Cliff Notes

The Angelika dilemma: Will Houston support a downtown art house?

R.I.P. Angelika Film Center Bayou Place
Angelika Film Center in Dallas has been a big success
Photo courtesy of Angelika Film Center Dallas
Could the Alamo Drafthouse be a possible Houston art house savior?
The River Oaks Theatre is the city's only non-profit theater showing independentfilms exclusively. Would owner Landmark be interested in the Angelika space?
The Angelika space as it sits empty now.
Photo By Nic Phillips

When the Angelika Film Center opened in the brand new Bayou Place on Christmas Day 1997, it was a big boost for downtown Houston.

The nation's premier art house chose the Bayou City for its first location outside of New York and promised the latest in cutting-edge and independent films on eight screens, along with a lobby cafe. Houston film lovers were ecstatic.

But before long, Angelika screens were as likely to show mainstream blockbusters as that rare foreign film. Much of its target audience for broader-based fare hadn't been to downtown Houston in years and were thoroughly confused about the parking policy in the underground garage, which required them to get their ticket stamped or pay a garage attendant and get reimbursed at the box office. Business just wasn't that great.

So four years later, Ellen Cotter, whose family founded Angelika, came to Houston and promised a fresh start, with free valet parking and a return to "interesting films with an independent edge."

It's been downhill ever since.

Though film buffs hate to admit it, the Angelika has been on its last legs for a while now.

The free valet parking proved to be a failed experiment, the lobby restaurant closed a few years ago, and the theater had fallen into bad disrepair. When I went to see the Joan Rivers documentary a month ago, I was appalled at the dirty seats and paint peeling from the floors. And that was before the air conditioning failed in a couple of the theaters.

Meanwhile, in Dallas, Angelika is thriving, with two multiplexes in the trendy lower Greenville area and affluent Plano. I have a hard time believing Dallas is that much more open to independent cinema than Houston. So there must be another reason: Location.

When I interviewed Cotter in 2001, she was not happy about the downtown Houston location with its confusing parking situation. She much preferred the Dallas Angelika, located in a mixed-use complex, Mockingbird Station, with a stop on the popular light rail line.

It's hard to know who to believe over the Houston Angelika's abrupt closing — the Angelika posted a sign blaming the landlord for terminating its lease and the landlord issued a statement saying that Angelika "changed its mind" about "saying they would commit" (sounds like a really bad breakup to me) — but I'm not convinced that enough moviegoers are willing to trek downtown to make an art house there a roaring success.

Sure, Houstonians head downtown to the Theater District in large number for performances of the Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Broadway touring productions and the Alley Theater. But a cineplex is different. It depends on hundreds of patrons every night to turn a profit.

While the number of downtown residents has grown in recent years, it's still not enough to support a cineplex on its own. Houstonians are used to going to movies with adjoining acres of free parking and when we have to pay for parking — like at the Edwards Grand Palace Stadium 24 — we don't like it.

The only way for a downtown art house to survive is to offer the affluent moviegoing audience something they can't find elsewhere. A unique movie and a unique moviegoing experience.

Alamo Drafthouse or Studio Movie Grill are logical replacement choices because they have married a food-and-beverage experience with the movies and have achieved spectacular results in the Houston suburbs. The Angelika has a full kitchen, but the theaters would have to reconfigured for a premium moviegoing experience. It's gonna cost some bucks to do that because it will almost be like starting from scratch.

Alamo spokeswoman Lacy Smythe Edmundson won't confirm rumors that the Austin-based theater chain is looking at the Angelika space. "At this time we are looking to explore inside-the-Loop and are exploring different possibilities," she said.

Sundance Cinemas, a small chain affiliated with Robert Redford's film project, and Sunrise Cinemas, a 58-screen Florida chain that specializes in independent films and hosts The Miami Jewish Film Festival, France Cinema Floride, The Israel Film Festival and The Fort Lauderdale Gay and Lesbian Film Festival are also rumored to be looking at the Angelika space. Other possibilities: Landmark, which owns the River Oaks Theatre, and the California-based ArcLight cinema chain.

In a vaguely worded statement Gary Rhodes, general manager of Bayou Place Limited Partnership, said, "We will be upgrading Angelika with an operator of the highest quality and we will be making the announcement shortly."

I certainly hope so. But I'm not holding my breath.

So right now, the River Oaks Theatre is the only for-profit theater showing independent movies exclusively (on three screens). And rumors of its demise crop up constantly.

How embarrassing for a city that likes to tout itself "world class."

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Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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