Latest news with #TheReturn
Tokyo Weekender
3 days ago
- Business
- Tokyo Weekender
Shinjiro Koizumi Tops Poll for Japan's Next Prime Minister
According to a joint opinion poll conducted by the Sankei Shimbun and FNN (Fuji News Network) on June 14 and 15, Shinjiro Koizumi is the people's choice to be Japan's next prime minister. The current Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister finished at the top of the poll with 20.7% of the vote, 4.3% ahead of the former Minister of State for Economic Security Sanae Takaichi . Koizumi finished behind Takaichi in May's poll. List of Contents: The Return of Shinjiro Koizumi Falling Rice Prices Related Posts The Return of Shinjiro Koizumi It's been quite a turnaround for the 44-year-old son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. After finishing third in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership race last September, some wrote off his prospects. He was seen as too inexperienced; a politician who spoke a good game, but lacked substance. Following last year's disappointing election result, he was appointed the LDP's election chief, but resigned when the party suffered a significant loss in October's Lower House election. Away from the political spotlight for several months, Koizumi made his return in May. Taku Eto's position as Agriculture Minister became untenable after he said that he 'never had to buy rice' as he got it free from supporters. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba subsequently replaced him with Koizumi. 'I was instructed to put rice before anything. At this difficult time, I will do my utmost to address the high rice prices that people are struggling with daily,' the former Environment Minister told reporters. Falling Rice Prices The appointment brought immediate results. The average price of rice has been steadily decreasing nationwide. On Monday, the Agricultural Ministry announced that it fell ¥48 from the previous week to ¥4,176 per 5 kilograms. That's the third consecutive week it has decreased. In late May, stockpiled rice harvested in 2021 and 2022 was put on sale through no-bid contracts. Supplies quickly sold out as long lines of customers waited to buy the cheaper grain. Commenting on Koizumi's policies, Hiroshi Shiratori, a professor of political science at Hosei University, said , 'He's been more effective at capturing the public imagination than the LDP expected. If the LDP can win the elections, lawmakers may begin to see him as their best option as leader.' Koizumi certainly appears to be a lot more popular with the public than the current prime minister. Ishiba finished third in the Sankei Shimbun and FNN poll with 7.9% of the votes. Constitutional Democratic Party leader Yoshihiko Noda came fourth with 6.8%, ahead of former Foreign Minister Taro Kono (4.2%), Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki (4.1%) and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi (2.4%). Related Posts Introducing the Nine Candidates Vying To Become Japan's Next Prime Minister Fumio Kishida To Resign As Japan's Prime Minister Taro Kono Declares Victory in 'War' on Floppy Disks
Metro
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
'Nightmare fuel' series with near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score streaming now
Cancel all of your weekend plans – one of the most iconic television series of all time is available to binge-watch in full right now. Back in 1990, audiences across the world were asking themselves the question 'Who killed Laura Palmer?' when David Lynch's surreal murder-mystery Twin Peaks began. Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Sherilyn Fenn, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sheryl Lee, and many more, Twin Peaks follows the investigation into the murder of local teen Laura Palmer (Lee) and the mystery that surrounds its unusual circumstances and other phenomena in the town. The investigation is led by FBI special agent Dale Cooper (MacLachlan) who is pulled deeper and deeper into the town's secrets, uncovering far more than he bargained for when he checked into The Great Northern Hotel. Like much of Lynch's work, Twin Peaks, created alongside Mark Frost, contains an eccentric cast of characters, supernatural themes, melodramatic storylines, and a surreal, uncanny atmosphere. Its uniqueness is what led Twin Peaks to be such a smash hit at the time of its release and revered by fans 35 years later, and now, both seasons of the show as well as Twin Peaks: The Return can be streamed now on Mubi. Seasons one and two, containing 30 episodes, ran from 1990 to 1991 and were followed by the prequel film Fire Walk with Me in 1992. Sixteen years after its original run, Lynch and many of the original cast hit our screens again in Twin Peaks: The Return set 25 years after season two's devastating finale. Twin Peaks quickly gained a devoted following and is often listed among the greatest television series of all time, as well as one of the most terrifying, thanks to the themes it tackles. Season one holds a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics' consensus reading: 'Twin Peaks plays with TV conventions to deliver a beguiling — and unsettling — blend of seemingly disparate genres, adding up to an offbeat drama with a distinctly unique appeal.' The second season sits at 65%, while The Return has a huge 94% score. Deputy TV editor Tom Percival says: There have been plenty of great television shows over the years: The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Breaking Bad, and Geordie Shore (okay, maybe not that last one). Still, when journalists are curating lists of the best TV shows