The new “Wolf Man” from Universal Pictures and co-writer/director Leigh Whannell may likewise provoke some puzzled Count Floyd-esque looks of confusion among horror fans. Not that it’s a failure or a joke. Whannell, whose bracing, sharp-edged 2020 remake of “The Invisible Man” ushered us into the cold-creeps COVID era, makes genre films for a wide audience, adults included. He doesn’t play these Universal franchise reboots for kicks.

In “Wolf Man,” he really doesn’t. The results are equal parts marital crisis, sins-of-the-father psychodrama and visceral body horror. They’re also a bit of a plod — especially in the second half, when whatever kind of horror film you’re making should not, you know, plod.

The first half is crafty, patient and deceptively good. A 1990s prologue introduces young Blake (Christopher Abbott) and his surly father, venturing into a remote corner of the Oregon woods (New Zealand portrays Oregon) on a hunting expedition. They live nearby; Blake has yet to hear about the rumored “face of the wolf” creature sharing the same woods that First Nation tribes have feared for centuries. Protecting his son in a shrewdly staged attack, the father disappears into the woods, presumed dead.

Thirty years later in present-day San Francisco, Blake is an unemployed writer and full-time caregiver, married to workaholic journalist Charlotte (Julia Garner). She’s stress incarnate, envious of her husband’s close emotional bond with their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth). With the arrival of his long-missing father’s death certificate, Blake inherits the rural Oregon house. For the sake of the troubled family, Charlotte agrees to spend some time with Ginger in this place.

From there, the movie narrows its geographic parameters, transforming into a close-quarters drama of three people in an old dark house, surrounded by lots of shrewdly designed sounds and beset by a werewolf stalking the visitors like it means business. Once Blake suffers a flesh wound at the hands of this predator, Whannell’s devotion to, among other films, David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” becomes apparent.  “Wolf Man” delves into the fractured psyche and grotesque physical disintegration of a man stricken with an animal-borne virus, terrified of what it’s doing to him and what he may end up doing to those he loves. In other words, it’s a movie about every indignity an unemployed writer must suffer, lycanthropy included.

Even when her character takes a more urgent role in this hermetic story, the excellent Garner doesn’t have much to play outside a parade of slow-roll nonverbal shots of Charlotte peering this way and that, taking charge of a rapidly dissolving situation but never really getting her due. (The script is by Whannell and his partner Corbett Tuck.) “Wolf Man’s” seriousness is heavy going. Its leitmotif sticks, doggedly, to the idea of transmutable, unholy fears, and sins of the fathers, transmitted like a virus down the family line. A rare in-joke pops up on the side of the moving van Blake rents to clear out his father’s house: The company has been in business since 1941, the slogan notes, taking us back to the year Universal made hay with Lon Chaney Jr. in “The Wolf Man.”

That was neither the first nor the last werewolf movie. This one, originally slated for Ryan Gosling and director Derek Cianfrance, goes about its business with a solemn air, even when it’s super-blechy and Abbott is chewing on his own forearm for obvious reasons: an unemployed writer’s gotta eat.

“Wolf Man” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for bloody violent content, grisly images and some language)

Running time: 1:43

How to watch: Premieres in theaters Jan. 17

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

LOS ANGELES — Netflix’s upcoming “Narnia” movie will be exclusively released in Imax theaters for two weeks worldwide, the streamer confirmed Friday.

The movie, directed by Greta Gerwig, will be shown on 1,000 to 1,800 Imax screens, according to a person familiar with the deal who declined to be named. Its theatrical release will be in on Thanksgiving Day 2026 and premiere on Netflix on Christmas.

The deal marks a delicate balancing act for Netflix, because the company’s business model is centered on growing its streaming subscriptions. Although Netflix has released movies theatrically before to qualify for awards, the streamer typically aims to quickly distribute those movies on its streaming service to satisfy its millions of subscribers.

But some Hollywood talent would prefer to see their work appear on the big screen. A representative for Gerwig did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is Imax’s first deal for a theatrical window for a Netflix narrative feature film. A Netflix documentary, “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” also had a theatrical run on Imax last year.

The movie is based on “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis. It’s an epic tale with Christian undertones about a magical world and the four siblings who discover and rule it as kings and queens. The seven Narnia books have sold more than 115 million copies worldwide.

Some analysts have said bringing the epic story to Imax screens makes sense given the breadth of the fantasy world and anticipated stunning visual nature of the film. There is also likely to be significant fandom surrounding the movie.

