Movies/TV category, Page 127
TV Talk: Cable, streaming offer fresh shows to start the new yearVideo
Even as broadcast network shows return to the air this month, production on programs at most of the major studios in Los Angeles did not resume as scheduled this week due to rising covid-19 cases. Many series were pushed back to a Jan. 11 production restart and others, including NBC’s...
Mt. Lebanon man leads Video Trust, national group supporting academic film libraries
A lifelong love of the movies has led to a Mt. Lebanon man leading a nonprofit that helps strengthen film collections at academic libraries around the country, from kindergarten through university level. Chad Hunter is the new executive director of Video Trust, a 40-year-old national organization that provides professional development...
TV Q&A: How were the ratings for ‘Dancing with the Stars’ with new host Tyra Banks?
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 were the ratings of “Dancing with the Stars” when comparing last year to this year since Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews were fired? —...
Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton to play Batman in 2022 movie
Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton is slated to reprise his role as Batman in “The Flash,” a film anticipated for 2022. In the upcoming movie, DC Films will employ what is known as a multiverse, which allows for different versions of the same character to exist simultaneously in parallel worlds. This...
Cinemark theaters set to reopen, showing new and classic filmsVideo
Cinemark will reopen its Pennsylvania theaters on Friday, including these Southwestern Pennsylvania locations, in accordance with updated local covid mandates: • Cinemark Monroeville Mall and XD, 600 Mall Circle Drive • Cinemark North Hills and XD, 851 Providence Blvd., McCandless • Cinemark Robinson Township and XD, 2100 Settlers Ridge Center...
TV Talk: Joe Kenda recounts the cases of other cops on ‘American Detective’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. On Investigation Discovery’s “Homicide Hunter,” Westmoreland County native Joe Kenda seemed like he retold cases from memory because he did: Episodes were based on cases he worked for the Colorado Springs, Colo., police department. In...
Report: Talk show host Larry King in hospital with covid-19
LOS ANGELES — Former CNN talk show host Larry King has been hospitalized with COVID-19 for more than a week, the news channel reported Saturday. Citing an unidentified person close to the family, CNN said the 87-year-old King is undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Hospital protocols...
TV Talk: ‘The Bachelor,’ filmed at Nemacolin, is among midseason broadcast showsVideo
Premieres of new, returning and delayed-by-the-pandemic series begin rolling out on broadcast networks next week, including the 25th edition of ABC’s “The Bachelor” (8 p.m. Jan. 4, WTAE-TV), filmed this fall under a covid-19 quarantine bubble at Nemacolin in Farmington, Fayette County. It’s the first time the show has starred...
‘Gilligan’s Island’ star Dawn Wells dies, covid-19 cited
LOS ANGELES — Dawn Wells, who played the wholesome Mary Ann among a misfit band of shipwrecked castaways on the 1960s sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” died Wednesday of causes related to COVID-19, her publicist said. She was 82. Wells died peacefully at a living facility in Los Angeles, publicist Harlan Boll...
Joe and Jill Biden to appear on ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’
NEW YORK — Ryan Seacrest will have a special pair of guests alongside the music stars at this year’s New Year’s Eve celebration on ABC — the president-elect and the future first lady. President-elect Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden are scheduled to give “their last interview of the year”...
TV Q&A: Questions about KDKA-TV on-air talent answered
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: Stacy Smith has not been at the KDKA-TV anchor desk in some time. He was giving reports from his home. Is this health-related? Also, I...
Netflix reworks leftovers with food-based reality game show
Just in time for anyone facing a heaving, post-holiday refrigerator comes a TV show about what to do with all those dubious dishes — leftovers. Each episode of the food game show “Best Leftovers Ever!” on Netflix sees three skilled cooks make new dishes out of already made dishes, hoping...
TV Talk: PBS revisits ‘Little House’ author Laura Ingalls Wilder
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. To mark the 85th anniversary of the publication of “Little House on the Prairie,” PBS’s “American Masters” does a deep dive into the life and literary work of the book’s author in “Laura Ingalls Wilder:...
