The Prodigy (2019)

A little kid can be the death of you.

(2019) Horror (Orion) Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Peter Mooney Colm Feore, Paul Fauteux, Brittany Allen, Paula Boudreau, Elisa Moolecherry, Olunike Adeliyi, Janet Land, Martin Roach, Byron Abalos, Ashley Black, Tristan Vasquez, Nicholas McCarthy, Jim Annan, Milton Barnes, Grace Armas, Brock Johnson, Michael Dyson, Mark Sparks, Martha Girvin. Directed by Nicholas McCarthy

 

The creepy kid is a horror trope that goes back half a century. Kids are innocent, angelic; they are the future and we can’t see anything bad in them – after all, they’re just kids – but who says a kid can’t be a psychopathic monster? There is evidence that some kids have exactly that trait within them from birth.

But the film is quick to point out, in this case, that it isn’t really the poor little dear’s fault. Young Miles Blume (Scott) is born to his protective mom (Schilling) and disbelieving dad (Mooney) just as serial killer Edward Scarka (Fauteux) is killed during a police raid, the cops having been led to his in-the-middle-of-nowhere farmhouse by the sole survivor of his escapades (Allen), who had her hands chopped off for her trouble.

At first, the kid just seems precocious to the delight of mommy. But that soon gives way to genuine creepiness – the dead-eyed stares, the animal abuse, the accident befalling a babysitter (Black). The kid is speaking a rare dialect of Hungarian in his sleep, one spoken by Scarka. It appears the serial killer is not quite dead yet and he has an axe to grind with the woman who got away – and he doesn’t have a problem using young Miles to do it.

Although there are some nice twists and plot points here, this is pretty standard for the subgenre. The big reveal about what is wrong with Miles is answered way too early in the film and rather than giving us a parental “is my kid really a monster” conundrum to deal with, we just get one parent (the mom) denying reality, the other perhaps embracing reality too easily.

Schilling (Orange is the New Black) and Scott (the doomed younger brother in the IT movies) are actually pretty good, particularly Scott who is truly convincing; the movie doesn’t work with a lesser performance in place. But the movie relies too much on jump scares (the refuge of unimaginative directors) and hackneyed dark house stalker clichés to really be of more than passing interest.

REASONS TO SEE: Schilling and Scott give pretty decent performances.
REASONS TO AVOID: Very predictable, utilizing too many jump scares.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some disturbing images, violence, terror, profanity, a sexual reference and brief graphic nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Scott sandwiched the filming of The Prodigy in between shoots for IT and IT Chapter 2, thus meaning he filmed three straight horror movies.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Epix, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/6/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 42% positive reviews: Metacritic: 45/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Bad Seed
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: The Outpost

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New Releases for the Week of February 8, 2019

THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART

(Warner Brothers) Starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Maya Rudolph, Will Ferrell. Directed by Mike Mitchell

The citizens of Bricksburg are once again facing a deadly threat, this time in the form of LEGO Duplo characters from outer space. Their quest will take them to strange unexplored worlds including a galaxy where everything is a musical. Batman sings?

See the trailer, video featurettes, a clip, an interview and a short film here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG (for mild action and rude humor)

Capernaum

(Sony Classics) Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole, Kawthar Al Haddad. A street kid who flees his negligent parents survives by his wits on the streets of Lebanon. When he sees justice meted out in a Lebanese court, he decides to sue his parents for the act of giving him life and then leaving him to rot. The actors are all non-professionals who are given the situations that the screenplay dictated and asked to speak and gesture as if the events were happening to them. Where things deviated from the script the director rewrote to adjust to her actors. This won the Grand Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some drug material)

Cold Pursuit

(Summit) Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum, Tom Bateman. An upstanding citizen, the snowplow driver for a small Northern town, is shattered when his son dies mysteriously. Connecting the death to a local drug lord, he goes on a quest to get justice which turns into a quest to exact vengeance as those sorts of quests often do.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Action
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong violence, drug material, and some language including sexual references)

Piercing

(Greenwich) Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Marin Ireland, Wendell Pierce. An upstanding husband goes on a business trip where he aims to murder an innocent. The call girl he invites to his room however has an agenda of her own.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Thriller
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: R (for aberrant violent and sexual content, nudity, and language)

The Prodigy

(Orion) Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Peter Mooney, Colm Feore. A young mother discovers that her beautiful little boy has been possessed by an evil entity. She is torn between her maternal instinct to protect her son and a need to discover what is wrong with him – a journey that will blur the lines of reality.