The last three Narnia movies, released theatrically in 2005, 2008 and 2010 by Disney and 20th Century Fox, generated $537.7 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to non-inflation-adjusted data from Comscore.

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(L.A. Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.)

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

LOS ANGELES — The Oscar race for best picture came into clarity as the Producers Guild of America announced its nominees for the Darryl F. Zanuck Award, revealed on Thursday morning. Such widely predicted nominees as “Emilia Pérez” and “The Brutalist” were confirmed in the bracket of 10 features (full results below), as were titles with less certain prospects until now, including “September 5” and “The Substance.”

A historically accurate precursor of the Oscars’ ultimate winner, the PGA Awards have named the future best picture 16 out of the last 21 times. More significantly, last year’s PGA nominees were a 100% match with the 10 nominees for the Academy Award.

The Producers Guild of America’s ceremony will name the winners of its film and TV categories on Feb. 8 at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Century City.

See the full list of nominees below:

Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures

“Anora”

“The Brutalist”

“A Complete Unknown”

“Conclave”

“Dune: Part Two”

“Emilia Pérez”

“A Real Pain”

“September 5”

“The Substance”

“Wicked”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures

“Flow”

“Inside Out 2”

“Moana 2”

“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”

“The Wild Robot”

Norman Felton Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television — Drama

“Bad Sisters”

“The Diplomat”

“Fallout”

“Shōgun”

“Slow Horses”

Danny Thomas Award for Outstanding Producer of Episodic Television — Comedy

“Abbott Elementary”

“The Bear”

“Curb Your Enthusiasm”

“Hacks”

“Only Murders in the Building”

David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Limited or Anthology Series Television

“Baby Reindeer”

“Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”

“The Penguin”

“Ripley”

“True Detective: Night Country”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Televised or Streamed Motion Pictures

“Carry On”

“The Greatest Night in Pop”

“The Killer”

“Rebel Ridge”

“Unfrosted”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television

“30 for 30”

“Conan O’Brien Must Go”

“The Jinx — Part Two”

“Steve! (Martin) A Documentary in 2 Pieces”

“Welcome to Wrexham”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Live Entertainment, Variety, Sketch, Standup & Talk Television

“Ali Wong: Single Lady”

“The Daily Show”

“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver”

“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

“Saturday Night Live”

Award for Outstanding Producer of Game & Competition Television

“The Amazing Race”

“RuPaul’s Drag Race”

“Top Chef”

“The Traitors”

“The Voice”

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

Tickets to the event are free and are expected to be gone as soon as they are made available on Jan. 31.

Reynolds has appeared in dozens of movies, from “Van Wilder” to “Green Lantern” to the “Deadpool” series. He is also known as a businessman with investments in numerous companies including Mint Mobile, for which he acts as a spokesman in TV commercials.

Levy is a 1989 graduate of Yale. He directed Reynolds in “Free Guy,” “The Adam Project” and “Deadpool and Wolverine,” co-produced all three with Reynolds and wrote two of them. Among his many other projects, Levy directed the “Night at the Museum” series of comedies and the 2006 remake of “The Pink Panther” starring Steve Martin. He is the executive producer of the “Stranger Things” series, for which he has also directed a few episodes each season.

The Yale talk will be moderated by film critic Kevin McCarthy. Tickets will be available to the general public through the Yale Schwarzman Center website at schwarzman.yale.edu.

As a 100% Los Angeles comedy in location and spirit, it’s the first 2025 release of its kind since the wildfires broke out on Jan. 7. Every overhead drone shot of West Hollywood and other LA neighborhoods, graced by clear skies and untouched mountain greenery in the background, lands differently now than it would’ve two weeks ago. Now those shots are reminders of what was and what is no longer. Even the movie’s poster provokes a wince: The film’s stars, plopped down on a couch on the curb, their characters’ apartment furnishings piled high, to the right of a palm tree in flames.

So the timing is what it is. (The wildfires postponed last week’s LA premiere.) Even so, “One of Them Days” is a pretty good time, made better when its other major point of distinction takes the wheel.

The driver? Keke Palmer, at 31 a seasoned pro, born and raised in Harvey and Robbins, Illinois, with credits spanning “Barbershop 2” (at age 10), “Akeelah and the Bee,” dozens of TV and cable appearances and, recently on bigger screens, Jordan Peele’s “Nope.” She’s one of many alums of Issa Rae projects collaborating on this feature, including director Lawrence Lamont, first-time screenwriter Syreeta Singleton and R&B star and four-time Grammy winner SZA, taking her first co-lead.

