A peculiar mix of existential road trip journey and deeply human dystopian drama, this year’s international film contender from Spain is a curiosity made more memorable through the trance of its soundscape. Oliver Laxe’s transfixing drama Sirat (B-) is a puzzling tale set in Morocco rave culture and follows desert denizens through a series of raw, uncompromising and disturbing episodes. The main throughline is a quest for a missing girl, but a variety of congregating characters contribute to a narrative about people facing their limits. The ensemble of actors plays its respective parts with no clear standout (Nashville it ain’t), but Kangding Ray (aka David Letellier) is the film’s MVP providing the atmospheric electronic score. The movie’s high points are visceral, experimental and observant as it plays witness to earth’s people as playthings and random occurrences as part of cosmic universal truths. The film nearly begs for concessions served in a dime bag. Like many who may imbibe and watch this, it loses significant steam toward the end.
A luxury nine-screen cinema — introducing a next-generation moviegoing experience to the region — is beginning shows this weekend in a haven known for moviemaking and a creative environment nourishing storytelling.
The newest outpost of Southeastern chain Georgia Theatre Company, Inc. (“GTC Cinemas”) is opening at the region’s newest state-of-the-art entertainment and special event venue Trilith LIVE, located at 165 Trilith Parkway in Fayetteville, Georgia.
The new multiplex of auditoriums range from the GTX Georgia Theatre Extreme room which currently houses the Avatar sequel to smaller viewing rooms for independent or artier fare.
The new Georgia Theatre Company cinema promises a moviegoing experience unlike any other. It will feature a revolutionary Samsung Onyx screen for crystal-clear LED brilliance and the GTX Premium Large Format auditorium for an immersive audio-visual experience.
Complete with full-service bars, the theater is positioned to become a premier destination for unforgettable nights out. Businesses or groups can also reserve auditoriums for events.
“We are thrilled to partner with Trilith to introduce a cinema experience that sets a new standard for moviegoers,” said Bo Chambliss, president of Georgia Theatre Company. “We are not just opening a new theatre; we are creating an unparalleled entertainment destination. This cinema is a testament to our commitment to delivering the magic of the movies, and we can’t wait for the community to experience it with us.”
Among the many features of the new theatre are “Bargain Tuesdays” with discounted tickets. With all the talk about the relevance of movie theatres for shared experiences and a 2026 ahead with new tentpole Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan movies and new Shrek, Toy Story and Avengers blockbusters, it will be a watershed year for major event spectacles.
We’ll share more news as our Silver Screen Capture team pays its first visit to Trilith Cinemas for Friday, December 18 programming.
Get to KnowTrilith LIVE!
Trilith LIVE, the region’s newest state-of-the-art entertainment and special event venue recently announced its grand opening season of live events, set to ignite Fayetteville with a vibrant slate of concerts, family shows, corporate meetings and community events. The grand opening season gets fully underway in 2026 with a variety of entertainment events.
This multi-faceted development promises to transform the region’s cultural landscape, offering an unparalleled array of live performances, cinematic experiences and unique events. The project has attracted a dynamic mix of touring artists, television productions, corporate meetings and conventions that will strengthen Fayette County, Georgia’s position as a hub for economic development. Many have already been enjoying live game shows and reality shows in the venue’s live sound stages.
“Trilith LIVE is more than just a venue; it’s a new epicenter for arts, culture and entertainment in the region,” said Matt McClain, executive director & general manager of Trilith LIVE. “We’ve built a space with state-of-the-art technology and incredible flexibility to attract a diverse lineup of live entertainment and special events. We are incredibly excited to open our doors and provide unforgettable experiences for this community and beyond.”
Engineered for adaptability, the venue features an immersive sound system, massive LED walls and a full broadcast suite. With a capacity of up to 2,800, it will host everything from major concerts and performing arts to corporate events and banquets.