See the trailer and video featurettes here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence, disturbing and bloody images, a sexual reference and brief graphic nudity)

What Men Want

(Paramount) Taraji P. Henson, Aldis Hodge, Tracy Morgan, Richard Roundtree. A career driven sports agent has run up against the glass season at the agency where she works. When she obtains the power to hear men’s thoughts, she uses her new-found gift to help her advance her career.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, video featurettes and B-roll video here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for language and sexual content throughout, and some drug material)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

The Aspern Papers
Berlin, I Love You
The Final Wish
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
Mary, Marry Me
Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year
The Second Time Around
Yatra

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE:

Anina
Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel
Integrity
The Invisibles
Natasaarvabhowma
Pegasus
Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year
Untogether
The Wandering Earth
Yatra

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG:

A Violent Man
The Amityville Murders
Beneath the Leaves
Berlin, I Love You
Darkness Visible
The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year
Vijay Superum Pournamiyum
Yatra

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Mary, Marry Me
Natasaarvabhowma
Yatra

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

Cold Pursuit
The Final Wish
Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
What Men Want

New Releases for the Week of July 3, 2015

TERMINATOR: GENISYS

(Paramount) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Emilia Clarke, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, Courtney B. Vance. Directed by Alan Taylor

We’ve seen this one before; human resistance leader John Connor discovers that Skynet has sent a terminator cyborg back in time to kill his mother. He needs someone to protect her and brave Kyle Reese volunteers. Except when he gets back in time, things are a lot different than what John Connor remembered – and Sarah Connor is a whole lot tougher than John ever knew. She has a plan to keep Judgment Day from happening, but Skynet is going all out to ensure that it does.

See the trailer, clips, interviews, a promo and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website .
Release Formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D (opened Wednesday)
Genre: Science Fiction
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and gunplay throughout, partial nudity and brief strong language)

Aloft

(Sony Classics) Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, Melanie Laurent, Oona Chaplin. A woman abandons her son; he seeks answers, cutting himself off from feeling anything in order to bear the weight of a crushing tragedy. A woman who is obsessed with curing herself leaves everything she knows behind in a desperate attempt to follow her dream. All three will meet where past and present merge in an exciting film set in the mysterious and beautiful Arctic.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for language and some sensuality)

Faith of Our Fathers

(Goldwyn/Pure Flix) Kevin Downes, David A.R. White, Stephen Baldwin, Candace Cameron Bure. As the Vietnam War is at its height, two new fathers report for duty – one a cynic, the other devout. They send to their new sons letters hand-written from in country. Years later their sons – now grown men – make a pilgrimage to the Vietnam War monument in Washington DC. They will meet as strangers but they will share a common bond – loving fathers whose bonds cannot be shattered by the chaos of war.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Faith-Based Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Downtown Disney, AMC West Oaks, Regal Oviedo Mall, Regal Pointe Orlando, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, drug material, language and some thematic elements)

Magic Mike XXL

(Warner Brothers) Channing Tatum, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Elizabeth Banks. Three years after Magic Mike, the legendary headliner of the Kings of Tampa hung up his g-string for good, the troupe is ready to call it a day. However, they want one last blow-out at a festival in Myrtle Beach and they convince Mike to dance one last time. On a road trip with stops in Jacksonville and Savannah, the boys will learn that it takes more than moves to be legendary.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard (opened Wednesday)
Genre: Dramedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for strong sexual content, pervasive language, some nudity and drug use)

The Overnight

(The Orchard) Adam Scott, Jason Schwartzman, Taylor Schilling, Judith Godreche. Newly arrived in Los Angeles, a young couple with their young son know nobody in the trendy Silver Lake district. A chance meeting at a birthday party gets them invited to a pizza dinner with the young son who their own son has become fast friends with and his sophisticated parents. Once the kids are put to bed, things get very, very strange very, very fast. Not only has this been getting a huge buzz but this was one of the more acclaimed films at the recent Florida Film Festival and you can read my review of the movie here.

