Movies/TV category, Page 62
TV Talk: Pittsburgh-set ‘Average Joe’ delivers ‘Breaking Bad’ vibes on BET+
The premise of the darkly comedic BET+ drama “Average Joe,” set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, sat with writer Robb Cullen for a long time. A Philadelphia native, Cullen created the 2003 FX comedy “Lucky,” which featured the first series regular role for Swissvale native Billy Gardell. Last year when BET+...
TV Talk: Amazon debuts magical realism series ‘I’m a Virgo;’ ‘The Bear’ roars againVideo
Filmmaker Boots Riley (“Sorry to Bother You”) delivers magical realism weirdness with Amazon Prime Video’s “I’m a Virgo,” sort of a “Pushing Daisies” with a darker Tim Burton vibe but less coherent storytelling. It’s definitely strange but often funny and sometimes even moving. Streaming June 23, the story begins with...
TV Q&A: Will Peacock no longer be free for Comcast’s Xfinity subscribers?
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 turned on Comcast’s Xfinity and it says Peacock will no longer be free after June 26. On screen, it says you can order it...
5 filmmakers whose work you need to catch up on this summer
I often tell my film criticism students, as they prepare to review a new movie, that it’s always helpful to familiarize yourself with a director’s past work. That might sound like fairly obvious advice, but it’s worth reinforcing for someone not accustomed to watching movies through the lens of auteurism,...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking Taylor Swift, Stan Savran, summer movies, ‘Secret Invasion’Video
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 the weekend’s Taylor Swift concerts and the passing of Pittsburgh sports journalist Stan Savran. The pair discuss summer movies, including box office failures so...
What makes a streaming hit? Desperate fans ‘game the system’ to save favorite shows
LOS ANGELES — Nikki Rodriguez wants Netflix to renew its fantasy series “Shadow and Bone” — so much so that she has watched its second season 15 times. She’s promoted fan videos on social media to court new viewers for the show. The New York resident also created a Change.org...
What if things could turn out differently? How the multiverse got into our heads and didn’t let go
“Let’s do things differently this time.” Those are the first words you hear at the beginning of this month’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” an otherworldly meditation on multiple realities and how our lives might unfold. The message is clear from the get-go: We have choices. Things could be malleable. You...
TV Talk: Former Pittsburgher is in the kitchen with Chef Carmy on ‘The Bear’Video
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. PASADENA, Calif. — Last summer’s FX- produced Hulu hit “The Bear,” about chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his attempts to revive a grimy Chicago sandwich joint, returns for its second season with all 10 episodes...
Central Park birder Christian Cooper is turning his viral video fame into a memoir and TV show
NEW YORK — There’s nothing that can keep Christian Cooper from enjoying his “happy place,” the bird-friendly Ramble of Central Park — not even his tense, viral video encounter three years ago with a woman walking her dog off leash in his refuge. Cooper is a lifelong birder, and Black,...
‘The Flash’ opens to $55 million, a step off the typical superhero pace
DC and Warner Bros.’ long-in-the-works superhero movie “The Flash” opened to $55 million in its first three days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Though a fair amount of money by normal standards, a sizable jump from DC’s last release, the “Shazam!” sequel, and enough for...
TV Talk: TV’s most memorable fathers
Just as TV seared decades of TV moms into our pop culture memories, so too do we remember TV’s most memorable dads. Let’s hop in Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s Wayback Machine and revisit some favorites, good and bad, via superlatives: Wisest dad Widower and single dad Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith)...
‘Abbott Elementary’ star Chris Perfetti feels at home with ‘King James’
NEW YORK — Chances are you won’t find Chris Perfetti fiercely debating on social media if LeBron James is indeed the GOAT, nor will you find him waiting hours outside of hotels, hoping to get an autograph or selfie from the basketball legend — but you wouldn’t know it from...
TV Talk: WQED hires new CEO
WQED Multimedia named Jason Jedlinski, most recently general manager of The Hill, a digital political news operation in Washington, D.C., as its new CEO. In an interview Thursday morning, Jedlinski said he has been tasked by the WQED board to “usher in a new era of enhanced service that meets...
