Rose Byrne has been highly visible on the big screen in horror flicks like the Insidious franchise, superhero adventures such as X-Men: First Class, and multiple comedies including Bridesmaids, Spy, and Instant Family. The Australian actress received Emmy nods for her supporting role in the acclaimed Damages in 2009 and 2010.
She has yet to have a cinematic vehicle that’s driven significant awards talk. That may change this year with If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Focused on the not so great aspects of motherhood (there are comparisons to Nightbitch), Byrne is being lauded in Mary Bronstein’s second directorial feature. The eclectic supporting cast includes Conan O’Brien (who’ll be hosting the Oscars in a few weeks), Danielle Macdonald, Delaney Quinn, A$AP Rocky, and Christian Slater.
Premiering at Sundance, critics are already proclaiming Byrne’s performance as a 2025 highlight. I would expect distributor A24 to mount a serious campaign for Best Actress. The frenetic energy of the pic is being likened to Uncut Gems. It’s worth noting that 2019 A24 title did not end up getting Adam Sandler his first Academy nod despite a major push.
Obviously we’ll need to see how competition is as the months roll along, but I could envision Byrne being in the conversation. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Zoë Kravitz’s directorial career opens up nicely enough with Blink Twice that it feels whiny to gripe on the negatives. It takes a while to find its destination. Perhaps the “eat the rich” genre is getting overdone considering The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, Saltburn, and HBO’s The White Lotus. There’s still enough to savor in this assured debut from the actress of many franchises including X-Men, Mad Max, Divergent, and The Batman.
That starts with an entrancing cast led by Naomi Ackie’s Frida. She’s a cocktail waitress whose employment at swanky benefits puts her in the airspace of vapid and vaping billionaire Slater (Channing Tatum). Frida is familiar with him as we witness her scroll through Instagram where he’s making an indistinct apology for some past transgression. If he’s canceled, no one’s informed various hangers on in his orbit. A sudden burst of confidence and then klutziness from Frida creates a Meet Cute where Slater invites her and her coworker/roommate Jess (Alia Shawkat) to his private island.
An entourage is in tow including private chef Cody (Simon Rex), business partner and Polaroid documenter Vic (Christian Slater), young Lucas (Levon Hawke) and Tom (Haley Joel Osment) whose primary character trait is wearing sunglasses and being under the influence. The boys are joined by influencer and reality star Sarah (Adria Arjona) and Camilla (Liz Caribel) and Heather (Trew Mullens). The latter two share Tom’s generally hazy ways. Sarah seems to be in a competition for Slater’s attention with Frida even though she’s seemingly paired up with Cody. Geena Davis joins the proceedings as Slater’s organized but off-kilter assistant.
With their phones confiscated, the vacation with an indeterminate end date starts with picture perfect scenery, amazing food that Cody snootily describes, and copious dollops of designer drugs. Sure there’s venomous vipers on the grounds, but the servants seem to be handling them. Increasingly there’s periods of lost time that Frida and eventually Sarah and especially Jess begin to notice. And why is there dirt under Frida’s animal adorned fingernails each morning? What’s with random bruises showing up on people that they can’t recall?
The eventual truths are as disturbing as the real life stories of plutocrats with their own islets. The screenplay from Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum doesn’t shy away from entering dark and disturbing places. This is after a fairly lengthy windup that risks lulling the audience into complacency (perhaps on purpose). The cast helps guide us through the earlier days becoming a blur. No one seems to have a grasp on whether it’s Monday, Saturday, or whether they’ve been there a week or three.
Ackie and Arjona’s performances are the worthiest of attention. Best known as Whitney Houston in the biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Ackie goes from infatuated server to victim of horrifying acts to unexpected statuses that I won’t spoil. That’s a tricky balancing act and she certainly manages it. Arjona is perhaps the most impressive in a role that seems one-note at first (the jilted woman) and becomes anything but. With this and her starring turn in Hit Man from a few months back, she’s having a fantastic cinematic year.
Blink Twice might be familiar territory as of late, but Kravitz’s take made me not wanna look away. It’s worth taking the trip with these literal and figurative snakes in the grass and those that serve them until the power dynamic shifts.
Zoë Kravitz makes her directorial debut and cowrites Blink Twice which opens this weekend. The psychological thriller features a packed cast including Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis, and Alia Shawkat.
The $20 million production originally had a far more provocative title (look it up) and most critics are complimentary of Kravitz’s first behind the camera effort. The RT score is 80%. Some are saying it doesn’t quite pull off its mix of genres.
