The Oscars of the H

13 winners and one big loser to be named at Houston Film Critics Society Awards

Jeff Bridges in "True Grit"
Natalie Portman in "Black Swan"
"The Social Network"
"The King's Speech"
James Franco in "127 Hours"
"Black Swan"

Think of it as H-Town’s answer to the Academy Awards, or the Golden Globes. Only without the red carpet and all those annoying celebrities.

The Houston Film Critics Society will present its fourth annual year-end awards program this weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — festivities begin at 4 p.m. Saturday — and the organization has proudly announced that special tributes to George Clooney (winner of the 2010 HFCS Humanitarian Award) and Texas native Sissy Spacek (winner of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award) will be part of the program. Mind you, neither Clooney nor Spacek actually will be present to accept their accolades, but they’ll be honored nonetheless.

On the other hand, two other honorees, winners of the HFCS Outstanding Achievement in Cinema awards, are expected to be on hand: Hector Luna, founder and editor of C-47 Houston magazine, and Charles Dove, director of the Rice University Media Center.

As for the competitive prizes, Members of the HFCS — an organization representing 22 Houston area film critics for print, broadcast and online outlets — will announce winners in 13 categories (and a loser in the 14th, Worst Picture) during the MFAH program. Once again, none of the winners are expected to be on hand to claim a prize. But, hey, admission to the awards program is free and open to the public, and organizers promise a plethora of film clips to delight all movie buffs in attendance. Better still, after the show there’ll be a free-admission reception where avid discussions and diligent networking will be actively encouraged.

And if you’re in the mood to handicap the various HFCS award races, note that Best Picture hopefuls True Grit, The Social Network and 127 Hours lead the pack this year with six nominations each. The full list of nominees follows:

BEST PICTURE:
 127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
Kick Ass
The Kids are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

BEST DIRECTOR:
 Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
 Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
 Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit 
David Fincher, The Social Network
 Christopher Nolan, Inception

BEST ACTOR:
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
 Robert Duvall, Get Low
 Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network 
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
 James Franco, 127 Hours

BEST ACTRESS:
Annette Bening, The Kids are All Right 
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole 
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
 Natalie Portman, Black Swan 
Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: 
Christian Bale, The Fighter 
Andrew Garfield, The Social Network 
Bill Murray, Get Low
 Jeremy Renner, The Town 
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech 
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
 Julianne Moore, The Kids are All Right
 Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit 
Jackie Weaver, Animal Kingdom

BEST SCREENPLAY:
The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini (based on the novel Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell)
Toy Story 3, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich (story) and Michael Arndt (screenplay)
Inception, Christopher Nolan
The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin (based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich)

BEST ANIMATED FILM:
 Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
Tangled
Toy Story 3

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Roger Deakins, True Grit 
Matthew Libatique, Black Swan 
Anthony Dod Mantle & Enrique Chediak, 127 Hours 
Wally Pfister, Inception 
Eduardo Serra, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One

BEST DOCUMENTARY:
Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer
Marwencol
Restrepo
The Tillman Story
Waiting for Superman

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
Biutiful, Mexico
Carlos, France/Germany
Mother, South Korea
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sweden
The Secret in their Eyes, Argentina

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:
Carter Burwell, True Grit 
John Powell, How to Train your Dragon
 A.R. Rahman, 127 Hours 
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, The Social Network 
Hans Zimmer, Inception

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:
“If I Rise,” from 127 Hours, music by A.R. Rahman and lyrics by Dido Armstrong & Rollo Armstrong
 “Shine,” from Waiting for Superman, music & lyrics by John Legend
 “The Clap,” from Get Him to the Greek, music & lyrics by Dan Bern & Mike Viola 
“We are Sex Bob-Omb!” from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, music & lyrics by Beck 
“You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me,” from Burlesque, music & lyrics by Diane Warren

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:
 Furry Vengeance
Jonah Hex
Sex and the City 2
Splice
The Last Airbender

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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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