Trilith LIVE’s inaugural live entertainment season has a lineup that caters to all audiences, including the following events announced so far:
Gabby’s Dollhouse Live! – Jan. 15, 2026
Jackie Hill Perry – Feb. 7, 2026 (sold out)
38 Special – Feb. 13, 2026
An Evening with October London & Lalah Hathaway – Feb. 14, 2026
Popovich Comedy Pet Theatre – Feb. 17, 2026
Dwight Yoakam – Feb. 20, 2026
Hairball – Feb. 27, 2026
Rick Braun – Feb. 28, 2026
Home Free – Highways & High Seas Tour, March 20, 2026
Little River Band – March 28, 2026
Legends of Laughter: Sommore, Earthquake, Lavell Crawford and Don DC Curry – April 11, 2026
Michael W. Smith – April 18, 2026
Handyman HalComes to Town – April 24, 2026
Jeffrey Osborne – May 2, 2026
Randy Travis – The More Life Tour with guest vocalist James Dupre’ – May 22, 2026
Trilith LIVE’s corporate gatherings and community events include the following events announced so far:
Etherio Company Meeting – Dec. 15, 2025
City of Fayetteville CPR Training – Dec. 17, 2025
Fayette County Development Authority Meeting – Jan. 20, 2026
Fayette County Intergovernmental Business Outlook – Feb. 12, 2026
CREW Leadership Summit – Feb. 26, 2026
Georgia Chamber of Commerce Conference – March 11, 2026
Fayette County Board of Realtors Awards Gala – March 21, 2026
Fayette PRC Spring Gala – March 27, 2026
Harp’s Crossing Christian Academy Annual Fundraising Gala – April 30, 2026
Faith & Institutional Investing Summit – June 4-5, 2026
Hitachi Construction Machinery Americas Conference – July 21-23, 2026
State of the Industry hosted by Trilith Studios – Oct. 22, 2026
Two Sparrows Village Bird Bash – Nov. 13, 2026
For more information about these events at Trilith LIVE, please visit the facility’s website.
Passion City Church at Trilith LIVE
Adding to the community’s vibrant spirit, Passion City Church will soon make Trilith LIVE its newest location. Known for its mission centered on the glory of God, radical grace and extravagant worship, the church will bring its message to Trilith LIVE to further enrich the diverse fabric of Trilith and underscore the development’s commitment to fostering connection and shared experiences.
“Passion City Church is thrilled to make Trilith LIVE our home—a place to gather as followers of Jesus, build strong community, and host city-wide events,” said Louie Giglio, global pastor of Passion City Church. “It will take all of us, through collective generosity, to bring this vision to life and create a space where we worship.”
For more information about Passion City Church, please visit its website.
About The Town of Trilith
The Town of Trilith, adjacent to Trilith Studios, is a 235-acre master-planned residential and mixed-use project in south metro Atlanta. Envisioned as a gathering place for creatives, artists, storytellers and makers, this European-inspired community will include 750 single-family homes, 600 multifamily lofts, 300 hotel rooms and 270,000 square feet of restaurants, retail, office, and commercial space. The residential neighborhoods at Trilith comprise the largest geothermal community in the United States, with 51% of the development dedicated to green space that is currently home to more than 1,000 trees. Upon completion, residents will have access to 15 miles of nature trails, 54 acres of forest, 19 landscaped parks, and one of the most sophisticated and welcoming dog parks in the world. For more information about Town of Trilith, please visit its website.
Kleber Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent (B+) is a B-movie with a purpose. Even its title is a disguise for what it actually is. The movie follows a former professor played by a towering Wagner Moura who is caught in the political turmoil of the final years of the Brazilian military dictatorship, attempting to flee persecution and resist an authoritarian deceitful regime. Time jumps, all-out action scenes, even fantastical sequences punctuate a ‘70s stone-cold simmer. Leveraging the conventions of a pulp picture or drive-in style film helps some of the director’s headier themes rise to the surface. Moura is a charismatic and expressionistic vessel for the director’s intentions. It’s an engrossing film with carefree detours and hot takes on the way to profundity.
In a year with legitimate soaring music in a film set in the music industry (the rap face-off plus the pop songstress finale in Highest 2 Lowest) and moving film-within-a-film (the virtuoso director character in Sentimental Value lensing truly moving footage), Director Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? (C) manages to make stand-up comedy look about as boring as could be. Will Arnett’s protagonist is down in the dumps as his marriage to Laura Dern’s character crumbles, and he takes on open mics as a form of therapy. The cinematography gives a “you are there” quality despite it not being clear why any of us are there. The best sequences in the film are opposite child actors (they’re great). The film is neither funny nor insightful enough to stand out as either root word of “dramedy.” Arnett and Dern embody authenticity as real people, but they’re forced into scenarios and situations that don’t feel incredibly thought out. No star is born here nor any act of a maestro is on display. This one feels a little like they’re making it up as they go along.
