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From Albania to Bahawalpur, Barry Levinson’s political satire eerily mirrors how modern governments manipulate media and perception — and how we become willing participants.

“Why does the dog wag its tail? Because the dog is smarter than the tail. If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.”

So begins Wag the Dog (1997), Barry Levinson’s shrewd political satire where a U.S. President, embroiled in a sex scandal just days before re-election, turns to a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer to stage a war. The target? Albania. The purpose? Distraction.

What once felt like a brilliant absurdity now feels disturbingly plausible.

In a time where nationalistic fervor can be manufactured in a green-screened studio and truth outsourced to digital propaganda, Wag the Dog is no longer satire — it’s a survival guide. Especially relevant today, as India and Pakistan face off again under a dense fog of misinformation and media theater.

The official website for the upcoming spring 2025 TV anime Classic Stars released a main trailer today. The clip features the anime's opening theme song "Singularist " sung by Yuma Uchida , who is also cast as one of the main characters, Beethoven. As his 12th CD single, "Singularist” will release on April 2, 2025, simultaneously with his 13th CD single "Heartache," which will be featured as the ending theme for the upcoming spring 2025 TV anime #Compass 2.0 . Classic Stars Main Trailer Related: Classic Stars TV Anime Reveals April 5 Premiere, Main Visual The TV anime Classic Stars is set to premiere in Japan on April 5 at 25:00 Jst (effectively April 6 at 1:00). Crunchyroll will stream the anime as it airs for members in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, Cis, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. Classic Stars is a mixed-media project featuring young men gifted with the talents of classical composers.

The official website for the upcoming spring 2025 TV anime Classic Stars has announced that the anime is set to premiere in Japan on April 5 at 25:00 Jst (effectively April 6 at 1:00). The site has also revealed a main visual newly drawn by the anime's character designer Yoko Sato. Main Visual Additionally, a mini-album containing character songs, "Beyond★Classic" is set to release on May 21, 2025. The album includes the anime's ending theme song “Beyond★Classic,” as well as four solo songs by Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Liszt. CD jacket Gran★MyStar “Beyond★Classic” Lyric Video Related: Classic Stars TV Anime Sows Dis=Cord with Latest Casting, Character Trailer Classic Stars is a mixed-media project featuring young men gifted with the talents of classical composers. After lunch of the project in 2018, production of the TV anime was announced in July 2024 . Noriyasu Agematsu of Elements Garden serves as the planner and executive producer...

Classic Stars , the upcoming idol anime featuring young men gifted with the talents of classical composers, premieres later this year. But, as we see in a new trailer released today, they aren't the only ones wielding historical inspiration! Meet Dis=Cord: a mysterious trio of "lost" talents with their own reasons for singing. Joining the cast as this new group are: Lost Beethoven voiced by Taku Yashiro (Vulcan Joseph in Fire Force ) Lost Vivaldi voiced by Takuya Sato (Ryunosuke Tsunashi in IDOLiSH7 ) Lost Schumann voiced by Ayumu Murase (Ginro in Dr. Stone ) Classic Stars Dis=Cord Trailer Lost Beethoven Lost Vivaldi Lost Schumann Related: Classic Stars Anime Introduces Chopin in Latest Character Trailer Additionally, the series has locked in an April 2025 release window, as well as an opening theme: "Singularist," which will be performed by Yuma Uchida (the voice of Beethoven). Noriyasu Agematsu of Elements Garden serves as the planner...

On Tuesday September 17 2024, UPtv broadcasts Euro Arts!

Berliner Philharmoniker Season 1 Episode 23 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Euro Arts” titled “Berliner Philharmoniker” promises to be a captivating experience for classical music lovers. This episode features a rich selection of pieces performed by the renowned Berliner Philharmoniker orchestra. With its focus on some of the greatest composers, the episode is set to showcase the beauty and depth of classical music.

The episode opens with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8 in F major, op. 93. This symphony is known for its lively melodies and playful character. Beethoven’s unique style shines through, making it a delightful way to start the concert. The orchestra’s performance is sure to bring out the energy and charm of this piece.

