New Releases for the Week of February 21, 2020

THE CALL OF THE WILD

(20^th Century Fox) Harrison Ford, Karen Gillan, Omar Sy, Bradley Whitford, Dan Stevens, Cara Gee, Jean Louisa Kelly, Wes Brown, Terry Notary. Directed by Chris Sanders

Based on the classic Jack London novel, this is the tale of Buck, a dog with a big heart but unfortunately a clumsy manner, the latter of which gets him exiled from his comfortable California home to the wilds of Alaska, He makes friends with a curmudgeonly loner and ends up making his own destiny as the leader of a mail sled dog team.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Adventure
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for some violence, peril, thematic elements and mild language)

10 Things to Do Before We Break Up

(Vision) Christina Ricci, Hamish Linklater, Jon Abrahams, Katia Winter. Two people who don’t believe in love get together in a relationship they both know is doomed, but it soon becomes apparent neither one of them wants it to end.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Romance
Now Playing: Old Mill Playhouse
Rating: NR

The Assistant

(Bleecker Street) Julia Garner, Matthew Macfadyen, Mackenzie Leigh, Kristine Froseth. A young woman fresh out of college gets her dream job working as an executive assistant to a powerful entertainment mogul. As her day goes by, she begins to notice the subtle degradation that permeates her job and decides at last to take a stand.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Barnstorm Theater, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some language)

Atlantics

(Netflix) Mame Sane, Amadou Mbow, Nicole Sougou, Aminata Kane. A group of construction workers in Dakar who haven’t been paid for months abandon their jobs and decide to take to the sea to find better opportunities elsewhere. One of them is Suleiman, the lover of Ada, who is promised to another man but who loves Suleiman.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Cinematique of Daytona
Rating: NR

Bheeshma

(Blue Sky) Bishu Sengupta, Rashmika Mandanna, Nithin, Vennela Kishore. A young man who creates memes for a living is determined to remain a bachelor for the rest of his days, but fate seems to be conspiring against him.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Amstar Lake Mary, Cinemark Orlando
Rating: NR

BHOOT: Part One – The Haunted Ship

(ZEE) Vicky Kaushal, Bhumi Pednekar, Ashutosh Rana. A bereaved shipping officer must save a girl he believes to be real who has been appearing on a derelict ship – the Sea Bird – that is believed to be haunted. The first of two parts.

=See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks
Rating: NR

Brahms: The Boy II

(STX) Katie Holmes, Owain Yeoman, Christopher Convery, Ralph Ineson. When a family moves into a stately old home with a checkered past, their young son makes friends with a life-sized doll named Brahms.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for violence, terror, brief strong language and thematic elements)

The Lodge

(NEON) Riley Keough, Richard Armitage, Alicia Silverstone, Jaeden Lieberher. A family vacations at a remote mountain cabin for the holidays but when the father is forced to return to work abruptly, he leaves his two children in the care of his new girlfriend. However, terrifying events powered by spectres from her dark past haunt the three of them as a blizzard traps them there.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Orlando, Regal Waterford Lakes, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for disturbing violence, some bloody images, language and brief nudity)

My Boyfriend’s Meds (Las píladoras de mi novio)

(Pantelion) Jaime Camil, Sandra Echévarria, Jason Alexander, Brooke Shields. A dream trip to a tropical paradise turns into a nightmare when her boyfriend accidentally leaves his prescription meds behind..

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Epic Theaters of Lee Vista, Regal The Loop
Rating: NR

The Night Clerk

(Saban) Ana de Armas, Helen Hunt, John Leguizamo, Tye Sheridan. A young, socially challenged night clerk at a hotel witnesses a murder in one of the rooms. However, his actions are deemed suspicious by the detective in charge who makes him the number one suspect.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Suspense
Now Playing: Old Mill Playhouse
Rating: R (for language, some sexual references, brief nudity and violent images)

Olympic Dreams

(IFC) Nick Kroll, Alexi Pappas, Gus Kenworthy, Morgan Schild. A cross-country skier at the 2018 Winter Olympic games feels alone in a crowd in the Village. She links up with a volunteer dentist who is having relationship problems and maybe the spark of something is ignited. This was reviewed last week by Cinema365; you can follow the link to review by clicking on the movie’s name under “Scheduled To Be Reviewed” below.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: Barnstorm Theater
Rating: PG-13 (for some language and sexual references)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

(NEON) Noémie Merlant, Adele Haenel, Laura Bajrami, Valeria Golino. A woman is commissioned to paint a portrait of a reluctant bride to send to a potential suitor in 18^th century France. However, the painter who is there under the guise of being a companion (and paints her portrait by night) soon develops romantic feelings for her subject.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Historical Drama
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for some nudity and sexuality)

