Latest news with #politicaldrama
Telegraph
a day ago
- General
- Telegraph
Battle Lines: ‘Trump is enthralled by Putin'
Today's episode has it all — political drama, military build-ups, and yes, Elon Musk with a chainsaw. We kick off with Musk's big exit from his headline-hogging political role. He endorsed Trump, handed out millions to get out the vote, ran DOGE and even made time for a little on-stage lumberjacking. But now? He's out. We're playing some of his highlights. Then we're off to Washington, where things are heating up in more serious ways. Fiona Hill, Russia expert and former Trump adviser, joins us with a rare glimpse into how Putin plays the game — and why a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine still feels a long way off. And if that's not enough international intrigue for you, we're off to Poland, where the country's been rearming at a record pace. Why? We'll explain. Plus, Trump's making waves again — this time in Poland's crucial presidential election runoff.
CNN
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
'The Handmaid's Tale' had a remarkable ending — for real-world reasons
Hollywood studios and streamers aren't exactly craving politically provocative shows and movies right now. Producers are thinking twice about liberal-sounding storylines. Media companies are downplaying diversity initiatives. And 'The Apprentice,' a biopic about President Trump that contained some critical scenes, struggled to gain US distribution last year. That's what makes the timing of 'The Handmaid's Tale' finale all the more remarkable. The acclaimed Hulu drama, which streamed its final episode earlier this week, was unavoidably and unapologetically political. In the series, based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, America has been transformed into Gilead, a totalitarian theocratic regime where women are treated like property. The 'handmaid' in the title is June Osborne, played by Elisabeth Moss. Get Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. The actors and producers started working on the first season of the show in 2016 with the belief that Hillary Clinton would be the first woman president. They described in interviews how the entire cast and crew were shocked by President Trump's victory. Trump's election — following campaign trail narratives about misogyny and bigotry — changed how the show was received. The premiere in April 2017 spawned a thousand think pieces. Some anti-Trump protesters even donned red robes and white bonnets inspired by the show. The show's producers leaned in. They didn't hesitate when asked about real-world comparisons to the radicalism portrayed on screen. 'We're on a very, very slippery slope toward Gilead,' executive producer Warren Littlefield told me back in 2019. While awaiting the finale this week, I checked back in with Littlefield. He perceives that the slope is even more treacherous today. 'Our America is getting harder to recognize each and every day,' he said, 'and Margaret's speculative fiction written 40 years ago on a rented typewriter in Berlin becomes closer to reality.' Moss, the cover star of this week's Variety magazine, was asked if the Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade created a 'new urgency on set.' She said the vibe was already pretty urgent: 'The only way we've ever made this show was to have this sense of immediacy and relevancy that is not pleasant but is definitely galvanizing.' Maybe the political overtones turned off some would-be viewers. But 'The Handmaid's Tale' didn't meaningfully suffer in this polarized media climate. Instead, it benefited — because it evoked meaningful emotions and was elevated by current events. 'Handmaid's Tale' had something to say, and a unique time to say it, and isn't that every artist wants? 'In early Handmaid's days,' Littlefield said, 'we present a world that was too preoccupied staring into their phones to see Gilead coming until it's upon our characters and taken over their lives.' Over the years, many reviewers have pointed to that as one of the enduring takeaways from the show. 'Handmaid's' 'showed the ease with which the unthinkable can become ordinary — a lesson crucial in the age of the Big Lie,' The Atlantic's Megan Garber wrote in 2021. The final season of the series was in production while Kamala Harris lost to Trump, and began streaming in April. The Hollywood Reporter TV critic Daniel Fienberg credited the show with 'perfect — or perfectly awful — timing' over the years, and said 'the show's topicality sometimes hit so close to the bone that it became difficult to watch.' One of the showrunners, Yahlin Chang, posited in a recent interview with TheWrap that the show 'kind of failed' to serve as a cautionary tale, 'or we didn't caution enough people.' 'It's shocking to me, when I think about when I joined the show, I had more rights as a woman than I have now,' she said. Conversely, Chang said in an oral history of the show that 'Handmaid's' was an opportunity to tell big-budget stories 'about refugees and displaced people' – in this case, about American characters who fled to Canada to escape tyranny. 'You can't just walk into a Hollywood studio and pitch that,' she said. 'The fact that we're able to give voice to have our characters as Americans go through what, unfortunately, people all throughout the world go through and where we can really empathize with them fills me with hope for humanity.' The final episodes manage to be uplifting, at least in part, and Littlefield said, 'Our message this year, in hopefully a compelling dramatic way, continues to be — like June, don't give up the fight.' Many of the 'Handmaid's Tale' producers are now working on a sequel series called 'The Testaments,' which will pick up about 15 years in the fictional future. It will be another test of audience (and studio) interest in a show that both entertains and asks a serious question: 'Could it happen here?'