Following Beethoven, the audience will be treated to Robert Schumann’s Concert Piece for Four Horns and Orchestra in F major, op. 86. This work highlights the horn section,...

The documentary Maestra shines a spotlight on talented women striving to succeed in a male-dominated field. Directed by Maggie Contreras, the film follows five female conductors from around the world as they compete in La Maestra, the only international conducting competition exclusively for women.

Held in Paris every other year, La Maestra was founded in response to the shocking statistic that fewer than three percent of conductors for major orchestras are female. Through this competition, organizers hope to raise the profile of talented women and help advance their careers. The obstacles they face are real—from lack of opportunity and unfair criticism to challenges balancing professional ambitions with personal lives.

Contreras introduces us to a diverse cast of characters pouring their passion into the competition. There’s Zoe, a fiercely determined mother from Greece. Bubbly American Tamara dreams of starting a family while furthering her career. Quiet Ustina from Ukraine...

Specific images of the Holocaust have endlessly punctuated the film and TV landscape: The barbed wire of a concentration camp. Naked bodies rendered to skin and bone, tossed in discarded piles. Gleeful abuse and random killings by evil Nazis. Hollywood has repeatedly ingrained that imagery when presenting this horrific time in history, so to continue conjuring it adds to the collective trauma of an entire people.

Yet all these displays and more are the Sky Studios and Peacock co-production “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.” That makes it a challenging show to sit through, let alone binge six episodes of, when the event series drops on Peacock on May 2.

The series finds inspiration in Heather Morris’ controversial, bestselling 2018 book of the same name. Morris wrote the debut novel after spending time with a Slovakian Holocaust survivor named Lali Sokolov (nee Ludwig Eisenberg), who was a tattooist at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

The book, and now the show,...

Few actors have embodied the full range of modern German history on screen as has Christian Friedel.

In Jonathan Glazer’s Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest — a dark horse candidate for the best picture Oscar this Sunday (where it is also nominated in four other categories, including best international feature), Friedel plays Rudolf Höss, the notorious commandant of Auschwitz who, together with his wife Hedwig (played by Sandra Hüller), built an idyllic villa with a pretty garden for their five children right next to the death camp.

But before Zone, the 45-year-old German actor was best known for playing famed anti-Nazi resistance fighter Georg Elser in 13 Minutes, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2015 drama about Elsner’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1939, before World War II and before the Holocaust. In 2012’s Closed Season, Friedel plays a young Jewish refugee hiding from the Nazis. And in his film debut, in...

26 October 2023 — Directed, written, produced by, and starring Bradley Cooper in the title role, opposite Carey Mulligan, Maestro is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love. Deutsche Grammophon is delighted to be releasing the original soundtrack album for the movie, which has already garnered widespread critical acclaim. All the music in the film was chosen by Cooper, and the new recordings on the soundtrack were made by the London Symphony Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who also worked closely with the actor-director as conducting consultant before and throughout the film-making process.

The album will be released digitally on November 17, 2023, and on CD and vinyl on December 1. A taster track featuring an excerpt from the Finale of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”, with soprano Rosa Feola,...

The Philharmonia announces the second half of its 2023/24 Season at Southbank Centre, with Santtu-Matias Rouvali as Principal Conductor of the Orchestra.

To open the second half of the season, Santtu-Matias Rouvali will conduct singer Julia Bullock, one of the Philharmonia’s Featured Artists, taking on life’s big topics – love, death, nature, heaven – in a Romantic pairing of Berlioz and Mahler (1 Feb).

The Philharmonia conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen with soprano Julia Bullock perform Ravel and Britten in the Royal Festival Hall, which is being live streamed on Thursday 29 October 2020. Photo by Mark Allan

Julia Bullock brings her mixed-media project History’s Persistent Voice to London on 2 February, shining a light on the words, work and experiences of Black American artists. Bullock commissioned the songs in the project from leading Black women composers. Jessie Montgomery reimagines songs from an anthology collected just after the American Civil War, recording the music of...

