BLACK PHONE 2’: It’s clear from the existence and execution of “Black Phone 2” that Universal and Blumhouse never expected 2021’s “The Black Phone” to be a hit. If there was an inkling this might have been more than a quick and dirty ’70s-style riff on a boogeyman tale, there’s no way those in charge would have let their big baddie, the Grabber, be killed off at the end of the movie. But a hit it was, and so for a sequel, the supernatural elements must be spun out, and ’80s slasher classics consulted, especially since it’s now four years later, in 1982. Masked serial killer the Grabber, played by Ethan Hawke (apparently, we never really see his face though we do hear his voice), continues to haunt, torment, and maim children, despite the inconvenience of death. However, it seems like this might be the Grabber’s last hurrah. You’ll root for the characters to vanquish him only because then the drudgery might finally end. Who knows, maybe it’ll be a hit and they’ll figure out another way to reanimate this utterly uninspiring horror villain. Personally, I’ve had my fill of the Grabber’s grabbing. 1:54. 1 1/2 stars.

‘BONE LAKE’: Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s horror film “Bone Lake” announces itself with a startlingly cheeky opener and closes with a shockingly bloody gore-fest, the song “Sex and Violence” by U.K. punk outfit the Exploited spelling out the thesis of the film for us. It’s about the intertwining of sex and violence, you see. But what unfolds between these naughty, viscera-drenched bookends is less of a traditional horror film and more of a psychosexual thriller, like “Funny Games” played between two, young attractive couples, with a setup borrowed from “Barbarian.” In the script by Joshua Friedlander, a double-booking of a secluded rental mansion becomes a double date when Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) stumble in on the intimate weekend vacay of Sage (Maddie Hasson) and Diego (Marco Pigossi). The couples decide to make the best of it and stay, promising to rock-paper-scissors for the house if anything gets “weird.” And get weird it does. “Bone Lake” offers up an appealing surface, but it’s just too shallow to get very far. 1:34. 2 stars.

‘BUGONIA’: It’s the end of the world and our auteurs are making movies about it. From “One Battle After Another” to “Eddington” to “A House of Dynamite,” existential annihilation and how to face it are on the brain. And our favorite Greek director of feel-weird cinema, Yorgos Lanthimos, has the starkest and darkest take, with his alien invasion conspiracy freakout picture “Bugonia.” “Bugonia” marks the filmmaker’s fourth collaboration with star Emma Stone, who levied her Oscar clout post “La La Land” to start making daring cinematic experiments with Lanthimos. She earned her second Oscar for their film “Poor Things” and effectively established a mandate on their outré oeuvre. Stone stars as Michelle, a self-optimization-obsessed girlboss CEO of a large biomedical company. We meet her through the eyes of her enemy, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a lowly employee in the shipping division of Michelle’s company, who is convinced she’s an alien. It’s not until the final moments of the film, in a series of truly Lanthimos-ian tableaus, that everything snaps into crystal clear focus and it all makes sense. While the end he imagines is starkly shocking, it’s also weirdly kind, perhaps the best version of the end that anyone could possibly imagine. In Yorgos Lanthimos’ end of the world as we know it, it just might be fine. 2:00. 2 1/2 stars.

‘THE CONJURING: LAST RITES’: This fourth “The Conjuring” movie claims to be “Last Rites,” and let’s hope that’s a promise. While it’s highly likely the wildly successful Conjuring Cinematic Universe itself will continue, whether that’s with a scary nun, creepy doll or some other cursed object, the story of Ed and Lorraine Warren has been thoroughly wrung dry at this point, and there’s no juice left to squeeze from this carcass, as demonstrated in the dirge that is “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” The heart of these movies has always been Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, and without them, this franchise wouldn’t be worth it. With this fourth movie, the Warren lore has been so thoroughly picked over, the tropes and rhythms now so ingrained, the jump scares routine at best. With the dour drudgery of “Last Rites,” it has never been more clear that it’s time to move on from their story, even as the memories of better installments linger. 2:15. 2 stars.

‘DIE MY LOVE’: Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay’s long-awaited fifth feature, “Die My Love” poses a provocative question under the guise of a mental health crisis: can a wild woman be domesticated? Immediately, she hints at her answer, but the audience doesn’t know it yet. We watch a young couple, Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) move into a new home and start to play house. What happens after that is so wild and unpredictable that we almost forget that where it ends up is where it was always going. This film is not an easy watch, provoking anxiety, discomfort and even judgment about parenting and motherhood. Her love for her son is never in question, but Grace is a wild animal, and it is at times terrifying to be asked to dive into the cracked psyche of a brilliant but troubled mind with such immediacy and presence. How do you solve a problem like Grace? You can’t. She’s not a problem that wants to be solved. Ramsay assembles Lawrence’s fearsome and fully embodied performance, sound, image, and this story of frustrated female pain into a pile of tinder and then lights a match. When Grace finally takes a clear-eyed look at what’s available to her in this situation, she burns it all down, and the incendiary “Die My Love” suggests that it’s only choice available to her. 1:58. 3 stars.

