Movies/TV category, Page 82
‘Halloween Ends’ wins box office but renews streaming debate
No matter how you look at the numbers, “Halloween Ends” had a good opening weekend. Touted as the final showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, the slasher pic earned $41.3 million in ticket sales from 3,901 theaters in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday. It’s the first film...
Review: Claire Denis’ erotic thriller ‘Stars at Noon’ emits the sweat smell of sexcessVideo
Few filmmakers can evoke, as fully as Claire Denis does, the intoxication and menace of feeling cast adrift in a world where you don’t belong. Think of the French coffee-plantation owner in “White Material,” clinging desperately to the war-torn African country she’s claimed as her own, even as it tries...
How much Netflix’s new ad-supported plan will cost and what you get (and don’t)
LOS ANGELES — Commercials are coming soon to Netflix. The streamer on Thursday said it would launch a cheaper, ad-supported plan at $6.99 a month starting on Nov. 3 in the U.S. Netflix will still offer ad-free subscriptions, but for people seeking a discount, a total of four to five...
No jail time for Cuba Gooding Jr. in forcible touching case
NEW YORK — Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. resolved his New York City forcible touching case Thursday with a guilty plea to a lesser charge and no jail time after complying with the terms of a conditional plea agreement reached in April. Prosecutor Coleen Balbert said Gooding has stayed out of...
9 Angela Lansbury favorites to watch and where to find them
You’re not alone if you saw the news of Angela Lansbury’s death Tuesday, at 96, and thought about turning on an episode of “Murder, She Wrote,” the beloved mystery series she starred in from 1984 to 1996 as a writer and amateur detective on the coast of Maine. Or, for...
Q&A: Park Chan-wook on love, genre and ‘Decision to Leave’Video
NEW YORK — Long before Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” triumphed at the Oscars and “Squid Game” circled the globe, Park Chan-wook was astonishing worldwide audiences with his sumptuously stylistic, outrageously violent and devilishly elaborate vision of Korean cinema. His latest, “Decision to Leave,” is in some ways more restrained than...
TV Talk: Mister Rogers comparisons abound in ‘Barney’ doc ‘I Love You, You Hate Me’Video
There are some interesting ideas explored in Peacock’s “I Love You, You Hate Me,” a two-part docu-series about 1990s PBS phenomenon “Barney & Friends,” the kids’ show starring a loved and loathed purple dinosaur. But the series, now streaming, veers from its nostalgia lane into true crime territory. Is the...
For Whoopi Goldberg, ‘Till’ release comes after long waitVideo
LOS ANGELES — When Whoopi Goldberg was invited to help produce an Emmett Till project, the actor thought she knew everything about the Black teenager’s 1955 kidnapping and lynching — until she learned the untold stories about how his mother handled the horrific aftermath. After Goldberg dove deep into Till’s...
TV Talk: HBO to debut ‘A Tree of Life’ documentary executive produced by Michael Keaton, Billy Porter, Mark CubanVideo
“A Tree of Life: The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting,” executive produced by Pittsburgh natives Michael Keaton, Billy Porter and Mark Cuban, will premiere on HBO and HBO Max at 9 p.m. Oct. 26. Directed by Trish Adlesic (“Gasland,” “I Am Evidence”), the 80-minute film re-tells the story of the 2018 shooting...
Why classical conductor ‘Tár’ was the most terrifying role of Cate Blanchett’s iconic careerVideo
Cate Blanchett has played her share of formidable characters, rulers who could bring mere mortals to their knees with a single icy stare: Queen Elizabeth I in “Elizabeth,” Galadriel in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the goddess Hela in “Thor: Ragnarok.” But none of that could compare with the...
TV Q&A: Did KDKA-TV’s Royce Jones play for the Steelers?
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: Someone told me Royce Jones on KDKA-TV once played for the Steelers. I don’t believe them. Is this a fact? — Ralph, Greenburg Rob: I...
‘Murder She Wrote’ actress Angela Lansbury dies at 96
NEW YORK — Angela Lansbury, the big-eyed, scene-stealing British actress who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals “Mame” and “Gypsy” and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” has died. She was 96. Lansbury died Tuesday at her home...
