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Movies/TV category, Page 73

Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff, dies at 88
Actor Nick Pasqual brings indie movie premiere home to Pittsburgh 
Fans of the web series “Poor Paul” can catch up with more adventures of the hapless title character when a new indie movie of the same name makes its Pittsburgh debut on Saturday. The red carpet rolls out at 6 p.m. at the Hollywood Theater, 1449 Potomac Ave., Dormont. The...
TV Q&A: How are local TV news reporters judged on their work?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: How are local news reporters evaluated on their performance by their respective channels? Do ratings matter? Viewer feedback? – Beth, McCandless Rob: As with any...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking Pittsburgh Billys: Porter’s ‘Anything’s Possible,’ Gardell’s ‘Secret Celebrity Renovation,’ plus NFL Network, ‘The Lake’
In this episode of the “Pittsburgh Pop” podcast, host Tim Benz and TV Talk columnist Rob Owen discuss Pittsburgh pop culture news of the moment, including Billy Porter’s ‘Anything’s Possible” and Billy Gardell’s upcoming turn renovating his best friend’s mom’s house in Penn Hills on CBS’s “Secret Celebrity Renovation.” The...
‘Goodfellas,’ ‘Law & Order’ actor Paul Sorvino dies at 83
Paul Sorvino, an imposing actor who specialized in playing crooks and cops like Paulie Cicero in “Goodfellas” and the NYPD sergeant Phil Cerretta on “Law & Order,” has died. He was 83. His publicist Roger Neal said he died Monday morning in Indiana of natural causes. “Our hearts are broken,...
‘Titanic’ and ‘The Omen’ actor David Warner dies at 80
LONDON — David Warner, a versatile British actor whose roles ranged from Shakespearean tragedies to sci-fi cult classics, has died. He was 80. Warner’s family said he died from a cancer-related illness on Sunday at Denville Hall, a retirement home for entertainers in London. Often cast as a villain, Warner...
For once, Cherokee actor Wes Studi cast as romantic co-star 
NEW YORK — In Wes Studi’s potent and pioneering acting career, he has played vengeful warriors, dying prisoners and impassioned resistance leaders. For three decades, he has arrestingly crafted wide-ranging portraits of the Native American experience. But one thing he had never done in a movie is give someone a...
TV Talk: Former Pittsburgher talks new season of ‘High School Musical: The Musical: The Series’ 
When “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” returns for its third season Wednesday on Disney+, the show moves from its regular Utah high school setting to a summer camp where the campers perform the Disney musical “Frozen.” Executive producer/showrunner Tim Federle, a 1998 graduate of Upper St. Clair High...
Marvel teases new Avengers movies, ‘Black Panther’ sequel
Marvel Studios unveiled the first trailer for ”Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — set to “No Woman No Cry” — to fans at Comic-Con on Saturday in San Diego. It was just one part of the massive Hall H presentation, which also included first-looks at “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,”...
Warner Bros. brings ‘Black Adam,’ ‘Shazam! 2’ to Comic-Con 
Dwayne Johnson went a few steps beyond merely teasing his long-awaited “Black Adam” movie at Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday. Ever the showman, Johnson brought a new trailer for the DC Comics superhero film and some flashy technology, lighting up the biggest room at the annual fan convention all...
‘Heat’-ing up: Michael Mann writes sequel-prequel ‘Heat 2’
NEW YORK — Decades after the release of Michael Mann’s “Heat,” the classic crime thriller has endured in the minds of fans, critics, peers and the director himself. He had so much left to say. “There’s always the sense of being shortchanged,” Mann said during a Zoom interview from his...
TV Talk: Making-of ‘Night of the Living Dead’ projects in the works
There are two undeniably popular genres in current Hollywood content creation: Fictionalized accounts of real-life events, popularized with true crime and scammer limited series (“The Dropout,” “WeCrashed,” “The Thing About Pam”), and anything with built-in name recognition (AKA “intellectual property” or IP) and even projects that are IP-adjacent. So why...
Commentary: Marvel has entered its latest phase: Exhaustion
The Marvel fatigue has set in. The colossal franchise that has ruled the movies since 2008 is feeling less like a celebration these days and more like a slog. That’s understandable, given that this month’s release of “Thor: Love and Thunder” marked the 29th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe....