‘NUREMBERG’: Movies that depict the history of war criminals on trial will almost always be worth making and worth watching. These films are edifying (and cathartic) in a way that could almost be considered a public service, and that’s what works best in James Vanderbilt’s “Nuremberg,” about the international tribunal that put the Nazi high command on trial in the immediate wake of World War II, a film that is well-intentioned and elucidating, despite some of its execution missteps. Vanderbilt, adapts “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist” by Jack El-Hai, about the curious clinical relationship between Dr. Douglas Kelley, a Army psychiatrist, and former German Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, in the lead up to the Nuremberg trials. The film is a two-hander between Oscar winners: a formidable Russell Crowe as Göring, and a squirrely Rami Malek as Kelley. At the end of the war, Dr. Kelley is summoned to an ad hoc Nazi prison in Mondorf-Les-Bains, Luxembourg, to evaluate the Nazi commandants, and immediately, he’s intrigued at the thought of studying so many flavors of narcissist. While the subject matter makes “Nuremberg” worth the watch, the film itself is a mixed bag, with some towering performances, and some poor ones. It manages to eke out its message in the eleventh hour, but it feels too little too late, in our cultural moment, despite its evergreen importance. If the film is intended to be a canary in a coal mine, that bird has long since expired. 2:28. 2 1/2 stars.

‘ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER’: Legendary auteur Paul Thomas Anderson has made the film of the year with the incendiary, incisive and frequently quite funny “One Battle After Another,” which just happens to be a searing indictment of this particular moment in American history. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland” (this is his second Pynchon adaptation, after 2014’s “Inherent Vice”), Anderson transplants the novel’s Reagan-era revolutionary story to present day, loosely utilizing the general narrative and themes, but making it entirely his own. It is a film that is both chillingly prescient and deeply present in this contemporary milieu. “One Battle After Another” — starring Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio — feels like it could be about today, tomorrow or yesterday in America’s timeline, rooted not necessarily in real events but events that feel like they could, or should, be real. “One Battle After Another” isn’t just an explosive revolutionary text but a story of fatherhood — the values we pass down to the next generation, and how we care for them, with love and generosity; with fear, anxiety, a little bit of hope, and above all, a whole lot of faith. 2:42. 4 stars.

‘ROOFMAN’: There’s considerable throwback appeal to “Roofman,” a quirky dramedy based on an unbelievable true story that mines the same groove as films like Richard Linklater’s “Bernie” (2011) and Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” (2009), featuring a lead character you just can’t help but root for, despite the bafflingly bad choices he makes along the way. But because this comedic crime caper is helmed and co-written by Derek Cianfrance, who is known for his melodramatic weepies “Blue Valentine,” “The Place Beyond the Pines” and “The Light Between Oceans,” the effect of “Roofman” is far more poignant and tender than wacky and wild; the material itself is mind-boggling enough. Channing Tatum stars as Jeff Manchester, aka the Roofman, a well-meaning but savant-like career criminal who robbed upwards of 45 McDonald’s locations in the late 1990s by tearing holes in the roofs. The film follows his time living for months in a Toys R Us while on the lam in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2004. This is one of Tatum’s best and most lived-in performances to date. He is especially potent opposite Kirsten Dunst, who plays Leigh, a Toys R Us employee with whom Jeffrey strikes up a relationship. An audience of 2025 will understand what Jeff does empathetically, without having too much sympathy for corporate losses or law enforcement. In this era, his bad choices, driven by desperation, make much more sense. For this moment, the “Roofman” has arrived right on time. 2:06. 3 stars.

‘THE SMASHING MACHINE’: Benny Safdie wants to challenge our expectations of the traditional sports movie. His first solo directorial outing without his brother Josh, “The Smashing Machine” is a biopic that zigs when you expect it to zag, parries rather than jabs, feints before delivering a punch. “The Smashing Machine,” about mixed martial arts fighter and UFC heavyweight champion Mark Kerr, played by an almost unrecognizable Dwayne Johnson, takes a shape and form that is not what we’re used to in traditional sports movies. It’s more like a jazzy improvisation on the formula that references familiar rhythms but marches entirely to the beat of its own drum, and it’s the kind of film that forces the audience to wrestle with what, exactly, we want to see from these kinds of narratives — tragedy or triumph? Safdie offers both, and neither. It becomes clear that Safdie is intentionally denying a big, flashy “win the game” kind of film, offering instead a cerebral examination of the quotidian, workmanlike drudgery of being a professional athlete who never became a superstar household name, still shouldering the work, the struggle, the bad days, quibbling over contracts and rules, taking every hit without complaint. “A day without pain is like a day without sunshine,” Mark quips, and if there are any major revelations to take away from “The Smashing Machine,” it’s that Mark Kerr seems like a truly nice guy, one who had all the guts, and not enough glory. 2:03. 3 stars.

‘SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE’: Writer-director Scott Cooper doesn’t want to make a music biopic. At least not the kind of music biopic you expect. Instead, in “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” he offers a character study as biopic, riding a similar groove as his Oscar-winning 2009 directorial debut “Crazy Heart.” “Deliver Me From Nowhere” doesn’t try to tell the entire life story of New Jersey’s beloved rock bard, Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen — in fact, it doesn’t even really cover his biggest hits. Instead, “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” which Cooper based on the Warren Zanes book of the same name, focuses on a contemplative period in Springsteen’s life and career, a time when the musician dug deep to exorcise his own demons, producing the songs for his 1982 acoustic album “Nebraska.” “The Bear” star Jeremy Allen White hunches into leather jackets and flannels, dark curls coquettishly kissing his brow, in order to embody Springsteen on screen. Like most musical biopics these days, the audience has to enter into an agreement with the film, suspending disbelief. Does White disappear into the role? Does he look exactly like Springsteen? No. But he’s the symbol of Springsteen here, and he captures the star’s flinty gaze and rock ‘n’ roll rasp while performing the songs himself, and brings his own intense soulfulness to the role. 2:00. 2 1/2 stars.

