Movies/TV category, Page 77
Trevor Noah signs off of ‘Daily Show’ with heartfelt farewellVideo
Seven years after stepping into the role, Trevor Noah bid farewell Thursday night on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” During his final episode, Noah thanked his fans and audience, as well as Black women in his life and in America. He appeared to become teary-eyed when talking about Black women...
Review: ‘The Whale’ is a hard but astounding film to watchVideo
The center of gravity of “The Whale” is obviously the 600-pound man at its center. Look closely, though, and he’s the one with a soul as light as a feather. Charlie is a reclusive, morbidly obese English literature teacher unable and unwilling to stop eating himself to death. As his...
Review: Lonely souls at the cinema in ‘Empire of Light’Video
Olivia Colman plays the manager of a movie theater in Sam Mendes’ new film “Empire of Light.” It’s a cinema palace in a small town on England’s south coast that is showing its age. The once grand establishment used to play films on multiple screens on multiple floors. The top...
TV Talk: Pittsburgh native Antoine Fuqua directs Will Smith in ‘Emancipation’ on Apple TV+Video
Pittsburgh native Antoine Fuqua (“The Equalizer,” “Southpaw”) directed Will Smith in Apple TV+’s action-heavy, would-be awards contender “Emancipation” well before Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars earlier this year. “Four hundred years of slavery is bigger than one moment,” Fuqua told Vanity Fair. “My hope is that people will...
Sundance Film Festival unveils lineup for 2023 edition
Documentaries about Brooke Shields, Judy Blume and Michael J. Fox, films from veteran directors like Nicole Holofcener, an adaptation of the viral New Yorker story “Cat Person” and the feature directorial debut of actors Alice Englert and Randall Park are among the world premieres set for the Sundance Film Festival...
Sharpton says ‘Loudmouth’ film debuts at ‘critical point’ in U.S. politicsVideo
NEW YORK — The Rev. Al Sharpton has been called a lot of names in his public life: a hustler, a racist, an opportunist, a fraud, a rat, a jester. He embraces at least one of the intended insults, a name often hurled by his critics on the right and...
‘City of Steel’ lets former workers chronicle the rise and fall of Pittsburgh steel industry
When Bruce Spiegel was a child, he would look out his Greenfield window at the heart of American industry: the U.S. Steel Homestead Works. “I would look out into the night and watch the Homestead furnaces blowing blue flames,” Spiegel said. “I thought steel-making was never going to end.” In...
TV Q&A: When will KDKA-TV’s Jon Delano escape his attic?
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’m wondering if you could find out when KDKA-TV will let Jon Delano out of his attic? — Ken, South Park Rob: In fairness, he...
TV Talk: ‘QED Cooks’ returns with first episode since the pandemic, ‘When in Rome’Video
WQED’s Saturday morning cooking franchise series “QED Cooks” returns with its first new episode since the March 2020 onset of the covid-19 pandemic with “When in Rome” (10 a.m.-12 p.m. Saturday and airing in the same time slot Dec. 17 and 20). Taped in late October and once again featuring...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking local TV news ratings, ‘Greg Donny,’ Top 10 TV of 2022
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 return of Yinzer-accented web comedy series “Greg Donny.” Owen and Benz also discuss November sweeps ratings for local TV newscasts, which station came...
‘Wakanda Forever’ is No. 1 for 4th straight weekend
NEW YORK — “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” kept the box-office crown for the fourth straight weekend, and the comic holiday thriller “Violent Night” debuted with $13.3 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. But the biggest talking point on the weekend was a movie conspicuously absent from theaters. Had Netflix kept...
Robert Downey Jr. talks of one last film with his dad, ‘Sr.’Video
NEW YORK — Robert Downey Jr. set out to make an objective portrait, a tribute to his father, the underground filmmaking maverick Robert Downey Sr. His dad had other plans. “The key point in this is when he goes, ‘OK, I think we should split into two camps: The (expletive)...
‘George & Tammy’ pulls back the curtain on country iconsVideo
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In preparation for their upcoming series “George & Tammy,” Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain spent months learning the songs that George Jones and Tammy Wynette made famous, working with a vocal coach and making the pilgrimage to Nashville to record. “The studio we recorded at butted up...