CNN
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
'The Handmaid's Tale' had a remarkable ending — for real-world reasons
Hollywood studios and streamers aren't exactly craving politically provocative shows and movies right now. Producers are thinking twice about liberal-sounding storylines. Media companies are downplaying diversity initiatives. And 'The Apprentice,' a biopic about President Trump that contained some critical scenes, struggled to gain US distribution last year. That's what makes the timing of 'The Handmaid's Tale' finale all the more remarkable. The acclaimed Hulu drama, which streamed its final episode earlier this week, was unavoidably and unapologetically political. In the series, based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, America has been transformed into Gilead, a totalitarian theocratic regime where women are treated like property. The 'handmaid' in the title is June Osborne, played by Elisabeth Moss. Get Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. The actors and producers started working on the first season of the show in 2016 with the belief that Hillary Clinton would be the first woman president. They described in interviews how the entire cast and crew were shocked by President Trump's victory. Trump's election — following campaign trail narratives about misogyny and bigotry — changed how the show was received. The premiere in April 2017 spawned a thousand think pieces. Some anti-Trump protesters even donned red robes and white bonnets inspired by the show. The show's producers leaned in. They didn't hesitate when asked about real-world comparisons to the radicalism portrayed on screen. 'We're on a very, very slippery slope toward Gilead,' executive producer Warren Littlefield told me back in 2019. While awaiting the finale this week, I checked back in with Littlefield. He perceives that the slope is even more treacherous today. 'Our America is getting harder to recognize each and every day,' he said, 'and Margaret's speculative fiction written 40 years ago on a rented typewriter in Berlin becomes closer to reality.' Moss, the cover star of this week's Variety magazine, was asked if the Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade created a 'new urgency on set.' She said the vibe was already pretty urgent: 'The only way we've ever made this show was to have this sense of immediacy and relevancy that is not pleasant but is definitely galvanizing.' Maybe the political overtones turned off some would-be viewers. But 'The Handmaid's Tale' didn't meaningfully suffer in this polarized media climate. Instead, it benefited — because it evoked meaningful emotions and was elevated by current events. 'Handmaid's Tale' had something to say, and a unique time to say it, and isn't that every artist wants? 'In early Handmaid's days,' Littlefield said, 'we present a world that was too preoccupied staring into their phones to see Gilead coming until it's upon our characters and taken over their lives.' Over the years, many reviewers have pointed to that as one of the enduring takeaways from the show. 'Handmaid's' 'showed the ease with which the unthinkable can become ordinary — a lesson crucial in the age of the Big Lie,' The Atlantic's Megan Garber wrote in 2021. The final season of the series was in production while Kamala Harris lost to Trump, and began streaming in April. The Hollywood Reporter TV critic Daniel Fienberg credited the show with 'perfect — or perfectly awful — timing' over the years, and said 'the show's topicality sometimes hit so close to the bone that it became difficult to watch.' One of the showrunners, Yahlin Chang, posited in a recent interview with TheWrap that the show 'kind of failed' to serve as a cautionary tale, 'or we didn't caution enough people.' 'It's shocking to me, when I think about when I joined the show, I had more rights as a woman than I have now,' she said. Conversely, Chang said in an oral history of the show that 'Handmaid's' was an opportunity to tell big-budget stories 'about refugees and displaced people' – in this case, about American characters who fled to Canada to escape tyranny. 'You can't just walk into a Hollywood studio and pitch that,' she said. 'The fact that we're able to give voice to have our characters as Americans go through what, unfortunately, people all throughout the world go through and where we can really empathize with them fills me with hope for humanity.' The final episodes manage to be uplifting, at least in part, and Littlefield said, 'Our message this year, in hopefully a compelling dramatic way, continues to be — like June, don't give up the fight.' Many of the 'Handmaid's Tale' producers are now working on a sequel series called 'The Testaments,' which will pick up about 15 years in the fictional future. It will be another test of audience (and studio) interest in a show that both entertains and asks a serious question: 'Could it happen here?'