‘STITCH HEAD’: Guillermo del Toro isn’t the only filmmaker with a take on Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein’s monster tale this Halloween season. Enter “Stitch Head,” an animated film from British animation studio Aniventure, written and directed by Steve Hudson, adapted from the Guy Bass graphic novel. Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” may be the most faithful and frightening adaptation of Shelley’s book, but “Stitch Head” — starring Rob Brydon, Asa Butterfield, Joel Fry and Seth Usdenov — proves that there are lessons of all kinds — and for all ages — to be wrung from that text. It’s actually quite remarkable, the social commentary that Hudson elicits from this charming, but slight, spookfest for kids. “Stitch Head” is also a treat to behold, with some beautiful imagery of warm candlelight in the cold castle, inventive creature design and a lively style that incorporates familiar influences from old-fashioned circus and monster movies. This touching and somewhat grotesque story is the perfect gateway for younger kids to dabble in more spooky, Gothic content, as well as to take in the true lessons of Shelley’s original monster tale. 1:29. 3 stars.

NEW YORK (AP) — “Predator: Badlands” led all films in North American theaters with a debut of $40 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, a better-than-expected result that slightly lifted the box office from its autumn doldrums.

On the heels of the worst box office weekend of 2025, “Predator: Badlands” faced little competition from new titles. Not accounting for inflation, the $40 million opening marked a new high for the dreadlocked alien franchise, besting the $38.3 million launch of 2004’s “Alien vs. Predator.”

“Predator: Badlands,” written and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, collected another $40 million overseas for the Walt Disney Co.’s 20th Century Studios. A key factor for “Predator: Badlands” is that, with a budget of $105 million, it’s also the most expensive “Predator” film.

“Badlands,” the eighth movie in the franchise that began with 1987’s “Predator,” offers a novel twist for the sci-fi series. On a remote planet, a young, outcast predator (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) encounters an android researcher (Elle Fanning), and the two set off on a journey. Reviews (85% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) have been good. Moviegoers gave it an “A-” CinemaScore.

Good news had lately been hard to find in movie theaters. On Wednesday, AMC Theaters, the largest theater chain, posted a $298.2 million quarterly loss, partly due to a less-than-stellar summer season. But the fall has been worse. Last month was the lowest-grossing October in nearly three decades. Few awards hopefuls have made much of a mark.

This weekend, a new wave hit theaters. But despite plenty of star power, most fell flat.

“Die My Love,” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, launched with $2.8 million from 1,983 theaters. The film, directed by Lynne Ramsay, stars Lawrence as a new mother and Pattinson as her husband. Mubi plunked down a reported $24 million for “Die My Love” after its debut at the Cannes Film Festival. Audience slammed it with a “D+” CinemaScore.

“Christy,” starring Sydney Sweeney as the professional boxer Christy Martin, debuted with $1.3 million in 2,011 theaters. The film, the first one distributed by production company Black Bear Pictures, has earned Sweeney awards buzz since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Sony Pictures Classics’ “Nuremberg,” a post-World War II drama about the Nuremberg trials starring Rami Malek and Russell Crowe, managed to do a bit better. It opened with $4.1 million in 1,802 theaters.

It was slightly edged by the best performer of the newcomers: “Sarah’s Oil.” The Amazon MGM release opened with $4.5 million from 2,410 locations. It stars Naya Desir-Johnson as a young Black girl in the early 1900s who learns that her Oklahoma land allotment is rich with oil. “Sarah’s Oil” scored a rare “A+” CinemaScore from ticket buyers.

Arguably the most promising of the prospective awards movies to open in theaters over the weekend was Neon’s “Sentimental Value.” The film, a prize-winner at Cannes, directed by Norwegian-Danish filmmaker Joachim Trier, has been tabbed as a major Oscar contender this year. The family drama’s cast includes Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, and, in her second movie of the weekend, Elle Fanning. It opened in four theaters with $200,000, giving it a $50,000 per-screen average. That’s the third best of the year.

The debut of “Predator: Badlands” sealed the Walt Disney Co.’s fourth straight year of $4 billion in worldwide ticket sales. It also broke a short streak of disappointments for the studio, including “Tron: Ares” and “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.” With potentially two of the biggest box-office hits of the year still to come in “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” Disney is poised to surpass $5 billion.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “Predator: Badlands,” $40 million.

2. “Regretting You,” $7.1 million.

3. “Black Phone 2,” $5.3 million.

4. “Sarah’s Oil,” $4.5 million.

5. “Nuremberg,” $4.1 million.

6. “Chainsaw Man,” $3.6 million.

7. “Bugonia,” $3.5 million.

8. “Die My Love,” $2.8 million.

9. “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” $2.2 million.

10. “Tron: Ares,” $1.8 million.

Associated Press

The focus of Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” may be small and limited — one Norwegian family struggling to connect and communicate — and yet its emotional scope is downright cosmic. This is a film about life in the arts, about fulfillment and forgiveness, about performance, about stories true and falsely remembered, about home, about trauma, about allowing oneself to be seen and about some really excellent sweaters.

And at its heart is Stellan Skarsgård, doing some of his finest work in years as an acclaimed film director, Gustav Borg, who always chose his work over his family. Gustav is a familiar type, the kind of charismatic narcissist that professions like film director seem to attract and, often, exaggerate. He’s the kind who’s able to forge deep and meaningful connections with actors he’s just met and will only know for a few months that will produce great and lasting art. Yet his own daughters, Nora ( Renate Reinsve ) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), may as well be strangers. Now with his career in danger of fading into retrospective territory, he’s trying to right those wrongs (and, you know, make a comeback) the only way he knows how: Making another movie. Some people never learn.

