The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for this week that includes Los Angeles County and other parts of the Southland, especially in valleys and away from the coast.

Temperatures are expected to rise in the Santa Clarita Valley, the east and west San Fernando Valley, as well as parts of the San Gabriel Valley and northwest L.A. County mountains beginning Tuesday and lasting through Thursday, with warm, seasonably elevated fire weather conditions, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasts indicate the mercury will reach 90 to 105 degrees in the interior, 80 to 90 degrees in the inland coastal plain — including downtown L.A. — with highs in the 80s and lower 90s in the foothills and canyons of southwest Santa Barbara County.

Rose Schoenfeld, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, said temperatures should be five to 10 degrees above normal for this time of year thanks to a high-pressure system building up over the region.

Though temperatures are expected to drop after Thursday, don’t expect that cooling to last.

“Looking ahead, you might be seeing some outlooks that look pretty favorable, but that heat will linger and redevelop with a pretty impressive heat wave for much of the west, that would be starting next weekend or so,” Schoenfeld said. “It doesn’t seem like we’re out of the woods, even if temperatures start to drop after Thursday.”

The rising mercury coincides a with major marine heat wave across the Pacific Ocean that has the potential to affect weather events around the world, bringing months of warmer oceans, which trigger thunderstorms and extreme heat thousands of miles away.

In recent weeks, record heat waves have baked parts of Europe, with temperatures hitting 104 degrees in some countries. France has reported more than 1,000 heat-related deaths.

In the U.S., record heat has gripped much of the Midwest and East Coast, with temperatures between 110 and 115 degrees in major metropolitan areas, with the National Weather Service issuing an extreme heat warning for much of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

The sweltering temperatures have disrupted travel and led to a number of cancellations planned for celebrations over the Fourth of July weekend, including Philadelphia’s Salute to Independence parade. The Great American State Fair, on the National Mall in Washington, was forced to shut down for a few hours.

Amtrak canceled some trains in the Northeast because of excessive heat that could affect the tracks.

The Isolate Thief, 2026.

Directed by John Suits.
Starring Mackenzie Foy, Odeya Rush, Joe Pantoliano, Sean Bean, Jack Kesy, Ty Simpkins, Bryan Martin, and Martin Sensmeier.

SYNOPSIS:

A young woman struggles to conceal the gold she stole from violent outlaws who have seized control of her remote outpost, outwitting them amid a deadly winter where survival becomes a game of cunning and betrayal.

Set at a Union outpost in frigid temperatures, John Suits’ The Isolate Thief transcends what was likely a small budget with a fittingly chilly, oppressive look, and an ensemble that sneaks up on you as not only packed but smartly cast. Front and center is Mackenzie Foy shedding her Twilight and Disney-oriented roots for gritty period-piece work that she handles capably and convincingly, whether it be fending off wolves at the outpost, bandaging a wound, playing a deceitful game for survival, or wielding a firearm.

That’s only the start, though, as Joe Pantoliano shows up as a harmless graverobber only to re-enter the picture as the hostage of a group of Union soldiers led by Sean Bean on a search for gold thought to be discovered by him, which in reality has been hidden away by Mackenzie Foy’s parentless (her father recently died in the war, meaning she is all alone at the outpost), grieving, underestimated caretaker waiting for the right moment to make a break with the gold for San Francisco. The merciless candor with which the Union soldiers are comfortable torturing the drifting graverobber should also be enough to signal that something is off about the group and that our hero probably shouldn’t trust them.

Without giving too much away, Ada (Mackenzie Foy) is up against a violent group of outlaws posing as Union soldiers under orders from Sean Bean’s Fiddler, who will stop at nothing for this gold (accompanied by fellow evildoers played by a range of underappreciated names such as Ty Simpkins and Jack Kesy). In the forest, she also stumbles across a badly injured Emily (Odeya Rush), who has a connection to these outlaws, reduced to being treated as a sex object (they refer to her as an unflattering term for a prostitute, which feels inaccurate given that such a term would imply she has a choice rather than having her agency regularly taken as it is here), so broken by her experiences with them that she advises Ada to give in to their demands as defying them typically results more horrifying outcomes.

