Nov. 9-13 in Houston

Ethan Hawke and Texas premieres of Oscar contenders The Artist and Coriolanusheadline Cinema Arts Festival Houston

Ethan Hawke
"The Artist" is expected to be an Oscar contender
Coriolanus, starring Ralph Fiennes, is also eagerly anticipated.

Multi-talented actor/writer/director Ethan Hawke and screenings of several films that are likely favorites for this year's Academy Awards are among the highlights of the third annual Cinema Arts Festival Houston, officials announced Monday night at The Grove.

Hawke, an actor on stage and screen (Reality Bites, Before Sunrise, Training Day, Gattaca), director of the movie Chelsea Walls and the stage play Things We Want, and author of well-received novels, The Hottest State and Ash Wednesday, will receive the festival's Levantine Cinema Arts Award.

The award honors a leading actor, director or other creative artist who has stretched the boundaries of cinematic expression. Last year's honoree was Isabella Rossellini.

"We wanted to give it to an artist who has embraced all art forms in his career. Ethan embodies that," Cinema Arts Festival Houston artistic director Richard Herskowitz told CultureMap.

"We wanted to give it to an artist who has embraced all art forms in his career. Ethan embodies that," Cinema Arts Festival Houston artistic director Richard Herskowitz told CultureMap. "He exactly fits the bill of what we are looking for — a young actor who sees no boundaries at all. Film is simply the starting point for him."

Hawke, 40, will present his latest film, The Woman in the Fifth, on Nov. 12 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Brown Auditorium, and talk about his career in a question-and-answer session with CultureMap contributor, film teacher and critic Joe Leydon afterwards.

The next day, Hawkeʼs good friend, director Richard Linklater, will join him for a 10th anniversary screening of their 2001 collaboration, Tape, at Edwards Greenway Grand Palace.

The festival, which is unique because it combines elements of an art fair with a traditional film fest, also plans a full slate of interactive installations and live performances with films in several locations across Houston Nov. 9-13.

"We have constantly built up the live performance element,"Herskowitz said. "The original vision was to make this a festival where all the arts participate. I feel like it's getting closer and closer to what that original dream was."

Among the live installations:

The Donald Sosin Ensemble, featuring vocalist Joanna Seaton and student players from Rice Universityʼs Shepherd School of Music, will perform live to accompany the recently rediscovered silent classic, Upstream (1927), at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Nov. 13.
In collaboration with the Aurora Picture Show, filmmaker, video artist and documentarian Braden King will present his new feature film, Here, on Nov. 11 at the Edwards Greenway Grand Palace, as well as a live hybrid film-concert Here [The Story Sleeps] at Talento Bilingue de Houston on Nov. 12.
Miwa Matreyek will present her latest performance – "Myth and Infrastructure" – at Talento Bilingue de Houston on Nov. 11. Meyek performs in a multimedia production using projected animation she has created.
As previously reported, the festival will kick off Nov. 9 with the regional premiere of Downtown Express, featuring a performance by the film's star, Russian-American violinist Philippe Quint.

Three upcoming releases with Oscar potential will be screened at the festival:

The Artist, a silent movie filmed in black-and-white about a relationship between a star whose popularity is on the wane with the advent of talkies and a young-actress-on-the-rise, has won rave reviews at major international film festivals.
Coriolanus, starring and directed by Ralph Fiennes, is a 2011 adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy about a banished hero of Rome who allies with a sworn enemy to take his revenge on the city.
David Cronenbergʼs A Dangerous Method is based on the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), the troubled but beautiful young woman who comes between them.

In another new element this year, the festival is bringing three major international directors — Patricio Guzmán (Chile), Zhu Wen (China), and Mahmoud Kaabour (Lebanon) — to present their latest films.

Closing night (Nov. 13) promises two blockbusters: The world premiere of Art Car: The Movie at Miller Outdoor Theater and Pina, a 3-D movie by director Wim Wenders about dance great Pina Bosch, at the Edwards Greenway Grand Palace.

One reason for the strong lineup: Although in only its third year, the festival has earned a reputation as a "go-to" place for new or unusual movies. "We've got more clout," Herskowitz said.

A full schedule as can be found on the Cinema Arts Festival Houston website.

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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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