By: Virginia Schneider
Austin, TX (The Hollywood Times) 3/13/23 – The fun fantasy epic Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves received a rock star response on the opening weekend of SXSW. The crowd’s delight was better than the producers could have anticipated. The main cast was in attendance (minus Hugh Grant) including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith and Daisy Head.
The action comedy stars Chris Pine as a rakish bard who travels a road full of wily characters in search of his estranged daughter. Pine and co-star Regé-Jean Page wowed audiences.
Producer Jeremy Latcham said he felt it was important to make the film appeal audiences who played the game their whole lives as well as people who never played at all.
Horror flick Late Night with the Devil from Aussy brothers Cameron and Colin Cairnes packed a punch with audiences. It’s a richly detailed story of a live television broadcast in 1977 which goes horribly wrong, unloosing evil into the nation’s living rooms.
Karen Gillan turns in a bravura performance in Late Bloomers as young woman in the throes of turmoil literally and figuratively, as she injures herself trying to break into her ex’s place and landing herself in the hospital. There she forges a reluctant yet eventual bond with an even more cantankerous older patient. The ups and downs of the pair’s trials create an understanding that is funny and endearing.
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Robert Rodriguez debuted his still-work-in-progress thriller Hypnotic with Ben Affleck playing a detective who is haunted by the strange disappearance of his daughter. The film also stars William Fichtner and Alice Bragga. In the music front Audible Original presents Breakthrough, a singing competition that is an audio-only series. Based solely on what they hear, celebrity judges Kelly Rowland (Destiny’s Child, The X Factor) and Sara Bareilles (Waitress, Into the Woods, Girls5eva) coach and evaluate five undiscovered artists as host Daveed Diggs (Hamilton, Blindspotting, The Little Mermaid) leads competitors through a series of singing and songwriting challenges to determine the winner.