Palmer and SZA are an easy on-screen pair in all the best ways: easy interplay, near-zero visible effort even when the movie itself strains for laughs, easy enjoyment for the audience. “One of Them Days” begins at Norm’s diner on La Cienega Boulevard, where server Dreux (Palmer) is the glue holding a hectic shift together. Clearly she’s manager material, and she’s interviewing at 4 p.m. for a job running her own franchise.

Her friend and roommate Alyssa (SZA) is a painter without any monetary gain to show for her talent. At the moment she’s being free-loaded-upon by a half-hearted though fully endowed boyfriend (Joshua David Neal, at one point attached to a hilarious prosthetic). He squanders $1,500 in rent money on a line of T-shirts called “Coucci” and promptly decamps to another part of town, where he’s set up with a vengeful hottie. This leaves the ladies with nine hours to come up with the money, while regular tick-tocks on screen count down to the eviction deadline.

The movie’s not a scramble, exactly; its episodic nature is more like “Oh! Wait! Gotta get back to the business at hand!” which occasionally stalls the comic momentum. Screenwriter Singleton sends Dreux and Alyssa out and around in search of the absconding boyfriend, with a quick-cash stop at a Baldwin Hills blood bank featuring Janelle James of “Abbott Elementary” as a first-day-on-the-job employee. Later, high atop a telephone pole, Alyssa retrieves a valuable pair of dangling Jordans off a live electrical wire, to mixed results.

The broader slapstick in “One of Them Days” is the sloppy side, which is a directorial issue. The script’s better than the direction, with writer Singleton keeping one foot in these characters’ real-world circumstances. That pays off. This isn’t Harold and Kumar going to White Castle; it’s closer to Ice Cube and Chris Tucker in “Friday,” but to my taste, tastier.

Dreux and Alyssa are up against it but unbowed, coping with wobbly self-confidence in the face of economic stress; gentrification (Maude Apatow plays their first white rental neighbor, moving into the only unit that looks like the website photos); nightmarish payday loan usury, with a 1,900.5% APR; and a somewhat jarring climax bringing the armed and fearsome King Lolo (Amin Joseph) to the roomies’ last chance for the money they need: a pop-up art exhibit in the apartment courtyard.

Palmer delivers an on-the-fly masterclass in overlapping comic skills, sometimes heightened (I love her eyeblink-quick, frozen-statue reaction to the good-looking, possibly homicidal hunk named Maniac, played by Patrick Cage), sometimes subtle and heartfelt. Her keen instinct for pacing, and for propelling an exchange or a scene from point A to B, or C, keeps things energized. She and SZA won’t change anyone’s lives with this one, but I came out smiling, despite “One of Them Days” opening in a week when LA is having one of those centuries. The film’s sweet, upbeat ending feels right, right about now.

“One of Them Days” — 3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language throughout, sexual material and brief drug use)

Running time: 1:37

How to watch: Premieres in theaters Jan. 17

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

The Associated Press has pulled together a guide for what you need to know about this season’s big contenders, and where to watch them.

“All We Imagine as Light” (In limited theaters)

Payal Kapdia’sluminous portrait of three women in Mumbai won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and is one of the season’s most acclaimed films, but curiously was not selected by India to represent the country at the Oscars (it could still be nominated in other categories).

“Anora” (Available to rent or buy on video-on-demand, also in limited theaters)

Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner about a New York stripper’s (Mikey Madison) rollercoaster romance with a Russian oligarch’s son may not have won big (or at all) at the Golden Globes, but the shine is still there — especially after Director and Screen Actor guilds nominations for Madison and Yura Borisov.

“The Apprentice” (VOD)

Jeremy Strong got a SAG nomination for his portrayal of Donald Trump lawyer Roy Cohn in this film about the future U.S. President.

“Babygirl” (In theaters, wide release)

Nicole Kidman has been widely praised for her portrayal of a married, high powered CEO who begins a dangerous affair with a young intern played by Harris Dickinson. It won her a top prize at the Venice Film Festival, but she was curiously left out when SAG’s nominations were announced.

“Better Man” (In theaters, wide release)

This unconventional biopic about the British pop star Robbie Williams has a CGI monkey playing him.

“Blitz” (streaming on Apple TV+)

Steve McQueen’s smartly crafted World War II film about London during the German bombing raid has dropped out of most awards conversations, but there’s always a chance.

“The Brutalist” (In limited theaters, IMAX on Jan. 15, wide release on Jan. 24)

A major player (despite the lack of a SAG ensemble nomination), this film stars Adrien Brody as a noted architect and Holocaust survivor who attempts to start life anew in America and gets a life-changing commission from Guy Pearce’s wealthy industrialist. It won the Golden Globe for best director, best drama and best actor.

