Movies/TV category, Page 44
TV Talk: FX debuts dull ‘Feud;’ WQED-TV covers Carnegie InternationalVideo
Usually, FX is eager to get TV critics’ opinions on its shows in advance of a premiere, so its marketing team can splash positive notices all over ads in Hollywood trade magazines, burnishing the network’s deserved brand of quality, critically applauded, award-winning entertainment. Most of the time these embargoes, the...
Issa Rae eyeing indie move as Black stories get sidelined: ‘I can’t force you to make my stuff’
LOS ANGELES — Issa Rae says she went from being “stupidly optimistic” early in her career to pessimistic about Black stories being made a priority in Hollywood. Despite starring in three of last year’s critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated films — “Barbie,” “American Fiction” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” — Rae...
NFL playoffs, conference championship games draw highest viewership average on record
LOS ANGELES — The television audiences for the NFL playoffs and last Sunday’s conference championship games are the highest on record going back to 1988. According to the league and Nielsen, the first three weekends of the postseason averaged 38.5 million viewers on television and digital platforms, a 9% increase...
TV Q&A: Why more than 1 color analyst on Penguins games?
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: I was sorry that Pens ownership dropped Bob Errey as a color analyst on TV broadcasts. This season has rotated at least three different announcers....
TV Talk: Former Pittsburgher Loren Allred exits ‘AGT: Fantasy League’Video
In Monday’s “AGT: Fantasy League” former Pittsburgher Loren Allred competed in the show’s semi-finals by singing her own spin on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She made it into the Top 2 for the night but ultimately did not advance to the show’s finals, ending her competition tenure on “AGT: Fantasy...
How (and where) to watch Oscar-nominated films online
The winner in the Oscar nominations race Tuesday after a bruising year for the film industry was “Oppenheimer” with 13 nods, followed by the otherworldly “Poor Things” with 11 and the period epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” with 10. 2023 was marred by strikes and work stoppages for the...
TV Talk: McCandless native plays Rustin in Nat Geo’s ‘Genius: MLK/X’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. There’s occasionally weird serendipity in Hollywood casting when it comes to Pittsburgh ties. Netflix’s “Rustin,” a bio-pic about gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin played by actor Colman Domingo, filmed in Pittsburgh. Now McCandless native...
TV Talk: WPXI-TV hires weekend morning anchor, faces retransmission spat with DirecTV
WPXI-TV hired New Kensington native Jatara McGee to be the station’s new weekend morning anchor beginning in mid-February. Current weekend morning anchor Alyssa Raymond will move to anchor the weekday noon newscast on Channel 11 after Katherine Amenta and Gordon Loesch took on an additional 7 a.m. weekday newscast on...
‘Barbie’ Oscars snubs prompt a backlash, even from Ken (and Hillary)
NEW YORK — “Barbie” was the biggest hit of 2023, the highest-grossing movie ever directed by a woman and a bona fide cultural sensation that turned movie theaters pink and left a still-going trail of think pieces in the wake of Greta Gerwig’s feminist fantasia. But while “Barbie” received eight...
TV Talk: ‘Masters of the Air’ takes flight with epic WWII storyVideo
After HBO’s Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg-produced 2001 miniseries “Band of Brothers” and its 2010 follow-up, “The Pacific,” the premium cable network put a third WWII limited series into development in 2013 that would track the air war over Europe, “Masters of the Air.” But on the way to screens, the streaming...
Jon Stewart will return to ‘The Daily Show’ as host — just on Mondays
NEW YORK — Comedian Jon Stewart is rewinding the clock, returning to “The Daily Show” as a weekly host and executive producing through the 2024 U.S. elections cycle. Comedy Central on Wednesday said Stewart will host the topical TV show, the perch he ruled for 16 years starting in 1999,...
Jodie Foster’s back, ‘Barbie’ brings novel numbers and other Oscar nomination facts and figuresVideo
LOS ANGELES — A look at notable facts, figures and curiosities from Tuesday’s nominations for the 96th Academy Awards, which saw “Oppenheimer” lead with 13 Oscar nominations, with “Poor Things” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” also running up big numbers. Fostering the Oscars Jodie Foster became an Academy Awards...
TV Q&A: Why do many TV news personalities return from vacation on a Thursday?