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Falling palm trees and a faltering Palme d'Or director: how Cannes 2025 went – and who will win
Cannes this year had a lot to live up to after last year's award-winners, headline-grabbers and social media meltdowners Anora, The Substance and Emilia Pérez. It makes reading the signs now that bit more difficult: the bizarre event on the Croisette boulevard this year was a palm tree falling over. If it happened in a film, the metaphor would be unbearable. Whether 2025's Cannes movies are going to spark a new burst of overwhelming excitement remains to be seen, though this year's vintage feels good – often excellent, although even the biggest names can get it wrong: former Palme d'Or winner Julia Ducournau presented an incoherent drama called Alpha. This was a Cannes competition whose great movies were about political cruelty and tyranny. Jafar Panahi's A Simple Accident was about a fortuitous event that unearthed horrifying memories in Iran. Kleber Mendonça Filho's glorious, sprawling, Elmore Leonard-esque film from Brazil, The Secret Agent was about the 1970s dictatorship – interestingly, both films showed petty officials taking bribes. Filho's wretched cops are bought off with some cigarettes – Panahi's crooked security guards carry a debit card reader so they can take contactless payments. But for sheer existential grandeur of evil nothing could touch Sergei Loznitsa's Two Prosecutors – about the Stalin 30s, with its Dostoyevskian and Kafkaesque moments of despair. And to go with these views of the patriarchy, there were daddy issues. Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value showed Stellan Skarsgård being insufferable with his daughters – the preening Egyptian movie star played by Fares Fares in Eagles of the Republic infuriates his son, and Josh O'Connor's hapless art thief in Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind is a very neglectful dad. And in the Dardenne brothers' compassionate and poignant movie Jeunes Mères, about a care facility for teenage mothers, the fathers were conspicuous by their absence. So here are my prize predictions, followed by my extra Cannes Braddies, my personal awards in other sections which should exist, but don' d'Or The Secret Agent (dir Kleber Mendonça Filho)Grand Prix Two Prosecutors (dir Sergei Loznitsa)Jury prize A Simple Accident (dir Jafar Panahi)Best director Carla Simón for RomeríaBest screenplay Mascha Schilinski for Sound of FallingBest actor Josh O'Connor for The MastermindBest actress Yui Suzuki for Renoir (dir Chie Hayakawa)Braddies for prize categories that don't exist but shouldBest supporting actor Stellan Skarsgård in Sentimental Value (dir Joachim Trier)Best supporting actress Tânia Maria for The Secret Agent (dir Kleber Mendonça Filho)Cinematography David Chambille for Nouvelle Vague (dir Richard Linklater)Production design Roger Rosenberg for Eagles of the Republic (dir Tarik Saleh)
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
TV tonight: the Marie Antoinette ‘affair of the necklace' scandal
9pm, BBC TwoThe second season of this period drama continues to deliver palace gossip, backstabbing, political scheming, a rumbling revolt … and magnificent costumes. It's spring 1784 and the 'affair of the necklace' scandal is being hatched to try to bring down Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. Meanwhile, people are using the queen's melancholy against her and the court is putting on a comic play – with serious consequences. Hollie Richardson 7pm, BBC TwoHelen Skelton and architect Patrick Bradley are the hosts of this Grand Designs-alike, offering planning advice and emotional support to London escapers Jess and Colin as they prepare to renovate a run-down Victorian cottage in rural Wales. What begins as an eight-month project budgeted at £150,000 soon veers off-piste. Graeme Virtue 8pm, U&DramaThe sun-kissed Umbrian landscape feels like an additional character in this accomplished if generic drama. However, there's trouble among the olive groves as this second series concludes. Sylvia (Emilia Fox) learns the hard way that brokering peace between rival families has risks attached. Will hunky cop Riva come to her rescue? Phil Harrison 9pm, Channel 4A rarity this week as the contenders are released from the Taskmaster grounds and taken to an old abbey to be tested ruthlessly. Upon arrival, Fatiha struggles with aggressive wildfowl, Stevie bonds with a duck and Jason gets creative with facial hair. As ever, a reliable treat. PH 9pm, BBC ThreeIt's lads-on-tour time in this last-ever double bill of Guz Khan's sitcom and, amid all the Istanbul sightseeing, there's some serious business to schedule. Aqsa must be rescued and Khan must be killed. Plus, it seems Uncle Shady (Mark Silcox) has finally met his match. Or a least his Turkish equivalent. Ellen E Jones 9pm, Sky MaxNatasha Lyonne's fun case-of-the-week crime caper heads to the Florida Panhandle for a wild story of death by alligator. Kumail Nanjiani plays Gator Joe, a Tiger King-esque cop – and human lie detector Charlie has to work out who set his own beloved animal on him ... and whether it had been fed methamphetamine. HR Golf, PGA Championship1pm, Sky Sports Main Event. Masters champion Rory McIlroy aims for his second major of the year at Quail Hollow Club in North Carolina.
