Latest news with #AfterHours
Axios
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Axios
Richmond summer concerts go big
After three years of effort, Richmond's highly anticipated Allianz Amphitheater at Riverfront finally opens to the public next week. Why it matters: Allianz's arrival solidifies what's shaping up to be Richmond's hottest summer concert season in recent memory. The big picture: If you haven't been paying attention, Richmond's summer concert scene — which was already pretty stellar — has been steadily getting even better in recent years. Since 2021, Richmond has landed Iron Blossom and Live Loud, the not-Friday Cheers Brown's Island concert series from the Broadberry Entertainment Group. Meanwhile, After Hours, the series formerly known as Innsbrook After Hours, moved to a bigger space at Meadow Event Park in Doswell and Groovin' in the Garden at Lewis Ginter returned after a decade-long hiatus. Those series joined long-running favorites like Friday Cheers, Richmond Jazz Festival, Flowers After 5, Music at Maymont and at least a dozen other hyper-local summertime shows. But the biggest and most exciting new outdoor music venue for Richmond in decades is the Allianz Amphitheater. State of play: Since the earliest plans for the 7,500-seat venue were shared in 2022, the Charlottesville-based team behind the amphitheater has promised it would bring around 30 major acts to RVA a year. The amphitheater's ability to draw those big names looked iffy when the first slate of artists was announced late last year (no offense, Dwight Yoakam, Styx and "Weird Al" Yankovic). But here we are, three years and two name changes later, on the eve of the June 6 opening (hey there, Kansas) and it looks like the amphitheater delivered. At least for its opening year. The must-see shows coming to Allianz this year include: Dave Matthews Band (July 15 & 16) Riley Green (Aug. 2), Mumford & Sons (Aug. 5), Neil Young (Aug. 10) and Simple Plan (Aug. 26) James Taylor (Sept. 1), Leon Bridges (Sept. 6) and Widespread Panic (Sept 12 & 13) Plus, Boyz II Men (June 19), Jason Isbell (July 19), The Head and The Heart (Aug. 1), Richmond rockers Lamb of God with GWAR (July 24) and Alison Krauss (Aug. 29). Meanwhile, Live Loud is bringing the The Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse (Aug. 3) and Sierra Ferrell (Sept. 9) to Brown's.
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Disney without the crowds? Teens thinking their parents are (kinda) cool? Yes, there is such a place.
Now imagine that Disney experience wrapped up in three hours, a brief window to take in as many rides as most people do all day. This land exists — it's called Advertisement On select nights in Florida, from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., Disney holds a special event at one park when only people with a special wristband can board rides at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, or Hollywood Studios. You can officially enter at 7 p.m., but the perks begin later. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up I did this recently with my two teenage kids in Florida. between $155 and $185, a tad more than a normal day ticket (prices vary by park and date). But the nighttime alternative is good bang for your buck. Consider our experience with Disney's hot, newish Advertisement Around 8:30 p.m., when the park was still open for regular ticket holders, my kids and I saw the mass of humanity lined up and said no, thank you. When we came back at 11 p.m., we zipped through in minutes. The ride is way cooler at night, by the way. The parks and attractions, including EPCOT's Spaceship Earth, look cool in the dark. Jason Margolis Another night, we hit EPCOT and the indoor roller coaster Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, which opened in 2022. On a normal day, you can either wait up to a whopping two hours or pay about $20 for a Lighting Lane Single Pass, which reserves you a spot. (More on that process in a bit.) During After Hours, we practically walked on, then hopped back in the queue for a second go. Side note for roller coaster enthusiasts: My kids and I agreed that Guardians is hands down the coolest ride we've ever done. The train zips through the dark as a different disco or '80s pop song propels you along, a nice touch to make each time a bit different. I won't spoil the big surprise, but the ride has an unexpected twist, which blew our minds. The special bracelets that got us on the Disney After Hours rides. Jason Margolis Overall, the longest we waited at night was about 20 minutes for the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster in Hollywood Studios, still much quicker than during the day. Here's another small bonus of Disney After Hours: carts hand out unlimited popcorn, sodas and water, and ice cream bars, all for no charge. For a teenager, or anyone for that matter, is there anything better than free food? Advertisement Now, Disney After Hours is not for everyone. Most people there were young adults without kids, with some families sprinkled in the mix. Parents with young children, this event is not for you. Or people who like to soak in the entire Disney vibe, I'd stick to the daytime. After dark, there are no shows, no