‘The Simpsons’ predicted Japanese prime minister eating radioactive Fukushima fish, fans say

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Ozu Yasujiro, the leading Japanese film director behind classics including “Tokyo Story” and “Late Spring,” has had his double birth and death anniversaries – Ozu died in 1963 on the day of his 60th birthday, a little more than a year after the release of his last film “An Autumn Afternoon” – celebrated throughout 2023 at places as varied as the Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles’ Margaret Herrick Library and the Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute. But it falls to October’s Tokyo International Film Festival to put on this year’s biggest and most comprehensive reconstruction of Ozu’s surprisingly varied career. Working in conjunction with the National Film Archive of Japan, the festival will present an extensive retrospective that covers almost all the films that Ozu directed (TIFF/NFAJ Classics: Ozu Yasujiro Week) from Oct. 24-29. Ozu spent his entire career, from camera assistant in 1923 to renown director in 1962, as an employee of major Japanese studio Shochiku, with all the advantages and disadvantages such an arrangement brought. While Ozu is best known for his stripped-down dramas, often centered on family relationships, sometimes troubled or contentious, involving parents and young or grown-up children, many hinging on questions of marriage, generational misunderstandings or the loneliness of the elderly, the director’s register may not entirely have been of his own choosing. “The apparent consistency of the post-war films surely owes as much to this production situation as to Ozu’s aesthetic choices,” wrote critic Tony Rayns in a recent Sight & Sound portrait.

Microsoft suggest Bethesda Softworks has remasters for Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in the works.In a Resetera post published today (September 19), an image appearing to be a “title release schedule” for Microsoft was shared, taken from court documents related to the company’s ongoing Activision Blizzard acquisition.While the schedule begins with releases from 2020, such as Doom Eternal and The Elder Scrolls Online: Greymoor, a number of unannounced projects are also listed.This includes a remaster for Bethesda Softworks’ role-playing game The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, which was listed as launching in 2022. There’s also a remake for post-apocalyptic shooter Fallout 3 marked down for 2024.However, certain dates – such as Redfall being listed for 2021 when it only launched this year – suggest this release schedule, if legitimate, is no longer accurate.These remasters would come at a time when both Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are going to be without new entries for a while.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events.

Addie Morfoot Contributor Long before Bethenny Frankel began fighting for reality stars’ rights, there was “Denpa Shonen: A Life in Prizes,” a Japanese reality show that began airing in 1998.The show starred aspiring comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, nicknamed Nasubi. In a room by himself and naked, Nasubi had to fill out contest coupons in order to win what he needed to survive.

For most Americans, the name Nasubi doesn’t mean anything. However, his impact on the world of television is immeasurable.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Johnny and Associates, the high-profile Japanese talent agency whose deceased founder and long-time president Johnny Kitagawa has been revealed as a serial sexual abuser, will forgo some of its fee income as a step toward victim compensation. The move appears to be an attempt to lessen the company’s toxic brand following the now-confirmed revelations about the late Kitagawa’s predatory behavior.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Elysian Film Group, Anonymous Content and Bleecker Street have jointly acquired the U.K. rights to “The Boy and the Heron,” the first film from legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki in a decade. Elysian Film Group will release the film in U.K.

Elysian Film Group, Anonymous Content, and Bleecker Street have jointly acquired UK rights to The Boy and the Heron, the latest feature from celebrated Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Yakusho Koji, the Japanese star who was named best actor at Cannes this year in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days,” is set as the subject of a seven-title showcase at the upcoming Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan. Among the septet are classic erotic film “Lost Paradise” from 1997, this year’s “Perfect Days” and 1996 film “Shall We Dance,” which was later remade in Hollywood. A former civil servant who first ventured into Taiga drama (long-running TV series broadcast by NHK), then played in several films by Kurosawa Akira, Yakusho became a major 1990s star in Asia as a result of “Shall We Dance?,” in which he portrayed a ball room dancer, and “Lost Paradise.” He also starred in Itami Juzo’s “Tampopo.” Directed by Morita Yoshimitsu, “Lost Paradise” is a tale of a man and a woman whose marriages no longer make them happy, but who rediscover desire in each other’s arms. Fatefully, however, their newfound joy means ever greater transgression of Japan’s strict morality laws. At the time of the release of “Lost Paradise,” the producers deliberately darkened the erotic scenes to make them less explicit and to achieve less restrictive release classifications.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Vogter,” a psychological thriller directed by Gustav Möller, whose previous film “The Guilty” won the Audience Award at Sundance, has been pre-sold by Les Films du Losange to multiple territories. “Vogter,” which was just completed and is now in post, has been picked up for Germany, Austria, Switzerland (Ascot Elite), Spain (La Aventura), Italy (Movies Inspired), Japan (Happinet Phantom Studios), Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg (Cineart), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (Kino Pavasaris) and Hungary (Vertigo). Les Films du Losange has closed these deals since unveiling the project at Cannes and is negotiating further sales in other key territories.

A new film by Hayao Miyazaki filmmaker (or anything from animation house Studio Ghibli) is always worth celebrating. And for Miyazaki’s first feature film in a decade, TIFF pulls out all the stops.

Jaden Thompson Studio Ghibli has pulled back the curtain on Hayao Miyazaki’s animated fantasy epic “The Boy and the Heron,” the director’s first feature since his 2013 drama “The Wind Rises.” The movie will get a U.S. theatrical release on Dec. 8.

EXCLUSIVE: Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired US digital and theatrical rights to Japanese fantasy drama Before The Sunset. 

Jane McDonald has announced that she's coming back to Loose Women, much to the delight of her fans. However, it's for a one-time visit rather than to resume her spot on the panel.

Naman Ramachandran Filmmakers Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti (Berlin title “Gully Boy”) are basking in the success of their Prime Video series “Dahaad” and season 2 of “Made in Heaven.” “Made in Heaven” revolves around the lives of two wedding planners in Delhi. Each episode sees traditional and modern values clashing with secrets being exposed. The first season bowed in 2019 and earned an International Emmy best actor nomination for Arjun Mathur for playing out and proud wedding planner Karan Mehra.

Manchester City are said to be looking to table a second bid for Wolves midfielder Matheus Nunes after seeing an initial £47m rejected.

Lisa is having a fun night out!

The U.S. premieres of the films Yoko, Ripple, and Tea Friends highlight the seventh Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan (ACA) Cinema Project, which will spotlight “Emerging Japanese Films” in a series set to run Sept. 26-28 at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

EXCLUSIVE: Sources tell Deadline that the Toronto International Film Festival’s opening night film on Sept. 7, The Boy and the Heron from Hayao Miyazaki, has sold out in record time.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic In out-there Estonian comedy “The Invisible Fight,” a clueless Russian border guard somehow escapes a surprise attack by three formidable Chinese action figures — gravity-defying kung fu warriors who swoop in out of nowhere, blasting Black Sabbath on their bright red boombox — so he does what anyone in his position would do: He resolves to become an Orthodox monk. Huh? “I guess God has other plans for you,” a less-fortunate comrade wheezes with his dying breath, setting up one of the oddest plots audiences are likely to find on the art-house circuit this year.