It might be Oscar weekend, but it’s also time for South by Southwest which is premiering numerous movies and TV shows. The Austin fest isn’t really a breeding ground for eventual Academy fare though 2022’s BP winner Everything Everywhere All at Once did kick off there.
SXSW is known more for showcasing odder and independent spirited movies. The Oscar bait usually saves itself for Venice, Telluride, and Toronto. Nevertheless Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters is an eagerly awaited title that served as opening selection.
This is the rapper and political activist turned filmmaker’s sophomore feature after his acclaimed 2018 debut Sorry to Bother You. The satire centers on a group of shoplifters boasts an eclectic cast including Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza González, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, and Demi Moore.
Early buzz indicates Riley has another critical hit with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 75 Metacritic. Reviews also infer that it’s far out there similar to Bother. Perhaps Original Screenplay could be in play at the Oscars, but this might be more tailored to the Independent Spirit Awards or the Gothams (two ceremonies where Riley’s inaugural effort showed up). My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Black Bear Pictures looks for action fans seek Shelter when it opens on January 30th. Jason Statham headlines with Ric Roman Waugh (putting out his second 2026 release following Greenland 2: Migration) directing. Costars include Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Bill Nighy, Naomi Ackie, and Daniel Mays.
With its leading man playing (you guessed it) a former assassin, Shelter would love to match the beginning grosses of his predecessors The Beekeeper ($16 million) and A Working Man ($15 million). That could be a tall order as competitors Send Help and Iron Lung could siphon away potential viewers.
This could certainly hit $10 million, but I’m going more mid to high single digits.
Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire director Chris Columbus turns his attention to British crime in the comedy The Thursday Murder Club, debuting on Netflix this (you guessed it) Thursday after a limited theatrical engagement. A murderers row of thespians – Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley – headline. The supporting cast includes Celia Imrie, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Richard E. Grant, Tom Ellis, Geoff Bell, Paul Freeman, and Sarah Niles.
A number of critics are claiming this is a fun enough mystery as evidenced by the 81% on Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic is more middling at 58. This won’t be detected by the Academy, but I could envision Netflix mounting a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy campaign for Mirren. It would mark her 18th (!) overall Globe nod when counting TV performances. She has shown an ability to get mentioned in this particular race for lesser known titles such as Calendar Girls, The Hundred-Foot Journey, and The Leisure Seeker. In other words, I wouldn’t discount her chances. My Oscar (and Globe) prediction posts will continue…
Bong Joon-ho’s follow-up to his 2019 Oscar juggernaut Parasite hits multiplexes via Mickey 17 on March 7th. Robert Pattinson plays multiple roles in the sci-fi satire which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo costar.
Sporting the acclaimed auteur’s biggest budget, Mickey certainly arrives with higher expectations than he’s seen before. Most reviews are solid with 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and 75 on Metacritic. That said, it probably won’t be the awards player that Parasite was save for some tech races.
Originally slated for theaters in March 2024, some estimates have Mickey in the $25 million region. I’m not convinced it will do that fine. Had it arrived just a couple of years after Joon-ho’s predecessor, I might be projecting more. I’ll say higher teens with low 20s as the best case scenario.
Mickey 17 opening weekend prediction: $17.9 million
Prior to its March 7th domestic release, Mickey 17 has debuted overseas at the Berlin Film Festival. The sci-fi satire is Bong Joon-ho’s eagerly awaited follow-up to 2019’s Parasite which dominated the 92nd Academy Award by taking Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and International Feature Film. Originally slated for spring 2024, Mickey stars Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
Early reviews suggests this is more in line with Joon-ho’s Okja as opposed to Parasite. With 81% on Rotten Tomatoes and 74 on Metacritic, the acclaim isn’t as universal as the multiple Oscar winner. The release date would further suggest that Warner Bros won’t make this a major awards play (though this pattern did work for Dune: Part Two).
That said, some reaction is quite effusive. While Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay (it’s based on a 2022 Edward Ashton novel) could be a stretch, down the line tech races like Sound and Visual Effects could happen. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Eva Victor is making her feature film directorial, screenwriting, and starring debut in Sorry, Baby. The drama centered around trauma costars Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch, Louis Cancelmi, and Kelly McCormack. It is one of the buzziest titles that premiered at Sundance.
With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 97% and an 88 Metacritic, A24 outbid competitors for distribution rights. Victor is being hailed as a welcome new voice to the silver screen. Her original screenplay could draw attention from the Academy. I would especially look for the Indie Spirit Awards to take notice of it and that could apply to multiple categories. 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
For a movie about The Voice, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody strains to find its own. While undeniably long on title (in case you forgot who sang one of her signature bops), it’s sadly short on actual substance.
We first meet Ms. Houston (Naomi Ackie) in the church choir alongside mother Cissy (Tamara Tunie). She comes from notable musical lineage in that Cissy was a successful backup singer (who never quite broke out on her own) and Dionne Warwick is a first cousin. The pipes of Whitney are clearly a precious commodity as Cissy and business conscious and stern father John (Clarke Peters) prod her into the biz. Famed record exec Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) takes Whitney under his wing and she rises to unheard of stardom for a female solo artist beginning in the mid 80s.
There are potential controversies immediately. Whitney’s romance with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) is jettisoned since it won’t match the girl next door image. While Robyn becomes her trusted assistant, Whitney’s (or Nippy as the family and close friends call her) entanglements are a frequent source of consternation. This briefly applies to Jermaine Jackson, but especially when her and R&B bad boy Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders) get serious.
Jumping from career and personal highlights to lowlights, the screenplay from Andrew McCarten can feel as erratic as the title subject’s increasingly worrisome behavior. The writer penned Bohemian Rhapsody and it closely follows that hit pic’s playbook. It shows us the troubled aspects of the singer followed in quick succession by an iconic moment in their discography.
There are obviously lots of them in Houston’s orbit. From seven #1 hits in a row to her soaring rendition of the National Anthem at the Super Bowl to the cinematic and soundtrack phenomenon that was The Bodyguard, what’s disappointing is how glossed over and rushed they feel. For a feature with a two and half hour runtime (and you feel it), McCarten’s script never focuses on anything with more than a surface level “Behind the Music” energy.
Some of the same criticisms were deservedly pointed at Bohemian Rhapsody. I’d rank Rhapsody higher because its musical interludes like Wembley packed more of a stylistically directed punch. The behind the camera work from Kasi Lemmons never reaches that level.
As for the performances, Ackie doesn’t much resemble Whitney. Yet by the conclusion, she manages to embody her spirit in the performance pieces passably. Tucci is given a couple scenes to flesh out Davis’s character into a sympathetic figure (it probably doesn’t hurt that the actual Davis is a coproducer). Same goes for Tunie’s Cissy. Other roles are of the one-note variety like John’s scheming manager who forgets to be a father and Bobby’s constant companion who fails to be a good husband. Just as the family tries to ignore Robyn’s presence, the screenplay eventually does too.
The music itself occasionally saves the mediocrity of where this broken biopic goes. Sadly that’s not enough to save it. In other words, it’s often doesn’t feel right and it’s just OK.
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