A family heads to a secluded beach vacation. They speak vaguely of the passage of time in a way that parents often do with their children, as mom mentions how she can’t wait to hear her daughter’s singing voice when she grows up. Shortly thereafter, it’s revealed that mom may not be able to do…

To celebrate this week’s launch of The Ringer’s new eight-part podcast series, “Gene and Roger,” hosted by Brian Raftery, we are presenting a special edition of Thumbnails featuring highlights from the incomparable on-air partnership and off-camera friendship of Gene Siskel and my late husband, Roger Ebert. I am just returning from the Cannes Film Festival and as…

The following is a reprint of our contributor Donald Liebenson’s article, originally published on December 10th, 1995 in The Los Angeles Times, which celebrates the twentieth anniversary of “Siskel & Ebert.” It is entitled, “Thumb and Thumber: Siskel and Ebert have their digits on the pulse of the mainstream. Even Hollywood gives them a thumbs up.”…

“The Last Letter from Your Lover” is the time-jumping saga of two couples, defined by the standards of communication and relationships from each era. In the 1960s, there was socialite Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) and her affair with journalist Anthony O’Hare (Callum Turner), the two communicating by letter in between a wild course of events…

When Brian De Palma’s conspiracy thriller “Blow Out” arrived in theaters in the summer of 1981, the results were pretty much disastrous across the board. Although the film did receive some rave reviews from people like Roger Ebert and longtime De Palma supporter Pauline Kael, most critics dismissed it as just another tawdry exercise from…

Suppose the news got out that the world was going to be destroyed by an oncoming meteor, but by the time that the proverbial hour was nigh you had long since gotten most of the fear about the apocalypse out of your system. The question—when that last day finally arrived, how would you approach it? Would you…