Soledad O’Brien show makes impression in off-hours time slot
NEW YORK — You’ve got to wake up early on a weekend to catch Soledad O’Brien. Say 4:30 a.m. Saturday in Chicago. Or 5 a.m. on Sunday in New York and Houston. It’s 6:30 a.m. Saturday in Washington, D.C. — almost sleep-in territory. Those are some of the time slots...
TV Talk: WPXI-TV reporter’s son stars in Amazon Prime Video’s ‘The Lake’ 
Going on-camera runs in the family for 2014 Upper St. Clair High School grad Jared Scott. His mom is Lori Houy, a longtime on-air reporter for WPXI-TV. “I know she’s particular about her hair, so I adopted that from her,” Scott said in a recent phone interview. He currently stars...
MLB All-Star Game wins night but draws record low ratings
LOS ANGELES — Major League Baseball’s Midsummer Classic remains the most-watched all-star game in the major professional sports, even though it drew record lows in viewership for the fifth time since 2015. Tuesday night’s game from Los Angeles — which the American League won 3-2 — averaged 7.51 million viewers...
Movie review: ‘Nope’ another genre-disrupting masterpiece from Jordan Peele 
In “Nope,” writer/director Jordan Peele presents us with a big, shiny summer blockbuster — a cowboys and aliens riff built from the DNA of sci-fi spectacles of yore — and then proceeds to vivisect the very notion of a summer blockbuster before our eyes. He wants us to question the...
Tull Family Foundation not renewing Sewickley theater sponsorship
The Tull Family Foundation will not renew naming rights for a movie theater that’s become a cultural destination in Sewickley. Sponsorship of The Tull Family Theater, as the independent non-profit movie house has been known since it opened in February of 2017, will expire at the end of the year....
TV Q&A: Does ‘The Young and the Restless’ have a Pittsburgh connection?
Question: I noticed that on the June 30 episode of “The Young and the Restless” one of the characters said he was taking his son to the Brewers vs. Pirates game in Pittsburgh. In fact, the Brewers and Pirates were playing that very day. Was this a coincidence or is...
The Kid Mero and Desus Nice go separate ways, taking out Showtime’s ‘Desus & Mero’
The late-night talk show “Desus & Mero” will not return for a fifth season at Showtime as hosts Desus Nice and the Kid Mero look to pursue separate creative endeavors, a spokesperson for the network told the L.A. Times on Monday. “Desus Nice and The Kid Mero have made a...
TV Talk: Billy Porter makes directorial debut with Pittsburgh-filmed ‘Anything’s Possible’ 
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Anyone who sees Pittsburgh native Billy Porter’s feature film directorial debut “Anything’s Possible,” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video, will never question his love for his hometown. From multiple beauty shots of the city and...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking Emmy nominations, ‘Better Call Saul,’ ‘Shark Week,’ film tax credits 
In this episode of the “Pittsburgh Pop” podcast, host Tim Benz and TV Talk columnist Rob Owen discuss Pittsburgh pop culture news of the moment, including Emmy nominations with local ties, a Pittsburgh native who’s departed his on-air role at “Jeopardy!” and an increase in Pennsylvania’s film tax credit program...
Don McLean looks back at his masterpiece, ‘American Pie’ 
NEW YORK — Don McLean has listened for decades as people belted out his classic song “American Pie” at last call or at karaoke — and applauds you for the effort. “I’ve heard whole bars burst into this song when I’ve been across the room,” McLean tells The Associated Press...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh Glass Center employee competes on Netflix’s ‘Blown Away’
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. In the third-season premiere of Netflix’s glass-blowing competition series “Blown Away,” streaming Friday, John Sharvin of Morningside does not get a winner’s edit. With twinkly music playing under his interview segments, it’s more of a...
TV Talk: Peak TV peaks; broadcasters receive regional Emmy recognition 
Almost every week in this space, I include a list of TV, cable and streaming series that have been renewed or canceled. Last week, there were only cancellations, no renewals. That’s unusual, but it may become more the norm rather than an outlier. For years, Wall Street prized streaming over...
A ‘blockbuster’ movie about Doug Mastriano is ready to premiere — if a theater will show it
PHILADELPHIA — It’s been billed as a summer “blockbuster,” a hagiographic documentary about State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, that is set to premiere Saturday. But filmmaker Steve Turley’s red-carpet rollout for “The Return of the American Patriot” has stumbled twice in the last week,...


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