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4/5 starsWes Anderson’s latest feature, a spy movie rendered in the way only he can, feels like the antithesis to the latest Mission: Impossible film.Playing in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where his last two features premiered, The Phoenician Scheme is an old-fashioned espionage caper styled in the exquisite, delicately hewn manner for which Anderson is famed.Here he gets to work with Benicio del Toro, who featured briefly in Anderson’s 2021 film The French Dispatch but here gets to take the lead. Perfectly cast, the actor plays Zsa-zsa Korda, a shady tycoon thought to be one of the richest men in Europe.As the explosive aerial opening shows, there are people out to sabotage him, including a government-led task force (chaired by Rupert Friend).With all this weighing on...

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.]From long-awaited dreams to unforgettable destinations – luxury cruise line Oceania Cruises® turns the voyage into the destination You step onto the deck. A gentle breeze catches the hem of your linen shirt as you gaze out across the horizon. The sun is beginning to dip, gilding the sea in molten gold. Behind you, a steward offers a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc.  Ahead of you lies Asia. Or perhaps Africa. Or a hidden coral atoll in the South Pacific you hadn’t heard of until now. Wherever you're headed, you already know this isn’t just a holiday. This is something else entirely.  It’s the journey you’ve dreamt of and now that day has come. It’s time to reward yourself with an eye-opening voyage that’s rich in cu...

One need not travel thousands of miles to enjoy the very best of Asian cuisine, as Wynn invites guests to explore all the tantalizing flavors of Asia right here in Macao. Discover Michelin-starred Chaoshan fish congee, the best laksa from Singapore’s celebrity-favorite noodle shop, perfectly prepared unagi from a revered century-old Japanese restaurant, and the most sought-after beef noodles from the almost impossible-to-book restaurant in Taiwan. At Gourmet Pavilion, each new discovery is bursting with surprises that are hard to find anywhere else in the world and is exclusive to Wynn. Created by the world-renowned David Collins Studio, the design of Gourmet Pavilion is a combination of the elegance of European architecture with the world's finest craftsmanship, setting the stage for an e...

Lead cast: Hsieh Ying-xuan, Chin HanNetflix advances its robust slate of female-fronted Taiwanese drama series with Forget You Not, written and directed by Rene Liu Ruo-ying and starring Hsieh Ying-xuan as a middle-aged woman who uses stand-up comedy to process the everyday challenges in her life.Chief among these obstacles is her all-consuming relationship with her elderly father, played by Chin Han, while Wallace Huo Chien-hwa, Wang Po-chieh and Julia Wu Zhuoyuan round out the cast of this broad yet wholly relatable melodrama.Ever since her mother walked out on them when she was just eight years old, Le-le (Hsieh) and her father, Kuang-chi (Chin), have only had each other to depend on.When we first meet this headstrong 45-year-old divorcee, she is on stage at a comedy club, microphone in...

The Bolshoi Ballet’s appearance in Shenzhen was part of the company’s third tour to China in as many years – Beijing in 2023, Shanghai in 2024 and this year Beijing and Shenzhen.After a hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic, this was a golden opportunity to see the new generation of dancers who have been making waves in Moscow since 2020.A glittering line-up that included no fewer than 10 principal dancers plus numerous soloists produced outstanding dancing, confirming that the Bolshoi remains one of the world’s greatest ballet companies.If there were a few moments when dancers looked under-rehearsed or tired, that is not surprising; the tour seems to have been decided upon at very short notice and the dancers had moved to Shenzhen immediately after five performances in five days in Beijing,...

4/5 starsThere was a time when Jennifer Lawrence was known as one of the most fearless actresses of her generation. More recently she has taken a step back, shifting down gears with films like Causeway and No Hard Feelings.But her reputation will surely be bolstered on the back of Die My Love, in which she gives a searing turn as a married mother who comes apart at the seams after giving birth.Playing in Cannes Film Festival’s main competition, this adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel is the brainchild of Lynne Ramsay. The Scottish filmmaker has managed five films in 26 years, a number that deserves to be more given what a unique talent she is.So it goes here: from the off, Ramsay plunges us into the mind of Grace, Lawrence’s increasingly fractured young parent.This is Ramsay’s first film...

Mark Knopfler and John Illsley have differing memories of the creation of Dire Straits’ most successful album.“It was like any other album,” says the former frontman and songwriter Knopfler, 75, almost stoically.In contrast, bassist Illsley, also 75, and still close friends with his former bandmate, said he immediately recognised that the band’s fifth studio album could be something special.“I knew instinctively we had some great material here,” he says. “We were going to have a really good album.”Illsley was proved right. Brothers In Arms, featuring classics like “Money For Nothing” and “Walk Of Life”, became a global success, selling more than 30 million copies and becoming one of the bestselling albums in music history. A new edition is now being released to mark its 40th anniversary....

An eastern German city is offering two weeks of free lodgings in a bid to attract new residents as it continues to grapple with depopulation some 35 years after reunification.Successful applicants will be eligible to spend two weeks in a furnished flat in Eisenhüttenstadt, some 100km (62 miles) southeast of Berlin, from September 6-20, the city administration said.Like many other regions in the former communist East Germany, Eisenhüttenstadt has seen a sharp population decline in the decades after German reunification, with younger people in particular moving away to look for work elsewhere.City official Julia Basan noted that the current population has declined to some 24,000 in recent years, from around 50,000 in 1990.Eisenhüttenstadt was initially designed for a population of 30,000. Ph...

When Klaus Mäkelä climbed the Concertgebouw podium in Amsterdam and turned to the audience at the orchestra’s third Gustav Mahler Festival in 105 years, the conductor could see the writing on the wall.Facing him was “MAHLER” etched in gold on a cartouche and shining in a spotlight, centred in a permanent position of honour among the 17 composers enshrined across the balcony front. And sitting in the first row directly behind the sign was Marina Mahler, the composer’s 81-year-old granddaughter.“It was just as it should be. I was terribly moved and excited at the same time,” she said after the final note of Mahler’s Symphony No 1. “It affected me in the deepest possible way.”All 10 of Mahler’s numbered symphonies are being presented in order along with his other major works from May 8-18, en...

After visitors descend stairs winding 50 metres (164 feet) below ground, they emerge to an otherworldly sight: a cavernous, dimly lit space with towering pillars reminiscent of a temple in ancient Rome.“The moment I stepped down the stairs and saw the entire space, I was astonished,” said Chen, a tourist who visited the location in Kasukabe, a city just north of Tokyo, in Japan’s Saitama prefecture.The facility, one of the world’s largest underground stormwater discharge channels, has come to be described as an “underground shrine” by many.The temple aesthetic comes from 59 towering pillars within the space, each measuring seven metres long, two metres wide and 18 metres high.The facility took 13 years to build at a cost of more than US$1 billion. Photo: Getty ImagesOfficially known as the...