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Texas Film Awards 2023 to honor Fort Worth-based movie head honcho

Awards season is in full swing, and not just in Hollywood. On March 3, the Austin Film Society (AFS) brings back its annual Texas Film Awards to honor both rising stars and Texans who have significantly impacted the independent film industry. Fittingly, this year's ceremony takes place on a movie-set-turned venue, Willie Nelson's Luck, TX.

For his impact on global cinema as a creative producer and executive, Warner Bros. Pictures Group Co-Chair and CEO Michael De Luca will be honored, according to a release. A resident of Fort Worth, de Luca boasts over three decades in the business, three Academy Award nominations for Best Picture of the Year (The Social Network, Moneyball, and Captain Phillips), and three Emmy Award nominations (for producing both the 89th and the 90th Academy Awards and for producing Escape At Dannemora).

Among his many esteemed positions in the industry over thirty years, De Luca served as one of the youngest heads of production in Hollywood history when he was appointed President and COO of New Line Productions at age 27. There, he helped launch lucrative franchises (Friday, Blade, Austin Powers and Rush Hour), release major hits (Seven, Wag the Dog, Pleasantville, Magnolia, I Am Sam and Boogie Nights), and produced the film adaptation of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, which grossed over $1 billion internationally.

Emmy and Critic's Choice Award nominated actor Jonathan Majors will receive this year's Rising Star Award. Majors grew up in Cedar Hill, Texas and has starred in films including Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall, and Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. Majors also starred in the series Lovecraft Country, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award, and was most recently in J. D. Dillard’s Devotion. He will next appear in Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, in theaters on February 17, and Ryan Coogler’s Creed III, in theaters on March 3.

Previous Rising Star Award recipients include Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, Unbelievable), Tye Sheridan (Ready Player One, the X-Men franchise), Jesse Plemons (Fargo, Breaking Bad), among others. The award honors an actor who has made a lasting impact with their work early in their career.

The ceremony on March 3 will also see independent cinema’s “first couple,” Janet and John Pierson, inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame. The honor will celebrate their impact on the independent film industry, and especially on the Austin and Texas community in helping to grow the SXSW Film & TV Festival to what it is today. Among their many projects as exhibitors and subsequently producer's reps/financiers for independents in the 1980s and 90s, the Pierson's also created the IFCtv show Split Screen, which involved 100 independent filmmakers and seeded new projects including The Blair Witch Project, American Movie and How’s Your News? The show has a permanent streaming home on the Criterion Channel.

In the release announcing the 2023 honorees, AFS also announced this year's master of ceremonies, Texas native and actress Edi Patterson. Known for her roles in films and series including Knives Out, The Righteous Gemstones, Partners, and Vice Principals, Patterson performs in improv and sketch comedy shows for the Groundlings Main Company where she is a member. She is also a member of improvisational theater company Impro Theatre.

Taking place in Luck, Texas, the 2023 Texas Film Awards will feature a red carpet and cocktail party, followed by dinner and an awards ceremony. Sponsored by Blue Suitcase and Arts+Labor, the annual event directly supports regional filmmakers and sustains AFS’s efforts to catalyze Austin and Texas as creative hubs.

More information about the Texas Film Awards can be found here, and tickets and tables are available for purchase here.

Courtesy Austin Film Society

Jonathan Majors will be honored with the Rising Star Award at the 21st annual Texas Film Awards.

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Movie Review

Horror comedy film Y2K dials into nostalgia of '90s techno-mayhem

Photo courtesy of A24

Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, and Julian Dennison in Y2K.

Movies that rely on nostalgia can be successful if they’re timed right. Generally, 25-30 years seems about the right amount of time to try to take advantage of people’s fond feelings for a certain era, which is why movies/TV shows about the ‘80s have been prevalent for much of the 21st century, and ‘90s-set films started to pop up in the last 10 years.

Y2K, a horror comedy that plays on the fears of technological mayhem many people thought would happen at the turn of the century, is right on the cusp of that rule, taking place 24 years after its timeline. It centers on two teenage boys, Eli (Jaeden Martell) and Danny (Julian Dennison), who are opposite in demeanor but have an unshakeable bond. Eli likes a popular girl, Laura (Rachel Zegler), and Danny convinces him to crash a New Year’s Eve party where she’ll be.

As the clock strikes midnight and the year moves from 1999 to 2000, everything that uses an electrical current goes haywire, with many of them combining forces to attack the humans around them. Eli and Danny find themselves on the run with Laura, as well as two stoners, Ash (Lachlan Watson) and CJ (Daniel Zolghadri), with each of them trying to use their unique skillset to help defeat a growing robot army.

Directed by Kyle Mooney and written by Mooney and Evan Winter, the film lands some solid jokes about the era in its opening 20 minutes or so, whether it’s the extreme slowness of dial-up internet, the goofy user names from AOL Messenger, or the various high school cliques of the time. However, many of them seem to echo ones told in 1999’s American Pie, a weird kind of art-imitating-art moment instead of commenting on real life.

The jolt of the machines attacking partygoers seems to promise a fun-if-bloody romp, but Mooney and Winter don’t seem to know where to take the story. They establish the computer bona fides of Eli and Laura early on, but when it comes time for them to put their talents in action, it feels like two actors going through the motions instead of real people who know what they’re doing. Almost none of the characters are believable or entertaining, and the few that rise above are dispatched way too early.

And because the filmmakers don’t make you care about the main group, nothing they face is that interesting, either. The villainous robots are made up of a bunch of disparate parts, which would seem to offer the opportunity for funny sight gags. Mooney and his team fumble most of their chances, though, leaving that side of the story stuck in limbo where it’s not absurd enough to be hilarious or scary enough to really count as horror.

Martell, Dennison, and Zegler are each rising stars who have their individual charms, but only Dennison is able to make much of an impact. Zegler, who starred in West Side Story and will soon be Snow White, is especially misused. They try to shoehorn in a cameo by Limp Biskit lead singer Fred Durst, but his appearance makes little sense and adds almost nothing to the story.

Filmmakers who want to mine nostalgia, especially in a comedy, need to really commit to the bit instead of throwing in a few references and needle drops. Mooney, who’s making his directorial debut, demonstrates little feel for timing, and so most of the film is like a car spinning its wheels, going nowhere.

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Y2K opens in theaters on December 6.

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