You can call it playing a character “similar to himself” all you want, but George Clooney isn’t stretching all that much as a veteran actor regretting some of his choices in Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly (C). To flee an incident likely to get him bad press, the protagonist and his longtime manager (Adam Sandler) step away to Europe, where there’s reflection on his legacy, a look back at his cinematic canon and a flurry of memories about choices he made related to his daughters (Riley Keough and Grace Edwards). Baumbach fills the film with insider elements about the movie business but fails to paint an intriguing central character. With not much interesting to see related to the titular character and the sidelining of an inciting incident, Sandler gets a few moments to shine as he laments whether he’s a friend or a cost center in a few sequences opposite Laura Dern as a similarly underappreciated publicist. This meta narrative treads very little new themes and isn’t particularly insightful or funny. There’s a moment during a film retrospective that was kind of embarrassing in its awards season thirst. This year alone, the film Sentimental Valueis a far richer film on the gulf and intersections between art and humanity.
Writer/director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident (A-) traces a chance encounter at a body shop between two men in modern Iran who may or may not share fraught history; and as other characters enter the fray too, memories of the background between the two primary men become even more blurry. This is like a heist movie without the bounty: as the band gets together, the pieces of a political puzzle coalesce. Vahid Mobasseri is the standout main character, and viewers get to watch his vacillation over remembrances and feel his penchant for vengeance against an oppressor. Expect vigorous debates and revelations and sparse use of artifice like musical score. Panahi, who has risked his life and liberty for his anti-regime filmmaking, gets a stellar auteur showcase with this movie. It comes together beautifully in the final passages and is sure to spark discussion.
Amanda Seyfried has been an unconventional film presence throughout her career and sinks her everything into the controversial title subject of Mona Fastvold’s historical epic The Testament of Ann Lee (B+). The actress elevates her every screen sequence as a 16th century pioneer of The Shakers religion, from awakening to ascent to persecution and more. The film explores fascinating areas of faith, mysticism, sexuality, independence, modernity and grief in mighty measures. Like their collaboration on The Brutalist, Fastvold co-wrote the film with Brady Corbet, but this time she directs – and she is well suited to the material. It’s an oddity for sure, with full-fledged musical moments and peculiar twists and turns. William Rexer’s cinematography is solid, although the music is a bit repetitive and the narration sometimes cloying. Fastvold and Seyfried take their tale to the limits and inject tremendous kinetic energy into what could have been straightforward and staid. It’s not for every palette but it’s more risky and twisty than your average religious drama.
Multiple generations have difficulty communicating except through their art in Joachim Trier’s methodical and exhilarating drama Sentimental Value (A). Set in and around a charming legacy family home in Norway, the film follows a fractured relationship between an acclaimed movie director (Stellan Skarsgard) and his two estranged daughters played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, which becomes even more complicated when he decides to make a personal film about their family history including an American actress played by Elle Fanning. This is one of the rare works in which the films within the film are of enough quality that viewers will realize the characters are exceedingly bright and talented even if they stumble at maneuvering through real-life human relationships. Gorgeously shot by Kasper Tuxen, the film gracefully discovers mature and intimate moments that add up to a most poignant portrait. Highlights include tension around stage fright in action in a high-stakes theatre, a revealing look at a charged script filled with revelations and a torrent of healing between sisters. The sterling acting ensemble including keen child actors does complex and nuanced work all around, especially Reinsve and Skarsgard as among the most deliriously damaged. There’s warmth and good music here too, amidst all the somber solemnity. In all he does within his marvelous framework, Trier fashions subtle and moving ways to show people pushing within their respective limits in the parts they are born to play in life.
Despite a promising premise, Hikari’s Rental Family (C) proves an undercooked and overly sentimental bunch of hokum. Brendan Fraser plays an American commercial and character actor working in Japan who is recruited by an unusual talent agency to portray fictional people in real life to compensate for something that’s missing. He’s like an emotional support animal to upend family dynamics. Whether it’s the single mother who needs him to play the long-lost dad to help her daughter get into a private school or the single and struggling bachelorette in need of a convenient and compensated groom to prove to her parents she’s suitably settled, the film is episodic and oddly clinical. Some of these matches offer more than each bargains for as the actor learns more about himself and the culture in which he’s engulfed. Although likable enough, Fraser plays his character at a distant low simmer, and the escapades are neither subtle nor arch enough to much entertain. It’s all rather restrained and predictable. As a meditation on loneliness, it succeeds in spurts, but it’s also tied in too tidy a package to expose much below the surface.
