Entertainment category, Page 161
Emmys reach record-low audience of 5.9 million viewers
NEW YORK — The Emmy Awards hit a new low in viewership on Monday night, with its estimated audience of 5.9 million people even smaller than the covid-19-disrupted ceremony two years ago. The Nielsen company said the ceremony honoring television’s best work, where “Ted Lasso” was named best comedy and...
Review: Ian McEwan returns with masterful book ‘Lessons’
“Lessons,” by Ian McEwan (Alfred A. Knopf) “Roland occasionally reflected on the events and accidents, personal and global, minuscule and momentous that had formed and determined his existence.” That one sentence in Ian McEwan’s new novel, “Lessons,” nicely sums up the book. When we first meet Roland Baines he is...
Peele and Key on reuniting, as demons, in ‘Wendell & Wild’
TORONTO — It’s seven years almost to day since the last episode of “Key & Peele” aired, but Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key are once again riffing together. They’re sitting in a Toronto hotel the day before the premiere of Henry Selick’s stop-motion-animation marvel “Wendell & Wild” at the Toronto...
Rapper PnB Rock fatally shot in Los Angeles restaurant
LOS ANGELES — Philadelphia rapper PnB Rock was fatally shot during a robbery in South Los Angeles, according to police and his representatives. The rapper, whose real name is Rakim Allen, was eating inside a Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles restaurant with his girlfriend Monday afternoon when a suspect approached their...
Why Tyler Perry’s passion project ‘A Jazzman’s Blues’ will mark his major film festival debutVideo
Tyler Perry is nothing if not prolific. And busy. Already a wildly successful writer, producer, director and performer in film, television and theater, he added studio head to his resume with the 2019 opening of the massive Tyler Perry Studios production complex in Atlanta. In 2021 he received an honorary...
Broadway theater renamed in honor of James Earl Jones
NEW YORK — The newly restored Cort Theatre on Broadway has been renamed after James Earl Jones, becoming the second theater on the Great White Way named after a Black artist. During Monday’s ceremony included Norm Lewis singing “Go the Distance,” Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “Make Them Hear You” and...
Iconic French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard dead at 91Video
GENEVA — Jean-Luc Godard, the ingenious “enfant terrible” of the French New Wave who revolutionized popular cinema in 1960 with his first big endeavor, “Breathless,” and stood for years as one of the world’s most vital and provocative directors, has died. He was 91. Swiss news agency ATS quoted Godard’s...
TV Talk: Premiere dates for returning broadcast series
Premiere dates for returning prime-time broadcast network shows are below. Please note: For their premiere week only, NBC’s Thursday night “Law & Order” shows will air on WPXI’s Channel 11.2, MeTV, while Channel 11.1 broadcasts the Steelers- Browns game. The “Law & Order” shows will return to Channel 11.1 on Sept....
Behind the art: The Westmoreland’s Tiffany window ‘a treasure among treasures’
Editor’s note: Behind the Art is a new feature in Westmoreland Plus. It profiles some of the artworks that are in museums in the region. An artwork would have to be quite remarkable to be considered “a treasure among treasures” in the permanent collection of The Westmoreland Museum of American...
List of Emmy winners include Michael Keaton, Lizzo and ‘SNL’
LOS ANGELES — Here are the winners of the 2022 prime-time Emmy Awards. Best Comedy: “Ted Lasso” Best Drama: “Succession” Best Limited Series: “The White Lotus” Best Actress, Comedy: Jean Smart, “Hacks” Best Actor, Comedy: Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso” Best Actress, Drama: Zendaya, “Euphoria” Best Actor, Drama: Lee Jung-jae, “Squid...
Michael Keaton wins 1st Emmy on funny, entertaining night
Michael Keaton picked up his first Emmy Award for his role in Hulu’s opioid crisis drama “Dopesick” at Monday night’s 74th annual Emmy Awards. That was only after a cringeworthy song-and-dance opening number — set to TV theme songs that only got worse as it went on. Fortunately after that,...
‘Rosalía is the truth’: How a Spanish flamenco singer defied convention and rewired pop
MEXICO CITY — “It was like I almost drowned!” Inside one of Mexico City’s posh five-star hotels, Rosalía sinks into a cushy office chair across from me, already winded on the third day of her Latin American tour, in support of her universally acclaimed album, “Motomami.” If it wasn’t from...
