Photo by lorigoldberg

These ladies know what's up.

Awesome fancy hats should not be reserved for British weddings, the Kentucky Derby and Downton Abbey-themed parties. Awesome fancy hats should be worn often, and the perfect time to start is now. Why don't people wear hats anymore? Is it because we have decided that hat etiquette is just too much work? Or are our heads just too hot from all the (ALLEGED) global warming?

There are so many reasons to wear awesome hats, and in Houston -- where the sunshine is so. freaking. relentless. -- what better time to look into procuring oneself an amazing summer chapeau?

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We admit that Juan of the Dead is among our favorite films being screened on Friday as part of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Latin Wave 8 film festival. The political satire that director Alejandro Brugués infuses in this over-the-top comedy is absolutely delicious. Unemployed Juan (wonderfully played by Alexis Díaz de Villegas) and his friends are among a handful of human survivors when zombies invade the island nation of Cuba. Juan soon realizes that there's money to be made off the situation, killing and disposing of zombies for those not so inclined. He sets up a hotline, answering the phone, "Juan of the Dead. We kill your loved ones for you. How can I help you?"

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Much of comedian Anjelah Johnson's stand-up is based on ongoing characters. In town for a weekend stint, including Friday, Johnson is sure to pull out Tammy, the noisy Vietnamese manicurist with a heavy, almost unintelligible accent. (It was a YouTube video of her nail salon routine that helped launch Johnson's career.) And then there's Bon Qui Qui, the smart-mouthed former fast-food worker who constantly called for security to deal with ''difficult'' customers (she had a really low threshold for special orders: "No cheese, please." "Ah, sacurrity!"). Bon Qui Qui also had a turn as an unhelpful flight attendant ("Don't get crazy!" she'd admonish passengers who interrupted her boom-box performance on the plane's public address system).

Now Johnson has recorded a music video and EP as the ghetto-fabulous cutie. The video is dedicated to Bon Qui Qui past/present/and future philandering boyfriends. It's called "I'm A Cut You."

Johnson says her latest character is her husband of two years, Manwell Reyes from Group 1 Crew. ''I talk a lot about getting used to married life, about my husband. He gives me plenty of material.''

Catch Anjelah Johnson at 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 7 and 9:15 p.m. Sunday. Improv Comedy Showcase, 7620 Katy Freeway. For information, visit the club's Web site or call 713‑333-8800. $35 to $45.

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Friday is the second night of a two-day run by Grupo Corpo. In 1988, choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras had a career-defining moment: "I started thinking about what it would be like to make a dance that would be more inside our body." Grupo Corpo, now making its Houston debut courtesy of the Society for the Performing Arts, has been exploring that idea ever since. Pederneiras, part of the family that founded the Grupo Corpo dance troupe, incorporates elements of classical ballet, capoeira, samba and ballroom dance into his contemporary choreography in what's been called "an intensely Brazilian way." The Grupo Corpo style is easily identifiable, marked by loose-jointed, swiveling hips and swift and precise footwork, with low leaps and lifts. The dancers are often attired in bodysuits that have been painted with various signs and symbols.

During its stop in Houston, the company presents ímã (which means "magnet" in Portuguese) and Sem Mim (which means "without me" in Portuguese). ímã is set to a jazzy score by the Brazilian trio +2, while Sem Mim features an original score composed by Carlos Núñez, a traditional Galician bagpipe player.

Grupo Corpo performs at 8 p.m. Friday at the Wortham Theater Center, 501 Texas. For information, visit the SPA Web site or call 713-227-4772. $35 to $65.

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You'll have two chances to catch the MountainFilm on Tour film festival, with screenings on Friday and Saturday. Since 2000, MountainFilm on Tour has been going on tour around the country to bring its unique adventure and avant-garde showcases to a wider audience. This year the festival gives Houstonians the chance to see Tiffany Shlain's Yelp (With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"). Clocking in at just over five minutes, the Peter Coyote-narrated short is a raging, ranting essay on the apathy that comes from being part of a society always plugged into an ever-widening net of online connectivity. The result plays like a good Bill Hicks end piece, but with the urgency and scope of a Great Dictator. More epic in scale is Jeff Orlowski's documentary Chasing Ice. The film follows James Balog as he chronicles the melting of -glaciers all over the world with time-lapse -photography. The footage, which inevitably shows the giant masses of ice shrinking remarkably quickly, is alarming.

See MountainFilm on Tour 7 to 11 p.m. Friday, 6 to 11 p.m. Saturday. Asia Society Texas Center, 1370 Southmore. For information, visit the Asia Society Texas Center website or call 713‑496‑9901. $35 to $60.