of all time there's one peculiar horror series that may seem a little out of place: Twin Peaks. After all, the horror genre doesn't get a lot of love from more esteemed critical circles. Yet this strange series – which premiered 35 years ago in 1990 – is unquestionably one of the best TV shows of all time and a technical marvel that pushed the boundaries of what people thought the small screen was capable of. Nominally the show was a mystery drama of sorts but honestly, that description doesn't do Twin Peaks justice. By design, it defied categorisation, blending supernatural and surreal elements with the theatrical tropes and cliches that defined so many beloved soaps. Read the full review here In their review of the show, the Sydney Morning Herald said: 'Twin Peaks has many of the elements of a soap opera: it is slow (although not vapid), has a complex plot, melodrama and a plethora of disasters. It's the weirdness, the David Lynch trademark,k which is the lure.' Buffalo News added: 'Twin Peaks is refreshing, unsettling, funny and mystifying. If you are the very unusual TV viewer looking for something different, the first three hours should put you in the mood for more.' Of The Return, Vox said: 'It stopped feeling like a TV show to me, at some point, and started feeling like a gift.' Rolling Stone added: 'What we just witnessed was unmatched in the medium's history,' meanwhile, The Atlantic wrote: 'Twin Peaks remains the nightmare fuel it always has been.' The Guardian added to the glowing praise, saying: 'The Twin Peaks revival is perfect. I'm in deep with it. It's easily the best series of the year so far. And, although this might seem like heresy to long-time fans, I think it might actually be better than the original.' Twin Peaks' addition to Mubi comes at a poignant time following the death of its visionary creator, Lynch, earlier this year, aged 78. More Trending The celebrated filmmaker, who was behind the likes of Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man, died on January 15. His cause of death was confirmed as cardiac arrest due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The filmmaker visionary died after becoming housebound with emphysema following years of chain-smoking, and a death certificate released by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed COPD was an underlying condition suffered by the auteur. View More » Twin Peaks seasons one and two and Twin Peaks: The Return are available to stream now on Mubi Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: WWE icon The Undertaker forced to undergo secret lifesaving surgery MORE: All episodes of the 'funniest show on TV' are finally free to stream MORE: TV soap star Chris Robinson dies aged 86
Korea Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
How light is revealed: James Turrell, Salvo visit Seoul
At Pace Gallery, Turrell reveals light itself through space; at Gladstone, Salvo captures it in paintings inspired by his travels American light master James Turrell is familiar to Korean audiences through his monumental installations at Museum San in Wonju, Gangwon Province, where five of his works, created solely with light and space, offer a meditative experience. The exhibition 'The Return,' at Pace Gallery in Hannam-dong, central Seoul, shows Turrell's five recent installations, including the never-before-seen piece 'Wedgework,' made specifically for the Seoul exhibition. Turrell's exhibition, which runs through Sept. 27, is his first solo show in Seoul since 2008. 'I really wanted people to treasure light. I had hoped to try to use light itself rather than the depiction of it. We are creatures that very much respond to light, and for me, that is where the power of light resides,' Turrell told reporters Wednesday. Spanning three floors of the gallery, the exhibition features a selection of photographs and works on paper that shed light on the artist's process for his installations. Working with the materiality of light and space, Turrell is a key member of the California Light and Space Movement initiated in the 1960s. 'In the end, I am an artist and I want to pass to you a piece of light. I would like to give you this experience of light itself. Not every piece is as successful as another piece. This is how life is … I have to tell you that art has always dealt with things beyond how we normally think of something," Turrell said. Arne Glimcher, Pace's founder and chairman, first met Turrell some 60 years ago, and the gallery has represented the artist since 2002. An online reservation is required to visit the exhibition as the gallery admits only 20 people to each session to prevent congestion. Another exhibition featuring light effects unfolds at Gladstone Gallery in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul. Italian artist Salvo enjoyed using light effects in his works, some of which evoke sunsets or sunrises, as in the paintings 'Tre Colonne' and 'Forte dei Marmi.' At Gladstone, the exhibition 'Salvo, in Viaggio (Salvo Traveling)' is the Italian master's first solo show in the country. 'It is the first show of his to discuss the theme of a 'journey.' There are many works displayed to the public for the first time as well. I hope many who visit the show can enjoy their time traveling into the unique world of Salvo,' said Norma Mangione, co-founder of Archivio Salvo, at the press opening on May 29. The exhibition spans from 1988 to 2015, the year the artist died. The paintings depict both real and imagined landscapes inspired by the artist's travels across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Asia, featuring Salvo's visual aesthetic, characterized by expressive landscapes in vivid color. Beginning with his first trip to Afghanistan in the summer of 1969, Salvo's frequent journeys became a recurring source of inspiration. His paintings depict scenes from areas he lived in or visited, incorporating regional architectural motifs and native plant species, according to the gallery. The exhibition runs through July 12.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Love That Remains' Review: Hlynur Pálmason Follows ‘Godland' With a Snapshot of Marital Dissolution More Elemental Than Affecting