The following depicts instances of war violence & trauma.

Warning: The following contains Spoilers for Thank You For Your Service.

The heavy ending of the 2017 war drama film Thank You For Your Service delivers a powerful conclusion to the tragic true story of Adam Schumann. The emotional and transparent movie takes a hard look at the real-world effects of modern warfare through the eyes of Schumann, played by Miles Teller. The film focuses specifically on the myriad struggles that hundreds of thousands of veterans face when they come home from duty, particularly in their difficulties adjusting to life back home. The film also portrays common issues many veterans have in dealing with the Va department, seeking therapy and treatment, and battling inner conflicts caused by Ptsd and Cte.

Thank You For Your Service's true story is as devastating as it is inspiring, with another central theme of the film being survivor's guilt.

Thank You For Your Service recounts the stories of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, the 15 months they were deployed in Iraq, and the post-traumatic stress disorder (Ptsd) they experienced after returning home to the United States in 2007. The 2017 war drama film is based on true events, as documented in the 2013 nonfiction novel of the same name by David Finkel. While the book and the movie focus on numerous soldiers and their stories, Adam Schumann, played by Miles Teller, serves as the main character in the production.

Like many other characters in the film, Schumann is a real-life person. But unlike the others, the veteran acted as a technical advisor during production, made a cameo in the movie, and sang backup for Bruce Springsteen's "Freedom Cadence," which plays during the end credits. Thanks to Schumann and director Jason Hall, Thank You For Your Service is an accurate depiction of...

Robert Schumann is one of the most renowned composers in classical music history. His compositions were groundbreaking, often pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible with music.

His works are a reflection of his life and his experiences, and they allow us an insight into his inner turmoil and his genius. If you want to understand Schumann’s music, it is important to look at who he was and how he lived.

Through this article we will explore Robert Schumann’s works in depth and understand the man behind them. We will see how his struggles with mental health affected his work, as well as how this same work might have helped him overcome those struggles. We will uncover the stories that lie just beneath the surface of each composition, and understand what it was about Schumann’s music that made it so unique and beloved by many.

Overview...

New York, NY — March 27, 2023 — The 92nd Street Y, New York (92Ny), one of New York’s leading cultural venues, presents Drew Petersen, piano, plays Chopin, Schumann, Ravel, and more, on April 20, 2023 at 7:30pm Et. The concert will also be available for viewing online for 72 hours from time of broadcast. Tickets for both the in-person and livestream options start at $25 and are available at 92ny.org/event/drew-petersen-piano.

Pianist Drew Petersen makes his NYC recital debut in 92Ny’s newly renovated Buttenwieser Hall. At the heart of his program: piano masterworks by Ravel and Schumann in Gaspard de la nuit and Schumann’s love letter in music, the C-Major Fantasie. A selection of Chopin Études is preceded by John Corigliano’s Etude Fantasy, a set of five studies in the form and character of a fantasy, creating an arc from the program’s start to finish that reflects the thoughtfulness of Petersen’s artistic conception.

Dementia seems to be the name of the game in cinema over the course of recent years. After Richard Glatzer’s and Wash Westmoreland’s effort “Still Alice” (2014) that took Julianne Moore to her first and so far only Oscar for playing the titular character, an academic who has to deal with the illness that will rapidly take her greatest asset, and even more impressive Florian Zeller’s stage play adaptation “The Father” (2020) that brought Anthony Hopkins his second Academy Award for the role, the Japanese novelist and producer Genki Kawamura took his own novel on the same topic as a source for his feature-length directorial debut. After the premiere at San Sebastian and the tour of festivals in East and Southeast Asia, “A Hundred Flowers” was screened at Belgrade International Film Festival.

On New Year’s Eve, and just before her birthday, retired piano teacher Yuriko Kasai (Mieko Harada...