Twice hopes to be a decent late summer performer for Amazon Studios. That’s a big question mark. Awards viability isn’t as this was never conceived as a contender. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
MGM looks for audiences to set their sights on Blink Twice when it opens August 23rd. The thriller marks the directorial debut of Zoë Kravitz with an eclectic cast including Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Kyle MacLachlan, Haley Joel Osment, Geena Davis, and Alia Shawkat.
Reviews thus far are decent with 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. Late August typically isn’t fertile ground for fresh product at the box office. Blink face an uphill battle. It is slated for approximately 3000 screens and that’s more than The Crow is reportedly getting (2600).
There could be a close race between those two newcomers as I see both in the high single digits or lower double digits. I currently having this flying a little higher.
Blink Twice opening weekend prediction: $8.5 million
To generously take a bowl is half super approach, Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted features stand-up Kyle Dunnigan doing a pretty killer Walter Cronkite impression. His anchor recounts the news with trademark authority followed by darkly amusing off the air grumblings about his love life and alcoholism. Later on, Dunnigan follows up with an impressive Johnny Carson takeoff. There’s lots of comedians and comedic performers in the legendary Mr. Seinfeld’s directorial debut for Netflix. Most of them don’t get the chance to nail their brief screen time like Mr. Dunnigan. A lot of Unfrosted, a mostly fictional account of how Pop-Tarts came to be, consists of stale humor with too many subplots competing against one another.
Even 96 minutes feels long since there’s barely enough witty material for the 22 minutes Jerry used to work in. He plays Bob Cabana, a high level exec at Kellogg’s in 1963. This is one of those screenplays (by Seinfeld and his frequent collaborators Spike Feresten, Andy Robin, and Barry Marder) that constantly reminds us it’s set during that decade in increasingly lame ways. Along with his boss Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) and Melissa McCarthy’s NASA scientist turned cereal conglomerate employee, they are in a race to produce the best toasted pastry treat. In Battle Creek, Michigan, the combat lines are drawn with their rival Post led by socialite Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer). Such lines are not so subtly tied to another race – the space one – of that era.
Rhythms of Unfrosted becomes familiar in short order – a joke or two that work about a given subplot (like the correlation with the nation’s trip to the moon) that get overused swiftly. There’s bursts of inspiration like Dunnigan’s grousing. Bill Burr’s take on JFK is also a delight. Most of the time I wasn’t blown away by what else the overfilled screenplay had to say.
Since this is Seinfeld we’re talking about, there’s lots of funny people popping in for a day or two on the set. Hugh Grant is the very real Thurl Ravenscroft, a true Shakespearean thespian who voiced Tony the Tiger. The Kellogg gang recruits a hodgepodge of kitschy historical figures including fitness guru Jack LaLanne (James Marsden), Sea Monkeys maker and maybe Nazi Harold von Braunhut (Thomas Lennon), and Chef Boy Ardee (Bobby Moynihan) to develop the product. I could go on and on. Mixing all these talents together is bound to produce some amusing highlights and it does on occasion, but not nearly enough. Sometimes the satire totally misses like when it attempts to connect a mascot uprising to January 6th.
A lot of Unfrosted probably sounded better while Seinfeld and crew were discussing it over Zoom. Most of it might produce more guffaws if its Cronkite impersonator were handling the delivery.
You might be familiar with his TV work, but Jerry Seinfeld’s cinematic output is limited to the 2002 doc Comedian and 2007’s animated Bee Movie. He makes his directorial debut and stars in Unfrosted, which loosely tells the story of how Pop-Tarts came into our world. The cast is an impressive mix of comedic talents including Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, and many more that are tagged in this write-up.
Premiering on Netflix this weekend, reviews are finally popping up. The late embargo is explained by the troubling 18% Rotten Tomatoes score. Indicating a rare misfire for the small screen legend, this big screen product origin tale (a popular of genre lately) was never seen as an Oscar player. Yet considering the talent onboard, Golden Globe possibilities in the Musical/Comedy derbies seemed possible. Those appear to be toast. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
It is officially summertime 2021 and that brings my annual seasonal three-part series where I take a look back at the top ten pics, flops, and other notable selections from 30, 20, and 10 years ago. That means I’ll begin with 1991 at a time where Arnold Schwarzenegger said hasta la vista to all competitors.
Let’s count down from #10 to numero Ah-nuld along with other entries worthy of discussion (both good and bad).
10. Doc Hollywood
Domestic Gross: $54 million
Michael J. Fox had a midsize hit with this fish out of water comedy about an uppity surgeon stuck in the rural south. It marks the star’s last solid performer that he headlined.