Even if the screenplay from Kevin Lefler doesn’t necessarily crackle the way a pressure-cooker story like this should (there’s a lot of The Hateful Eight in the film’s DNA, but without anywhere near that level of character and thematic complexity), the cast elevates the material and provides a quiet intensity simmering underneath the casual conversations and deceptions that we know will eventually blow up in Ada’s face. It’s also a story that isn’t afraid to go to some fairly bleak places and put these women through the wringer as they fight back and try to make it out alive.

What it boils down to is a simplistic cautionary tale of ruthless, misogynistic outlaws underestimating the women they are up against. That is also desperately felt when the women turn the tables in the third act. Effectively accomplishing what it sets out to do. A freezing locale is used for atmospheric advantage (the ground is frozen solid, meaning graves can’t be dug, to give an idea of just how cold it is) while allowing Mackenzie Foy to tap into some new acting tools demonstrating resourcefulness, alongside Sean Bean believably going from calm to terrifying on a dime.  The Isolate Thief is a feminist period-piece Western that organically empowers through familiar, albeit competent and engaging, storytelling, culminating in some tense battle-of-the-sexes action.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

The bass legend and superproducer Don Was didn’t expect to be covering Curtis Mayfield’s Civil Rights-era anthem “This Is My Country” on the road in 2026. But lately, the chaos in the United States made the song seem regrettably apropos.

“It wasn’t supposed to still feel potent. It was supposed to be something that served a moment,” said Was, who included the defiant single on his 2025 album “Groove In the Face of Adversity.”

“It’s shocking to be here in 2026 and, whatever distance we traveled from 1966 until now, to see it all get reset,” Was said. “That song’s a more powerful statement now than it was then. It was inconceivable that it would still be relevant — this is supposed to be the utopian age of Aquarius. This is not the way it was supposed to turn out.”

Was remembers the tumult, violence and hope that came out of that era in his hometown of Detroit. The city’s music, famed for rough-hewn virtuosity from blues to soul to techno, is the spring that waters “Adversity.” It is, remarkably, the 73-year-old’s first solo album after a career spanning the pioneering electro-pop band Was (Not Was) and deep producer relationships with the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt.

He also spent years in Bob Weir & Wolf Bros with the late Grateful Dead founder, and will play from the Dead’s landmark “Blues for Allah” on his tour that stops at Lodge Room on July 7.

With a backing band of studio killers dubbed the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, “Adversity” has an expansive modern atmosphere, yet a lived-in, filament-bulb quality in the playing that carries through funk, jazz, rock and R&B. It’s largely a covers record, but you wouldn’t know it from the depth of the revisions — veering from the Yusef Lateef standard “Nubian Lady” to Hank Williams’ “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But Time,” closing with funk group Cameo’s “Insane.”

“I’ve been carrying it around in my head for 30 years,” Was said. “This first album to me is really a handshake, a ‘nice to meet you,’ this jambalaya of Detroit sounds.” While much of the source material comes from elsewhere, the cumulative mood is extremely personal to an artist who has spent his life helping the greats find true expression.

“I’ve come to admire artists who are willing to go in deep inside their most personal thoughts for the sake of helping the listener understand their own lives,” he said. “To help them deal with the trauma of being human — especially in these times, man.”

Tops on that list is the late Grateful Dead founder Bob Weir — who died in January at 78 — as a model for a band staying fearless and uncompromising. Was, still heartbroken about the loss of his friend and bandmate, recalled their first time on tour.

“When Bobby called asking me to play bass with the Wolf Bros, I thought at the very least, this is going to be a master class in losing self-consciousness and forgetting about fear,” Was said. “If the band stumbled, the audience wouldn’t walk out. They appreciated the fact that you were trying to do something new for them. Then there’d be a couple moments every night with an incredible exchange between the musicians and you can feel the audience becoming a member of the band.”