Take one iambic pentameter for your sadness, and call me in the morning. Set in the Elizabethan era, Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet (C) depicts two parents grieving the loss of a child in very different ways. Jessie Buckley offers a raw and harrowing reaction; and Paul Mescal, who plays William Shakespeare, addresses his sadness more obliquely through the presentation of a tragic stage play far away from the domestic despair. Despite Zhao’s penchant for painterly and geometric imagery, there’s not a whole lot going here: sequences of courtship, pregnancy, illness, loss and reaction play out in slow dollops. It’s a far better showcase for Buckley, doing very fine work here, than Mescal, who just doesn’t seem as ensconced in the devastation. The strained chemistry between the central pair doesn’t help; thus the final act, moving for many, rang like artificial Oscar bait. It’s a bitter quill with few breakaways or takeaways.
This is the film that finally answers the question, “If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” In this case, it makes both a sound and a statement. Gorgeously shot, gingerly paced and sneakily profound, Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (A) stars Joel Edgerton as a logger, railroad worker and hermit in the early 20th century whose life might not have been outwardly remarkable but proves deeply worthy of examination as a universal allegory for the human plight on earth. The movie confronts time and modernity and observes how the human animal responds to stimuli and reacts across a lifetime. Judicious narration by William Patton evokes both the folksy language of the source novella from which this work is adapted and also that of a nature documentary as we watch Edgerton’s man of few words and even fewer outside influences process love, remorse and so much more within the confines of a sparse story. Adolph Veleso’s lush cinematography does a lot of the film’s heavy lifting, with natural wonders such as luminous sunsets, kaleidoscopic forest fires and gurgling river currents, punctuating lyrical passages with a free flow of landscapes and dreamscapes. Bryce Dessner of rock band The National provides a lovely, ethereal soundtrack to the proceedings. In small but critical parts of the ecosystem on display, an affecting ensemble including Kerry Condon and William H. Macy makes an indelible imprint, their tiny explosions inciting rousing ripple effects opposite the endearing Edgerton. This memory piece is film as poetry, worth a watch and a washing over you. Bentley channels the cinematic pioneer of this form, Terrence Malick, in effervescent use of natural settings to paint an impressionistic human portrait. The movie’s omniscient, elegiac beauty makes for one of the singular cinematic experiences of the year.
Director Jon M. Chu’s hat trick seemed to be nimbly splitting a Broadway musical’s two acts into a double whammy of film spectaculars. Trouble is, the first film was packed with confectionary creativity and a veritable bandstand of bops, so stretching this half adaptation into a sprawling opus simply enhanced the delight. The second installment is as empty as the antagonist wizard’s promises, padding a paltry batch of dirges and a virtually choreography-free display with most of the characters distant, deceitful and depressed. So it may bill itself as Wicked: For Good (C+), but it’s definitely not nearly as good. Much of the sequel replaces its signature girl power with Dynasty-style lady slaps, shoulder pads, back-biting, in-fighting and wedding cliffhangers. The witches and lovers who were once dancing through life and defying gravity seem generally bored this time around. Even the CGI animals are pretty much over the bull-shiz. Both Ariana Grande’s Glinda and Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba get new Stephen Schwartz songs which are showstoppers only in the way they stop the film dead in its tracks (Erivo doesn’t even get to finish her subpar number). Much time has passed since the origin story for this origin story, and a bunch of characters seem to now be behaving badly to help fill in the nightmarish narrative between the witches’ time at school and Dorothy’s house dropping into the scene. The formerly spry Jonathan Bailey gets little to do this time around; and Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum are dreadful double-threats in both the acting and singing departments as a pair of insipid villains. The Fiyero/Elpheba pop anthem “As Long as You’re Mine” and the Glinda/Elphaba ballad “For Good” are the only good musical numbers in the mix. Those who haven’t seen the stage show may enjoy some of the surprising backstories to the yellow brick roadies, but most of the magic goes up in smoke. Grande makes the most of her character in what is otherwise a much more grim fairy tale this time around.