parades, and very few places to eat or shop. Character sightings are sparse — we only spotted Pluto. Disney After Hours events give guests three hours – after hours – to explore one of the Walt Disney World Theme Parks. Throughout Magic Kingdom, guests can enjoy more than 20 attractions and experiences including the new TRON Lightcycle / Run. Steven Diaz/Steven Diaz, Photographer Also, it's a rather late night. In one of my less-than-stellar parenting moves, when my 13-year-old daughter was just plain tuckered out and it wasn't even close to midnight, I gave her a 20-ounce Coke and some popcorn so my 16-year-old son and I could keep the good times rolling. (But hey, it was free!) And she POWERED through the rest of the night. I also think my kids may have thought I was bordering on cool for just a brief moment as I obliterated all the rules. (My wife was stuck back in Boston preserving her vacation time, so all good there.) Further, my kids loved the perfect teenage schedule: sleep in as late as possible, hit the pool for a few hours, then slowly make our way to the parks by 7 p.m. There was plenty to fill our days as well — Disney has lots to do outside the parks, from riding canoes or horses, taking a boat tour of the themed hotels, strolling 'Disney's Boardwalk' and playing games of chance, or just shooting some free billiards at a hotel. My daughter and I also took a cake-decorating class at the Disney Springs shopping area one day while killing a few hours. Advertisement Now, going back to that Lightning Lane, an After Hours ticket isn't entirely necessary to cut down on wait times if you're well prepared. Disney has its ride reservation system down to a science, and you can put in for up to five attractions in advance: three on a multi-pass and two additional single passes for bigger attractions. When we went to the parks during the daytime, I had my morning laid out a week in advance, including passes for TRON and Guardians. And when Disney says Lightning Lane, they mean it — we never waited more than 5-10 minutes for a ride. But reserving those rides tacks on another $60 or so per person; pretty quickly that late-night ticket starts looking like a sweet deal. Also, the Lightning Lane can only be used for a specific ride once, unless you're willing to purchase an unlimited 'premier pass,' which can run north of $400 per person at Magic Kingdom, a bridge too far for me. With the regular Lightning Lane, once you check in for a ride, you can immediately select a new one on Disney's app. It's a fun system to navigate, but the ride choices become slim pickings as the day goes on. You also quickly become even more tethered to your phone than usual. During the After Hours event, you just go where you want, when you want. After arriving at a park around 7 p.m., we'd hop on a few of the smaller rides with short lines, grab a nice sit-down meal in the park, then wait impatiently for the clock to strike 10 p.m. From that moment on, we were all focus. Advertisement The author's son and daughter headed toward the last ride of their late-night adventure. Jason Margolis Our last night, as the hour approached 1 a.m, we decided to make our last ride When we got off the ride, we realized it was only 12:57 a.m., and we still had three minutes of fun to go. (Also, my daughter needed to burn off the caffeine somehow.) So we ran through the exit, did a U-turn into the entrance, and were back on our rat-shaped vehicle for one more spin with a solid minute to spare. Jason Margolis can be reached at
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Hurry Up Tomorrow' Review: The Weeknd's Emotionally Threadbare Vanity Project Is All Skips, No Repeats
A man of many faces, from the digital mask of anonymity on his mixtape breakout 'House of Balloons' to the plastic surgery prosthetics circa 'After Hours,' Abel Tesfaye has announced he'll soon retire the one that made him famous, with his latest album 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' his last under The Weeknd moniker. The lyrics situate him at a clear turning point, professionally and personally; the title track, with the usual synths traded for singer/songwriter piano and the plainly stated confession that 'I want to change, I want the pain,' signals a transformation for an artist who's struggled against himself from the jump. The Weeknd discography plays like one big party with noxious vibes, thrown by a hedonist less interested in a good time than numbing the torment of an existence comprising coke-and-sizzurp binges, emotionless supermodel threeways, and morning-afters of bleak reflection. Tesfaye is now 35, an age at which a lot of people decide it's high time to get their shit together, and 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' (the song, that is) makes a resolution for lasting, meaningful growth through penance and redemption. To presume that this heralds a newfound maturity for the man who not so long ago pulled a 'triggered much??' on Rolling Stone would be a mistake, however. More from IndieWire Ari Aster's 'Eddington' Sharply Divides Cannes: Star Pedro Pascal Defends a Western About 'Our Worst Fears' Amid Lockdown 'Nouvelle Vague' Teaser: Richard Linklater Brings the French New Wave Back to Life The non-album plank of this grander creative project, a feature film also titled 'Hurry Up Tomorrow,' reiterates this career narrative by mapping it onto autofiction at greater length and with bludgeoning obviousness. A viewer may find themselves appreciating how the non-visual element of music allows figurative language to retain some wisp of mystery, whereas onscreen it's made to wear its significance in blatant, artless ways. A tortured genius wrestling with their demons, breaking themselves down to nothing, and building themselves back up in a nobler image — these are fine building blocks for drama. 