Our Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2015

The summer movie season has begun, and we've got opinions

"...movie-obsessed teens who strike up a friendship with a cancer-stricken classmate. Nobody's leaping any tall buildings, but winning both..."

May 1, 2015 Screens Feature by Josh Kupecki

Alfonso and Thomas and The Dying Girl

Former teenage Texas film buffs unite on homage-filled cancer comedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

"...became obsessive students of the universal awkward-teenager language of movies. Gomez-Rejon recalls borrowing a camera and working with his..."

June 26, 2015 Screens Feature by Michael Agresta

Playback: Seth Gibbs Promises to Fight

Cancer stricken pop savant crafts his NOT-posthumous album

"...future is one pill I can't take." Big Bad Cancer Talk..."

Oct. 26, 2018 Music Column by Kevin Curtin

Caro Diario

"...that Moretti writes, directs, and stars in his own movies that come across as shrewd yet funny essays. Caro..."

Nov. 11, 1994 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

My Life

"...it, audiences occasionally want a good cry at the movies. And now, screenwriter Rubin (who wrote the script for..."

Nov. 19, 1993 Movie Review by Pamela Bruce

The Gospel

An R&B singer rediscovers his roots in this faith-based drama that successfully captures the ecstatic experience of gospel performance.

"...his father (Powell), a church pastor, is stricken with cancer. Recently a secular studmuffin with a hit single ("Let..."

Oct. 14, 2005 Movie Review by Marrit Ingman

The Shallows

Blake Lively is trapped by a shark on her own bikini island

"...Growing up, predatory fish movies caused me no end of terror. I saw Jaws..."

July 1, 2016 Movie Review by Josh Kupecki

Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family

Madea is tasked once again with fixing a broken family.

"...needing to tell her grown children about her terminal cancer is purely tangential. Madea’s family is a fractious bunch,..."

April 29, 2011 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

The Farewell

Awkwafina is the heart of this loving story of families, belonging, and lies

"...makes Lulu Wang’s The Farewell one of the best movies of the year is the way she surfaces these..."

July 19, 2019 Movie Review by Matthew Monagle

Frankie

Family drama is far less fun than a walk in the woods

"...honed his craft through increasingly fascinating and intimately honest movies about relationships large and small. 2005’s Forty Shades of..."

Nov. 15, 2019 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Hostiles

The closing days of the old West, and the legacy of the Indian Wars, bloodily examined

"...seems like a stab in the gut: to escort cancer-riddled Cheyenne chief Yellow Hawk (Studi) and his family from..."

Jan. 12, 2018 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Unfinished Song

Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp bring vitality to their roles in film otherwise filled with cliches about aging and the curative power of singing your heart out.

"...Marigold Hotel, whose box-office success exposed a market for movies about golden-agers, the Weinstein Company clearly hopes to make..."

July 5, 2013 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

Rocky Balboa

This final chapter in the Rocky saga is terrific – maybe not great, like that first kiss of fist in ’76, but good, solid, exhilarating entertainment of the stand-up-and-cheer variety.

"...Burton, A.J. Benza and James Francis Kelly III. Boxing movies, truly great ones, are as rare as memorable prize-fighters..."

Dec. 22, 2006 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

Stories We Tell

Canadian filmmaker and actress Sarah Polley goes looking for her biological father and comes homes with a wise and poetic documentary about the nature of truth.

"...(or interrogations, as some subjects call them), old home movies, newly shot footage made to look like scratchy, old..."

June 7, 2013 Movie Review by Marjorie Baumgarten

Raising Cain

De Palma once again blatantly borrows from other movies without shame and rubs your nose in every camera trick imaginable, but he also does something of which he's seldom been guilty: He ignores the fundamental principles of suspense.

"...Psycho, De Palma once again blatantly borrows from other movies without shame and rubs your nose in every camera..."

Aug. 14, 1992 Movie Review by Steve Davis

Collective Projections

Women Make Movies

"...women," says Debra Zimmerman, executive director of Women Make Movies. Her statement sums up the guiding principle of this..."

March 7, 1997 Screens Feature

From the Vaults: Balancing Acts

Jonathan Levine has become the go-to guy for tonally adroit filmmaking

"...directed by Jonathan Levine, whose last outing was the cancer comedy 50/50. With four feature films now to his..."

Feb. 1, 2013 Screens Post by Marjorie Baumgarten

After a Fashion

Stephen ranks the top trends, events, and train wrecks of 2007

"...Lady Bird Johnson, Karen Kuykendall, Rollo Banks TOP 10 CANCER MOVIES..."

Jan. 4, 2008 Column by Stephen MacMillan Moser

Summer Sneaks

Apocalypse Whenever: Movies in the Season of Armageddon

"...ultra effects and thrills department are the dueling meteor movies Deep Impact (whose "killer" opening business has already set..."

May 22, 1998 Screens Feature

Film Critic Roger Ebert Dead at 70

The 'Chicago Sun-Times' confirms

"...The legendary Roger Ebert has died, according to his..."

April 4, 2013 Screens Post by Monica Riese

SXSW Film Adds Midnighters and More

Horror lineup announced, plus shorts and more

"...Fest has announced 10 of the most eagerly awaited movies: the gory, gross, and engrossing list of Midnighters...."

Feb. 9, 2016 Screens Post by Richard Whittaker

Holiday Viewing: A Christmas Tale

Turns out Christmas dinner is just as fraught in French

"...at the Vuillards' Christmas gathering – certainly not mom’s cancer or cousin’s heartsickness or grandson’s cracked-up dalliance with knives,..."

Dec. 3, 2017 Screens Post by Kimberley Jones

Forever Fest Snags 'Fault in Our Stars'

Sneak preview plus Q&A with John Green simulcast nationally

"...For fans of John Green’s beautifully wrought, teens-with-cancer weepie The Fault in Our Stars, the film adaptation’s..."

May 14, 2014 Screens Post by Kimberley Jones

What, Me Worry? Yes.

'American Splendor' is one of the most celebrated movies of the year, and everybody loves my comic again. But … I dunno.

"...not only still very depressed, but I also had cancer...."

Sept. 5, 2003 Screens Feature by Harvey Pekar

Film Reviews

Recommended

"...wit. 3.0 stars (J.O.) Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Riverside, Roundrock, Westgate..."

Oct. 6, 1995 News Feature

Film Reviews

Recommended

"...one of the most stylish and quietly exhilarating genre movies to arrive in a long time. Recommended, and not..."

Sept. 29, 1995 News Feature

Film

Film Reviews

"...hole. 2.0 stars (H.C.) Great Hills, Lake Creek, Lincoln, Movies 12, Northcross, Westgate..."

Sept. 22, 1995 News Feature

All My Life

True-life cancer romance is tepid chicken soup for the soul

"...Dyck has spent most of his career making TV movies called things like Christmas With an [Insert Vaguely Romantic..."

Dec. 4, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Where There's Smoke, There's a 'Vérité-Enhanced' Legacy

The Texas Documentary Tour: Ross McElwee's 'Bright Leaves'

"...been harvested actually have the eerie look of the cancer-ravaged living dead. McElwee and his camera come at his..."

Feb. 10, 2006 Screens Feature by Anne S. Lewis

Postmarks

Our readers talk back.

"...Reviews Longer Than Movies..."

April 19, 2002 Column

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