“Challengers” (streaming on Prime Video)

Another one that isn’t at the top of any prediction lists, except perhaps for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ synthy score (which won a Golden Globe), but this tennis menage a trois with Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor is great fun anyway.

“A Complete Unknown” (In theaters, wide release)

James Mangold’s acclaimed Bob Dylan biopic is rising with nominations from the DGA and SAG, including for Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

“Conclave” (streaming on Peacock)

This pulpy, smart thriller about the selection of a new pope got a DGA nom for director Edward Berger and a SAG nod for Ralph Fiennes’ lead performance. It also won the best screenplay Golden Globe.

“A Different Man” (streaming on Max starting Friday)

Sebastian Stan won a Golden Globe for his peformance as an aspiring actor who drastically changes his face in this psychological thriller.

“Dune: Part Two” (streaming on MAX)

“Dune” got a best picture nomination but Denis Villeneuve was snubbed for a directing nod, which may unfortunately repeat itself for “Part Two” after he was left off the Directors Guild of America list.

“Emilia Pérez” (streaming on Netflix)

Jacques Audiard’s audacious musical crime thriller about a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirming surgery is steamrolling through awards season with SAG noms for Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoë Saldaña, who also won at the Globes, and a DGA nom. It also won the best musical/comedy Golden Globe, best original song (“El Mal”) and best picture not in the English language.

“Flow” (on VOD, also in limited theaters)

This wordless Latvian film about a cat escaping a great flood has become a favorite in the animation category. It won the animation Golden Globe.

“Gladiator II” (on VOD, also in theaters)

It’s probably most likely a crafts-only contender, but you never know: Denzel Washington might sneak in with a nomination.

“Hard Truths”’ (In limited theaters)

Filmmaker Mike Leigh reunites with his “Secrets & Lies” star Marianne Jean-Baptiste to dive into the life of the perpetually angry and sharp tongued London woman Pansy. It is widely considered one of the best performances of the year.

“I’m Still Here” (In limited theaters on Friday)

This Brazilian film from Walter Salles stars Fernanda Torres (who won the Golden Globe) as Eunice Paiva, the wife of Rubens Paiva, a former leftist Brazilian congressman who was taken and not returned during the country’s military dictatorship.

“Inside Out 2” (streaming on Disney+)

This Disney sequel about the emotions of a young girl is now the highest-grossing animated film of all time, not accounting for inflation.

“The Last Showgirl” (In theaters)

Pamela Anderson continues to rack up nominations for her portrayal of an aging Vegas performer in Gia Coppola’s film.

“Maria” (streaming on Netflix)

Angelina Jolie portrays opera legend Maria Callas in filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s (“Spencer,” “Jackie”) experimental look at her last days, in Paris. She was not nominated by the actors guild.

“Nickel Boys” (In very limited theaters)

RaMell Ross utilized first person POV to adapt Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about an abusive reform school in the Jim Crow South and for it got a best first feature nomination from the DGA.

“The Piano Lesson” (streaming on Netflix)

Danielle Deadwyler got a supporting actress nod from SAG for her performance in Malcolm Washington’s August Wilson adaptation.

“Queer” (on VOD)

Daniel Craig picked up a SAG nomination for his performance as a junkie expat infatuated with a young man in postwar Mexico in Luca Guadagnino’s William S. Burroughs adaptation.

“A Real Pain” (on VOD and in limited theaters)

After a Globes win and a SAG nom, Kieran Culkin is quickly becoming the supporting actor favorite in the awards race for playing the chaotic, charismatic Benji in Jesse Eisenberg’s tragi-comic film about odd couple cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland.

“The Room Next Door” (In limited theaters)

Pedro Almodóvar’s English language film about assisted suicide starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (In very limited theaters)

Widely considered one of the best films of the year, this Cannes gem (and German’s Oscar submission) is a political thriller and domestic drama about Iran’s authoritarian regime.

“September 5” (In very limited theaters, wide on Friday)

A sneakily strong contender, this film is a tick-tock account of how the sports reporters at ABC covered the Munich Olympics hostage crisis live in 1972.

“Sing Sing (Theatrical re-release on Friday)

Colman Domingo has gotten a lot of recognition for his performance as an incarcerated man who helps lead a theater program for others at Sing Sing, including from the actors guild.

