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Pantheon of Women aims to correct Hollywood’s failing

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Idea person: Patrick Kwiatkowski, CineSpace Star Ship Commander.

Idea: Screen short films about space.

How it started: More than 20 years ago, Kwiatkowski was a radio deejay in Paris. “I have always been more comfortable presenting the party than participating in it,” he says.
There, he met his future business partner, Joel Bachar, who was dabbling in the curation of short films. The two started a company called Microcinema, and developed Independent Exposure, an competition for short films.

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Let me be clear: I hate chick flicks. I also hate all Jane Austen movies. Both genre overflow with endless dialogue and angst, and, in the end, nothing actually happens. I would rather have my hand slammed in a car door as be forced to watch one. Let’s be even more clear about my taste in films: I’m a guy who believes that Spectre is a great film, and that We Were Soldiers is one fine piece of movie making. I like shoot ’em up, high tech action films that keep you engaged from opening to closing credits, and admit I’m simple minded and prefer films where something actually happens.

From that perspective, one can understand that when I saw that the new film I Dream Too Much was on the schedule in the primo Sunday evening time slot at this year’s Houston Cinema Arts Festival, I winced and gave fleeting consideration to packing along a pillow since it looked like a serious chick flick. After seeing it, however, I now know how wrong I was. This is no chick flick, at least as this guy perceives them.

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Let me be clear: I hate chick flicks. I also hate all Jane Austen movies. Both genre overflow with endless dialogue and angst, and, in the end, nothing actually happens. I would rather have my hand slammed in a car door as be forced to watch one. Let’s be even more clear about my taste in films: I’m a guy who believes that Spectre is a great film, and that We Were Soldiers is one fine piece of movie making. I like shoot ’em up, high tech action films that keep you engaged from opening to closing credits, and admit I’m simple minded and prefer films where something actually happens.

From that perspective, one can understand that when I saw that the new film I Dream Too Much was on the schedule in the primo Sunday evening time slot at this year’s Houston Cinema Arts Festival, I winced and gave fleeting consideration to packing along a pillow since it looked like a serious chick flick. After seeing it, however, I now know how wrong I was. This is no chick flick, at least as this guy perceives them.

CLICK HERE to entire article.

The Houston Cinema Arts Festival continues throughout the week concluding Thursday, November 19.

Monday – When I Live My Life Over Again unwinds at the Sundance Cinemas at 7 pm. Christopher Walken and Amber Heard star.

Tuesday – Cinespace 2015 unreels for free at 11 am. at the Sundance Cinemas. A unique series of shorts that incorporate NASA footage gets an encore screening after its sold-out show last Friday.

Wednesday – Peggy Guggenheim Art Addict explores the life of the heiress who used her wealth to advance the arts and build a substantial art collection while also bedding major artists of her time. 7 pm. at the Sundance.

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When film, space and art meet almost anything can happen. That seemed to be the gravity-defying message of Houston Cinema Arts Festival’s space day on Friday. The day of fictional and documentary films about our journey beyond Earth culminated in a night full of possibility and wonder.

Astronaut Scott Kelly, high above the world in the International Space Station, offered a recorded welcome to the audience at the MFAH’s Brown Auditorium for CineSpace, the short film competition organized by NASA and Cinema Arts. 194 films were submitted from 22 countries and 32 states. Sixteen finalists were chosen by committee and then the final judgment with Oscar nominated director Richard Linklater.

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IN WRITER-DIRECTOR KATIE COKINOS’S COMING-OF-AGE FILM, I Dream Too Much, post-grad anxiety is brought into full frame. The movie, which shows this Sunday at Houston Cinema Arts Festival, shines a light on life as a Millennial, brought to life through poignant, true-to-life moments.

As recent liberal arts grads, many of my friends and I spent months listless and lost after college. When I say this to Cokinos, she laughs and replies, “That was totally me too! I graduated from A&M with a history and philosophy degree and didn’t know what to do with my life…I was interested in capturing that time period after college—which is exciting but also a little stressful.”

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What would it take to raise a real sense of sorrow over the loss of someone who died nearly a half-century ago, even someone as iconic as Janis Joplin?

Time heals all wounds, the wisdom goes, but there’s a fresh melancholy that comes from watching Janis: Little Girl Blue. The film kicked off this year’s Houston Cinema Arts Festival last night at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Archival footage, new interviews and a narrative built from Joplin’s letters home, as read by Chan Marshall — better known as Cat Power — were meant to be a music film instead of a biopic, according to filmmaker Amy Berg, who was on hand for the screening.

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