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It could be worse!

This Carnival cruise ship just can't seem to catch a break, or rather, that's all it seems to be catching. The ship has been stranded since Sunday due to a fire in its propulsion system, and without the engines they seem to have lost a lot of the necessities. Slowly, the ship is being towed back to shore and was due to arrive Thursday evening but another snag has left the cruiser dead in the water (zing?). The tow ship, which had been pulling the boat to shore, snapped its tow line. Where the hell is Little Toot when you need him?

Apparently being stuck on a disabled cruise ship for five days is not all it's cracked up to be. Guests are complaining of overflowing toilets, feces and urine covering the decks, lack of food and the cancelation of bingo. It could be worse, though; you could be at work today and not have a Valentine and be forced to watch everyone around you get flowers and candy and have orgies. Glass is half full, people!

Terrible things happen at sea. Here are five movies to illustrate this point (Titanic not included).

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Photo by John Hritz

We urge to think, quite literally, outside of this box.

Yeah, yeah, we know. "Valentine's Day is stupid! A manufactured holiday designed to sell stuff! If you love someone you should show them every day!" Blah, blah, blah! Celebrate, or don't, but for those who do--and who are scrambling for gift ideas--we have some suggestions.

For starters, if your S.O. isn't into flowers or candy, skip the flowers and candy--they're too generic for someone who doesn't really like either. We looked around Houston and found a few better options than a box of Whitman's and a bouquet of gas station flowers.

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Photo by George Hixson

The cast of Fleaven

Still haven't planned out your weekend? We've got a few suggestions for you, starting with Catastrophic Theatre's Fleaven. It was American Falls that snagged actor/playwright Miki Johnson the Best Playwright nod at the Houston Press's Houston Theater Awards last August. Falls is Johnson's first-ever produced work, but Fleaven, produced here by Catastrophic Theatre, is actually her first playwriting effort. The show's title is a mash-up of two characters' names: Flame, a disco star wannabe, and Heaven, an international disco star who left Flame behind on the road to fame. The setting is a mall -- a disco mall. The dialogue is in rap-influenced rhyme...spoken by people on roller skates...who also sing sometimes. "You definitely can't talk about it seriously for long, because it gets ridiculous," Johnson tells us, laughing. "But really, it's about a friendship that's very broken."

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Photo illustration by John Seaborn Gray

As you already know, George Lucas has sold Lucasfilm to Disney. In turn, Disney immediately announced plans to release a new Star Wars film in 2015, and not just any Star Wars film -- not another CGI prequel, in other words -- but the next installment in the ongoing saga, the fabled Episode 7.

It's too early to get really excited about the project, but we can't help it. We love the original Star Wars trilogy, and were among the many, many people disappointed at how badly the prequels turned out. Well, okay, Revenge of the Sith was all right, but those first two really made us wonder what happened to George Lucas in the intervening years. How did one guy go from having a bounty hunter badass shoot an adversary dead in cold blood to writing lines like "Mooie mooie I love you!" for a digital frog-faced Stepin Fetchit?

Fears of our own softening and worsening with age as projected onto one filmmaker aside, the fact is that George Lucas won't be involved with Episode 7 as anything other than a creative consultant. That is great, great news. Writers Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan and director Irvin Kirschner gave us the best installment in the series, The Empire Strikes Back, so it's a proven fact that other people can work wonders with Lucas's material. Assuming the studio is smart enough to realize that doing Star Wars right and not letting hacks like Bret Ratner or Michael Bay anywhere near it will make them bazillions of dollars, this could be the resurrection that the fans have been waiting for.

So who should have the honors? Let's take a look at our ideal contenders.

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Photo by IMLS Digital Collections & Content

For someone who loves to shop, get dressed up and play with makeup, I have an almost irrational hatred of dressing up for Halloween. It amazes even me, the degree to which I dislike all aspects of the Halloween costume -- from conception, to planning, to execution. It's not just the costume, it's the entire holiday. I don't have a big sweet tooth, so the candy doesn't do it for me. I don't particularly love horror films (I'm more of a psychological thriller/detective story kind of gal). And I just don't want to dress up in a costume -- I don't even want to hand out candy. When we lived in New York, I would turn off the porch light and tie my dog to the porch to dissuade trick-or-treaters.

So, yeah -- I'm a Halloween Grinch. But you know what? To crib the words of the great John Lennon, I know I'm not the only one. I know I have people out there who feel the same way. People who, like me, get invitations to parties (yay!) and are then required to cook up a Halloween costume (boo!).

I've got your back. Behold: Halloween costumes for people who hate Halloween costumes. THE LIST.

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