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: I have always wondered why so many folks who work for broadcast media return from their vacations on a Thursday or Friday. I’ve seen this...
Did ‘Barbenheimer’ dominate the Oscar nominations? It’s complicated
Girl power may have bested atomic energy at the box office in last summer’s “Barbenheimer” showdown. But Tuesday’s Academy Award nominations morning flipped the script, with Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” dominating the field of competition with 13 nominations while “Barbie” fell short of expectations with eight. Forever linked in pop culture’s...
Oscar nomination for ’20 Days in Mariupol’ is a first for the 178-year-old Associated Press
NEW YORK — “20 Days in Mariupol,” Mstyslav Chernov’s harrowing chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia’s invasion, has been nominated for best documentary at the Academy Awards, handing The Associated Press its first Oscar nomination in the 178-year-old news organization’s history....
Pittsburgh boasts plenty of connections to this year’s Oscar noms
What does it matter that Hollywood is 2,436 miles from Pittsburgh? The city’s link to the big screen is always close by. The latest round of Oscar nominations were unveiled Tuesday, and — sure enough — we’ve managed to find some Pittsburgh connections. Of course we did. The first and...
WWE’s ‘Raw’ is moving to Netflix next year in a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion
WWE’s weekly television show “Raw” will move to Netflix next year as part of a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion. TKO Group Holdings Inc., which houses WWE and UFC, said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that the agreement is for 10 years, with Netflix having an...
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson gets rights to one of the most famous nicknames in entertainment, his own
It is a name that has become almost synonymous with professional wrestling but its bearer, Dwayne Johnson, has never legally owned “The Rock.” That will change under a new agreement with the WWE under which Johnson will also join the board of TKO Group, the sports and entertainment company that...
‘Oppenheimer’ tops all Oscar nominees with 13; ‘Barbie’ snags 8Video
NEW YORK — After a tumultuous movie year marred by strikes and work stoppages, the Academy Awards showered nominations Tuesday on Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, “Oppenheimer,” which came away with a leading 13 nominations. Nolan’s three-hour opus, viewed as the best picture frontrunner, received nods for best picture; Nolan’s direction;...
TV Talk: Former Pittsburgher, ‘Greatest Showman’ singer competes on ‘AGT: Fantasy League’Video
Although she’s becoming known as the true singer of “Never Enough” in 2017’s movie musical hit “The Greatest Showman,” former Pittsburgher Loren Allred said, “Enough!” to a career in the public eye after her first reality show experience on NBC’s “The Voice” in 2012. It took a decade to find...
TV Talk: Pittsburgher Daniel Moore competed on latest ‘Jeopardy!’
Daniel Moore’s return to “Jeopardy!” proved short-lived. Moore, a 33-year-old contract compliance analyst in the office of business diversity in the mayor of Pittsburgh’s office, first competed on the quiz show last summer and won $41,800 over three episodes. He returned this week as part of the show’s “Season 39...
Norman Jewison, acclaimed director of ‘In the Heat of the Night’ and ‘Moonstruck,’ dead at 97
NEW YORK — Norman Jewison, the acclaimed and versatile Canadian-born director whose Hollywood films ranged from Doris Day comedies and “Moonstruck” to social dramas such as the Oscar-winning “In the Heat of the Night,” has died at age 97. Jewison, a three-time Oscar nominee who in 1999 received an Academy...
TV Talk: Netflix’s ‘Griselda’ embraces TV characters’ love of bad choicesVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Netflix’s new series “Griselda,” streaming Thursday and starring Sofia Vergara (“Modern Family,” ex- of Mt. Lebanon native Joe Manganiello), tells a fictionalized account of the real queenpin Griselda Blanco, who led a powerful drug cartel...
‘Mean Girls’ fetches $11.7M in 2nd weekend to stay No. 1 at box office
NEW YORK — On a quiet weekend in movie theaters, “Mean Girls” repeated atop the box office with $11.7 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, while a handful of awards contenders sought to make an impact ahead of Oscar nominations Tuesday. With a dearth of new releases...
Reformed mobster went after ‘one last score’ when he stole Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from ‘Oz’
The aging reformed mobster who has admitted stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” gave into the temptation of “one last score” after an old mob associate led him to believe the famous shoes must be adorned with real jewels to justify...