“The Substance” (streaming on MUBI, limited theatrical re-release on Friday)

Demi Moore’s turn as an aging actor who goes to extremes to preserve her looks in Coralie Fargeat’s body horror already won her a Golden Globe and got her a SAG nomination.

“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” (streaming on Netflix)

An animated contender, this is only the second feature-length Wallace & Gromit film, and brings back favorite Feathers McGraw.

“Wicked” (on VOD and in theaters, wide release)

Jon M. Chu’s vibrant adaptation of the popular movie musical (well, the first half) might not have resonated with Globes voters, but it snagged a coveted best ensemble nomination from SAG, as well as individual nods for Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande and Jonathan Bailey.

“The Wild Robot” (on VOD and in limited theaters, streaming on Peacock Jan. 24)

Chris Sanders’ charming adaptation of Peter Brown’s book about a smart robot who gets stranded in the wilderness and becomes caretaker to a young gosling is in the animated feature discussion.

David Lynch, the filmmaker celebrated for his uniquely dark and dreamlike vision in such movies as “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” has died just days before his 79th birthday.

His family announced the death in a Facebook post on Thursday.

The cause of death and location was not immediately available. Last summer, Lynch had revealed to Sight and Sound that he was diagnosed with emphysema and would not be leaving his home because of fears of contracting the coronavirus or “even a cold.”

“I’ve gotten emphysema from smoking for so long and so I’m homebound whether I like it or not,” Lynch said, adding he didn’t expect to make another film.

“I would try to do it remotely, if it comes to it,” Lynch said. “I wouldn’t like that so much.”

Lynch was a onetime painter who broke through in the 1970s with the surreal “Eraserhead” and rarely failed to startle and inspire audiences, peers and critics in the following decades. His notable releases ranged from the neo-noir “Mulholland Drive” to the skewed gothic of “Blue Velvet” to the eclectic and eccentric “Twin Peaks,” which won three Golden Globes, two Emmys and even a Grammy for its theme music. Pauline Kael, the film critic, called Lynch “the first populist surrealist — a Frank Capra of dream logic.”

“‘Blue Velvet,’ ‘Mulholland Drive’ and ‘Elephant Man’ defined him as a singular, visionary dreamer who directed films that felt handmade,” director Steven Spielberg said in a statement. Spielberg noted that he had cast Lynch as director John Ford, one of his early influences, in his 2022 film “The Fabelmans.”

“It was surreal and seemed like a scene out of one of David’s own movies,” Spielberg said. “The world is going to miss such an original and unique voice.”

“Lynchian” became a style of its own, yet one that ultimately belonged only to him. Lynch’s films pulled disturbing surrealistic mysteries and unsettling noir nightmares out of ordinary life. In the opening scenes of “Blue Velvet,” among suburban homes and picket fences, an investigator finds a severed ear lying in a manicured lawn.

Steven Soderbergh, who told The Associated Press on Thursday that he was a proud owner of two end tables crafted by Lynch (his numerous hobbies included furniture design), called “Elephant Man” a perfect film.

“He’s one of those filmmakers who was influential but impossible to imitate. People would try but he had one kind of algorithm that worked for him and you attempted to recreate it at your peril,” Soderbergh told the AP. “As non-linear and illogical as they often seemed, they were clearly highly organized in his mind.”

Lynch never won a competitive Academy Award. He received nominations for directing “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and, in 2019, was presented an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.

“To the Academy and everyone who helped me along the way, thanks,” he said at the time, in characteristically off-beat remarks. “You have a very nice face. Good night.”

His other credits included the crime story “Wild at Heart,” winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; the biographical drama “The Elephant Man” and the G-rated, aptly straightforward “The Straight Story.” Actors regularly appearing in his movies included Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, Naomi Watts and Richard Farnsworth.

Lynch was a Missoula, Montana, native who moved around often with his family as a child and would long feel most at home away from the classroom, free to explore his fascination with the world. Lynch’s mother was a English teacher and his father a research scientist with the U.S. Agriculture Department. He was raised in the Pacific Northwest before the family settled in Virginia. Lynch’s childhood was by all accounts free of trauma. He praised his parents as “loving” and “fair” in his memoir, though he also recalled formative memories that shaped his sensibility.

One day near his family’s Pacific Northwest home, Lynch recalled seeing a beautiful, naked woman emerge from the woods bloodied and weeping.

“I saw a lot of strange things happen in the woods,” Lynch told Rolling Stone. “And it just seemed to me that people only told you 10% of what they knew and it was up to you to discover the other 90%.”

