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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Haim's new album gives vivid shape to a hard-to-define phase
Haim's 'I Quit' is not quite a breakup album and not quite a moving-on album; rather, the fourth LP by this beloved Los Angeles sister trio lands somewhere between those tried-and-true schemes: Its title inspired, the Haims have said, by a third-act mic drop in the cult-fave 1996 movie 'That Thing You Do!,' 'I Quit' is about looking back from the middle distance on a relationship that didn't work and assessing what you learned (and what you didn't) from the experience. 'Can I have your attention, please, for the last time before I leave?' Danielle Haim sings over a trembling acoustic guitar riff to open the album with 'Gone.' Then: 'On second thought, I changed my mind.' In 'All Over Me,' she's exulting in the erotic thrill of a new situationship — 'Take off your clothes / Unlock your door / 'Cause when I come over / You're gonna get some' — while warning the guy not to get out over his skis as any kind of partner. Este Haim takes over lead vocals for 'Cry,' in which she's unsure of her place in the seven stages of grief: 'I'm past the anger, past the rage, but the hurt ain't gone.' How to musicalize such a state of transition? On 'I Quit,' which Danielle co-produced with Rostam Batmanglij, the sisters do it with songs that go in multiple directions at once, as in 'Relationships,' which sounds like 'Funky Divas' meets 'Tango in the Night,' and 'Everybody's Trying to Figure Me Out,' a deconstructed blues strut that bursts into psych-pop color in the chorus. They do it by trying new things, as in the shoegazing 'Lucky Stars' and 'Spinning,' which has Alana Haim cooing breathily over a shuffling disco beat. (In some ways, 'I Quit' feels closely aligned with the newly sexed-up 'Sable, Fable' by Bon Iver, whose Justin Vernon was involved in a couple of songs on this album.) The Haims also do it, of course, by revisiting familiar comforts: 'Gone' samples George Michael's 'Freedom! '90'; 'Down to Be Wrong' evokes the blistered euphoria of peak Sheryl Crow; 'Now It's Time,' for some goofy reason, borrows the industrial-funk groove from U2's 'Numb.' Read more: How Jensen McRae became L.A.'s next great songwriter Nostalgia figures into the lyrics too, but it's all very sharply drawn, as in 'Take Me Back,' a caffeinated folk-rock shimmy where Danielle is thinking about the people she used to know in the Valley — 'David only wants to do what David wants / Had a bald spot, now it's a parking lot' — and how much easier things were when she'd cruise Kling Street 'looking for a place to park in an empty parking lot just so you can feel me up.' (Great guitar solo in this one.) In 'Down to Be Wrong,' she looks out from her window seat on a flight to somewhere and sees 'the street where we used to sleep' — a reference, one presumes, to her ex Ariel Rechtshaid, who helped produce Haim's first three albums and whose presence looms here like a phantom. Case in point: ''We want to see you smiling,' said my mother on the hill,' Danielle sings in the loping country ballad 'The Farm,' 'But the distance keeps widening between what I let myself say and what I feel.' Oof. Yet on an album about choosing who to leave behind and who to collide with for the first time, 'The Farm's" emotional climax comes in a touching verse where one of Danielle's sisters tells her she's welcome to crash 'if you need a place to calm down till you get back on your feet.' The upheaval won't last; family is forever. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Haim's new album gives vivid shape to a hard-to-define phase
Haim's 'I Quit' is not quite a breakup album and not quite a moving-on album; rather, the fourth LP by this beloved Los Angeles sister trio lands somewhere between those tried-and-true schemes: Its title inspired, the Haims have said, by a third-act mic drop in the cult-fave 1996 movie 'That Thing You Do!,' 'I Quit' is about looking back from the middle distance on a relationship that didn't work and assessing what you learned (and what you didn't) from the experience. 'Can I have your attention, please, for the last time before I leave?' Danielle Haim sings over a trembling acoustic guitar riff to open the album with 'Gone.' Then: 'On second thought, I changed my mind.' In 'All Over Me,' she's exulting in the erotic thrill of a new situationship — 'Take off your clothes / Unlock your door / 'Cause when I come over / You're gonna get some' — while warning the guy not to get out over his skis as any kind of partner. Este Haim takes over lead vocals for 'Cry,' in which she's unsure of her place in the seven stages of grief: 'I'm past the anger, past the rage, but the hurt ain't gone.' How to musicalize such a state of transition? On 'I Quit,' which Danielle co-produced with Rostam Batmanglij, the sisters do it with songs that go in multiple directions at once, as in 'Relationships,' which sounds like 'Funky Divas' meets 'Tango in the Night,' and 'Everybody's Trying to Figure Me Out,' a deconstructed blues strut that bursts into psych-pop color in the chorus. They do it by trying new things, as in the shoegazing 'Lucky Stars' and 'Spinning,' which has Alana Haim cooing breathily over a shuffling disco beat. (In some ways, 'I Quit' feels closely aligned with the newly sexed-up 'Sable, Fable' by Bon Iver, whose Justin Vernon was involved in a couple of songs on this album.) The Haims also do it, of course, by revisiting familiar comforts: 'Gone' samples George Michael's 'Freedom! '90'; 'Down to Be Wrong' evokes the blistered euphoria of peak Sheryl Crow; 'Now It's Time,' for some goofy reason, borrows the industrial-funk groove from U2's 'Numb.' Nostalgia figures into the lyrics too, but it's all very sharply drawn, as in 'Take Me Back,' a caffeinated folk-rock shimmy where Danielle is thinking about the