Celebrity Family Feud: Yes, it can get worse
Family Feud has always been one of my favorite game shows. I watched it religiously during the 1970s. Part of its attraction, particularly in those rather dull, network-only days, was its unpredictability. Given a little pressure and a somewhat tricky question, there’s no telling what somebody might blurt out. Plus, in the years before reality…
Celebrity Circus: Send in the clowns.
It’s almost a given that if a show has “celebrity” in the title, it will be shameless, low-rent and unlikely to feature any actual celebrities. This is a designation that has been severely downgraded, and now — per reality TV — includes all sorts of people you’ve never heard of, the very antithesis of what…
Schenley Debate: Yet Another Reason Progressives Can’t Get Anything Done
I’ve derived plenty of dark amusement from the dispute over whether to put an electronic billboard on Grant Street. But perhaps the grimmest chuckle came when Lamar Advertising, the company trying to construct the billboard, filed a lawsuit against five city councilors who filed suit to stop it, among them Bill Peduto and Patrick Dowd. …
Combination Schlock
Mayor Luke Ravenstahl left the ballroom and entered a crowd of cameras and reporters after testifying at a May 28 hearing convened by a panel of state representatives visiting from Harrisburg. Inside the hearing, seated next to county Chief Executive Dan Onorato, he had coolly presented his case for a massive overhaul of local government…
Travels With My Aunt
This script is rock-solid proof that in the theater, what looks simple is in fact hardest of all.
Salome
This version of the infrequently seen play has become director Alan Stanford’s overly personal canvas.
Out of This Furnace
It’s a massive but enthralling tale, tightly directed by Marci Woodruff in an intimate space.
The Capital Grille
This Downtown steakhouse plays up the VIP treatment.
A Conversation with Alejandro Escovedo
I wouldn’t mind if someone called me a freak; it wouldn’t be insulting to me.
This Just In: June 19 – 26
Highlights from the local TV news: Kenny Chesney fans gone wild!
Shotgun Stories
Jeff Nichols’ drama is reminiscent of those defining “indie” films of the late ’80s and early ’90s, when such a designation often meant a low-key but powerful family-dysfunction saga set in some backwater Southern town and starring nobody you ever heard of. This tale of feuding half-brothers in Arkansas has the requisite trappings of neo-Dixie…
Refusenik
Laura Bialis’ film is a straightforward documentary that details a two-decade-long struggle to secure Soviet Jews the right to emigrate. Told via first-person interviews (with some archival news footage), Bialis establishes the persistent prejudices Jews faced in the Soviet Union, along with the stealthy, secretive measures they took to practice their faith. Hebrew texts were…
The Happening
In this film, an invisible force causes millions of people to babble, walk backward and then kill themselves by the most bizarre means possible. Similarly, an invisible force causes M. Night Shyamalan to babble (have you seen his self-aggrandizing TV ad for this film?), write and direct a ponderous eco-thriller about angry trees, and potentially…
Get Smart
The endless march of vintage television shows freshened up for big-screen outings continues unabated, despite reams of data that suggest such projects are largely unsatisfying. Get Smart was a spy spoof of Cold War vintage that made its bumbling Agent Maxwell Smart a beloved American anecdote to his sleeker British contemporaries. Peter Segal’s update aims…
The Incredible Hulk
Louis Leterrier’s actioner is yet another telling of how scientist Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) gets zapped with gamma rays and, now, when provoked, morphs into a big green, mean machine. He can dodge bullets, but not the awfulness of his new self. And now the military is looking for him, plus another super-freak warrior (Tim…
Alexandra
Not a single weapon is fired in this Russian anti-war film Alexandra in which the titular protagonist visits her grandson, serving in Chechnya. The bombs here are all metaphoric. And yet, there’s nothing coy about Aleksandr Sokurov’s contemplative drama. Quite the opposite: Toward the end, when the characters finally begin to have conversations, Sokurov makes…
Pittsburgh n’@
Dispatches from the blogosphere: Myron Cope — to infinity and beyond!
Unnamed Resources
On June 1, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran a column by associate editor Bill Steigerwald, an op-ed piece about a “watchdog” group’s efforts to investigate Barack Obama’s alleged ties to the far left. But Steigerwald’s piece was at least as interesting for what it showed about the paper’s ties to the far right — and its…
Changing Classes
For some students, personalized instruction may be the only way to get through certain subjects.
The Brothers Unconnected celebrate the Sun City Girls’ far-flung legacy
May it rest in the higher levels of enlightenment.
Alkaline Trio retains its black humor with major-label release
The band’s found its own niche, releasing five records over the past decade that’d feel right playing at a comedian’s funeral.
Americana heroes The Avett Brothers return to the Three Rivers Arts Festival
“It can become predictable when you’re always trying not to be predictable.”
Germans from outer space Hanzel und Gretyl land at Mr. Small’s
Fans of the band will be drawn to a huge concert in the center of Chichen Itza, where one of the pyramids will be revealed as a secret spaceship that will take the band and its followers into the sun.
We talk with acclaimed poet Mark Doty in advance of his Pittsburgh reading.
“What I really want to do is make a poem that is as involved as it can be in how it feels to live.”
Going Through the Motions
Regardless of how many times Pittsburgh City Councilors referred to the mutual-commitment registry as a piece of “housekeeping” legislation, the bill’s true significance was evident even before it passed. The bill allows unmarried, committed couples living in the city to pay a $25 fee to have their names listed on the registry, acknowledging their “mutually…
Summer Beers at East End Brewery
Summertime has arrived, with its myriad ways to get thirsty: tossing horseshoes, playing ball or just standing around asking folks if it’s hot enough for ’em. However you work up a thirst, though, Scott Smith of East End Brewing says he’s got the cure: beer. But not just any beer. In the summer, he says,…
Savage Love
I’m a 33-year-old man, married eight years and mostly happy. My problem seems common: My wife has lost interest in sex. We have sex once every two months, maybe once a month if I’m lucky. When we do have sex, it seems to be good for both of us. It wasn’t always this way –…
Johnstown’s underground scene heats up with new venue 709 Railroad St.
The first art show opened on June 13, and they’ll host about two concerts per week.
Domestic Tranquility
Who’d have thought that same-sex relationships — an issue that has so often driven Americans apart — could bring Pittsburgh politicians together? As I write this, Pittsburgh City Council is poised to approve a bill creating a registry for same-sex couples and others in “domestic partnerships.” And according to the mayor’s office, Luke Ravenstahl is…
The Three Rivers Arts Festival gets the most out of its new shipping containers-cum-galleries.
Like sanctuaries, the boxes require visitors to step up, separating them from the actuality of the street.