He had an early gift for visual arts and a passion for travel and discovery. He dropped out of several colleges before enrolling in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, beginning of a decade-long apprenticeship as a maker of short movies. He was working as a printmaker in 1966 when he made his first film, a four-minute short named “Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times).” That and other worked landed Lynch a place at the then-nascent American Film Institute.

There he began working on what would become his 1977 feature debut, “Eraserhead.”

“David’s always had a cheerful disposition and sunny personality, but he’s always been attracted to dark things,” a childhood friend is quoted as saying in “Room to Dream,” a 2018 book by Lynch and Kristine McKenna. That’s one of the mysteries of David.”

Aside from furniture making and painting, Lynch was a coffee maker, composer, sculptor and cartoonist. He exuded a Zen peacefulness that he attributed to Transcendental Meditation, which his David Lynch Foundation promoted. In the 2017 short film “What Did Jack Do?” he played a detective interrogating a monkey.

Lynch was himself a singular presence, almost as beguiling and deadpan as his own films. For years, he posted videos of daily weather reports from Southern California. When asked for analysis of his films, Lynch typically demurred.

“I like things that leave some room to dream,” he told the New York Times in 1995. “A lot of mysteries are sewn up at the end, and that kills the dream.”

AP National Writer Hillel Italie contributed reporting.

‘ONE OF THEM DAYS’

Rated R for language throughout, sexual material and brief drug use.

What it’s about: Two best friends living in L.A. have a crazy day trying to secure their rent payment.

The kid attractor factor: The comedy will be a draw to teens

Good lessons/bad lessons: Never let your boyfriend pay your rent, have each other’s backs, resourcefulness is everything.

Violence: A few perilous situations and brawling.

Language: Swearing throughout.

Sex: Explicit sexual references.

Drugs: References to drugs, brief onscreen marijuana use.

Parents’ advisory: Too raunchy and mature for kids, fine for teens.

©2025 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

NEW YORK (AP) — When Lucy Walker debuted her harrowing documentary about California wildfires, “Bring Your Own Brigade,” at Sundance in 2021, it was during peak COVID. Not the best time for a film on a wholly different scourge.

“It was really hard,” the Oscar-nominated filmmaker says now. “I didn’t blame people for not wanting to watch a film about the fires in the middle of the pandemic, because it was just too much horror.”

That could change. Walker thinks people may now be more receptive to her message, given the devastating wildfires that have wrought havoc on Los Angeles itself the past week. Firefighters were preparing on Tuesday to attack new blazes amid warnings that winds combined with severely dry conditions created a “particularly dangerous situation.”

“This is probably the moment where it becomes undeniable,” she said in an interview.

She added: “It does feel like people are now asking the question that I was asking a few years ago, like, ‘Is it safe to live in Los Angeles? And why is this happening, and what can we do about it? And the good news is that there are some things we can do about it. What’s tricky is that they’re really hard to accomplish.”

Documenting the human cost, confronting complacency

In “Bring Your Own Brigade” (available on Paramount+), Walker portrays in sometimes terrifying detail the devastation caused by two wildfires on the same day in 2018, products of the same wind event — the Camp Fire that engulfed the northern California city of Paradise and the Woolsey fire in Malibu, two towns on opposite ends of the political and economic spectrum.

She embeds herself with firefighters, and explores the lives of locals affected by the fire. She shares harrowing cellphone footage of people driving through exploding columns of fire as they try to escape, crying out “I don’t want to die!” She plays 911 calls in which people plead vainly for rescue as fire laps at their backyards or invades their homes.

And she conveys a layered message: Devastating fires in California are increasingly inevitable. Climate change is a clear accelerating factor, yes, but it’s not the only one, and therein lies an element of hope: There are things people can do, if they start to make different (and difficult) choices — in both where and how they choose to live.

But first, complacency must be vanquished.

“Complacency sets in when there hasn’t been a fire for a few years and you start to think, it might not happen again,” Walker says.

It even affected Walker herself a few months ago. A British transplant to Los Angeles, she had chosen to live on the Venice-Santa Monica border — too scared, she says, to live in the city’s lovely hilly areas with small winding roads, surrounded by nature and vegetation, near the canyons that wildfires love.

But a few months ago, she started wondering if over-anxiety about wildfires had incorrectly influenced her choice. And then, of course, came the Palisades catastrophe —“this God awful reminder that it only takes one event,” she says.

The challenge of enacting fire safety measures

Walker became interested in making a film about wildfires after she arrived in the city and wondered if she was safe. “Why is the hillside on fire?” she says she wondered. “Why do people just keep on driving?” She had considered such fires “a medieval problem.”