Unpacking the wild twists, excessive vomit in ‘Triangle of Sadness’: ‘Maybe it was too much’Video
When Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund won the top prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for “Triangle of Sadness,” it put him in the rarified class of two-time Palme d’Or winners. The prestigious group also includes Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Haneke, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Emir Kusturica, Shohei Imamura, Bille...
Making the radical case for Sinéad O’Connor: She was right all alongVideo
Thirty years ago this month, Sinéad O’Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live,” effectively destroying her mainstream career with a single act of protest against the Catholic Church. Then 25, the Grammy-winning Irish singer was an unlikely pop star. Known for the raw,...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking Penn State limited series, new ‘Saturday Night Live’ cast, ‘Midnight Club’
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 a report in The Hollywood Reporter about a limited Hulu series “Death at Penn State,” based on the real-life story of the 2017 hazing...
A look at the Kevin Spacey-Anthony Rapp trial
NEW YORK — The second week of Kevin Spacey’s #MeToo-era trial starts Tuesday in New York — but no criminal charges are involved. Stage and screen star Anthony Rapp has sued Spacey, accusing him of assault, battery and intentionally inflecting emotional distress when Rapp was 14. The trial opened with...
The king gets confused as ‘House of the Dragon’ dances on the edge of war
King Viserys Targaryen has made a lot of bad moves during the first season of “House of the Dragon.” His latest bad move wasn’t exactly his fault, but it certainly fit right...
Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos hit milestone on ‘GMA’
NEW YORK — During a getting-to-know-you dinner shortly after being named co-hosts of “Good Morning America” in 2009, George Stephanopoulos told Robin Roberts that he didn’t really want to do the job. Nearly 13 years later, they’re passed an improbable milestone without public notice. They’re now the longest-serving pair of...
‘Amsterdam’ review: A true-life plot against America, starring Christian Bale and some seriously wrong-headed storytellingVideo
David O. Russell’s “Amsterdam” is very plush in the looks department. Enjoying the costumes and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s lighting and some of Russell’s shot designs will get you through it. But only if you don’t have to listen to it, or track it, or believe in the people on screen....
Silent films to live on in movie theater lobby card project
CONCORD, N.H. — “Missing Millions” is a 1922 silent film with a darkly prescient title — like the vast majority from that era, the movie all but vanished in the ensuing century, survived mostly by lobby cards. The cards, scarcely bigger than letter paper, promoted the cinematic romances, comedies and...
TV Talk: Western Pa. natives behind live-action ‘Monster High’Video
Now streaming on Paramount+ and premiering at 7 p.m. Oct. 6 on Nickelodeon, “Monster High The Movie” takes the 12-year-old Mattel fashion doll franchise, already adapted into an animated series, and brings it to live-action life as a movie musical directed by TV veteran Todd Holland (“Wonderfalls”), a Kittanning native...
TV Q&A: Did ‘Curse of Oak Island’ get cursed again by a hurricane?
Q: I was wondering how Hurricane Fiona impacted this year’s search on “The Curse of Oak Island”? News reports say Nova Scotia was hammered, so one would have to assume that Oak Island, just offshore, got it as bad if not worse than the coastline. Has this year’s search season...
TV Talk: CMU grad scrubs in as new ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ cast memberVideo
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Carnegie Mellon University musical theater grad Alexis Floyd is making her mark in Shondaland, the production company founded by “Grey’s Anatomy” creator Shonda Rhimes. First, Floyd was cast in Shondaland’s Netflix series, “Inventing Anna,” playing...
31 key horror movies from the last 31 years
The air is crispy, the leaves are turning and jack-o’-lanterns are starting to show up on front porches. October has arrived. Which means horror movie season is officially here. It’s the best time of the year to sit back with a scary movie, or a whole lot of them, the...
Pittsburgh Pop podcast: Talking ‘Dahmer,’ regional Emmy Awards for local TV news, ‘Alaska Daily’
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 Mid-Atlantic Regional Emmys, where TRIBLive.com won three awards, WQED won nine (including overall excellence), WPXI was awarded five, KDKA took home two and...
