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The Movie Quiz: How long has Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise gone on for?

The Movie Quiz: How long has Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise gone on for?

Irish Times23-05-2025

The Mission: Impossible franchise looks to be ending this weekend with The Final Reckoning. After how many years?
9
19
29
39
Which Bond film was not the last in the series for its lead actor?
A View to a Kill
Die Another Day
License to Kill
You Only Live Twice
Which does not suggest a Pixar film?
Mr Guadagnino
Ms Chanel
Ireland's 2024 Eurovision rep
David 'Hutch on the telly'
Who is the odd character out?
Amy March
Jean Tatlock
Yelena Belova
Chani
Which song is not heard on the Barbie soundtrack?
I'm Just Ken
Doll Parts
What Was I Made For?
I Dance the Night
Who doesn't fit with the others
Alec Guinness (1949)
Jeremy Irons (1988)
Lindsay Lohan (1998)
Michael B Jordan (2025)
Which reminds you of West Side Story?
Top Gun and Jaws
Days of Thunder and Jurassic Park
Cocktail and ET
The Firm and Schindler's List
Which was the first film in colour to win best picture at the Oscars?
It Happened One Night
The Wizard of Oz
Gone With the Wind
An American in Paris
Which is not a Laurel and Hardy flick?
Sons of the Desert
Way Out West
The General
The Music Box
Which never became a theatrically released feature?
The Magic Roundabout
Thunderbirds
The Wombles
Clangers

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Dua Lipa surprises fans with Jamiroquai frontman during London show
Dua Lipa surprises fans with Jamiroquai frontman during London show

RTÉ News​

timean hour ago

  • RTÉ News​

Dua Lipa surprises fans with Jamiroquai frontman during London show

Pop star Dua Lipa returned to London with her Radical Optimism tour, kicking off the first night at Wembley Stadium with a surprise appearance from Jamiroquai lead singer Jay Kay. Amidst a flurry of dance routines, costume changes and confetti canons, the singer made her way through her latest album, Radical Optimism, on Friday night before bringing out the 90s funk band frontman. Without missing her biggest hits, the British-Albanian songstress performed the likes of New Rules, Be The One and Barbie's Dance The Night to more than 70,000 people. Transforming the stadium into her own dance floor, the pop star kicked off her concert with Training Season before pausing to say she was "blown away," adding that it was "surreal" to be performing at Wembley. Appearing a little emotional, she said: "This is so surreal and so crazy. "It means the absolute world to me that you are here tonight. "It feels really really special to be here tonight. "It is 10 years since our first ever London show to about 350 people and I just dreamt of a night like this where I get to be in front of 70,000 people." Later, she left the stage to take photographs with fans and asked if they were having a good night, but most were too excited to form full sentences. After taking photos with the front row fans, Lipa returned to the stage to perform These Walls before introducing the song that "started everything". She said: "I want to take it back to the beginning a little bit. This song really kind of changed my life. "This is the song that got me signed and it's the song that started everything and I feel like with weather like this, there is only one song that I could do. This is Hotter Than Hell." The singer again expressed how grateful she was to be performing at Wembley, before introducing someone who really "inspired" her. She said: "Someone who has really been a trailblazer for British music and has really paved the way, I feel so lucky to share the stage with the one and only Jamiroquai!" The frontman of the 90s funk band, Kay, emerged onto the stage, joining Lipa to sing the group's hit song Virtual Insanity. Towards the end of the concert, Lipa returned to the hit songs that prompted her rise to fame, including 2016's Be The One, and her 2017 break-up anthem New Rules. Lipa has several Brit Awards to her name, along with three Grammys and was one of the headline acts at Glastonbury Festival last year. Lipa recently confirmed her engagement to Masters Of The Air actor Callum Turner.

Malachy Clerkin: Cannot wait for Lions tour, but why does rugby always feel this need for overblown nonsense?
Malachy Clerkin: Cannot wait for Lions tour, but why does rugby always feel this need for overblown nonsense?

Irish Times

time4 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Malachy Clerkin: Cannot wait for Lions tour, but why does rugby always feel this need for overblown nonsense?