Over three features set in his native Iceland, Hlynur Pálmason has established a distinctive feel for the power of landscapes and elemental forces to shape human relationships, positioning them in stark relief. A feeling as intimate as isolation can take on epic dimensions under the writer-director's gaze, notably in his 2022 head-turner Godland, an austerely beautiful study of man vs. nature whose spirituality is pierced by shards of wily humor and Lynchian strangeness. Similar qualities are evident in The Love That Remains (Ástin sem eftir er), albeit on a smaller canvas of domestic breakdown. Serving as his own DP — and shooting on 35mm in Academy ratio — Pálmason's expansive sense of composition remains striking in this drama of a ruptured marriage, which is never less than compelling even at its most frustrating. His untethered imagination generates images that can function as visual metaphors or abstract enigmas. But as the film evolves into an increasingly fragmented collage of juxtaposed surreal and everyday vignettes, any emotional connection to the characters begins to fade. More from The Hollywood Reporter Uberto Pasolini's 'The Return,' Ira Sachs' 'Peter Hujar's Day' Set for 2025 Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta Russell Brand Pleads Not Guilty to Rape, Indecent and Sexual Assault Charges in London Sky Doc on Flight 149 British Airways Passengers, Crew Held Hostage by Saddam Hussein Gets Trailer There's a rich history of screen dramas about unraveling marriages that eschew the mawkish tendencies of weepie melodrama. From Kramer vs. Kramer to Shoot the Moon; Scenes From a Marriage to Marriage Story. Asghar Farhadi's morally complex and culturally specific A Separation is a noteworthy standout of recent decades. On the less rewarding end of the spectrum, Carlos Reygadas' Our Time is a maddeningly self-indulgent slog and arguably the director's least interesting movie. Like that 2018 Mexican feature, Pálmason's new film also casts members of his own family — his three children — whose unselfconscious spontaneity seems the result of growing up around a father rarely without a camera. The director has always been less interested in plot than character, mood and atmosphere, and this movie's idiosyncratic storytelling goes a long way toward papering over its flaws. Even if it's sometimes the cause of them. It opens with the startling image of a roof being crumpled and lifted off an empty warehouse building by crane, hovering in the air briefly like a UFO before being swung around out of the frame. The building is the former studio of visual artist Anna (Saga Gardarsdottir) and its demolition by developers provides an apt metaphor for the lid being lifted off her world. She works hard to balance her life as a frazzled but caring mother to three spirited children — teenage Ída (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir) and her tow-headed preteen brothers Grímur and Porgils (Grímur and Porgils Hlynsson) — with chasing the elusive next step to gallery representation and wider recognition. Anna's methodology for creating her paintings (borrowed from Pálmason's own visual arts process) is highly physical, hinting at the Herculean strength and dedication required to make art. Working in a field, she arranges large iron cutout shapes on raw canvases, weighting them down with wood or stones and leaving them exposed to the elements through the winter, allowing rust and dirt, rain and snow to 'paint' them. We get little concrete information about what triggered Anna's breakup with the kids' father, Magnús (Sverrir Gudnason), who appears already to be living separately from the family when the film begins. He's away at sea for long stretches on an industrial fishing trawler during herring season and there's a hint of him not pulling his weight with parental responsibilities. There's a sense of the uneasy coexistence of man and nature in scenes with massive nets being hauled in by a mechanized winch and a silver blur of fish by the hundreds funneled into storage while an orca bobs around looking to get a taste of the catch. Glimpses of Magnús alone in his cabin on the boat, or his prickly interactions with insensitively prying shipmates, quietly reveal his gnawing sense of solitude. Magnús keeps dropping by the family home unannounced, staying for a meal or just a beer with Anna. There's even sex on occasion, but mostly, Anna's residual fondness for him is frayed by impatience and annoyance. She's ready to move on with her life while he's like a clingy puppy, refusing to let go. Gudnason plays the awkwardness of these scenes with raw feeling, in contrast to Gardarsdottir's more matter-of-fact resilience. Moments in which Magnús gets testy because the boys automatically respond to their mother's chore requests while they ignore his stabs at basic discipline — like clearing their own dinner plates and loading them into the dishwasher — are poignant illustrations of the way he has become an outsider in his former home. Anna's taxing attempts to make professional inroads are distilled in a string of scenes in which a Swedish gallerist (Anders