Targaryens gonna Targaryen on this week’s ‘House of the Dragon’
Allow me to take a deep sigh before attempting to settle comfortably into a review of this frequently uncomfortable episode of television. This week, well, quite frankly, Targaryens gonna Targaryen. This family may...
Spain, France kick off anniversary celebration of Picasso
MADRID — Against the backdrop of Picasso’s iconic anti-war painting, “Guernica,” the culture ministers of France and Spain gathered Monday in Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum to kick off a year of commemorative acts to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the death of the Spanish artist who revolutionized the world of...
Review: Jann Wenner’s memoir looks at his rock, rolling role
“Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir” (Little, Brown) Jann S. Wenner takes us on a long, strange trip with his accessible and entertaining rock ‘n’ roll memoir. As the founder, co-editor and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine, Wenner had an unusual back stage pass to the rock ‘n’ roll revolution...
‘Barbarian’ is top film amid late-summer box office doldrums
LOS ANGELES — The horror film “Barbarian” won the weekend by bringing in $10 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, as the late-summer doldrums at the box office continued. Director Zach Cregger’s debut from Disney’s 20th Century Studios premiered at San Diego Comic-Con in July and opened Friday on 2,340...
Art Spiegelman to receive honorary National Book Award
NEW YORK — This fall, Art Spiegelman will receive an honorary National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He feels honored, and a little worried. The unexpected pleasure of being cited by the National Book Foundation comes months after the jarring saga of his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Maus” being...
Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band bring Beatles hits and more to PittsburghVideo
Ringo Starr may not be everyone’s favorite Beatle, but an evening spent under the same roof with any Beatle has to be considered time well spent. And so it was for a far less than capacity, but enthusiastic, crowd at PPG Paints Arena Saturday night as the former Beatles drummer...
Marsha Hunt, ’40s star and blacklist victim, dies at 104
TORONTO — Marsha Hunt, one of the last surviving actors from Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s who worked with performers ranging from Laurence Olivier to Andy Griffith in a career disrupted for a time by the McCarthy-era blacklist, has died. She was 104. Hunt, who appeared...
Kirk Cameron’s anti-abortion film ‘Lifemark’ rides wave of Christian moviesVideo
When the Kendrick brothers met with their usual Hollywood movie studio contacts to distribute their latest picture, “Lifemark,” which came out Friday, the Christian filmmakers received a response they weren’t used to hearing: No thanks. The three brothers based in Albany, Georgia, are known for making religious-themed pictures that perform...
Weird Al gives himself the Weird Al treatment in new biopicVideo
TORONTO — When a young, bespectacled Al Yankovic picked up an accordion, few — especially Al, himself — would have predicted the long-running show-business career that would follow. But can you imagine if they did? That every step of Yankovic’s way — the first Hawaiian shirt, the epiphany of riffing...
Blake Shelton includes Pittsburgh stop on 2023 tour
Country music superstar Blake Shelton is returning to the road in 2023 and Pittsburgh is one of the places on his 18 city tour. Shelton will play PPG Paints Arena on March 24 as part of the “Back to the Honky Tonk Tour.” Included in the tour are CMA Female...
TV Talk: Broadcast TV goes with tried and true genres, titles for new fall seasonVideo
As broadcast television shrinks in importance to media conglomerates — see: reports of NBC dumping its 10 p.m. hour of programming, possibly next fall —ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and The CW all play it safe with familiar titles/genres and fewer new fall series overall. Here’s what’s new on the commercial...
Vision-impaired first grader shows work with Westmoreland Photographers
Westmoreland Photographers Society members chose “Eye of the Beholder” as the title of a show opening with a reception at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Greensburg Art Center. One of those “beholders” is a 6-year-old photographer who will exhibit three images taken in the Ohiopyle area. What makes this artist...
Playing Marilyn Monroe in ‘Blonde’ was life-changing for Ana de ArmasVideo
VENICE, Italy — Andrew Dominik had been trying to make a movie about Marilyn Monroe for over a decade. The film wouldn’t be a biopic, but an experiential portrait delving into the psyche of Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane. It kept falling apart, but the New Zealand native couldn’t let...