It was well into the wee hours on Sunday night and the final round of the US Open had gone medieval. The best golfers in the world were falling into sinkholes all over Oakmont, drowning in grass, dissolving in rain. It was like watching live action Pac-Man, as one of the most difficult courses in the world chomped them all to crumbs. A snuff movie in soft spikes. But then, through the gloom, Sky came back from an ad break and from the opening seconds of the soundtrack you feared the worst. It was the light plinking guitar of The Mighty Rio Grande by This Will Destroy You, a portentously named instrumental band from Texas. You know it better as the music from the Moneyball movie. READ MORE The music played over footage of mysterious footsteps in the shadows. Smoke swirling around eight headless mannequins decked in red. A silhouetted figure stood before the camera, his head bowed, his face obscured. 'Finally, it's time,' growled Scottish actor Gerard Butler , laying the accent on thicker than a cranachan layer. 'It's Lions o'clock...' Ah, no. Please no. Not this stuff. Not again. Alas, yes, indeed, it is time for this stuff again. Regular as clockwork, like a naff Halley's Comet, the rugby industrial complex has started picking up speed. The Lions series is upon us, which means that rugby's comically overblown way of selling itself is cranking into gear. Even in the dead of night when we're watching the golf. Especially in the dead of night when we're watching golf. Gerard Butler is seen during the pre-2023 World Cup warm-up rugby union match between Scotland and Georgia at Murrayfield. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/Getty 'Gggggrraaaaggggghhhh,' Butler offered, scratching at the back of his head. 'Goosebumps,' he said, in case we thought he was selling dandruff shampoo. 'It's ... it's Barry,' he stuttered over footage of Barry John in 1971, as though he himself couldn't believe he was ploughing through this nonsense. On and on, through clips of old tours, old tests, old fights. For some reason, footage of Daniel Craig popped up at one stage, 007 visiting the Lions dressingroom after the third test in 2013. 'Actors, eh?' Butler winked, conveying some class of inside joke. Your guess is as good as anyone else's. All of it was mere preamble to the final 20 seconds, whereupon Butler rose himself to his full height and unleashed various lines from Shakespeare's Henry V. Part of the once-more-unto-the-breach speech repurposed and Tik-Tokified for the digital generation. 'Stiffen the sinews. Summon up the blood! Show us the mettle of your pasture, boys [he was shouting by now], for we doubt it not. And if it be a sin to covet honour, be the most offending souls alive [he was whispering by now].' Look. I can't wait to watch the Lions. You can't wait to watch the Lions. In a world where everything has had its edges planed and its knobbly bits lopped off, the continued existence of the Lions is a miracle. Nobody sitting down today with a blank piece of paper and the sport of rugby union to plan from scratch would dare to dream it up. It's too far-fetched. It makes no sense. The Lions tour is one of the only bankable entities in a sport that struggles for mass appeal. Photograph: Billy Stickland/INPHO Yet, somehow, one of the maddest and best ideas from rugby's amateur days has been preserved. Not just that, it has thrived. It has survived the Covid nadir, it has endured endlessly lengthening seasons, it has kept on as one of the only bankable entities in a sport that struggles for mass appeal. It's here and it's magnificent, one of the absolute highlights of the sporting year. So why can't rugby let us enjoy it for what it is? It's just a sport, lads. Indeed, it's one of the purest forms of any sport, anywhere. Nothing about it matters except the matches and the results. Never mind your ersatz Agincourt cosplaying – sell that. A Lions tour is like the Ryder Cup – you're immersed in it, completely and faithfully, for every last second that it's on. And when it's over, it's gone until the next time and you couldn't care less. Apart from the players and the staff involved, nobody's day is made or ruined by the result. It is its own thing, a glorious mayfly, here and gone in a finger snap. We've spent more than 30 years watching Sky sell sport and other events in every overhyped, overblown way imaginable. Photograph: Billy Stickland/INPHO And that's a good thing. That's what gives the Lions its own unique energy and momentum. The 40,000 or so who will go to Australia for it over the coming weeks are all chasing that once-in-a-lifetime buzz, that feeling of being right there among it when the planets align. There's a lot of mythmaking around the Lions and there's no harm in people wanting to attach themselves to it. Plenty are going for a right good jolly-up – and there's nothing wrong with that either. All of which raises the question: who is that Sky ad for? And why do they only ever use this kind of guff to sell rugby? We've spent more than 30 years watching them sell football in every overhyped, overblown way imaginable. Other sports and events too – the revitalised darts is a triumph of hype and publicity, the aforementioned Ryder Cup will be undeniable come September. And yet they wouldn't be caught dead trying to evoke a 400-year-old play based on a 600-year-old battle to gin up publicity for those sports. So why rugby? It's not just Sky, either. Plenty of pre-Six Nations montages on RTÉ and BBC come infused with this carry-on as well. It's as though somebody somewhere decided that rugby can only be sold to lizard-brained Game of Thrones acolytes, waiting for the mist to clear the mountains so a ball can be thrown into a lineout. Of course, there was a more immediate – and far duller – answer on Sunday night. As soon as Butler finished caterwauling, the golf commentator Andrew Coltart dutifully informed viewers that How to Train Your Dragon, starring Butler, is in cinemas now. Just happened to have been released two days earlier, in fact. If it be a sin to covet bums on seats at your nearest Odeon...