What better time to approach Nora about starring in it than right after her mother and his ex-wife’s death? It’s not so random: Nora is a rather celebrated actor in Oslo, though her preferred medium is the stage. She’s so good, in fact, that she continues to get lead roles despite being what one might describe as a difficult and unreliable member of the company. In an early scene, we watch her attempt numerous times to flee right as the curtain is about to go up. But Gustav doesn’t go see her plays. And she doesn’t care about his films, or him. He’s a drunk who was never there, she says. And so, without even reading the script that he excitedly says he wrote for her, she turns down the offer.

The wounds run deep in this family, tethered to a home that has spanned generations and all of the highs and lows of life through the decades, including Gustav’s mother’s imprisonment torture during World War II. It can sound tiresome and cliche to describe places and things as characters, but the extended metaphor here is lovely and real, a physical space that is metaphorically the only thing tying them together. Gustav even wants to use it as a set for his film, which gets a second life when he connects with an American movie star named Rachel Kemp ( Elle Fanning ) who is desperate to do something meaningful. Soon comes the Netflix money, and some fun “inside show business” moments as Rachel prepares to play a difficult-to-crack character inspired by Gustav’s mother, who many years ago died by suicide in their home. There are shades of “Persona” as Rachel dyes her hair to match Nora’s and tries to understand not just the character but Nora as well.

When Rachel decides to drop out of the project, Gustav slips into an unexpectedly tender and fatherly mode, perfectly understanding, and comforting. When he cradles her head in with a gentle hug, it’s a lovely moment that’s laced with a melancholic truth: This is not something that Gustav has ever, or will ever, be able to do with his own kids.

In this group of wonderful performances, Lilleaas may be the real breakout for American audiences. As Agnes, she’s the one who her father chose to star in one of his films as a child and then walked away from acting entirely. Out of the bunch she seems to be the most well-adjusted, with a husband and son and ordinary concerns about money and protecting her older, more fragile sister. But beneath the surface, she has lingering pain too: For a brief moment, she was the center of her father’s world, and then it was gone. When he asks her if he can use her young son in his new film, the reaction is visceral and charged.

As in life, things kind of work themselves out and also kind of don’t. Trier and his longtime cowriter Eskil Vogt have deftly crafted a deeply humane and relatable story that feels whole and satisfying and cinematic without resorting to trite and tidy resolutions and redemptions.

It’s a tall task to follow up a smash like “The Worst Person in the World,” but “Sentimental Value” rises to the occasion: Mature, sharp, bittersweet and maybe even a little hopeful.

“Sentimental Value,” a Neon release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “a sexual reference, some language, brief nudity.” Running time: 133 minutes. Four stars out of four.

Associated Press

Elle Fanning delivers one of the most disjointed performances of the year in “Predator: Badlands.” It’s not her fault — she’s a great actor. It’s just that she spends the majority of the movie in two pieces.

Fanning plays an android whose torso and legs have different trajectories in this ninth installment of the “Predator” franchise, an insane example of sci-fi action filmmaking that’s also equally split between slapstick humor and operatic violence.

It has perhaps one of the most bananas fight scene of all time when Fanning’s separate torso and legs take on some evil goons and combine to kill them all, crushing the last one’s skull and then high-fiving herself — with her hand slapping her foot in celebration.

Director and co-writer Dan Trachtenberg has merged a young, eager-to-prove-his mettle Predator with Fanning’s hip android for “Predator: Badlands” and it’s basically an unlikely buddy movie with decapitations. Fanning spends the first part in a makeshift backpack, nattering on while the Predator strides along and snarls.

We start with the Predator called Dek — played by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, lost in prosthetics and a costume that makes him look like an ancient Roman — with a nasty home life. His dad calls him a “runt” and wants him executed for embarrassing the clan. He even wants his oldest son to murder him in front of him. This is what is called “daddy issues.”

To prove his worth, Dek decides he must hunt and kill the galaxy’s most fearsome creature, the Kalisk, a gigantic, unkillable creature native to the planet Genna. He will do this without visiting a dentist, his mandibles and fangs showing clear signs of gingivitis. Do you even floss, bro?

These Predators are one-note, as always, from some sort of Darth Vader Elocution Class. “Failure means death,” is one line. Another: “Bring it home or never return.” It’s always weird when an advanced intergalactic species speaks like comic book villains from the ’50s — no contractions, no subtlety, no elaboration, just “Sensitivity is weakness.”

So we find ourselves at the planet Genna, a truly nasty place to ever Airbnb. There are flying dinosaurs that toss boulders, plants that shoot out paralyzing spores, grass that is actually a collection of glass shards and tree roots that will hunt you and crush you. Thanks, New Zealand.

Here is where the young buck Predator encounters Fanning, a sliced-in-half android — a so-called “synthetic” — from the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, who viewers will learn is not always after the best outcome for its workers. In a time-honored depiction, they want to turn everything into a bio weapon.

“I can be useful to you,” Fanning’s character called Thia suggests to the impatient Predator. She knows the planet and can navigate it’s weirdness, like that creature with just a massive mouth and arms, a Dr. Seuss-ish beast if Dr, Seuss was into crystal meth. He soon comes around: “I will use you, tool.”

