Monday, July 28, 2025

2005 Studio Ghibli film The Cat Returns (猫の恩返し) at Row House Lawrenceville, August 1.


The 2005 Studio Ghibli film The Cat Returns (猫の恩返し) will play for one night only at the Row House Cinema in Lawrenceville on August 1 to kick off the CatVideoFest series.
Young Haru rescues a cat from being run over, but soon learns it’s no ordinary feline; it happens to be the Prince of the Cats.
Tickets for the 8:00 pm show are available online. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler St. (map).

Sunday, July 27, 2025

2024 Japanese film Cloud (クラウド) in Pittsburgh, August 15 - 21.

The 2024 Japanese film Cloud (クラウド) will play in Pittsburgh from Auguat 15 through 21.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure, Pulse) delivers one of his most chillingly prescient films with this riveting fusion of social satire, techno-thriller, and survival-action. Yoshii (Masaki Suda), a T-shirt factory worker, supplements his income by flipping merchandise online—dubious medical devices, counterfeit designer handbags, collectible figurines—until disgruntled customers begin organizing against him on an anonymous message board. As his profits grow and he quits his day job (even hiring an assistant), he becomes the target of a coordinated vendetta that ratchets into something increasingly brutal, absurd, yet eerily plausible. At once a pulse-pounding provocation and a cautionary tale for our atomized, hustle-economy era, Cloud—Japan’s official submission for the 97th Oscars—is a genre-bending vision of virtual grievances mutating into real-world terror, orchestrated with Kurosawa’s signature precision and nerve.
It plays at the Harris Theater in downtown's Cultural District (map) and tickets are available online.

Lucky Bites, featuring boba and poke bowls, coming soon to Bellevue.

via @bellevueforward

Another new Asian place is coming soon to Bellevue: Lucky Bites, serving boba tea and poke bowls will be opening at 549 Lincoln Ave. (map), the former home of Dietz Floral and Gifts. Ownership is aiming for an August opening.

Moochi & You, a new dessert place featuring mochi donuts, corndogs, and boba, coming soon to Bellevue.


Signage is up for Moochi & You, an Asian dessert place, in Bellevue. It will be located at 601 Lincoln Ave. (map), in what was most recently Valkyrie Doughnuts. The Moochi & You owner was one of the co-founders of China Star in the North Hills, which expanded to a second location in Squirrel Hill that eventually rebranded to become Sichuan Gourmet.

Shanghai gym and apparel company Iron Jungle opens Pittsburgh-based online shop.


Iron Jungle, a bodybuilding gym and apparel company founded in Shanghai, has opened a Pittsburgh-based online retail location. The website and online catalog went live this afternoon.

Friday, July 25, 2025

All-you-can-eat sushi place Oyoshi coming to East Liberty / Shadyside.

via @IndustryPittsburghApartments

Work progresses on Oyoshi, an all-you-can-eat sushi place coming to Centre Ave. near the intersection of East Liberty and Shadyside. It will be located at 5821 Centre Ave. (map) on the ground floor of the Industry apartment building, next to a dentist's office that is also under construction. Details about the floorplan are available from an April 2025 Zoning Board of Adjustment meeting (pdf); the architect attached to this new restaurant also worked on Hong Kong Dim Sum, which opened recently in North Oakland.

via @IndustryPittsburghApartments

Thursday, July 24, 2025

"Reading & Conversation: Katie Yee, "Maggie; Or a Man and Woman Walk into a Bar" w/Robert Yune," July 31 at White Whale Bookstore.


White Whale Bookstore will host "Reading & Conversation: Katie Yee, "Maggie; Or a Man and Woman Walk into a Bar" w/Robert Yune" on July 31.

Our staff at White Whale loves to celebrate debut authors! We are ecstatic to welcome Katie Yee to our store to celebrate the publication of her taut, wry, and glorious debut fiction novel about a woman who spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart: MAGGIE; OR A MAN AND A WOMAN WALK INTO A BAR. Katie will be joined in conveersation by writer, editor, and great friend of Whte Whale, Robert Yune.

A Chinese American woman spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart in a taut, wry debut novel that grapples with grief, motherhood, and myths—perfect for fans of Joan Is Okay and Crying in H Mart.

A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie.

A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn’t just heartbreak—it’s cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.

Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her body’s new inhabitant. She overgenerously creates a “Guide to My Husband: A User’s Manual” for Maggie (the other woman), hoping to ease the process of discovering her ex-husband’s whims and quirks. She turns her children’s bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture—and to maybe save herself in the process.