‘Normal' Cole Palmer assumes control of Chelsea's attack from No 10
‘Normal' Cole Palmer assumes control of Chelsea's attack from No 10

Irish Times

time16 hours ago

  • Irish Times

‘Normal' Cole Palmer assumes control of Chelsea's attack from No 10

Cole Palmer sees himself as a normal kid. Strangers watch him with something close to fascination, though. What's going on beneath the chilled exterior? The shrugging demeanour adds to the mystique. Kids copy the Chelsea attacker's 'cold' celebration. Interviewers walk away amused but bemused after spending time with him. What's the story with those answers? Why are they all so short and sweet? The Philadelphia sun is beating down when Palmer mooches over for a quick chat at Subaru Park, where Chelsea are training before facing Flamengo in their second game at the Club World Cup on Friday. So, Cole, can you tell us why you walked out wearing a mask when the team plane landed in the US last week? Are you ill? Enzo Maresca, your manager, thinks you were playing a trick on everyone. 'It wasn't a joke,' he says. 'I just don't like the smelly planes. That's why I wear a mask. When I travel I don't like the smells so that's why I wear them. Nothing else. Enzo doesn't know. I didn't tell him. But he didn't ask me, to be fair.' It is straight to the point with Palmer, who turned 23 in May. He has enjoyed a rapid rise to fame and does not really understand why he attracts so much attention. He still finds being recognised when he goes out in London a strange experience. 'I am just a normal kid,' he says. 'When people do stuff like that I think: 'Why me?'' READ MORE The answer is that Palmer is one of the most enjoyable players in the Premier League, a free spirit, a bit of a throwback to when the game was less rigid and less systems‑based. No wonder he is on so many of the billboards promoting the Club World Cup in Philadelphia. Palmer is by far the biggest draw at Chelsea. While there is a sense that he is more aware of his worth than he makes out, it is hard to see the fame going to his head. 'I still do the same things I did before I came to Chelsea,' he says. 'I try and think it's just a game of football, it's not life or death. I just try and enjoy it. I like to go and play five-a-side and just do normal things. I like PlayStation.' Cole Palmer in action against LAFC's Ryan Hollingshead. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images The Normal One, then. Only, Palmer is capable of doing the extraordinary when he plays. He turned the game with two fabulous assists when Chelsea beat Real Betis in the Uefa Conference League final in May. Afterwards, he talked about growing tired with playing backwards and sideways when behind in that game. It led to suggestions that Palmer was having a dig at Maresca's tactics. There was no drama, though. Maresca has since made it clear that he wants his best player to produce those off-the-cuff moments from first minute to last. 'We had a joke about it,' Palmer says. 'My comments weren't towards the manager or anything. It was just a personal thing. I felt I was maybe being a bit safe. That's where the comment came from. I wanted to get the ball and try something different. You can't take the piss and do whatever you want, but I feel like he still gives you a little bit of room to try and see what I can do.' Palmer's form was exceptional during the first half of the season. He was directly involved in 53 goals in his first 50 Premier League starts for Chelsea. Palmer dipped after Christmas and went 18 games without scoring but took things in his stride. A dismissal of 'social media idiots' after he ended his barren run with a typically cool penalty during Chelsea's victory over Liverpool last month was classic Palmer. He is ready to accept more responsibility. Chelsea will play in the Champions League next season and will need Palmer to be at his best. For now, though, the focus is on becoming world champions. No doubt the marketing team at Chelsea were pleased Palmer swapped the No 20 shirt for the famous No 10 – previously worn by Mykhailo Mudryk, who has been charged by the Football Association with doping offences – before the start of the tournament. 'I wore No 10 all my life growing up,' says Palmer. Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney were two of his heroes. He also loved Eden Hazard, who wore No 10 at Chelsea. He feels like the Belgian winger's successor. Hazard, who was Chelsea's star talent before leaving in 2019, was similarly down-to‑earth. 'I have seen him a few times at the training ground,' Palmer says. 'He asked me for one of my shirts for his sons.' It all sounds reassuringly normal. – Guardian

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