Biopic about Paterno premieres April 7

NEW YORK — An HBO biopic starring Al Pacino as late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno will premiere April 7.

HBO tweeted the premiere date Friday, along with a trailer to the film directed by Barry Levinson.

HBO has said the film will focus on Paterno dealing with fallout from the child sex abuse scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. The all-time winningest coach in major college football history was fired days after Sandusky’s 2011 arrest and died two months later at age 85.

A report commissioned by the university and conducted by a team led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh concluded Paterno and three administrators hushed up the allegations against Sandusky.

The three administrators were sentenced to jail. Former university President Graham Spanier is appealing his conviction.

Cruz uses ‘Simpsons’ to make a point

When it comes to how Republican leaders view “The Simpsons,” a lot has apparently changed in a quarter-century.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush took a dim view of the then-new Fox animated series, saying of his Republican ticket: “We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons.”

On Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, reportedly told the assemblage: “I think the Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson, and Republicans are happily the party of Homer and Bart and Maggie and Marge.”

To which “Simpsons” showrunner Al Jean replies: “We’ve come up in the world.”

Jean is speaking tongue fully in cheek, because he believes Cruz, a self-professed big “Simpsons” fan, is off base. (Cruz is the man who in 2016 ventured in pop-culture waters to compare then-candidate Donald Trump to the villainous Biff from “Back to the Future”; a year earlier, he notably botched a “Simpsons” quote.)