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      What Fancams Get Right About Our Love of Movies (and Stars)

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      When I first saw “Anatomy of a Fall” back at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, I expected that the courtroom drama would be critically acclaimed. I could even imagine an Oscar win. What I did not foresee was the fancams.These vertical video edits of clips focus on a celebrity or character, usually set to pop music. If you want to nitpick, you can also call them fan edits, especially if they involve multiple people onscreen. The fancam phenomenon grew out of the world of K-pop, where enthusiasts often make videos focusing solely on one member of a large band.These days, my feeds are full of film and TV fancams, which I have come to love and seek out. But perhaps the most notable one was from last year and focused on Swann Arlaud in his role as the defense attorney Vincent Renzi in “Anatomy of a Fall.” Set to Rina Sawayama’s song “Comme Des Garçons (Like the Boys),” he runs his fingers through his hair, he lights a cigarette, he stares intensely, he sighs. The music is timed to begin on the lyric “I’m so confident,” thus signaling that Vincent is a bit of a badass. Suddenly, through a savvy bit of editing, a character actor in a serious French drama got the same treatment as a pop heartthrob.There are other “Anatomy of a Fall” fancams, including ones dedicated to Sandra Hüller, who plays the author on trial for the death of her husband, and the sassy prosecutor trying to convict her. But there’s something, dare I say, brilliant about the Arlaud fancam. For one, it’s a little subversive in the way it applies the language of pop music to art cinema. It’s also just an example of good editing in the way it matches Arlaud’s glances and movements to the beat of the song, the lyrics of which further present him as a swaggering star — with a touch of irony, given that he’s a humble, often stressed-out lawyer in the context of the movie.The best fancams have at least some of these qualities. They feature clever, surprising uses of music, highlight films or stars you wouldn’t necessarily expect to get this kind of treatment, and are energetically put together. In that way, the fancam itself has become its own art form and a great platform for cinephiles to show their ardent devotion.The Parisian creator of the Arlaud fancam, who goes by @ginafancam and asked not to share her full name, told me over email: “It’s my way to pay tribute to the film. Some prefer to tell their love of cinema by writing a review, for example, but I prefer to do it by editing.” She added that she was happy that her creation “encouraged people from all over the world to watch a French auteur film.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Italian Pop Discoveries From My Vacation

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      Hear songs from Angelina Mango, Patty Pravo and an unexpected hit by Conan Gray.Angelina Mango.Jessica Gow/EPA, via ShutterstockDear listeners,I’m back! Thank you to my editor, Caryn Ganz, for filling in for me for the past two weeks while I was on vacation visiting a friend in Italy. I was mostly in and around Florence, but I also made some excursions to Siena, Bologna and Rome. As relaxing as that sounds, know that my ears weren’t completely on vacation. As always, I was constantly discovering new music, and I’m going to share some of those finds with you in today’s playlist.I confess that, going into this trip, I didn’t know much about Italian pop music — minus Giorgio Moroder or the odd Italo disco track I’d downloaded over the years — and even after digging in a bit more deeply, I’m still far from an expert. But those circumstances sometimes make for the most honest and exciting discoveries. I don’t know which of the artists whose music I connected with are particularly “cool,” and I can’t quite trace all the cultural references that put them into a larger context. All I know is that something about each of these songs resonated with me when I heard them — and sometimes it really is that simple.What follows is a collection of nine songs that I encountered while browsing record stores, watching one of several music video channels that still exist on Italian TV, or sitting in a cafe and hearing something that piqued my curiosity enough to open up Shazam. It includes new artists like Italy’s most recent Eurovision representative Angelina Mango, national legends like Patty Pravo, and a three-song detour into the country’s ’80s new-wave underground. It also includes one recent American pop song that — I was surprised to learn — is unexpectedly big in Italy. Divertiti!Ciao,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Patty Pravo: “La Bambola”Patty Pravo was an unfamiliar name I kept seeing in used record store bins, and I’m glad I looked her up after I got home. Now 76, the Venice-born Pravo is a smoky-voiced chanteuse who has had a long and eclectic career. Her breakout hit “La Bambola” (“The Doll”) topped the Italian pop charts for nine weeks in 1968 and is still one of her signature songs.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jack Black Ends Tenacious D Tour After Bandmate Jokes About Trump Shooting