people she used to know in the Valley — 'David only wants to do what David wants / Had a bald spot, now it's a parking lot' — and how much easier things were when she'd cruise Kling Street 'looking for a place to park in an empty parking lot just so you can feel me up.' (Great guitar solo in this one.) In 'Down to Be Wrong,' she looks out from her window seat on a flight to somewhere and sees 'the street where we used to sleep' — a reference, one presumes, to her ex Ariel Rechtshaid, who helped produce Haim's first three albums and whose presence looms here like a phantom. Case in point: ''We want to see you smiling,' said my mother on the hill,' Danielle sings in the loping country ballad 'The Farm,' 'But the distance keeps widening between what I let myself say and what I feel.' Oof. Yet on an album about choosing who to leave behind and who to collide with for the first time, 'The Farm's' emotional climax comes in a touching verse where one of Danielle's sisters tells her she's welcome to crash 'if you need a place to calm down till you get back on your feet.' The upheaval won't last; family is forever.
Time of India
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Ironheart on OTT: All you need to know about its release date, plot and where to watch it
1 2 Another Marvel movie is dropping on the OTT platform and is all set to win your hearts once again. 'Ironheart' stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, following her path to returning to Chicago. It will be a miniseries, intended to be the 14th television series in the ' Marvel Cinematic Universe .' The plot As a sideways sequel to 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,' Ironheart pits technology against magic. This happens when Dominique Thorne, a genius inventor who is determined to make her name in the world, comes back to Chicago, which is her hometown. Thorne is not just a brilliant student at MIT but also tries to make an iron suit. In pursuit of her ambitions, she finds herself wrapped up with the mysterious yet charming Parker Robbins, 'The Hood,' played by 'Anthony Ramos' and builds a close friendship with him. The starring cast The cast includes the protagonist Dominique Thorne as the Ironheart, Lyric Ross as Natalie Washington, Alden Ehrenreich as Joe McGillicuddy, Regan Aliyah as a to-be-confirmed character, Manny Montana as John, Matthew James Elam as Xavier Washington, Anji White as Ronnie Williams, and Anthony Ramos as Parker Robbins/Hood. Release date and where to watch it Ironheart will premiere its first three episodes on June 24 on Disney+. The other three will drop a week later on July 1, streaming on JioHotstar in India. Further, the episodes will be named as 'Take Me Home,' 'Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up?,' 'We in Danger, Girl,' 'Bad Magic,' 'Karma's a Glitch,' 'The Past Is the Past.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like What She Did Mid-Air Left Passengers Speechless medalmerit Learn More Undo Why is Ironheart special for the Marvel universe? Ironheart aims to continue the Iron Man story, which was dependent on Tony Stark. Ironheart is all set to conclude Phase 5 of the universe, with releases like 'Avengers: Doomsday,' which is set to be the last series as of now. The first three episodes have been directed by Sam Bailey, followed by Angela Barnes taking over the other half.
Asahi Shimbun
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Asahi Shimbun
TV host Kokubun steps down after misconduct surfaces
Celebrity entertainer Taichi Kokubun will step down from his popular TV show due to serious misconduct, Nippon Television Network Corp. announced, without disclosing the nature of the allegation. Nippon TV President Hiroyuki Fukuda addressed the media on June 20 following an emergency board meeting, expressing regret over the situation. 'It is a serious and unfortunate matter,' Fukuda said. However, he declined to disclose specific details of Kokubun's misconduct, citing privacy concerns. Kokubun, 50, also released a public apology, announcing that he would be suspending all entertainment activities for the time being. 'The root cause lies entirely in my own lack of awareness of the position I hold, my complacency, poor judgment and inadequate behavior,' he said in the statement. Kokubun rose to fame as a member of the popular boy band Tokio and later expanded into acting and hosting TV and radio programs. His sudden announcement of suspension will leave broadcasters scrambling to reschedule or even cancel six shows in which he has been appearing. According to Nippon TV, the company became aware of the issue on May 27 after a source alerted the broadcaster to Kokubun's misbehavior. A subsequent investigation involving a third-party lawyer included interviews with relevant individuals. The findings led to the decision for Kokubun's removal from 'The! Tetsuwan! Dash!!,' an iconic reality show he co-hosted for three decades. Despite the controversy, the broadcaster confirmed that the program will continue airing. 'This is an issue concerning an individual cast member, not the show itself,' Fukuda said. He emphasized that no Nippon TV staff members engaged in any misconduct but acknowledged the broadcaster's responsibility for continuing to cast someone with potential issues. The revelation comes as the entertainment industry increasingly confronts issues of harassment and human rights violations, typically involving sexual abuse and bullying. Earlier this year, another well-known TV show host, Masahiro Nakai, retired from show business following accusations that he sexually abused a female newscaster from Fuji Television Network Inc. Both Nakai and Kokubun are originally from Johnny & Associates Inc., now renamed, the powerful showbiz agency at the center of a major sexual abuse scandal involving its late founder. (This article was written by Sachi Matsumoto and Yusuke Miyata.)