It’s hard to underestimate Fanning here, who keeps us interested. She doesn’t just add comic relief, she adds a much-needed human element, which is doubly hard as she’s playing an android. She hopes to reunite with a sister robot but learns that perhaps her empathy is unique to her. Along the way, they find and sort of adopt a cute creature that resembles an otter (it’s definitely not an otter).

Schuster-Koloamatangi has a few moments when his emotions betray a little kid, but under those blazing eyes and orthodontist’s dream job, he might as well been completely CGI. And that endless clicking? It’s like seeing the movie with multiple dolphin pods.

Trachtenberg who previously directed and co-wrote the story of “Prey” in 2022 and the animated “Predator: Killer of Killers” earlier this year, is confident in this world and it shows. He’s created a story about the betrayal of family and the joy of found family — and slicing horrific, nightmare creatures in half with a laser sword. But it’s both parts of Fanning that steal the show.

“Predator: Badlands,” a 20th Century Studios release that hits theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for sequences of strong sci-fi violence. Running time: 107 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

“Downtown Frederick, MD was devastated by two floods 50 years ago,” a trailer for the hourlong documentary begins. “It looked like something right out of a disaster movie.”

Historical, black-and-white footage of a sleepy rural community morphs into an airborne shot of a thriving metropolis.

“How did they go from this,” the narrator asks, “to this?”

“InSpired” — a pun on Frederick’s trademark clustered church spires — is the latest documentary produced by the same filmmaking team who created “The House on Jonathon Street,” a documentary chronicling the former “Black Wall Street of Maryland” in Hagerstown.

Both movies are produced by Russ Hodge; narrated by his wife, Cynthia Scott; directed by the producer’s son, Patrick Hodge; and released by their 3 Roads Communications video company.

According to the website, “InSpired” follows the city from its precolonial days to the present.

Viewers nationwide who study Frederick’s renaissance will “have a complete context for understanding how their city or town can make some of the positive changes that Frederick has,” the website reads.

More than 60 screenings of “InSpired” have been scheduled on PBS stations, according to a news release. The film will broadcast in Baltimore and Washington at the same times: 3 p.m. on Nov. 16 and 9 p.m. on Nov. 21.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-294-0169.

Every sound registered, getting a slight eyebrow raise here, a slow head pivot there.

Armisen, who is best known for his 11 seasons on “Saturday Night Live” and eight seasons of “Portlandia,” and now two seasons as Uncle Fester on “Wednesday,” is a sound guy at heart, in countless ways. You can hear the sound of his singular voice in your head and its hyper-articulate whine. Many of his best-known “SNL” creations — the Californians, the political comic who keeps interrupting himself and never makes a clear point — were defined largely by their voices. His stand-up comedy is partly a showcase for his drumming skills, and occasionally he joins Sleater-Kinney and Carrie Brownstein, his “Portlandia” co-creator, in concert. But also, he’s keenly attuned to many varieties of audience applause, and to the sound of a crowd when a performer’s microphone is not working, and to the sound of a theater ignoring a plea for quiet, and to the intensity of root vegetables being chopped in a movie that — he’s very specific — will win an Oscar.

He can explain what a guitar store sounds like between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And the sound of someone opening their hotel mini-fridge and not removing anything.

“But Chicago sounds …” he says, thinking about what sounds he connects to his former home, where he spent his formative 20s, as a doorman at the fabled Lounge Ax, as a Blue Man Group drummer, as drummer of the local progressive punk act Trenchmouth.

Just then, two guys passed with a wireless speaker, blasting the rapper Key Glock.

Armisen waited a moment and started again.

“OK, specifically, when you’re downtown, you’re in the Loop, there’s no real sound of traffic, even if it’s busy. So you can hear people talking. It’s not quite all MEEP MEEP all the time. That feels like Chicago to me. Here’s a weird one: You know how it’s like in the dead of winter here after you’ve been to a restaurant and you’re in the city but it’s quiet outside because it’s too cold for people to linger? That cold silence, that sound of icy air — that’s extremely Chicago. Not a small-town sound, yet your own voice gets very loud.”

As if on cue, a Purple Line train thudda-thudda-thudded past. Armisen leaned into my recorder: “OK, the interviewer has just pointed to the ‘L’ crossing through an overpass.”

He leaned back.

“The CTA is the most obvious Chicago sound of all, probably, right? But the other sound that I associate with living here is the sound of what you could call noise jazz. Some people think of that as more New York. But really, it’s a sound of improvisation, it’s the sound of the Art Ensemble of Chicago for one, it’s that highly experimental jazz that was happening here in the ’90s, that screech from those high-pitched saxophones.”

A stroller click-click-clicks by, softly riding every sidewalk break.

Car brakes whine a block away.

Armisen is so keyed into the rattle and hum of everyday sound he just released a record on Chicago’s Drag City that is exactly what its title implies, “100 Sound Effects.”

Track No. 7 is “Music Venue Employee Kicking Everyone Out While Throwing Away Bottles.” Track No. 32 is “Fake Booing.” Track No. 40 is “Wine Glass Breaking.” Track No. 75 is “Basketball on Carpet.” Track No. 76 is “Signing a Basketball.” The first track is “Needle on Record,” and the 21-second final track is “Fred Walking to Control Room.” Exactly 19 tracks are dedicated to the many ways that an audience can sound: “I notice in movies or TV shows that whenever a band in the show is popular, the audience is waaaaaay too enthusiastic. It’s just not how real audiences sound.

“On the other end, when you see footage from North Korea of a government event, the way they clap is very fearful and also supportive at the same time — and by the way, no offensive to the North Korean government. I mean, do they get the Tribune in North Korea?”