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      At a concert in Australia, Kyle Gass made a comment suggesting that he wished the shooter had not missed former President Trump during an assassination attempt.Tenacious D, the American comedy-rock duo that includes the movie star Jack Black, announced on Tuesday that the remainder of its tour would be canceled and that all future plans were on pause after the band’s other member, Kyle Gass, made an offhand comment onstage about the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump.A representative for the duo confirmed that Black had brought out a cake at the ICC Sydney Theater in Australia on Sunday to celebrate Gass’s 64th birthday. When Black asked Gass to “make a wish,” Gass responded, “Don’t miss Trump next time.” Videos of the moment were circulated widely online.In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, Black, known for “School of Rock” and “King Kong,” said he “was blindsided by what was said at the show,” adding, “I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.”“After much reflection,” he continued, “I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold. I am grateful to the fans for their support and understanding.” In June, Black, 54, attended a star-studded fund-raiser for President Biden, at which he gave a speech in American flag-themed overalls.Gass posted an apology to social media on Tuesday morning, stating that “the line I improvised onstage Sunday night in Sydney was highly inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake.”“I don’t condone violence of any kind, in any form, against anyone,” he wrote. “What happened was a tragedy, and I’m incredibly sorry for my severe lack of judgment. I profoundly apologize to those I’ve let down and truly regret any pain I’ve caused.”Michael Greene said on Tuesday that Greene Talent, Gass’s talent agency, had parted ways with him.Shortly before the announcement that the entire tour was canceled, the band, which has been active since 1994, postponed its Tuesday date in Broadmeadow, Australia.In the wake of Gass’s onstage remarks, Senator Ralph Babet of the center-right United Australia party called for the duo to be deported. In a lengthy statement posted online, he said, “Tenacious D should be immediately removed from the country after wishing for the assassination of Donald Trump at their Sydney concert.”During a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a man fired shots toward the stage while the former president was speaking. One spectator was killed, and Trump was rushed off, blood visible around his right ear. The shooter was killed by the Secret Service, and his motive remains unclear.It is not the first time a celebrity has faced fallout from a joke about Trump. In May 2017, Kathy Griffin’s career was put on ice after she posed for a photograph holding a severed-head Halloween mask of Trump, who was then the president, doused in blood-like ketchup. More

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      Taylor Swift Breaks Her Own Record With a 12th Week at No. 1

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      Facing a tight battle with Zach Bryan, the pop superstar benefited from the release of three new versions of “The Tortured Poets Department” and shipments of CDs.This week Taylor Swift sets a personal chart record with her album “The Tortured Poets Department” after fending off the latest challenger: the singer-songwriter Zach Bryan.With 12 weeks at No. 1, “Tortured Poets” is now the longest-running chart-topper of Swift’s career, exceeding the 11-week totals she had for “Fearless” (2008) and “1989” (2014). It is the first album to rack up a dozen consecutive times at the top since Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” which did so last year, and Swift joins rare company in the 68-year history of the Billboard 200 chart.In the elite group of albums that not only had long consecutive runs at No. 1, but did so from the very first week they came out, “Tortured Poets” now surpasses Whitney Houston’s 1987 LP “Whitney” — featuring enduring hits like “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “So Emotional” — which spent its first 11 weeks at No. 1, and is just shy of Stevie Wonder’s 13 for “Songs in the Key of Life” in 1976 and 1977.In its most recent week out, “Tortured Poets” had the equivalent of 163,000 sales in the United States, including 95 million streams and 90,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate. Since its release in April, the full 31-track album has logged three billion streams and had the equivalent of just under five million sales in the United States.“The Great American Bar Scene,” the new album by Bryan, whose style has been described as Americana, folk, rock and country, was Swift’s latest competitor for the top spot. And the race seemed close, with both artists unleashing some chart-goosing weapons in the closing hours of the tracking period last week. Bryan offered his album at a discounted price, while Swift released another three variants of “Tortured Poets” as digital downloads.But Swift triumphed, while “The Great American Bar Scene” lands at No. 2 with the equivalent of 137,000 sales.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are Games Like the Euro 2024 Final the Riskiest Gig in Music?

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      Performing before a major match like the Euro 2024 final offers priceless visibility, and the nonzero chance that you’ll be booed.Even to some of the most glittering names in music, the pitch is compelling.There is a gig. It is a very short gig: a tight six minutes or so. It is also unpaid. In exchange, though, the offer promises exposure that borders on priceless: a live crowd numbering somewhere around 70,000, and a captive television audience in the hundreds of millions.The appeal of serving as the pregame entertainment at one of European soccer’s twin showpieces — the finals of the Champions League and the European Championship — is so obvious, and the benefits of that brief performance so extravagant, that the likes of Camila Cabello, Alicia Keys and the Black Eyed Peas (albeit without Fergie) have signed up to do it.There is, however, a catch. For most, what is likely to be one of the most high-profile gigs of their career might also be the riskiest booking in music, one that comes with a nonzero chance of being loudly, unapologetically, unremittingly booed.Regret is not a guarantee, of course. There are acts that look back on their brush with soccer fondly, artists who serve as beacons of hope for the (somewhat unwieldy) trio that is scheduled to play just before the final of Euro 2024 on Sunday in Berlin. That lineup — the Italian dance act Meduza, the German singer Leony and the American rock band OneRepublic — have presumably chosen to focus on the more positive precedents.Dua Lipa was such a hit at the 2018 Champions League final that she has subsequently suggested she now considers herself an honorary Liverpool fan. Oceana, a German singer who performed at the final of the 2012 European Championship, remembers it as one of the highlights of her career. “The whole stadium was singing,” she said in an interview last week.Dua Lipa’s performance at the 2018 Champions League final forged a lasting connection with Liverpool and its fans. Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Katy Perry’s ‘World’ of Mixed Signals, and 11 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Bright Eyes, Johnny Blue Skies (a.k.a. Sturgill Simpson), Magdalena Bay and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Katy Perry, ‘Woman’s World’“It’s a woman’s world and you’re lucky to be living in it,” Katy Perry insists in “Woman’s World,” a song with six writers (among them Lukas Gottwald, a.k.a. Dr. Luke, who was behind her blockbuster album “Teenage Dream” before his extended legal battle with Kesha). “Sexy, confident, so intelligent, she is heaven-sent,” Perry sings. “So soft, so strong.” With echoes of Madonna’s 1990s electro-pop, the praise continues throughout this synthesizer-pumped, positive-vibes affirmation of the obvious. It’s too bad the overblown video clip — including a postapocalyptic sequence dotted with social media influencers — doesn’t live up to the euphoric sound.Nelly Furtado and Bomba Estéreo, ‘Corazón’Bomba Estéreo, from Colombia, supplies the beat, flute, chant and Spanish-language bridge behind a cheerfully assertive Nelly Furtado in “Corazon,” from her album “7,” due in September. Floating a blithe, catchy chorus over the Afro-Colombian rhythm, Furtado summons a perpetual, be-here-now party spirit, insisting, “My heart can’t stop.”Bright Eyes, ‘Bells and Whistles’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Movie About Brian Eno Is Never the Same Twice Thanks to Software

