Movies/TV category, Page 40
TV Talk: ‘Ripley’ is a bore; ‘Mary & George’ delightsVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. In season two of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” poor Tanya McQuoid-Hunt (Jennifer Coolidge) begged for help from a ship’s captain, saying, “Please, these gays, they’re trying to murder me!” Plenty of characters might make a...
TV Talk: CMU grad checks into ‘Grey’s Anatomy’
It was appropriate that Meredith Grey’s voiceover narration in the March 28 episode of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” (9 p.m. Thursdays, WTAE-TV) was all about the early transplant work of Pittsburgh’s Dr. Thomas Starzl because the episode also marked the arrival of a new long-term patient at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital...
As Roe v. Wade fell, teenage girls formed a mock government in ‘Girls State’Video
NEW YORK — In the summer of 2022, days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, some 500 high school girls gathered in Missouri for a weeklong mock government camp in which they elected their own governor and seated an all-female Supreme Court that would rule on their own...
TV Q&A: Where did WTAE sportscaster Ashley Liotus go?
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: Wondering about the sports department at Channel 4: I haven’t seen Ashley Liotus in quite a while. She often covered the Steelers throughout the week,...
12.3 million: Iowa’s victory over LSU is the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record
BRISTOL, Conn. — Caitlin Clark can claim another highlight — the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record. Iowa’s 94-87 victory over LSU in Monday night’s Albany 2 Region final averaged 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, according to Nielsen. Clark scored 41 points as the Hawkeyes avenged last year’s loss...
‘SCTV’ star, comedian, Pittsburgher Joe Flaherty has died at 82 after illness
TORONTO — Comedian Joe Flaherty, a founding member of the Canadian sketch series “SCTV,” has died. He was 82. His daughter Gudrun said Tuesday that Flaherty died Monday following a brief illness. Flaherty, who was born and raised in Pittsburgh’s Homewood-Brushton neighborhood, spent seven years at The Second City in...
TV Talk: National cooking show comes to WQED-TVVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Fans of Chris Fennimore’s “QED Cooks” shows take note: There’s a new national cooking talk show coming to WQED-TV at 12:30 p.m. on Saturdays beginning April 6. Chef Joel Gamoran hosts “Homemade Live!,” a weekly...
Chance Perdomo, star of ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ and ‘Gen V,’ dies in motorcycle crash at 27
Actor Chance Perdomo, who rose to fame as a star of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and “Gen V,” has died at age 27 following a motorcycle crash. “On behalf of the family and his representatives, it is with heavy hearts that we share the news of Chance Perdomo’s untimely passing...
Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black man to win supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87
LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87. Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night...
Jerry Seinfeld made a movie about Pop-Tarts. Yes, the trailer is as goofy as you’d expectVideo
Jerry Seinfeld and his all-star cast are “drunk on sugar-power” in the new trailer for “Unfrosted,” a film that chronicles Pop-Tarts’ origin story. That’s how the comedian described the film in a 2018 tweet when it was just a nebulous concept. “Imagine the drunk on sugar-power Kellogg’s cereal culture of...
Cillian Murphy attached to ‘Blood Runs Coal’ film, based on true story of Yablonski murders
Recent Best Actor Academy Award winner Cillian Murphy is set to star in, and produce, a film that has local ties. The “Oppenheimer” actor is attached to a film adaptation of “Blood Runs Coal: the Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America,” according to Variety....
TV Talk: Filmed-in-Pittsburgh ‘Kingstown’ gets season 3 premiere dateVideo
Often streaming series are in the can for months before they show up on a streaming service — “American Rust,” which premiered on Amazon’s Prime Video earlier today, was locked in August 2023 — but post-strikes Paramount+ is really pushing the third season of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “Mayor of Kingstown,” announcing a...
TV Talk: ‘American Rust’ makes case for renewal with a twisty 2nd seasonVideo
The first season of filmed-in-Pittsburgh “American Rust” started too slow and painted most of its characters and the fictional town of Buell, Fayette County, with the same turbid gray. It’s no wonder viewers tuned out and Showtime canceled the show. But even in that first season, “American Rust” found its...