9. Boyz n the Hood
Domestic Gross: $57 million
John Singleton had one of cinema’s most memorable directorial debuts with this coming-of-age drama set in South Central. He would become the youngest filmmaker ever to be nominated at the Oscars and the critically hailed pic kickstarted the careers of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Ice Cube.
8. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
Domestic Gross: $60 million
Disney re-released their 1961 classic three decades after its release and picked up a cool $60 million for it. Later in 1991, the studio would begin another renaissance with Beauty and the Beast becoming the first animated film to nab a Best Picture nomination. Five years later, Glenn Close would headline the live-action version and another reboot, Cruella with Emma Stone, is currently in the top five.
7. What About Bob?
Domestic Gross: $63 million
Bill Murray had one of his signature roles as the multi-phobic patient tormenting shrink Richard Dreyfuss on his vacation. Apparently this comedy was a bit dramatic behind the scenes with the two leads having an actual antagonistic relationship.
6. Hot Shots!
Domestic Gross: $69 million
Spoofs were a hot commodity in the early 90s following the success of 1988’s The Naked Gun. Jim Abrahams, one of that film’s writers, created this sendup of Top Gun and many others that starred Charlie Sheen. A sequel would follow two years later.
5. Backdraft
Domestic Gross: $77 million
Ron Howard directed this firefighting drama that heated up the box office with Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro, and a creepy Donald Sutherland as a pyromaniac. There was even a sequel released in 2019 with Baldwin and Sutherland that went direct to streaming and that I frankly forgot existed.
4. The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear
Domestic Gross: $86 million
The spoofing love continued as Leslie Nielsen reprised his role as doofus detective Frank Drebin in this sequel to the 1988 classic. It couldn’t hold up the original, but it was better than part 3 which followed in 1994. And, needless to say, this was a simpler time for costar O.J. Simpson.
3. City Slickers
Domestic Gross: $124 million
As New Yorkers learning life lessons on a cattle drive, Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, and Bruno Kirby starred in the comedy smash of the summer and costar Jack Palance even ended up with a Best Supporting Actor victory. A less regarded follow-up would come in 1994.
2. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Domestic Gross: $165 million
While his accent was spotty at best, Kevin Costner parlayed his Oscar success from the previous year’s Dances with Wolves into this blockbuster about the robbing from the rich and giving to the poor hero. The highlight was Alan Rickman’s sublime work as the Sheriff of Nottingham while critics mostly turned up their noses.
1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Domestic Gross: $204 million
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s android went from being the bad guy in the 1984 original to the good robot in James Cameron’s sequel that gave us eye popping and revolutionary special effects and a dynamite Linda Hamilton returning as a buffed up Sarah Connor. There’s been four more entries in the franchise and none have matched the potency of this one.
Now let’s turn the focus to some other notable releases:
Thelma & Louise
Domestic Gross: $45 million
Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis both scored lead actress Academy nods for Ridley Scott’s now iconic tale of feminism and revenge with an unforgettable ending. This also marked audiences falling in love with a then unknown actor by the name of Brad Pitt.
Point Break
Domestic Gross: $43 million
Patrick Swayze starred in the previous summer’s high earner with Ghost. This surfing action pic from director Kathryn Bigelow paired the actor with Keanu Reeves and has amassed a deserved cult following. An unnecessary remake wiped out in 2015.
Dead Again
Domestic Gross: $38 million
Kenneth Branagh’s sophomore effort after the acclaim of his Shakespearian Henry V was this Hitchcock homage costarring his then wife Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, and Robin Williams. As tributes to the Master of Suspense go, this is one of the best.
Soapdish
Domestic Gross: $38 million
Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Robert Downey, Jr., and Whoopi Goldberg are part of the ensemble in this comedy set in the world of the afternoon melodramas that populate the airwaves. Not a big hit at the time, its reception has since grown.
Jungle Fever
Domestic Gross: $32 million
Spike Lee’s tale of an interracial couple played by Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra received critical kudos. The two most memorable performances come from Samuel L. Jackson as a crack addict and Halle Berry (in her feature debut) as his girlfriend.
Madonna: Truth or Dare
Domestic Gross: $15 million
As she often is, Madonna was ahead of the cultural curve with this documentary set during her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour. This was reality programming before it exploded.
Barton Fink
Domestic Gross: $6 million
The Coen Brothers pitch black comedy was the darling of the Cannes Film Festival, winning Picture, Director, and Actor for John Turturro. It would land three Academy nominations including Michael Lerner in Supporting Actor.