Armisen dedicated “100 Sound Effects” to the late Chicago producer Steve Albini, who was a close friend for decades and died in 2024 at 61.

“I wasn’t dedicating it to Steve to say, ‘Hey, you know Steve was so cool,’ but because he had literally facilitated this album. I had an admiration for his work ethic and how he recorded music but also because he was so funny, and when I was thinking of making a sound-effects record, when I realized I had to commit to it as a real project as opposed to something frivolous, I called him. Ideally I would record at Electrical Audio (Albini’s Avondale studio), but I don’t live in Chicago now. I asked Steve for a studio in Los Angeles and he suggested asking Dave Grohl, who hooked me up with the Foo Fighters’ studio and connected me to a producer (Darrel Thorp, known for his work with Radiohead, Paul McCartney and Beck). Steve was supportive in a real way. He loved the job of recording itself – that it didn’t have to be for a band, but it could be narration or sound effects or anything at all.”

Armisen said that “100 Sound Effects” began nostalgically, as a memory of his years in Chicago. “I worked at Sound Warehouse on Clark Street, the old chain record store. I remember we would get these CDs of sound effects. They had their own little section.”

“Anyway, it became this little tap on my shoulder. I had thought about making a record of just (stand-up) comedy covers. And I thought of an album of just bass. But I missed Halloween sound-effects albums, which were the most common sound-effects records.”

I told him he can still find Halloween sounds 24/7 on satellite radio, but it’s often less innocent ghosts and rattling chains than full-blown SHREEKS and chainsaw GROWLS.

“I’m with you, but in their defense, maybe they’re soundtracks for haunted houses?”

Like the way NPR plays faintly in the background at used bookstores?

“Oh! Exactly like that!”

“100 Sound Effects” is not quite in the lineage of Yoko Ono and John Cage recordings or even Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” – albums in which the star is not melody so much as concept. But it is conceptual in the sense that the very specific titles of several of the tracks – “Small Theater Audience at a Heavy Political Show,” “Camping Packing Up Conversation” – can come across as more substantial than the tracks themselves. There is a degree of comedy about this, of course, especially in a few homages to Halloween albums – for instance, “Haunted House Ghost Going Upstairs but the Door is Locked.”

But mostly Armisen imagines it being picked up in 10 years by a film or TV sound person in need of, say, a sound of a door closing on a 1958 Ford, or a sound of obligatory applause. He imagines someone in 50 years finding it and hearing an odd aural time capsule of the early 21st century. He does not imagine it being played much.

“I wanted this record to be that weird little record in your collection that nobody knows what it is. Really, I think I’m copying David Byrne sometimes, you know? That’s someone attuned to sound. He dedicated his life to sound… I have this feeling when I am talking to him, or someone like Mark Mothersbaugh (of Devo), a feeling of like ‘Remember me? Remember when I used to listen to you all the time? We’re old friends! I bought your record, I saw you at …’ I’m not delusional, but in a way I feel like we’ve always known each other, that there was a conversation going on. This record, I think, is kind of like a way of doing my part to make things and to contribute to that ongoing talk.”

A truck braked and HOOOOOONKED.

“What’s that about?” Armisen said, then: “I never realized how loud trucks are. Wait, I do know. Making this record was an education in how much noise is really out in the world.”

©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Welcome back, Sidney Prescott.

The trailer for “Scream 7” released last month sees Neve Campbell’s fan-favorite final girl once again having to fend off her longtime foe, a Ghostface-masked killer. And this time, Sidney is teaming up with her daughter Tatum (Isabel May).

“Hello, Sidney,” a familiar modified voice says in the trailer. “Did you miss me? Nice little town you found — you and your pretty daughter. Reminds me of where we grew up.”

While Sidney initially appears skeptical that the voice-altered mystery person is much of a threat, the new Ghostface soon proves they mean business. The trailer shows the cloaked killer attacking Sidney and Tatum in their home. This time around it seems Ghostface has their sights set on Tatum in order to further torment Sidney, but Tatum is ready to be “a fighter” like her mom.

Directed by Kevin Williamson, “Scream 7” marks Campbell’s return to the horror franchise after her absence in “Scream VI” (2023) due to a salary dispute. While Sidney appeared in the 2022 revival/sequel “Scream,” the franchise passed the torch to siblings Tara and Sam Carpenter, portrayed by Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, respectively, and the pair were once again at the center in “Scream VI.”

While the two were initially set to return for this new installment, Barrera was fired from the film after sharing pro-Palestinian statements relating to the Israel-Hamas war on social media that led to accusations of antisemitism (a claim she has since rejected). Ortega departed the film shortly after.

Along with Campbell, “Scream 7” will see the return of “Scream” veterans Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers and David Arquette as Dewey Riley, despite the latter’s fate in the 2022 installment. While this is Williamson’s first time directing a “Scream” film, the “Dawson’s Creek” creator has also been a part of the franchise since the beginning, writing the Wes Craven-helmed “Scream” (1996), “Scream 2” (1997) and “Scream 4” (2011). Williamson co-wrote the screenplay for “Scream 7” with Guy Busick.

The upcoming film’s cast also includes Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Joel McHale, Mckenna Grace, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Asa Germann, Celeste O’Connor, Sam Rechner, Ethan Embry, Tim Simons and Mark Consuelos.

“Scream 7” is slated for a Feb. 27 release.

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Originating in 1999, the festival runs Wednesday to Nov. 9 and is described in an October news release as an intersection “where film, music, food, art, gaming, parties, and creative technology converge.”