‘Wonder Woman 1984’ debuts with pandemic-best $16.7M
NEW YORK — Despite premiering simultaneously by streaming service, “Wonder Woman 1984” managed the best box office debut of the pandemic, opening with $16.7 million over the Christmas weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. That’s only a faint glimmer of typical business during the holiday season, when cinemas are usually...
TV Talk: Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’ aches to be a sexed-up ‘Downton Abbey’Video
“Bridgerton” wants to be the next “Downton Abbey,” albeit hornier and with a more modern spin. While this Regency period-set streaming series from executive producer Shonda Rhimes (“Grey’s Anatomy”) and showrunner Chris Van Dusen (“Scandal”) can be fun and beautiful to behold (sumptuous, brightly-colored costumes and landscapes dominate in early...
Review: Pixar’s ‘Soul’ joins mid-life crisis, jazz fantasia
Pete Docter’s “Soul” features stairway-to-heaven visions of the afterlife, a pre-birth “before” realm where souls are glowing turquoise orbs and an in-between spiritual realm trafficked by some kind of psychedelic pirate. And yet, kind of magically, it’s about “just regular old living.” Pixar may have started simple with talking toys,...
Happy Festivus, the 1st without its ‘creator’
Happy Festivus. With the year the world has had — and the loss of Festivus’ creator — it might be a somber one. Or maybe a reason to celebrate more. The fictional (but very real to some) holiday entered the universe on the Dec. 18, 1997, episode of the iconic...
TV Q&A: When will ‘When Calls the Heart’ be back?
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: When will Hallmark Channel’s “When Calls the Heart” return with new episodes? — Nina via voicemail Rob: “When Calls the Heart” wrapped production on its...
Murrysville filmmaker’s latest earns honorable mention at Top Shorts film festivalVideo
Dillon Black had finished up principal photography and was headed into post-production on his new short film, “What’s Left of Barry,” when the coronavirus pandemic turned things upside down. “I had six people helping me with post-production, and covid-19 threw a big wrench into everything,” said Black, 22, of Murrysville....
TV Talk: Peggy Finnegan bids Pittsburgh viewers farewell as she retires from WPXI-TV
Humble to the end, retiring WPXI-TV news anchor Peggy Finnegan twice tried to make Channel 11’s farewell coverage about everyone else. On Friday’s noon newscast, anchor Gordon Loesch tried to celebrate Finnegan but she turned it around and praised his work as an anchor and reporter over his 17 years...
Sewickley artist Claire Hardy’s rose paintings will be in the background of ‘The Bachelor’Video
While drama is always in the forefront of “The Bachelor,” the background should interest Western Pennsylvania viewers when Season 25 of ABC’s romantic reality show starts Jan. 4. First, the season, starring suitor Matt James was filmed at Nemacolin Resort in Fayette County. Second, paintings by Sewickley artist Claire Hardy...
Jeremy Bulloch, ‘Star Wars’ actor who played Boba Fett, dead at 75
Jeremy Bulloch, the English film star who suited up as the fan-favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, has died, according to another actor who played the character. He was 75. Bulloch’s death was announced Thursday on Instagram by Daniel Logan, who portrayed a young version...
TV Talk: Powerful, filmed-in-Pittsburgh ‘Ma Rainey’ debuts on NetflixVideo
The latest Netflix adaptation of one of Pittsburgh native August Wilson’s plays, the filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” stars Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman in a period piece that feels relevant and timely. An almost unrecognizable Davis, jettisoning any semblance of vanity, stars as Ma Rainey, a real...
In ‘Ma Rainey,’ channeling the blues of August Wilson
NEW YORK — Like many of those involved in the making of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” it’s not easy for Viola Davis to summarize what playwright August Wilson has meant to her except to answer, “Everything.” Davis’ first stage role was in Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” She made...
Tom Cruise unleashes rant about social distancing on ‘Mission: Impossible’ set
LONDON — Tom Cruise has launched an expletive-laden rant at colleagues on the set of his latest “Mission: Impossible” movie, after he reportedly spotted two workers failing to respect social distancing rules. In audio released by the Sun tabloid, the 58-year-old Hollywood star can be heard warning that anyone caught...