One thing she learned while filming: Firefighters were even more impressive and courageous than she’d thought. “If you want to watch a firefighter have their heart broken, it’s when they want to do more,” she says. “I was just absolutely wowed by how incredibly selfless and brilliant they were.”

Not that the public wasn’t angry at them — her film depicts angry residents of Malibu, for example, chastising firefighters for not doing enough.

One of the most stunning parts of “Bring Your Own Brigade” — the title is a reference to the economic inequity of wealthy homeowners or celebrities like Kim Kardashian hiring private firefighters — is watching the reaction of firefighters at a town meeting in Paradise, where 85 people had been killed in the fire. They’ve convened to discuss adopting safety measures as they rebuild. One by one, measures are rejected — even the simplest, requiring a five-foot buffer around every house where nothing is flammable. Safety takes a back burner to individual choice.

“It was very shocking to be at that meeting in particular, given that people had died in the most horrible way in that community. And you have firefighters with tears in their eyes saying, ‘This is what we need to have happen to keep us safe, and then (they) get voted down.”

Walker is not the only filmmaker to have made a film about Paradise. In 2020, Ron Howard directed “Rebuilding Paradise,” focused on the effort to rebuild, and the resilience of residents. Walker says she looked at the same set of facts and arrived at different takeaways.

Townspeople were indeed amazing and resilient, Walker says. “But are we right to be building back without a real rethink? Because the tragedy is that these fires are predictably going to be repeating and against the backdrop of climate change, they’re getting worse, not better.”

In the wildfire age, rethinking where we live — and how

That rethink involves making hard calls about where people should live. “The population is overwhelmingly moving into these wildland urban interface areas,” Walker says, referring to areas where housing meets undeveloped wildland vegetation — exactly the areas most likely to burn.

In California, some of these places are very expensive — like Palisades and Malibu — but others are in more affordable areas. With the great pressure on housing, more people are moving into such areas, she says. But the “braking mechanism” could be that insurance companies “are doing the math, and it’s not sustainable.”

It’s not only a question of where people live.

“What does a fire-hardened home look like?” Walker asks. “Design-wise, that that does dictate certain things.” For example: “This lovely wood is going to require tremendous firefighting.”

It’s too early to know, but Walker thinks she may be hearing something different now from those who’ve lost homes, of whom she knows many.

“What I’m hearing from people is not just ‘I can’t wait to rebuild. Let me rebuild,’” she says. “It’s: ‘How could we go through that again?’”

Among the 2024 movie releases worth arguments and accolades, director and co-writer Brady Corbet’s third feature has the most evident problems — subplots and supporting characters left hanging, a modern-day coda that feels like a hasty summary judgment of the title character. There are films that emerge, somehow, as like the exhalation of a single breath, every creative element in rare harmony. “Nickel Boys” is like that for me. And there are movies like “The Brutalist” where the seams show, but there’s too much worth relishing to worry about the seams. “The Brutalist” is also an American immigration tale, as well as catnip for anyone with a passing interest in architecture or design.

Director Corbet wastes no time handing us his thematic declaration of principles. A fictional Holocaust refugee, László Tóth, Hungarian and Jewish and a Bauhaus-trained architect, has survived Buchenwald. The audience knows more than Tóth, in these early scenes, regarding the whereabouts of his missing wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece (Raffey Cassidy).

Our first sight of Brody is cloaked in darkness and chaos: He’s one of a cluster of refugees on a ship docking in New York City. Tóth, scrambling toward the upper deck, finally spies his destiny, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. His perspective, though, and ours, tilts Lady Liberty on her side, nearly upside down. Freedom in “The Brutalist,” at least for the outsider, is a profoundly destabilizing state of being.

In the lovely momentum of the film’s first half, Tóth tries to make peace with this strange new world, though he cannot make the accommodations his Philadelphia cousin (Alessandro Nivola), who emigrated years earlier, has made to fit in. This man, formerly named Molnar, now Miller, runs a small furniture store specializing in bland midcentury American design. Tóth loathes it, but finds a way up and out through his cousin’s contacts: There is a library renovation to be done in the grand home of Harrison Van Buren, an imperious plutocrat with airs portrayed by Guy Pearce.

