Film

MOVIE REVIEW: RebaMerrill & Tandy Culpepper Discuss Conclaveand Maria

In our inaugural movie review, Reba Merrill and Tandy Culpepper look at two films garnering considerable Oscar buzz.

Reba Merrill is a veteran entertainment journalist who was an internationally-syndicated journalist , an Emmy winning talk show host, and is also a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, popularly known as the folks who bring us the Oscars each year.

Tandy Culpepper is a veteran broadcast journalist and internationally-syndicated correspondent for CNN’s Turner Entertainment Report.

This first review of movies offers Reba and Tandy’s take on two films:

Conclave, the Focus Features film based on Robert Harris’s 2016 novel by the same name. The screenplay was written by Peter Straughan. The film was directed by Edward Berger. The story, a work of fiction, chronicles the papal conclave following the unexpected death of the Pope. The film is awash in well-known actors including Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini.

Maria, the Netflix feature written by Steven Knight and directed by Pablo Larrain, follows the seven days leading up to the sudden death of Maria Callas, at that time the world’s greatest opera singer. The film stars Angelina Jolie in the titular role.

Published by Tandy Culpepper

I am a veteran broadcast journalist. I was an Army brat before my father retired and moved us to the deep South. I'm talkin' Lower Alabama and Northwest Florida, I graduated from Tate High School and got botha Bachelor's degree and Master's in Teaching English from the University of West Florida, I taught English at Escambia County High School for two years before getting my m's in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Auburn University. Following graduation, I did a 180 degree turn and moved to Birmingham where I began ny broadcasting career at WBIQ, Channel 10. There I was host of a weekly primetime half-hour TV program called Alabama Lifestyles. A year later, I began a stint as a television weathercaster and public affairs host. A year later, I moved to West Palm Beach, Florida and became bureau chief at WPTV, the CBS affiliate. Two years later, I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina where I became co-host of a morng show called AM Carolina. The next year, I moved cross-country and became co-host and story producer at KTVN-TV in Reno, Nevada. I also became the medical reporter for the news department. Three years later, I moved to Louisville, Kentucky and became host and producer of a morning show called today in WAVE Country at WAVE-TV, Channel 3, the NBC affiliate. Following three years there, I moved to Los Angeles and became senior correspondent at the Turner Entertainment Reportn, an internationally-syndicated entertainment entertainment news service owned by CNN. I went back to school afterwards and got an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Oh, yes. I won a hundred thousand dollars on the 100 Thousand Dollar Pyramid, then hosted by Dick Clark.

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