New York, NY — February 15, 2023 — The 92nd Street Y, New York (92Ny), one of New York’s leading cultural venues, presents Benjamin Grosvenor, piano, plays Schumann, Prokofiev, and more, on March 16, 2023 at 7:30pm Et at the Kaufmann Concert Hall. The concert will also be available for viewing online for 72 hours from time of broadcast. Tickets for both the in-person and livestream options start at $25 and are available at 92ny.org/event/benjamin-grosvenor-piano.

Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor returns to 92Ny following a 2017 debut, opening his program with Busoni’s transcription of Bach’s Chaconne before Schumann’s C-Major Fantasie. This program’s second half begins with more Ravel with his Baroque homage in modern colors, Le tombeau de Couperin, and closes with Prokofiev’s B-Flat Major Sonata.

Program:

Bach, Chaconne in D Minor (arr. Busoni)

R. Schumann, Fantasie in C Major, Op. 17

Ravel, Le tombeau de Couperin

Prokofiev, Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major,...

6 January 2023 – The acclaimed British pianist, Benjamin Grosvenor, still only 30 and yet a well-established favourite of critics and audiences around the globe, takes Robert Schumann’s haunting Kreisleriana as his starting point in his new album, Schumann & Brahms. This eight-movement work portrays the mercurial personality of the fictional Johannes Kreisler, created by E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kreisler’s highs and lows, and his dreamy nature, clearly mirror Schumann’s own tragic manic-depressive tendencies. Grosvenor responds to the composer’s autobiographical honesty with playing of sublime tenderness, dazzling variety, and imaginative empathy.

He accompanies the work with the melancholic Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann by Schumann’s beloved wife Clara. Further kaleidoscopic variety is provided by Robert’s Blumenstück, and Quasi Variazione: Andantino de Clara Wieck. The recital also includes Brahms’ Three Intermezzi, autumnal works which shed a fascinating light on the complicated relationship which existed between Robert, Clara and Brahms himself.

Today, January 1st, Netflix brings us thirty episodes of the acclaimed 2004 adult animation series.

‘Monster’ has become a cult series that the streaming platform ha recovered fro obscurity, to the great surprise of many of its fan, and give the audience at large the opportunity to discover this anime by Masayuki Kojima, which has been considered one of the best in its genre.

The story is based on the book by the iconic manga artist Naoki Urasawa.

Premise

A surgeon with a promising career falls into disgrace when he chooses to save the life of a child instead of the life of the city mayor. Years pass, and strange events start to take place: one by one, his former colleagues, an who turned their backs on him, die under mysterious circumstances. Everybody is now on the hunt for the monster behind the killings.

Episode List Herr Dr. Tenma

Dr. Kenzo Tenma,...

"The Night of the Hunter" may hold back from showing any murders onscreen, but that doesn't make Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) any less creepy. A fanatical Christian that's equally misogynist, Powell roams the Great Depression Ohio valley, marrying widows before robbing them of both of their largesse and lives. The not-at-all-good reverend sees no conflict between his faith and his black widowing. After all, the Bible is full of killings.

While Powell is said to have a high body count, only two of his killings are directly featured in "The Night of the Hunter." The film opens with him fleeing from one, catching a glimpse of his victim's lifeless legs from her basement door. Powell then marries Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) to find money stolen and hidden away by her late husband. After brainwashing her into his faith, he disposes of her. She ends up being so robbed of...

The play is called Women Of A Certain Age, and we critics were invited to see it on the very evening it is set, November 8, 2016: Election Day. Although some of my colleagues were put out when Broadway producer Scott Rudin asked us to attend opening night of The Front Page, none of us has ever complained when asked to do so for the latest installment of Richard Nelson’s series about two unlike families living in the Hudson Valley hamlet of Rhinebeck, New York.

Each of the six plays, of which this was the final, is set in real time on its opening night. Truth to tell, I was nervous about how focused I could be, knowing that the quiet one-act unfolding there in the Public Theater’s third-floor LuEsther Hall would run right up against the first tallies of the voting for President. But these exquisitely intimate plays...