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' (again, the song) works well enough along these lines. But when we're made to watch Tesfaye sing it in its entirety in an unbroken close-up while crying at the beauty of his own music, the introspection turns to simple self-involvement. It would appear he's trading drugs and alcohol for a form of indulgence less materially harmful to himself, but more so to us. Tesfaye has found a felicitous collaborator in director Trey Edward Shults, 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' (the movie, from here on out) being largely a composite of their past work: the furtive ingesting and narcotized intensity of Shults' debut 'Krisha,' the rage-to-contrition arc and whirling cinematography of his polarizing 'Waves,' the volatile maestro/muse dynamic of Tesfaye's even-more-polarizing HBO series 'The Idol.' The threadbare plot is set in motion when Tesfaye's screen-self (henceforth referred to as Abel) loses his voice while touring, a real-life incident forced here into heavy-handed metaphor as an existential ailment symptomatic of his deeper issues with himself and women. (Tellingly, Riley Keough plays both his absent mother and the ex-girlfriend he keeps screaming at on the phone.) Just as his deteriorating health and pressure from his pal-turned-manager (Barry Keoghan) push him to the verge of collapse, he finds hope of salvation in the same place as many misogynists, with a woman who has not yet started to annoy him. Brief eye contact and about a dozen words are all Abel and the enigmatic Anima (Jenna Ortega) need to establish a connection closer than garden-variety groupie-ism. Until, of course, the morning after, when she starts up with her talk about joining him on tour and inserting herself into his life. The ensuing conflict between them takes an abrupt turn into a hotel-room two-hander as Anima fastens Abel to a bed and coerces him into confronting his feelings by playing his own music to him and dispensing shallow insights about how his songs' upbeat melodies belie their cry-for-help content. While her wiggly dancing and superficial pop-crit commentary nod to 'American Psycho,' this final stretch reckoning with Abel's toxicity and death drives could be compared unfavorably to anything from early Almodóvar to 'Phantom Thread,' dulling the provocative edges on a long and august tradition of psychosexual pas de deux. Neither its methods nor conclusions feel subversive; the conceptual thinness of the specter-like Anima and the role she plays in Abel's evolution both amend his admission of guilt with the concession that women are indeed exacting, unreliable, and/or psychotic. If all this — or the brief dream sequence visited by an Inuit child, or the drug-fueled freakout in front of a projection of Lotte Reiniger's proto-animation landmark 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed' — piques curiosity on paper, that's only because reading a review of a film doesn't occupy nearly as much time as watching it. The minutes drag, and not just when Shults holds on interminable long takes giving actors in need of guardrails far too much room to fail. Tesfaye and Ortega model two opposing modes of imitative, hollow performance, like a bad actor's varying notions of good acting. A devout student of the European classics (she took this role in part for a 'Possession' homage sequence all but excised in the final cut), Ortega knows that great thespians are stoic and inexpressive, but doesn't understand how or why. Constantly pumping himself up with shadowboxing and yelling at women, Tesfaye is doing De Niro in 'Raging Bull,' just without the Method behind his mannerisms. Meanwhile, the avant-garde-101 padding makes lemons from the flights of expressionistic fancy in 'Lemonade,' while the musical sequences clarify that this is no mere album accessory by being repetitive, unimaginative, and scant. The thing about vanity projects this narcissistic is at the very least, even in calamity, they're supposed to be interesting. Tesfaye has the makings of a fascinating yet flawed figure, equal parts egotistical and insecure, self-aggrandizing and self-effacing, at once a mad king and wounded child. Since the days of sampling Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Beach House, he's been forthcoming about his eclectic, well-curated tastes. But for a personal statement uncompromised by commercial purpose, it's bland and indistinct, and for a howl from the depths of a soul in agony, there's very little at risk in its vague baring of sin or broad overtures to rebirth. One yearns for idiosyncrasy, a stroke of the unknowable, some transmission from a plane of inspiration inaccessible to ordinary mortals. If the unbearable weight of massive talent is really so crazy-making, that unwieldy creativity should be set free, however messy. Or, if I can just say what I mean: making audiences feel nostalgic about Kanye West? In this cultural economy? Lionsgate will release 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' in theaters on Friday, May 16. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