Mossling) accepts her invitation to visit. The dreary windbag shows little interest in the work she has painstakingly hung in a new studio rental ('Are they all the same color?') then subjects her to a mind-numbing monologue about the health properties of wine over lunch, to which she listens in silence. When she shows him her works-in-progress laid out in the open field, he's more attentive to the beauty of the hilltop coastal setting, gasping over the glacier across the bay or stealing an egg from a goose's nest. The scene in which she drops him at the airport for his return flight has an acerbic bite. He tells her he has no space for her work and patronizes her with empty assurances that she will find the right gallery, or the right gallery will find her. In response to his joking reference to his mother, Anna mutters, 'Your mother's a whore,' while the dead-eyed look on her face expresses her wish for his plane to crash. Pálmason and his actors tap the melancholy vein of two people drifting apart after a long shared history when Anna first lies to Magnús about the gallerist's visit being a success, then opens up about her soul-crushing day, venting her anger about the man's self-absorbed tediousness. But even in those moments of closeness, it's clear that while Magnús wants to go back to the way things were, that time has passed for Anna, who discourages him from spending the night and confusing the children. Quite often, she just seems exhausted by him, even if the director shows nonjudgmental compassion for both characters. One thread that Pálmason shot two years earlier observes the scarecrow figure that Grímur and Porgils assemble on the edge of the field where their mother works, gradually assuming the appearance of an armored knight as the seasons change. They use the effigy as an archery target, which foreshadows an alarming accident late in the film. The knight also comes to life at one point, paying a nocturnal visit to Magnús, as does a monster-size apparition of the rooster he killed when Anna complained of its aggressive behavior in the chicken coop. But these fantastical interludes — sparked by the b&w creature features Magnús falls asleep watching on late-night TV — tend to be opaque rather than illuminating. A more effective blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality is a sequence in which Magnús imagines — or does he? — being adrift at sea, waiting to be picked up by a boat to deliver him back to shore. That image of distance, as hope recedes, makes for a haunting closing shot. Both leads are excellent, conveying the weary sadness of separation, underscored by enduring affections, and the naturalness of the three children adds immeasurably to the drama's intimacy. Ingvar Sigurdsson (unforgettable in Godland and Pálmason's previous film, the searing drama of grief and jealousy A White, White Day) makes a welcome appearance as Anna's warm, down-to-earth dad. There's much to admire in Pálmason's unconventional approach to what could have been familiar domestic drama. But the dreamlike detours threaten to overwhelm the tender portrait of a family breakup. The film is most affecting in its casual observation — set to the jazz-inflected melodies of Harry Hunt's Playing Piano for Dad album — of moments like Anna and the three children sprawled across the couch watching TV; a reprieve from separation tension during a family hiking and picnic day, when they pick wild mushrooms and berries; the kids skating on a frozen pond; gently handling fluffy, freshly hatched chicks; or playing basketball as the family's scene-stealing Icelandic sheepdog Panda (Pálmason's own dog) darts about barking, wanting to join in. As imaginative as the surreal departures are, it's the magic of those quotidian moments in a fractured family's life that resonate most. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Crawleys Are Off to the Races in First Trailer for ‘Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale'
Hold onto your hats — the Crawley family is back in action in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The first official teaser trailer dropped Monday and showed returning cast members Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Allen Leech, Laura Carmichael, Elizabeth McGovern and Harry Hadden-Paton all reprising their roles in the beloved period piece, which first aired six seasons on PBS before its first two films came out. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'The Love That Remains' Review: Hlynur Pálmason Follows 'Godland' With a Snapshot of Marital Dissolution More Elemental Than Affecting Uberto Pasolini's 'The Return,' Ira Sachs' 'Peter Hujar's Day' Set for 2025 Mediterrane Film Festival in Malta Russell Brand Pleads Not Guilty to Rape, Indecent and Sexual Assault Charges in London The teaser starts with the group at the races with Jim Carter, playing butler Mr. Carson, welcoming attendees into the year 1930. Newcomer Dominic West is tuxedo-ed up at a lavish bash in London and Mary (Dockery) wows with a bright red dress and tiara in front of photographers as she exits a car. Also starring in the third and final film is Penelope Wilton, Paul Giamatti, Phyllis Logan, Raquel Cassidy, Brendan Coyle, Kevin Doyle, Michael Fox, Joanne Froggatt, Robert James-Collier, Sophie McShera, Lesley Nicol, Alessandro Nivola, Arty Froushan, Joely Richardson, Paul Copley and Douglas Reith. 'It's time to say goodbye,' the teaser also says. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, directed by Simon Curtis and written by Downton Abbey mastermind Julian Fellowes, is in theaters Sep. 12. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