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘The Damned' brings the Civil War to intimate life, obliquely and mesmerizingly
How much can you strip away from the war film and still have a war film? That question invigorates 'The Damned,' the new movie from Roberto Minervini, an Italian-born director who has spent the last 25 years living in America, our worrying cultural undercurrents seeping into his portraits of the marginalized and the discontent, usually documentaries. 'The Damned' represents his first foray into more traditional narrative storytelling, yet this existential drama bears all the hallmarks of his earlier work, less concerned with incident than conjuring a sense of place, time and, most important, a state of being. In his latest, Minervini brings viewers into the thick of the Civil War, only to find the same dazed souls and gnawing uncertainties that have always been his focus. It's a war film with very little combat, but it's about a war that still rages today. Minervini's naturalistic, observational style is on display from the film's first scene, which lingers on a pack of wolves meticulously digging into an animal carcass. 'The Damned' stays on the images just long enough for them to grow discomforting — when will Minervini cut away? — before introducing us to his anonymous protagonists, a collection of volunteer soldiers in the U.S. Army who have been sent out west in the winter of 1862. The specifics of the mission are as mysterious as these men's names as we watch them carry out the minutiae of military busywork. They set up tents. They play cards. They do target practice. Are they meant to represent the hungry wolves from the movie's opening? Or are they the prey? To call 'The Damned' an antiwar film would be to assign an arbitrary value to what is really a series of offhand episodes consisting of only modest activity. In Minervini's recent stellar nonfiction projects 'The Other Side' and 'What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire?,' the director collaborated with his subjects to create unvarnished glimpses of everyday lives, sometimes working from prearranged scenarios. Although Minervini is credited as 'The Damned's' screenwriter, his new film draws from a similarly close relationship with his cast, the actors drawing on aspects of their real lives to inform their roles, scenes developing from a loosely sketched-out plot. In such an intimate, pensive atmosphere, characters emerge gradually out of the rugged landscape like windswept trees or weathered stones. The man identified in the end credits as the Sergeant (Tim Carlson, one of the subjects of Minervini's 2013 documentary 'Stop the Pounding Heart') is ostensibly the leader, but as the untamed Montana wilderness goes from barren to snowy over an unspecified period of time, the more apparent it becomes that no commanding officer is necessary. The skeletal score by Carlos Alfonso Corral, who doubles as the film's cinematographer, hints at an elemental menace just over the horizon. But real danger rarely occurs. Instead, these men are trapped in their own heads, their tender, confessional musings about God, war and manhood so rudimentary that they never aspire to the heights of folksy poetry. These soldiers are nothing special — as unimportant as their assignment. Because Minervini avoids the tropes of the antiwar film — no big speeches, no ponderous metaphors — it's almost a shock that he allows for one convention, an actual battle scene, which occurs about halfway through the 88-minute runtime. But even here, 'The Damned' refuses to follow formula, resulting in an intentionally haphazard sequence as the soldiers are ambushed, the characters fleeing and shooting in every direction, the camera trailing behind them, desperate to keep them in frame. Whether it's enemy forces or some random buffalo, the movie's shallow depth of focus ensures that we only see our troops. Everything else resides in a permanently fuzzy, unsettled background, a constant middle distance that traps the characters in their spiritual purgatory. There are limitations to Minervini's spartan approach. Whereas his documentary films crackle thanks to his unpredictable interactions with his subjects, 'The Damned' cannot help but feel slightly overdetermined, the outcomes predestined rather than organically unearthed. And yet, the concerns he brought to those earlier movies ripple here as well. 'The Other Side,' his somber 2015 study of racist drug addicts and gun-toting militia members in rural Louisiana, remains the definitive warning of our modern MAGA age, while 2018's 'What You Gonna Do' prefigures the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, for the first time, this prescient filmmaker visits America's distant past, subtly pinpointing the economic inequalities, senseless brutality and thwarted masculinity that will bedevil the nation for the next 160 years. The Civil War is long over, but the country's divisions remain, those core tensions naggingly unresolved. Don't think of 'The Damned' as an antiwar film — consider it an origin story for Minervini's perceptive, understated exploration of an America still in conflict.
