Samuel Gross

Mar 11, 2025 | austinchronicle.com | Samuel Gross

A divorced woman over 50 vs. the millennials in her life Does two movies make a trend? Does it have to be three? For Worse is the second movie of SXSW 2025 that focuses on a divorced woman in her 50s trying to make sense of the culture that now surrounds her. Hilarity does in fact ensue and in a different tone and timbre from its secret sharer, Fantasy Life.

Mar 9, 2025 | austinchronicle.com | Samuel Gross

The Gen X movie canon is well-known: Slacker, Singles, the Before trilogy, Grosse Pointe Blank, and so on. SXSW Narrative Competition feature Fantasy Life – about a nervous, 35-year old manny who falls for his 52-year old boss – is an interesting addition to the roster.

Mar 8, 2025 | austinchronicle.com | Samuel Gross

Peter Keup, a former political prisoner in East Germany, holds up proof that his brother was secretly informing on their family As the depressingly relevant documentary The Spies Among Us chronicles, when Peter Keup, a German dancer and dance instructor was about 54, he learned that his long-deceased brother, Uli, was an informant for the Stasi, East Germany’s terrifying and infamous secret police. This new knowledge upended Keup’s life.

Mar 7, 2025 | austinchronicle.com | Samuel Gross

A Simple Favor, the fun-yet-tonally-baffling 2018 comedy-noir about a mom vlogger (Anna Kendrick) who becomes entangled with an impossibly cool con artist (Blake Lively) built a word-of-mouth cult on Kendrick’s comic chops, Lively’s incredible suits, and their sexual tension. The sequel is more yet less. Again directed by Paul Feig from a script written by a returning Jessica Sharzer (and Laeta Kalogridis), Another Simple Favor takes the duo to Capri – the gals go Italian, essentially.

Mar 6, 2025 | austinchronicle.com | Samuel Gross

Butthole Surfers There’s a photo you’ve seen before. It’s of Willie Nelson, the late psychedelic rock pioneer Roky Erickson, and Gibby Haynes, singer in the Butthole Surfers. It was taken in Luck, Texas, by photographer Scott Newton in 1995. There is straw on the floor and they are in front of a Texas flag, which looks huge but is the size of a flag you might see flying at a car dealership.