Now it’s time for the pictures that either didn’t land with audiences or critics (or both):
The Rocketeer
Domestic Gross: $46 million
Disney was hoping for a new franchise with this comic book based property. Yet the period adventure underwhelmed at the box office. This was a different era for the genre before the MCU changed everything. Director Joe Johnston, coincidentally, would go on to make Captain America: The First Avenger 20 years later.
Dying Young
Domestic Gross: $33 million
This seems hard to believe now, but Premiere magazine predicted this romance would be the largest grossing feature of the summer. Not so much. However, Julia Roberts was just coming off her smash breakthrough Pretty Woman. This didn’t land with audiences in the same way.
Only the Lonely
Domestic Gross: $25 million
Chris Columbus was basking in the box office bonanza that was Home Alone. This rom com with John Candy and Ally Sheedy that followed six months later didn’t cause many filmgoers to leave their homes.
Mobsters
Domestic Gross: $20 million
1990 was gave us lots of mobster fare such as GoodFellas, The Godfather Part III, and Miller’s Crossing. Crowds and critics didn’t take to the Christian Slater and Patrick Dempsey versions of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, respectively.
Hudson Hawk
Domestic Gross: $17 million
Bruce Willis’s vanity project is considered one of the gargantuan flops in history. Grossing only about a fourth of its $65 million budget, it was awarded the Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture of the year.
V.I. Warshawski
Domestic Gross: $11 million
Based on a series of successful novels, audiences didn’t take to Kathleen Turner in the title role for this detective action comedy. It made less than half its budget.
Delirious
Domestic Gross: $5 million
Also set in the world of soap operas, this marked another dud for John Candy in the same season.
Another You
Domestic Gross: $2 million
Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder are a classic combo with well-regarded comedies like Silver Streak and Stir Crazy. Even See No Evil, Hear No Evil in 1989, despite critical scorn, performed well. That’s not the case with their last collaboration (which reviewers also drubbed).
And that concludes my look back at summer 1991. Next up is the sweltering season of 2001!
TheWife may not be as powerful or emotionally wrenching as the thoughts running through its central figure’s head, but the woman playing her makes this worth checking out. Glenn Close has given many fine performances in her long career and this is among the top ones. She plays Joan Archer and she’s known only by who she’s married to – acclaimed author Joseph Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). The film opens with an early morning phone call where he finds out he’s won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
What transpires afterwards is an examination of their complicated marriage that began as an affair when he was a professor and she was an aspiring writer coed. He still fools around and she manages to put up with it. The list of annoyances extends to her dealing with the fawning behavior of those around him. There are two exceptions. One is their son (Max Irons) who’s trying make his own mark in his Dad’s profession and is forever stuck in his large shadow. The other is Joseph’s would-be biographer (Christian Slater) who believes there’s more to his subject’s legacy and partnership with Joan.
The film is set in Stockholm. This is due to the prestigious award Joseph is about to receive. It also seems appropriate as Joan begins to feel captive in her unhappy existence. Director Björn Runge is a native of the nation as we witness its cold winter and frosty breakdown of our leads.
We see flashbacks of their story. While the two actors playing them as newlyweds (Annie Starke and Harry Lloyd) do a decent job mimicking Close and Pryce, TheWife shines when the camera is trained on their elders counterparts. Starke, by the way, is the real life daughter of Close. Based on a novel from Meg Wolitzer and adapted by Jane Anderson, the picture doesn’t dwell much on what made this rocky union produce literary masterworks. That might’ve provided some insight, but Close’s own wrenching masterwork (with a game Pryce alongside) will have you ready to continue to the next chapter.
Glenn Close is a six-time Academy Award nominated actress who has yet to bring home the gold. Last fall, her drama TheWife premiered to solid reviews at the Toronto Film Festival (it’s at 100% currently on Rotten Tomatoes). The pic is from Swedish director Björn Runge and it stars Close as a the long cheated on spouse of a prominent writer who reaches a breaking point. Jonathan Pryce and Christian Slater costar.
While critics had positive things to say about the film itself, reviews were over the moon as to Close’s performance. Her Oscar losses include three in Supporting Actress (TheWorldAccordingtoGarp, TheBigChill, TheNatural) and the same number in Lead (FatalAttraction, DangerousLiaisons, AlbertNobbs).
The buzz last fall from up north bodes very well for her another nomination. TheWife is scheduled for U.S. distribution on August 3.
Bottom line: Glenn Close could well be on her way to a seventh trip down the red carpet, but whether she snags the prize this time remains to be seen.
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