Manny Jacinto and a coven at SXSW

While the Oscars were happening in LA, SXSW continued in Austin. Yesterday was the premiere of Love Language, a romantic comedy-drama starring Chloe Grace Moretz and Manny Jacinto, who was at the premiere looking like an entire snack:

Also at the premiere were Lukas Gage, Isabel May (lately of Scream 7), and my chaos queen, Billie Lourd, who is returning to the Ryan Murphy fold for Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, which is filming now. She’s playing Emma Borden, whom writer Frank Spiering in his book, Lizzie, proposes could have sneaked home and murdered her parents, rather than Lizzie. I find that theory a little hard to believe as Emma was seen fifteen miles away on that day, and this was 1892, when traveling fifteen miles wasn’t as easy as it is today. It was around two hours in a horse and a buggy, making at least a four-hour round trip to do murders. I’ve done my Borden reading, I don’t think it was Emma. Anyway. Billie’s fellow nepo baby, Ella Beatty, daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, is starring as Lizzie Borden.

Another South-by premiere held yesterday was for horror comedy Forbidden Fruits, which stars a power pack of young talent in the form of Lola Tung, Lili Reinhart, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, and Emma Chamberlain. It’s about a coven of witches who operate out of a mall basement and is based on a play by Lily Houghton titled Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. Lola Tung has already started theme dressing with a witchy cape ensemble:

I love the setup, love the ladies involved, but this is the kind of high-concept filmmaking that can easily go awry. For instance, Forbidden Fruits is produced by Diablo Cody, half of whose filmography can be described as “high-concept filmmaking that went awry”. Am interested to see the attempt be made, though.