Review: Will Smith-led ‘Emancipation’ is an action thrillerVideo
It comes as some relief that Antoine Fuqua’s “Emancipation,” starring Will Smith as a runaway slave in Civil War-era Louisiana, is not, at least traditionally speaking, an Oscar movie. Despite the film’s important historical backdrop, its awards-season timing and its inevitable connection to last March’s Academy Awards ceremony, the site...
TV Talk: Best scripted TV/streaming series of 2022
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. While TV and streaming offer fresh programming year-round, December remains one of the quieter TV months — that makes it a good time to catch up on shows you’ve missed. Below, you’ll find my favorites...
Pitt student wins big during ‘Wheel of Fortune’ College Week
University of Pittsburgh sophomore Noah Stockwell got the idea of competing on the popular TV game show “Wheel of Fortune” sort of as a joke. He wound up having the last laugh after winning a massive prize on an episode that aired on Nov. 24. “I figured it would be...
Hollywood can make you ‘miserable.’ ‘White Lotus’ star Aubrey Plaza just laughs it offVideo
In the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” Aubrey Plaza plays Harper Spiller, a lawyer with a penchant for sarcasm who is vacationing in Italy with her husband and his friends. She’d rather read Valeria Luiselli’s “Lost Children Archive” than talk about “Ted Lasso.” And she’d rather not associate...
TV Talk: ‘Greg & Donny’ returns; sweeps ratings favor KDKA-TV, WTAE-TVVideo
Yinzerific web comedy series “Greg & Donny” hasn’t produced regular episodes since 2016, save for two pandemic specials in March and April 2020, but the series returns Dec. 6 with the first in a batch of new episodes. Unlike in past seasons where episodes were shot in advance and rolled...
New frothy TV drama series ‘Riches’ mixes money and bloodVideo
NEW YORK — There’s a new TV drama about the exploits of a stylish, privileged and super-successful fictional family whose scheming members are at each other’s throats. They make the folks at “Succession” look almost functional. “Riches,” which premieres Dec. 2 on Amazon Prime Video is set in the corporate...
‘Dateline’ profiles murder in Africa of Bianca Rudolph by former Westmoreland dentist
“Dateline” on NBC will cover a murder in Africa with connections to Westmoreland County during Friday’s episode. The long-running investigative series will focus on the 2016 death of Bianca Rudolph while on safari in Zambia with husband Larry Rudolph, who founded and once operated Hempfield-based Three Rivers Dental Group. Larry...
TV Talk: ‘Willow’ returns as Disney+ fantasy seriesVideo
In the ongoing quest to revive and dump everything-and-the-kitchen-sink onto streaming platforms, Disney+ introduces “Willow,” a series follow-up to the 1988 fantasy film about young farmer Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis) who is tasked with protecting the baby Elora Danan from evil queen Bavmorda. At the time, “Willow” was a modest...
Tilda Swinton reunites with childhood pal Joanna Hogg for ‘Eternal Daughter’Video
As a child, Tilda Swinton always felt like an outsider, an observer of others, sometimes even in her own family. One day at the British boarding school she loathed, she met another girl, Joanna Hogg, who shared a similar worldview. (Another classmate was Diana Spencer, the future princess.) “We were...
TV Q&A: How do evening newscast hours differ from one another?
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: Local news now starts at 4 p.m. weekdays and goes for several hours. At the top of each hour, the anchors sometimes change and they...
Movie review: ‘Violent Night’ can’t decide if it wants to play naughty or niceVideo
Sometimes the holiday season can just be a little too sweet. It’s why stories like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” endure, or movies like “Bad Santa” find success — not everyone wants to gulp down saccharine sentiments at Christmastime. Enter “Violent Night,” in which David Harbour plays a murderous Santa...
Clarence Gilyard, ‘Die Hard’ and ‘Matlock’ actor, dies at 66
NEW YORK — Clarence Gilyard Jr., a popular supporting actor whose credits include the blockbuster films “Die Hard” and “Top Gun” and the hit television series “Matlock” and “Walker, Texas Ranger,” has died at age 66. His death was announced this week by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where...
