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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Houston Cinema Arts Festival one

I've seen my share of flicks while here, and leading up to my departure on Tuesday, it seems somehow fitting to attend the Houston Cinema Arts Society film festival. You can check out the schedule here. I stumbled over to their headquarters to check out Lech Majewski's "Brueghel Suite", a three HD panel triptych of Rutger Hauer as the painter bringing his re-visioning of the landscape into being.

 I spoke to Trish Rigden, the Society's executive director about signing up for a membership (which I did; it's a worthy cause) and she was kind enough to give me a day pass and a free admission to the film of my choice (I went for "Eames: the Architect and the Painter" about Charles and Ray Eames' lives and influence) and moseyed on my way. I mentioned meeting Trish to my sister who told me that Trish and her husband and my brother-in-law were great friends and had co-founded the society, as well as Trish having hired Jim at Rice. It's a small, wonderful world and from what I've seen, the society's a fine part of Jim's legacy.

The day before yesterday we saw "A Dangerous Method"' Cronenberg's film of Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Freud's (Viggo Mortensen) friendship and falling out, as well as Jung's involvement with Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightly). The performances were on point (keep an eye out for a craaaazy good turn by Vincent Cassel), but as I recall, there is little firm evidence that Jung and Sabina actually consummated their relationship. I was wondering if Cronenberg wasn't grafting Toni Wolff's relationship onto the character in order to make the timeline fit. It's a film that's bursting with thoughtful dialog and ideas. A film I would really like to see would be, in fact, centered on Emma Jung and how she dealt with Jung and the entry of Wolff into their lives...Maybe a sequel for Cronenberg to consider?


Yesterday was a double feature with the Eames documentary, another thought-provoking film that I won't belabor right now, and Ralph Fiennes' debut as a director with "Coriolanus". Holy shit, was it good. Not only were the usual suspects great (Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain and Brian Cox) but it was nice to see Gerard Butler actually acting again, and quite well.


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