2-time Oscar winner Glenda Jackson, who mixed acting with politics, dies at 87Video
LONDON — Glenda Jackson, a two-time Academy Award-winning performer who had a second career in politics as a British lawmaker before an acclaimed late-life return to stage and screen, has died at age 87. Jackson’s agent Lionel Larner said she died Thursday at her home in London after a short...
TV Talk: ‘Walking Dead’ takes Manhattan; W. Pa. native offers psychic reading on ‘Big Freedia’Video
Following in the footsteps of the Muppets and Jason Voorhees, it’s now the walking dead’s turn to take Manhattan in AMC’s latest spin-off, the six-episode first season of “The Walking Dead: Dead City” (now streaming on AMC+; 9 p.m. Sunday on linear AMC). McCandless native Greg Nicotero, a “TWD” mainstay,...
TV Talk: Marvel-ous ‘Secret Invasion’ showcases Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick FuryVideo
Two things about Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” can be true at once: Where Disney’s superhero franchise once had an easy-to-follow heroes-versus-villains plot, it has become a convoluted, labyrinthine ongoing story that requires a Ph.D. in Marvel (and viewing of all Marvel filmed entertainment) to completely understand. And yet, this latest Disney+...
Movie Review: Americana, told Wes Anderson-style, in star-filled ‘Asteroid City’
Wes Anderson gets back to the heart of things in “Asteroid City,” a film about grief, performance, storytelling, the cosmos and, well, everything. Or, as one character, a playwright played by Edward Norton, says when asked what his work is about: “It’s about infinity and I don’t know what else.”...
Fox onscreen message calls Biden a ‘wannabe dictator’ following Trump arraignment
NEW YORK — Fox News said Wednesday that an onscreen message that called President Biden a “wannabe dictator” was taken off TV immediately after it aired and “addressed.” The headline appeared Tuesday night under onscreen video of former President Donald Trump speaking to supporters live following his arrest, next to...
Tim Benz: Yogi Berra documentary is fun baseball nostalgia, well-crafted storytelling
Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. For many, two things are frequent triggers of that warm sense of yearning for days gone by. Baseball and movies. It’s even better when the subject matter at hand is about one of the more likable personalities the game has known. Those two pastimes intersect...
TV Q&A: Will late-night shows come back like they did during the last writers’ strike?
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: During the 2007 writers’ strike, late-night talk shows (“The Daily Show,” “Colbert Report,” “Tonight Show,” etc.) resumed producing “scriptless” new shows (except “The Late Show...
Movie review: Ezra Miller speeds back to the future in ‘The Flash,’ fueled by calories and cameos
“It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” went a famous ’70s commercial catchphrase. But we learn in “The Flash” — the much awaited, long gestated new DC Studios offering — that it’s Father Time one musn’t cross. Because trying to change the past can really mess you up when you...
Pat Sajak says upcoming ‘Wheel of Fortune’ will be his last as host
LOS ANGELES — Pat Sajak is taking one last spin on “Wheel of Fortune,” announcing Monday that its upcoming season will be his last as host. Sajak announced his retirement from the venerable game show in a tweet. “Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking Tonys and CMU, Taylor Swift, ‘Based on a True Story,’ ‘It’s Ain’t Over’
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 Carnegie Mellon University’s showing at Sunday night’s Tony Awards, an excellent awards show telecast in spite of (or because of?) a lack of writers...
Tony Awards telecast makes inclusive history, puts on quite a show despite Hollywood strikeVideo
NEW YORK — The intimate, funny-sad musical “Kimberly Akimbo” nudged aside splashier rivals on Sunday to win the musical crown at the Tony Awards on a night when Broadway flexed its creative muscle amid the Hollywood writers’ strike and made history with laurels for nonbinary actors J. Harrison Ghee and...
‘Transformers’ edge out ‘Spider-Verse’ to claim first place at box office
It was Miles Morales and the Spider-Verse versus the “Transformers” at the box office this weekend and the bots came out on top. ” Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh entry in the series, took the No. 1 spot in its first weekend in North American theaters with $60.5...