From there, Corbet’s screenplay, co-written by his real-life partner Mona Fastvold, treats the story’s several-decade timeline as a battle royale between the brilliant, difficult artist and his insidiously controlling sponsor. The project that nearly kills them both, at least in spirit, is the Van Buren Institute, to be built north of Philadelphia outside Doylestown. Tóth moves to the Van Buren estate, where he learns first-hand what scads of American money, old or new, can do for — and to — a purist under the commission of a lifetime. The film’s second half brings Erzsébet into her husband’s lofty but suffocating new environs. Coping with osteoporosis, Tóth’s wife has brought along her surviving, traumatized niece, Zsófia. Meantime Tóth struggles to complete his twin-towered concrete creation, part community center, part Christian chapel (against the Jewish architect’s initial wishes) and part deeply personal memorial to loved ones, killed in the genocide.

Later scenes in “The Brutalist” relocate the action to the stark white wonders of Carrara, Italy’s marble quarry site, which is also the site of Tóth’s final subjugation at the hands of his client. Throughout the 3½-hour film, which is a little erratic in the second half, the Brody character uses his design aesthetic the way he leans on his heroin addiction, or the way he feels about the postwar American jazz explosion known as bebop: as a means of obliterating one part of his psyche, or history, while accessing another at great cost.

The great, undervalued Isaach De Bankolé plays Tóth’s friend and assistant, Gordon, who’s also his fellow addict. There’s a lot of movie in this movie, of course, but it’s too bad this character doesn’t get the scenes he merits, which is true also of Nivola’s character. In trade, I suppose, I could’ve used a little less of the wormy Van Buren family, though it’s more a matter of actors such as Joe Alwyn playing one hammy note throughout. (There’s a suggestion of assault involving this heir-apparent to the Van Buren fortune and the mute niece Zsófia, but it’s frustratingly opaque.)

The shortcomings on the page and, here and there, in the supporting cast don’t come to much because “The Brutalist” is a work of real cinema, with a visual stamp distinguishing Corbet’s spectacularly gifted collaborators. The movie was photographed, brilliantly, by cinematographer Lol Crowley on film, primarily in the nostalgic but vital widescreen VistaVision format. Production designer Judy Becker takes on what must be the most enticing challenge imaginable to someone in her line of work: creating a style of visual thinking for the film’s main character and seeing his ideas to cinematic fruition. On an extremely low budget. But that’s the “challenge” part of it. Elements of Louis Kahn’s glorious oceanside Salk Institute appear in the crucial library renovation sequence; Frank Lloyd Wright’s petal columns, a hallmark of the Johnson Wax administration building in Racine, Wisconsin, pop up as details in the Van Buren Institute construction. It’s amazing work, and if Tóth as written ultimately lacks a dynamic third dimension as a driving force, Brody’s performance gives the presence and details we need.

I haven’t mentioned the movie’s themes of postwar Judaism, or postwar American consumerism, or the push/pull sexual dynamics between the Brody and Jones characters, at war with their new land and often with each other. Director Corbet can’t possibly finesse everything he’s laid out. But “The Brutalist,” filmed primarily in Hungary, is a singular example of a mini-maxi epic, made up of small scenes, often between two or three people, visually placed against highly selective and evocative backgrounds mostly not dependent on digital effects, but rather on elemental things. There are no expansive, expensive shots of Philadelphia city streets circa 1947, for example. When the Brody and Nivola characters are reunited, the reunion takes place against the side of a Greyhound bus, because it’s enough.

There’s one scene in particular I love, and it’s one of the quietest: the completion, though not without some accidental destruction, of the Van Buren library. Here we see what Tóth is all about as an architect, and to Corbet’s great credit the camera actually pays attention to the workers putting it together. Without this sequence “The Brutalist,” which has its reductive, polemic bits, might not work at all. But it’s there, and it’s beautiful, and beautifully scored by composer Daniel Blumberg. We see and feel what’s at stake in mysterious ways.

A key later scene depicts the groundbreaking ceremony for the proposed (and to most of the guests, puzzling) Van Buren Institute. Tóth makes a few remarks, nervously. He knows he’s surrounded by skeptics and, very likely, antisemites. Here, Corbet keeps the camera at a sly middle distance, avoiding any underlining of the dynamics and side-eyeing going on. Tóth’s architectural intention, he says, is to become “part of the new whole,” i.e. a broader, warmer, inclusive postwar America. We’re still debating that one, which is why “The Brutalist” works as fictional but urgent history and as a reminder to the present.

Whose America this is, in 2025 or anytime, is a question we’ll be asking as long as the Statue of Liberty stands in the Hudson River.

“The Brutalist” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, rape, drug use and some language)

Running time: 3:35 (includes a 15-minute intermission)

How to watch: Premiered in theaters Jan. 10.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.