Playing the Dead’s “Blues for Allah” on this tour — an LP rooted in Middle Eastern scales, pirouetting time signatures and improvisational telepathy — put him in communion with his old friend.

“I used to think that songs like ‘King Solomon’s Marbles’ were just jams and conversations on the spot. But when we really got into it, there’s a form underneath and you can take tremendous liberty with that form,” Was said.

Was’ production career was built on a similar principle.

His early band Was (Not Was) remains a visionary electro-pop act with subtle, salient politics. “Out Come the Freaks” is a favorite on Pride month dance floors — “If you just wanted to do poppers and dance all night, it worked, and if you wanted to think about the government careening out of control, it worked too,” Was said of the band’s club material.

The late Ozzy Osbourne sang on the band’s international hit “Shake Your Head,” alongside a winking, very game Kim Basinger. The actor was a replacement after Madonna backed out, leaving the proto-rave tune one of the era’s most unlikely collaborations.

He recalled Ozzy fondly. “In 1975, this folk group I was in booked us to open for Black Sabbath at the Toledo Sports Arena, playing for a bunch of 14-year-old white boys on amphetamines,” Was said. “They weren’t having it. I’ve heard the tape of that show, and the drummer was bleeding from being hit by so many bottles that we had to stop playing. That was my first exposure to Ozzy, so I was a little afraid to do the session, but he was up for an adventure.”

A Stones confidant and producer from 1994’s “Voodoo Lounge” up until 2023’s “Hackney Diamonds” (where Andrew Watt took the helm), Was had nothing but praise for the band, and still admits to a twinge of fandom in their presence.

“There’s never been a day in the studio with the Rolling Stones where I didn’t look around the room and go, ‘Oh my God,’” he said. “I’ve known Mick for over 30 years, but the last time they played L.A. at SoFi Stadium, Mick came walking down that stage and I was like, ‘Wow, there he is, it’s 1965 again.’”

With Dylan, he recalled the mercurial genius’ impish side. “I was producing Dylan, and George Harrison came in to play guitar. Bob was messing with him, Bob pushed the engineer aside and he ran the tape machine. George had never heard the song before, didn’t know what key it was in, and Bob just starts the tape. George played a respectable solo, but clearly it was rough. Bob, just to be funny, stopped the machine and said ‘That’s it, perfect.’ George turns to me and said, ‘What do you think, Don?’ And Bob goes, “Yeah, what do you think, Don?’ I’m looking at these two guys and time slowed down. I remembered trying to sell my car to get a ticket to go to New York to see the Concert for Bangladesh. Now they’re asking me what I think. I was paralyzed.”

“A voice appeared in my head,” he said, “Telling me, ‘He’s not paying you to be a fan.‘ So I said to George, ‘It was good, man. Let’s see if we can beat it.’ You can’t allow the iconography to dictate the outcome in the studio. You have to put that aside.”

As president of Blue Note Records, the estimable jazz label he’s led for more than a decade, Was relentlessly looks forward. He’s released restless modern records by Domi & JD Beck, Fathers, Makaya McCraven and Julian Lage (the hotshot jazz guitarist now playing with Dylan). He’s refreshingly optimistic about challenging music in streaming’s ruthless economy.

“Don’t make music for the delivery system,” Was said. “I don’t think about streaming, I think about touching people. If you do that, nothing has changed fundamentally in the music business. If your purpose is to get under people’s skin and make them feel something, that’s the same job it was for Mozart. How people listen can keep changing, but I don’t think the palette of human emotion changes, and that’s who you’re addressing.”

Was came from a working-class industrial city, making music reflective of Detroit’s technological upheaval and economic neglect. “Adversity” is a beacon to keep playing in spite of everything.

“I think that the salvation of musicians is that no matter what happens, what technological advancements come along, there’s still nothing like the experience of being in the same room as people who are playing together,” Was said. “It’s always been tough, man. It’s harder these days to buy a Ferrari as a musician, but I don’t know that that’s necessary. I have total confidence that the opportunity is there for anybody who is willing to give the audience a meaningful experience.”