In the style of Jenny Offill and the tradition of Nora Ephron’s hilarious and devastating writing on heartbreak and womanhood, Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy.

As a Navy brat, ROBERT YUNE moved 11 times by the time he turned 18. After graduating from Pitt, he lived in Pittsburgh for the next 15 years. In the summer of 2012, he worked as a stand-in for George Takei and has appeared as an extra in commercials and movies such as Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Fathers and Daughters. Yune’s fiction has been published in Green Mountains Review, The Kenyon Review, and Pleiades, among others. In 2009, he received a writing fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In 2015, his debut novel Eighty Days of Sunlight was nominated for the International DUBLIN Literary Award. His debut story collection Impossible Children won the Mary McCarthy Prize and was published by Sarabande Books. Yune serves on the board of Autumn House Press and lives in West Virginia.  

KATIE YEE is a writer from Brooklyn. She has received fellowships from the Center for Fiction, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and Kundiman. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, No Tokens, The Believer, the Washington Square Review, Triangle House, Epiphany, and Literary Hub. By day, she works at the Brooklyn Museum. By night, she writes, usually under the watch of her judgmental rescue dog, Ollie.


The event runs from 7:00 to 8:00 pm and takes place in-person at the bookstore and online through a livestream.  Registration for either can be completed online and the book is available for pre-order through White Whale Bookstore as well. The bookstore is located at 4754 Liberty Ave. in Bloomfield (map).

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Togyu Asian Barbecue and Bar in Cranberry announces August 4 Grand Opening.


Togyu Asian Barbecue and Bar in Cranberry, which will hold its soft opening today from 3:00 to 8:00 pm, has announced an August 4 Grand Opening. It is located in the Cranberry Mall spot formerly occupied by Lumberjaxes Axe Throwing (map).
Welcome to Togyu Asian Barbecue & Bar—Pittsburgh’s premier destination for refined Korean and Japanese-style barbecue. Conceived by two brothers with a profound appreciation for the artistry of authentic Asian cuisine, Togyu was born from a desire to introduce an elevated culinary experience unlike any other in the city.

Drawing inspiration from the vibrant dining culture of cities like Seoul and Tokyo, we’ve curated an environment where elegance meets tradition.

Guests are invited to indulge in the highest quality Angus Prime beef, expertly paired with the freshest locally sourced vegetables, all prepared to perfection at the table. Every detail is designed to enhance the senses—from the richness of the ingredients to the ambiance that surrounds each meal.
Initially announced in March, it is one of several all-you-can-eat Korean-style BBQ places announced for the Pittsburgh area in the last couple years, but the first for Cranberry.

Shin Godzilla (シン・ゴジラ) in 4K, in Pittsburgh-area theaters from August 13.


The 2016 Japanese movie Shin Godzilla (シン・ゴジラ) will play in 4K in Pittsburgh-area theaters from August 13.
Something has surfaced in Tokyo Bay. As the Prime Minister of Japan pleads with the public to remain calm, a horrific creature of tremendous size makes landfall in the city, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Then it evolves. The government scrambles to assemble a task force to research and combat the monster. The next morning, an envoy from the US Department of State delivers a folder of classified documents bearing the name: “GODZILLA.” From visionary directors Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno, Shin Godzilla offers a thrilling origin story to one of cinema’s greatest creations. Propelled by astounding visual effects and rapid-fire dialogue, Shin Godzilla is equal parts pulse-pounding action film and venomous political satire, worthy of the franchise’s towering history.
It is scheduled to play locally, so far, at the Cinemark theater in Robinson and the AMC Westmoreland 15 in Greensburg, and tickets are available online.

BTS ARMY: Forever We Are Young in Pittsburgh-area theaters, from July 30.


The 2025 documentary BTS ARMY: Forever We Are Young, following fans of Korean group BTS, will play in the Pittsburgh area from July 30.
From Seoul to Los Angeles, Texas to Mexico City, BTS ARMY is everywhere. FOREVER WE ARE YOUNG dives into the passionate fandom that catapulted 21st century pop icons BTS into a global household name. We meet fans at a BTS-focused ReactorCon in Lewisville, Texas, a dance instructor in Seoul who only teaches BTS choreography, and fans who’ve been organizing since 2013 to help BTS dominate the charts. Defying stereotypes of pop fans as screaming teen girls, ARMY is an intergenerational, culturally savvy, and socially active movement that is as diverse as the world itself. The film captures the powerful spirit of activism and collectivity that make ARMY a symbol of hope and unity in our ever-fractured world.
It is scheduled to play locally at the Cinemark theaers in McCandless and Monaca and tickets are available online.

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