Standing Up, Falling Down

(SHOUT!) Billy Crystal, Ben Schwartz, Grace Gummer, Nathan Corddry. After his stand-up career fails to take off in Los Angeles, a man returns home to Long Island to regroup. Along the way he rekindles old relationships and strikes up a new one with an eccentric dermatologist who has regrets of his own.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Old Mill Playhouse
Rating: NR

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Hai Tang Hong
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Swift

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE/KEY WEST:

Citizen K
Corpus Christi]
Hai Tang Hong
Hump!
India vs. England
Mafia: Chapter 1
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Those Who Remained
True Fiction
Varda by Agnes

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

Impractical Jokers: The Movie
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Emerald Run
Impractical Jokers: The Movie
Mafia: Chapter 1
Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Brahms: The Boy II
Call of the Wild
The Lodge
Olympic Dreams
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Standing Up, Falling Down

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Olympic Dreams

Olympic gold.

(2019) Romantic Comedy (IFC) Nick Kroll, Alexi Pappas, Gus Kenworthy, Morgan Schild. Directed by Jeremy Teicher

 

Sometimes, less is more.

Armed with a minimal crew and a largely improvised script (that never feels it), Teicher, co-writer Pappas and a small cast were granted extraordinary access to the Olympic village at the 2018 PyeongChang winter games. While the backstage pass is half the fun here, it is not all of it.

Penelope (Pappas, who was an Olympic runner at the 2016 Rio games in real life) is a cross-country skier on the American team who approaches the opening ceremony of the Games with a mixture of childlike wonder and deer-in-the-headlights fear. Her event will be one of the very first of the games so she doesn’t have a whole lot of time to take it all in. She does her best – gets a personal best time, as a matter of fact, but as is sometimes the case, her best isn’t good enough. She finishes out of the medal competition.

She’s left with a whole lot of time and not much to do. On the other hand, Ezra (Kroll) is a volunteer dentist, an Olympic junkie who has waited for this moment for his entire life. He loves chatting with the athletes and sees that Penelope is a bit down in the dumps, so he approaches her. Eventually the two form a friendship and while both are a bit awkward – Penelope’s training precluded any sort of social life, while Ezra is hampered by a fiancée back at home that he is taking an unwilling break from – they circle each other, unsure of what move to make next.

All this takes place amid the pomp and pageantry of the Games and on “dates” in PyeongChang itself. Teicher, who did most of the filming and sound recording himself, manages to capture a kind of rom-com sweetness that transcends the location which is quite a feat. Kroll and Pappas have real chemistry together and we get a real sense of what Penelope is going through, a kind of “What now?” moment that she doesn’t have an easy answer for. She is alone in a crowded room, not possessed of the self-confidence some of the other athletes have, and her isolation is often palpable. She has no friends and makes tearful calls to her coach at home, exclaiming on what a great time she’s having while it’s clear she is hurting.

Ezra, likewise, is finding it harder than he thought. He is not happy with his life and suspects that his fiancée might not be the right woman for him – he loves to travel and she hates leaving the States. Still, he is not a man who likes to take chances – he’s a dentist fer chrissakes – who yearns to step out of the rut he’s in but is unsure if he has it in him to do so.

In a very real sense they are good for each other, but like most real people they are also bad for each other. The two fight – over his inability to take a chance, over her self-centered devotion to her sport – and one wonders what kind of future the two could possibly have. In addition, there’s an age factor – he’s 37, she’s 22 – which isn’t belabored in the film but is clearly on Ezra’s mind.

The ending kind of gets to a point that you think it’s going to go but it doesn’t get there the way you thought it might. You at times want to shake Ezra and tell him “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU? KISS THE GIRL, DAMMIT!” and at the same time you want to shake Penelope and tell him “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU? YOU’RE COMING ON TOO STRONG!!” The script does follow kind of a standard rom-com formula and like I said it doesn’t always go about it in the way you’d expect, but those who love this much-abused genre are going to enjoy this. It’s even appropriate that it came out on Valentine’s Day. Not a bad way to spend a cold night with your honey, in front of a TV set with a warm blanket, hot cocoa and this film. There is nothing wrong with having the cockles of your heart warmed, after all.

REASONS TO SEE: There is a lot of charm here.
REASONS TO AVOID: There is also a few rom-com tropes.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity and some sexual situations.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first film that was allowed to shoot in the Olympic village during an Olympic games.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: AppleTV, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/14/20: Rotten Tomatoes:63% positive reviews: Metacritic: 56/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Cutting Edge
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Beautiful Boy