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      Thanks to a software program, the length, structure and contents of the movie are reconfigured each time it’s shown. It’s the only way the musician would agree to the project.Gary Hustwit had a simple wish: to make a documentary about the visionary musician Brian Eno. When that wasn’t possible, he devised a far less simple approach. He made 52 quintillion documentaries about Eno.At a time when it seems like there’s a movie about every band that’s recorded even a 45, Hustwit’s “Eno,” opening Friday, is unlike any other portrait of a musician. It’s not even a portrait, because it isn’t fixed or static. Instead, Hustwit used a proprietary software program that reconfigures the length, structure and contents of the movie.“Every time it plays, it’s a different movie,” Hustwit told an audience in May at the film’s New York premiere. “I’m surprised every time I see it.”His collaborator, the digital artist and programmer Brendan Dawes, explained that because of the variables, including 30 hours of interviews with Eno and 500 hours of film from his personal archive, there are 52 quintillion possible versions of the movie. (A quintillion is a billion billion.) “That’s going to be a really big box set,” Dawes quipped at the premiere.Movie theaters are still guided by “a 130-year-old technical constraint,” Hustwit said over lunch the next day at a Chelsea restaurant. “We can use technology as a structural tool to do interesting things with the narrative. This idea that a film has to be set in stone and always linear is obsolete, I think. There’s another possible path here for filmmaking going forward.”At some showings of “Eno,” Hustwit brings the machine with the Brain One software for the film.Brandon Schulman for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cigarettes After Sex and Gen Z’s Passion for Dream-Pop

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      The buzzy band that makes woozy, sensual music is releasing its third LP and starting an arena tour. It’s part of a wave reviving the fuzzed-out aesthetic of shoegaze.In 2016, a four-year-old track by a struggling Brooklyn band called Cigarettes After Sex blew up on YouTube, and soon the group’s brand of crisp, lovesick minimalism was selling out clubs all over Europe. At a tour stop in Prague, Greg Gonzalez, its leader, saw unticketed fans weeping in the street.“OK, this is bizarre,” Gonzalez remembered thinking. “But that showed me that this is doing what it’s supposed to do. This is music that’s meant for emotional people that are in love. That’s what music did for me. So I thought, that’s what I want my music to do for somebody else.”Eight years later, that pattern has repeated for Cigarettes After Sex, on a far grander scale. Although largely ignored by the mainstream media, the band’s spare, crystalline ballads have again caught fire online — this time on TikTok — racking up almost 10 billion streams around the world. Its third album, “X’s,” will be released on July 12 via the indie label Partisan, and an exhaustive global tour includes sold-out stops at Madison Square Garden as well as the Kia Forum near Los Angeles, and arenas throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South Africa and Australia. By stealth, Cigarettes After Sex has become one of the biggest cult bands in the world.Its success is also a high-water mark in rock’s latest retro revival, for shoegaze and dream-pop — appropriately nebulous terms for a range of music from the 1980s and early ’90s, when groups like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins and Lush cloaked melodies in waves of shimmering guitar or synthesizers, along a sonic scale from gauzy reverie to caustic noise. Long a recurrent strain in indie-pop, the sound has been catapulted by TikTok to a new level of popularity among Gen Z acts like Wisp, Sign Crushes Motorist and Quannnic that are posting millions of streams and dotting festival lineups.Cigarettes After Sex represents one end of this spectrum, with a carefully calibrated, almost cinematic approach: a hushed, dark landscape punctuated by splashes of color from Gonzalez’s guitar, topped by his whisper-soft, almost feminine singing voice. But in an interview in an East Village hotel bar, Gonzalez — who in person speaks in an easy, rapid-fire baritone — said he sees Cigarettes After Sex as fitting more in a tradition of classic, moody love songs, referencing Marvin Gaye, Françoise Hardy and Al Green.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More