The Weeknd's Catalog Benefits From His Movie, Even As It Underperforms
The Weeknd's Hurry Up Tomorrow album — as well as Starboy, After Hours, Beauty Behind the ... More Madness, and House of Balloons — climb the Billboard charts as the movie flops. SAO PAULO, BRAZIL - SEPTEMBER 7: Abel 'The Weeknd' Tesfaye performs on stage during the 'After Hours Til Dawn Tour' at MorumBIS on September 7, 2024 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photo by) When it comes to The Weeknd's career at the moment, everything is pointing toward Hurry Up Tomorrow. His album by that name was released in January and has been rising and falling on the charts, churning out hit singles ever since. The movie of the same name, built around the music featured on the full-length, hasn't been quite as warmly welcomed. The title has proved to be a disappointment at the box office globally, though it's not quite done with its theatrical run just yet. The Weeknd's promotional might around the feature has helped the music, and as Hurry Up Tomorrow rises on the charts in the United States, several of his other collections are benefiting as well. Even as his movie fails, his music soars. Five of The Weeknd's albums appear on the Billboard charts this week. They're all climbing, and manage to find space on multiple rankings. The excitement generated by Hurry Up Tomorrow — the movie — seems to be having a positive effect on his past musical collections, even though it didn't generate the drive to visit cinemas that he was hoping for. Of course, Hurry Up Tomorrow the album is The Weeknd's top performer this frame. It rises on four lists, while also returning to the No. 3 spot on the Vinyl Albums ranking and at the same time holding in that position on the Top R&B Albums chart. Hurry Up Tomorrow lives inside the top 10 on all but one list, as it ascends to No. 20 on the Top Streaming Albums roster. The multi-genre project rises farthest on the Top Album Sales tally, jumping from No. 35 to No. 4. That growth is thanks not just to all of the marketing and promotion around The Weeknd's new movie, but also a physical re-release of the set. Starboy, After Hours, Beauty Behind the Madness, and House of Balloons all manage to appear on both the Billboard 200 and the Top R&B Albums chart this week. Each of those blockbuster releases climb — except for Starboy, which lifts on the Billboard 200 and holds steady on the Top R&B Albums ranking, keeping put at No. 8. All of those titles except for House of Balloons also find space on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums roster. Meanwhile, eight different tunes by The Weeknd appear on at least two Billboard songs tallies apiece.
Gulf Weekly
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Weekly
Melodies from the mind
Musical psychological thriller Hurry Up Tomorrow is out now in theatres. Starring Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, the film is set to tell the story of an insomniac musician on the verge of a breakdown, who gets pulled into an existential journey that challenges everything he knows about himself upon meeting a mysterious stranger named Ani, played by Jenna Ortega. 'It's a mix of psychological thriller and drama,' director Trey Shults said in an interview. 'I honestly feel like I've never seen a movie quite like it,' he added. It was revealed that while the main character played by Tesfaye is also named Abel, the plot is only loosely based on his career, which he embarked on in 2009. 'I feel like we created a character that isn't exactly him, but it's honest to his soul and what he could have been if things went differently in life,' Trey explained. 'I think his character is in need of self-reflection. He's kind of at a crossroads in his life.' The film takes inspiration from an incident, which also influenced the accompanying soundtrack, released in January – Abel who features on the film's musical album lost his voice mid-song during a sold-out show on his last world tour. 'I knew that I really needed to sit down and figure out my life. I'd had a kind of a mental breakdown, which is pretty much what this new album's about,' Abel said ahead of the musical release. The namesake album consisting of 22 tracks combines elements of R&B, synth-pop, trap as well as Brazilian funk. It is also the final instalment of a trilogy, following his previous creations After Hours (2020) and Dawn FM (2022), and marks his sixth studio release. Abel said that Hurry Up Tomorrow is very likely going to be his last body of work as The Weeknd. 'As the Weeknd, I've said everything I can say. I'll still make music, maybe as Abel, maybe as the Weeknd. But I still want to kill the Weeknd, and I will, eventually. I'm definitely trying to shed that skin and be reborn,' he added.