This year’s program features a slate of 25 full-length feature films from local and international voices, including several that feature Baltimore stories. There will be an opening night program of shorts, retrospectives of favorite films from previous decades, panel discussions and celebrity guests.

“This year’s lineup embodies everything we love about independent film, from risk-taking to a fierce commitment to truth,” festival director KJ Mohr said in the release. “We’re especially proud to highlight stories that emerge from Baltimore and connect to the global creative community.”

Highlights of the 2025 festival include:

• A rare screening of cult filmmaker John Waters’ 1970 black comedy “Multiple Maniacs” about a group of traveling sideshow freaks who rob their audiences. The film, Waters’ second, featuring such beloved Dreamlanders (Waters’ regular cast and crew) as Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey and Mary Vivian Pearce. (9:30 p.m. Nov. 7)
• David Simon, the former Baltimore Sun reporter and creator of the iconic television series “The Wire,” will introduce “Paths of Glory,” the classic 1957 film. It stars actor Kirk Douglas portraying a French commander who refuses to continue a suicidal attack and later defends his soldiers in a military trial. (12 p.m. Nov. 8)
• “Sun Ra: Do the Impossible,” a biography of the late jazz musician, composer and poet who either was born in Alabama or on Saturn. The film will be presented by the renowned Baltimore artist and activist Elissa Blount Moorhead and will be followed by a conversation with editor Steven Golliday and Sun Ra scholar Thomas Stanley. (5 p.m. Nov. 8)
• “All That’s Left of You” is the nation of Jordan’s Academy Award entry for Best International Film. The movie, which explores Palestine’s conflict with Israel over three generations of the same family, already has scooped up several film festival awards. (7:45 p.m. Thursday and 10:15 a.m. Nov. 9)

Tickets for the festival range from $20 for individual shows to an all-access pass for $350 and can be purchased online.

“The films in our 2025 program remind us why this festival continues to be a cornerstone of Maryland’s cultural landscape,” Mohr said in the release, “bringing together filmmakers, artists, and audiences in celebration of cinema’s power to challenge, inspire, and unite.”

Film fans unlucky enough to be out of town for the 2025 festival need not despair; the 2026 festival is returning to its traditional spring slot and will unspool from April 8 to 12.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-294-0169.

Even M. Night Shyamalan — known for making darker movies like “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs” — goes looking for the light sometimes.

“I just finished three really dark movies, ‘Old,’ ‘Knock at the Cabin’ and ‘Trap,’ which are really edgy movies where the characters are super, super dark and complicated, and I wanted to do something different,” said the director.

He found an interesting opportunity to collaborate on a new supernatural romance novel called “Remain” with Nicholas Sparks. Yes, that Nicholas Sparks — king of romantic dramas like “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember.”

Co-authored books are a hot trend right now in the publishing world. Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben have a new novel out. James Patterson has teamed up with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton on books. This collab, however, is different in that Shyamalan had written the screenplay and Sparks agreed to write a novel based on that story. A “Remain” film — starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor — already wrapped production and will be released next year.

“I don’t think anybody has ever done what we just did, which was take the same story and simultaneously go do our separate things,” said Sparks. “It isn’t in linear fashion. It’s two people doing two different art forms from the same story. I trusted him 100% to make the best film version of that story possible and he trusted me.”

The two crossed paths years ago when Shyamalan was asked if he would want to adapt Sparks’ novel “The Notebook” into a feature film. The job ended up going to Nick Cassavetes, but Shyamalan said Sparks’ work “always represented something magical to me.” It meant something to him that he would be entrusted with a story so beloved.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Sparks and Shyamalan talk about teaming up, scary movies and chicken salad. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

____

AP: At first thought, you two working together seems like an unlikely duo. but the supernatural and romance genres have a lot in common.

SPARKS: We’re not the first to dabble in this. The biggest movie of 1990 was “Ghost.” Shakespeare used to put ghosts into his plays.

SHYAMALAN: I think love is a supernatural conceit. It’s a mythology we all buy into, but it is still a mythology, a supernatural mythology that there’s a “one.” The “destined one” that you meet in the coffee shop and that you know it was meant to be, and then all the things that happened because you met.

AP: Night, you say you approached Gyllenhaal at the beginning of the year about this role. When you did that, did you tell him it would also be a novel written by Sparks?

SHYAMALAN: I must have. But it was such an unusual moment because I had finished writing the screenplay, pressed save, rushed to get in the car to go to New York for my daughter’s birthday. In the car the phone rings, and it’s Jake. And I’m like, “What’s up, man?” We hadn’t talked in five years, something more. And he’s like, “I’d love to be in one of your movies.” And I went, “That is so weird. Where are you?” And he’s like, “I’m in New York.” I said, “Well, I’m going to New York. Want to have tea?” I had a gut feeling that the universe was doing something. So, I called my assistant. I said, “Print the script.” So, we’re just having tea and catching up. And he’s telling me how in love he is and how he’s just so happy and in love. And I said, “You know what? Here.” He was in shock. He called me two days later and said, “I’m in. I love it.” It was a weird kind of beautiful thing.

AP: Does the book follow the screenplay to the letter or vice versa?

SPARKS: Like any adaptation, no. The first thing I said when I read his script was, “Hey, this is great. Of course, it’s gonna be nothing like my novel. It’s entirely different.” Night said basically the same thing.

SHYAMALAN: I think for audiences, it’ll be really interesting. They can point out the differences and ask, “Why did Nicholas do that with the character and the backstory? Why did Night do this?” Our dialogue isn’t the same.

