“At its core, Brian is a coming-of-age story about learning how to survive yourself; about realizing that being ‘too much’ isn’t something to be ashamed of, it’s something you learn to live alongside,” Ropp says. “I wanted to honor the kids, and adults, who walk around feeling like they missed a class everyone else took about how to be a normal person. This is the kind of movie I wanted when I was 17. So I made it now.”
I Love Boosters
When it’s that SXSW time of year, it must be Boots Riley season. At least that’s proven true in the best years where the iconoclastic, multi-hyphenated filmmaker, musician, activist, and all around cool dude came to town with visionary acts of subversion like Sorry to Bother You and I’m a Virgo. And he’s back at this festival with the opening night film.
An apparently kaleidoscopic and candy-colored heist movie set in the San Francisco fashion scene, I Love Boosters follows the three Fs: Fashion Forward F(Ph)ilanthropy. That’s the motto of the eponymous boosters who steal from the bougie and give to the proletariat. It’s a hell of a setup unto itself, but following on the magical realist flourishes of Riley’s previous work, we’re sure there is more going on in a film bursting at the seams with onscreen talent, including Keke Palmer, Taylour Paige, Eiza Gonzaléz, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, and Demi Moore fresh off kicking The Substance.
Over Your Dead Body
Following the smashing success of Akiva Schaffer’s The Naked Gun in 2025, another one-third of legendary comedy troupe the Lonely Island is set to bring a fresh action-comedy into the world, and this one from the maestro of the cult beloved MacGruber, Jorma Taccone. A remake of the 2021 Norwegian film The Trip, the Jorma Over Your Dead Body follows a couple (Samara Weaving and Jason Segel) as they attempt to reconnect on a vacation, blissfully unaware that each is planning to kill the other. Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, and Paul Guilfoyle also star.
“This ‘film’ is a blend of many genres, and I had an absolute blast making it with this amazing cast,” Taccone says. “The level of commitment was something other directors can only dream about. I feel lucky to have been part of this production and I hope the tremendous fun we all had making it is reflected in every scene, and the audience feels that love and sense of joy. If they don’t, I’m fucked.”
Power Ballad
How lucky are we to live in a time when John Carney has a new film coming to cinemas, and its first stop is Austin, Texas? The singular Irish filmmaker of bittersweet musical love stories like Once and Sing Street has now finished what we’re sure will be a swooning Power Ballad. The film also partners the writer-director with Paul Rudd in the role of Rick, a washed-out wedding singer who lost his best years to ‘80s nostalgia trips.