Movies

Summer is officially over, September is here, and the movies stink. While the big releases and heavy-hitters of the fall movie season make the festival rounds or rev up their marketing campaigns, audiences have to tough it out and wade through a lot of not-so-good movies. Welcome to September. It’s like this every year. Get ready for an excruciating month at the movies and at the box office.

People talk about not having anything to do in Lubbock, but nothing could be further from the truth. Here are five fun things to do over Labor Day weekend.

With a new month comes a new batch of Netflix Instant releases for us to look forward to. If you’re looking to discover an old classic or find a new favorite, there are plenty of new titles hitting the service next month. including several seasons of hit TV shows to help you catch up before their fall premieres. Read on for our guide to all the new releases hitting Netflix Instant in September.

The Lubbock Alamo Drafthouse is celebrating Steven Spielberg in September. And part of this special month includes free admission to one of his best films, "Saving Private Ryan," to all active and former members of the military.

Reba McEntire is no stranger to the big screen, but she's taking on a very unique acting challenge in an upcoming film.

Three well-known celebrities have joined the cast of a movie based on Dolly Parton’s childhood. Two are TV actors, but singer Jennifer Nettles is the third, and she's slotted to portray Parton’s mother.

Warner Bros. purchased the rights to the Harry Potter movies in 1999 for $2 million. That may sound like a lot, but here’s the part where we remind you that the Harry Potter movies have made over $10 BILLION at the box-office, which is a pretty good return on investment. That’s just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies, which takes you behind the scenes of the first film in the Harry Potter movies!

At the time of this writing, early estimates for the weekend box office have Ant-Man edging out Pixels for the top spot in this week’s top 10. That could change. With less than $1 million separating the films, Pixels may very well slide into first place tomorrow, winning one very close competition. But even if it does claim ultimate victory, it doesn’t change the fact that Pixels’ opening weekend is a massive disappointment and another nail in the coffin of Adam Sandler’s career.

It would be easy to label the opening weekend for Ant-Man a failure. After all, it’s significantly lower than the openings for recent Marvel Studios movies and it’s a good $130 million less than the three-day opening Avengers: Age of Ultron had a few months ago. But let’s not be so hasty. Its opening numbers may not have blown anyone away, but Ant-Man’s box office arrival is textbook Marvel.

Buzz Lightyear is one of the most recognizable characters in modern Disney history. But, before he was Buzz, he was a character from the Pixar short film, Tin Toy. Once they decided to make the character a modern toy, he was renamed “Lunar Larry” and “Tempus From Morph” before they settled on Buzz Lightyear. This is just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies, which takes off with Toy Story!

Universal was already bathing in its Furious 7 and Jurassic World money Scrooge McDuck-style before Minions opened this week. Now the studio is looking at its third truly massive hit of the year, a run that feels nearly unprecedented. Universal already released two of the biggest movies of all time within the past four months, and now it’s looking like it may have three.

There are so many minions serving Gru in the Despicable Me movies, it would be impossible to actually stop and count each individual one. But, if you had to, you wound find out that there are actually 899 minions. This is just one of the facts packed into the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies, which gets happy with Despicable Me 2!