TV Q&A: Why did ‘9-1-1’ move from Fox to ABC?
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: Why did 9-1-1 move from Fox to ABC? Did Fox simply not want the show any longer, or was there more to it? — Xavier,...
Caitlin Clark, Iowa claim another record with most-viewed first-round game in women’s NCAA tourney history
BRISTOL, Conn. — Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes can claim another record — the most-viewed first-round game in women’s NCAA Tournament history. The Hawkeyes’ 91-65 win over Holy Cross on Saturday averaged 3.23 million viewers on ABC, according to Nielsen. The viewership surpassed the 2.50 million who watched last...
NBC says it will cut ties with former RNC head Ronna McDaniel after days of employee objections
NEW YORK — NBC News will cut ties with former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel, hired last week as an on-air political contributor, following a furious protest by some of its journalists and commentators, according to a memo from the top official of the network’s news division. The communication...
TV Talk: CMU grad John Wells sets Noah Wyle medical drama in Pittsburgh; former WTAE forecaster exits TV
John Wells, a 1979 Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama grad, will executive produce “THE PITT,” a Pittsburgh-set medical drama to star his “ER” alum Noah Wyle that received a straight-to-series order from streaming service Max. R. Scott Gemmill, another “ER” grad, will serve as showrunner of the series that...
Netflix series ‘3 Body Problem’ poses some big sci-fi questionsVideo
I recently finished the first book of Liu Cixin’s science-fiction trilogy, which shares its title, “The 3 Body Problem,” with the Netflix sci-fi series that debuted last week. And while this is only the first season, and I can’t say with certainty that the show will go where the books...
‘Morning Joe’ hosts add to internal NBC criticism of Ronna McDaniel’s hiring as a contributorVideo
NEW YORK — The internal furor over NBC News’ decision to hire former Republican National Committee head Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor spread Monday, with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts saying on the air that they strongly objected and wouldn’t have her on their show. “We hope NBC will reconsider...
TV Talk: Pittsburgher ‘The Chase’ star back on ‘Jeopardy!’ 20 years later; ‘PTL’ turns 20Video
Victoria Groce of Point Breeze first competed on the daytime game show “Jeopardy!” in 2005, winning $23,801 over two episodes just before she moved to Pittsburgh, where her husband works at Carnegie Mellon as a software engineer. She previously worked at the University of Pittsburgh in various roles, including as...
‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is No. 1 with $45.2M, Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Immaculate’ lands in 4thVideo
NEW YORK — Ghost busting is still a good business. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” collected $45.2 million in ticket sales over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, handing Sony Pictures the studio’s first No. 1 film since last summer. The opening weekend for “Frozen Empire,” in 4,345 theaters, was nearly...
Solar eclipses show up across the entertainment spectrum
From the birth of a carnivorous houseplant to a time traveler using the knowledge of modern science to his advantage, the phenomenon of the solar eclipse has played a role across the pop culture spectrum from cinema to song and beyond. Here are a few examples. ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’...
Comedian Kevin Hart is joining a select group honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American humor
WASHINGTON — Kevin Hart, who rose from the open mics and comedy clubs of his native Philadelphia to become one of the country’s most recognizable performers, will receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a gala performance Sunday at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Hart, 44,...
Cameron Diaz, Benji Madden announce surprise birth of baby boy
The stork has arrived with another bundle of joy for Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden. The “Shrek” star, 51, and Good Charlotte musician, 45, shared a joint Instagram post on Friday announcing the birth of baby boy Cardinal. The news came as a surprise as no one knew the couple...
TV Talk: ‘Game of Thrones’ showrunners launch ‘3 Body Problem;’ KDKA-TV adds reporterVideo
For their first series after showrunning HBO’s mammoth hit “Game of Thrones,” writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (with Alexander Woo, “The Terror,” “True Blood”) adapt Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin’s “3 Body Problem” for Netflix and the result is a show that begins semi-intriguing and by its fourth episode...
