about Travis Scott’s ‘Circus Maximus’ movie

It's been a weird week for Travis Scott. First, the rapper and native Houstonian cryptically announced the "end of an era" for Astroworld, his short-lived music festival that was the site of a crowd crush in November 2021, killing 10 people.

Then on Wednesday, his massive concert slated to take place at the Pyramids of Giza outside of Cairo, Egypt, was abruptly canceled, with concert promoter Live Nation citing "complex production issues." The concert, slated to take place Friday evening, was m

Chron • 18th May 2023

Houston's historic River Oaks Theatre is finally reopening

River Oaks Theatre, the Art Deco movie theater that for years was known for its midnight movies and independent film screenings, is planning to reopen by the end of 2023.

The opening timeline was announced May 17 in a press release from Culinary Khancepts, the company behind local restaurants ​​State Fair and Liberty Kitchen. Culinary Khancepts, which also owns Star Cinema Grill, took over the theater in February 2022 with much fanfare, including a press conference with Houston Mayor Sylvester

Chron • 17th May 2023

Video: Texas stars push legislation to bring more filmmaking to state

A group of Texas-born Hollywood stars, including Houston's own Dennis Quaid, have teamed up to film an online commercial in support of legislation that will bring more incentives to filmmakers who choose to make movies in Texas.

The campaign, called Good For Texas, features Dallas native Owen Wilson, Midland's Woody Harrelson, Uvalde's Matthew McConaughey, Austinite Glen Powell, and honorary Texan Billy Bob Thornton speaking in support of several bills currently making their way through the Tex

Chron • 4th May 2023

Here's what Owen Wilson saw at the Menil Collection this week

Movie star and native Dallasite Owen Wilson made a stop at Houston's Menil Collection this week, according to a picture from the museum posted to Instagram on Wednesday. The actor, known for movies like Wedding Crashers, Marley & Me, and his longtime collaboration with Houston-born filmmaker Wes Anderson, visited the museum on May 3, according to the post. The image shows Wilson standing beneath one of the museum's stately oak trees outside the Cy Twombly Gallery, and is filled with numerous "wo

Chron • 11th April 2023

Houston author Nick Flynn channels dead mystic in new adaptation

Houston author Nick Flynn has spent the better part of a decade trying to bring an epic poem by Romantic writer William Blake to the stage. During that time, he's endured hurricanes in the North Sea and a global pandemic. Now, a film version of that performance is set to make its world premiere in Houston this weekend at the Silos at Sawyer Yards.

The performance, called The Nine Dreams, will be an immersive experience featuring nine filmed vignettes, each about five minutes long, installed ins

Chron • 22nd February 2023

Houston's premier experimental cinema is relocating

Aurora Picture Show, the experimental "microcinema" founded in Houston in 1998, will be moving into a new home in the East End Cultural District later this year.

The new location, at 201 Roberts Street, is part of The Plant, a community development in the Second Ward being built in 13 historic industrial buildings that once served as the headquarters of oil field manufacturer W-K-M. The new development, between Harrisburg Boulevard and Buffalo Bayou East, will include restaurants, retail, gathe

Chron • 10th November 2022

How Numbers became the epicenter of Houston's gay scene

Nearly everywhere film director Marcus Pontello goes, they run into someone familiar with Numbers, the long-standing Montrose nightclub best known for its popular '80s night, Classic Numbers. A man at a New Orleans cafe who'd grown up in Dickenson. A Houstonian now living in Toronto who'd been a regular at the club. A woman in Nashville who worked as a coat check girl for the venue in the early '90s.

Pontello has been crisscrossing the country the past few months, screening their documentary ab

Chron • 28th October 2022

Diane Severin Nguyen finds beauty in K-pop and TikTok

In a recent interview with Art21, Diane Severin Nguyen, whose new solo show opens this weekend at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, tells an anecdote about growing up the child of Vietnamese immigrants who sometimes struggled with American culture.

"I came home to visit my mom and she was out in the garden, just stabbing fake flowers into the ground amongst real flowers," she said. "For her there was no difference. The fake flowers and the real flowers were filling up the yard and making it

Houstonia Magazine • 10th February 2020

J.R. Martinez Talks Inclusive Power of the Arts

When J.R. Martinez returned from Iraq, he didn’t want to be labeled a “disabled veteran.”

In 2003, when he was just 19, Martinez's Humvee hit a roadside bomb. He sustained severe burns to a third of his body and was in a coma for nearly a week. But as he began his healing process, he knew he didn’t want to be pigeonholed.

“Naturally, when you hear ‘disabled veteran,’ you think of someone who is not physically capable or mentally capable or emotionally capable,” he says. “And so my tagline is,