AP: Night, we’re in spooky season with Halloween coming up. Are there any films — besides your own — that you recommend watching?

SHYAMALAN: “The Exorcist,” of course, it’s always there. There’s “The Innocents.” “The Haunting” 1963 film by Robert Wise. And the Japanese movie “Cure.”

AP: Nicholas, have you made Night your famous chicken salad with Splenda?

SPARKS: No, I haven’t. I did an interview with the New York Times where I offered the reporter some of my homemade chicken salad and it had Splenda. And whatever reason this blew up on social media. People thought it must be the most disgusting chicken salad ever. So, I said, “No, it’s delicious.” We started making it on my book tour last year, handing it out to people. And in fact, Splenda put the recipe on its boxes. You can get them. I was invited to the Indianapolis 500 to see the Splenda car.

SHYAMALAN: To get to the core of your question. No, he has not made it. Nor has he mentioned it. Didn’t even offer it.

Any time a notable figure of the French New Wave is introduced in Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” we’re treated to a momentary straight-on shot of them, with a nameplate — Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Éric Rohmer — at the bottom of the screen. It’s a little like Linklater, as he goes, is cataloging different species of the same 1950s genus, or playing a grand game of New Wave “Guess Who?”

“Nouvelle Vague” is principally about Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) and the making of his landmark feature debut, “Breathless.” But it is also a wider portrait of a moveable filmmaking feast, of an entire generation of French filmmakers who were passionately engaged, individually and as one, in changing cinema. In 1959, it’s a movement that’s on the move.

To a remarkable degree, Linklater’s film, in French and boxed into the Academy ratio, black-and-white style of “Breathless,” has fully imbibed that spirit, resurrecting one of the most hallowed eras of movies to capture an iconoclast in the making. The result is something endlessly stylish and almost absurdly uncanny, even if “Nouvelle Vague” never adopts the brash daring of its subject.

Instead, “Nouvelle Vague” is more of a straightforward though deeply affectionate ode to a singularly unconventional filmmaker. The contrast makes “Nouvelle Vague” a curious thing: a meticulous recreation of a rule-breaking cinematic revolution. Godard would have hated it. That doesn’t make it any less enchanting.

At the outset of the film, Godard and company have gathered for the premiere of François Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows.” For Godard, the last of the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd to transition from writing criticism to directing, anxiety is mounting. He’s 29 and beginning to fear he’s missed the wave.

But confidence is not lacking in Godard. (Marbeck, excellent, doesn’t take off his sunglasses for the duration of the movie, including in movie screenings.) On the heels of the Cannes reception for “The 400 Blows,” the producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst, tremendous) agrees to make “Breathless.” Beauregard warily eyes Godard, likely aware of the trouble he’s making for himself. He pleads for Godard to just make a sexy “slice of film noir.”

Godard, though, knows his chance has finally come to transfer all his ideas into film. Before production starts, he visits the elder statesmen of European cinema at the time — Jean-Pierre Melville (Tom Novembre), Roberto Rossellini (Laurent Mothe) — for advice. “Shoot quickly,” Rossellini tells him.

Godard wants no lights, no soundstages and no script. He’ll go into each day not knowing what he’s going to shoot. On the first day of production, he announces: “Time to enter the pantheon.”

The bulk of “Nouvelle Vague” is the day-to-day shooting of “Breathless,” for which Godard cast Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) as the small-time gangster lead and Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch) as the Herald Tribune-selling American student he wants to run off with. (These, like so many of the many roles of “Nouvelle Vague,” are so well matched that casting director Catherine Schwartz deserves a shot at the inaugural Oscar.)

The thrill of following the making of “Breathless” day by day is seeing just how brazenly Godard disregards the assumed conventions of moviemaking. On the first day, he wraps after two hours. For Linklater (“Slacker,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunset”), these scenes have a special resonance. Few filmmakers believe more ardently in the benefits of a leisurely hangout.

But Godard’s methods have a purpose. “I’m trying to seize reality at random,” he explains.

“Nouvelle Vague” captures Godard stealing from his influences (Ingmar Bergman, Duke Ellington, Humphrey Bogart) while striving to realize his own voice as an artist. “Breathless” is a movie poised between movie eras — a deconstructionist bebop riff on a Hollywood genre film. “Nouvelle Vague,” more than anything, is about how becoming an artist requires both reverence for the past and a stubborn insistence on breaking ground on the future.

“Nouvelle Vague,” which opens in theaters Friday and streams Nov. 14 on Netflix, is one of two artist portraits by Linklater this fall, the other being “Blue Moon,” with Ethan Hawke as the tragic lyricist Lorenz Hart. Both, as it happens, have their Bogart quotes. And both are stirring, cigarette-smoking musings on what makes a great lyric, a memorable song or a movie that will live on forever.

In “Nouvelle Vague,” you wouldn’t say that it takes a village. It’s Godard’s force of will that propels “Breathless.” Each filmmaker gets a Wes Anderson-style close-up in Linklater’s film perhaps because each is pursuing a uniquely personal vision of cinema. In today’s movie world, where risk aversion and brand management carry the day, such a moviemaking spirit often feels extinct or, at least, elusive. “Nouvelle Vague,” with a young Godard making things up off the cuff and on the fly, is a reminder how less can be so, so much more. And how it’s nice, as a young filmmaker with big ambitions, to have some company.

“Nouvelle Vague,” a Netflix release is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for some language. Running time: 105 minutes. Three stars out of four.