See the trailer and clips here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Sex Comedy
Now Playing: AMC West Oaks, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for sexuality/nudity and language)

The Overnight

Peep show.

(2015) Sex Comedy (The Orchard) Jason Schwartzman, Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Judith Godreche, Max Moritt, R.J. Hermes, Kyle Field, Sarah DeVincentis. Directed by Patrick Brice

Moving to a new city can be a daunting experience, particularly when you don’t know anyone there. We all need a social outlet and finding one in a new place can be something of a priority.

That’s the situation that Alex (Scott) and Emily (Schilling) find themselves in when they relocate from Seattle to the trendy Silver Lake section of L.A. She’s the breadwinner and he works from home and watches their young son R.J. (Hermes). He needs some adult conversation. While at a party for another kid, R.J. hits it off with Max (Moritt). Max’s dad, Kurt (Schwartzman) comes on a little strong at first but he seems to think that the two of them should be friends with he and his wife Charlotte (Godreche). He invites them over for a casual pizza dinner and some playtime for the kids. Alex and Emily readily agree.

It turns out that Kurt has quite the McMansion, more or less tastefully furnished. Everything starts out pretty mellow with plenty of pizza and wine, with Kurt turning out to have a pretty natural rapport with kids. It’s after the kids go to bed that things start to get weird. Turns out that Kurt, who fancies himself something of a renaissance man, has a talent for painting anuses. No, you read that right. He’s got dozens of paintings of bungholes (mostly Charlotte’s) in his studio.

And as Emily discovers, Charlotte is quite the free spirit. She dabbles in massage, but not the kind you find in your local spa – the kind with happy endings, as Emily is shocked to discover. While Emily and Alex aren’t necessarily prudes, they’re both a little bit on the uptight side. Alex is fairly sensitive about the size of his junk, and is especially intimidated when he discovers that in addition to everything else, Kurt is also hung like a horse.

Still with enough pot and champagne swimming in their bloodstreams, Emily and Alex are able to let loose a bit. Then a bit more. And then things get really strange.

Sex comedies have a tendency these days to be focused on horny teens trying to get laid (generally for the first time) so it’s kind of refreshing to have a sex comedy aimed for adults with adult sensibilities.  Writer/director Brice does get a bit into Apatow territory when he goes the penis size route but that’s really not the bulk of the material here. There’s a fish out of water element – the newcomers in hedonistic L.A. – but mainly this is a romp between the sheets.

What works here is the chemistry between the leads. In particular, Schwartzman does some of the best work of his career as the somewhat pompous and out there Kurt who is basically a decent guy who has kind of bought into the whole L.A. thing – it’s an easy temptation, I can tell you – and is kind of a douchebag because of it, but he’s not really a douchebag deep down. That’s fairly complex, but Schwartzman pulls it off.

Scott is becoming a very reliable comic actor with big things ahead of him. I liked him a lot in A.C.O.D. and I like him a lot here as well. He is pleasant enough even when the situation around him is crazy as can be but he seems nonplussed by the insanity. He also makes a very attractive couple with Schilling, who is a versatile actress who is mainly the straight woman here but she has her comedic moments as well.

This is definitely L.A.-centric and those who delight in dissing the City of Angels will have a field day here. Those who love the city as I do will be reminded of summer nights in the City, which can be among the nicest things you can experience in life. Still, the movie is anything but laid-back.

Much of the humor comes from awkward situations which can be…awkward. Still you have to admire a movie in which characters utter the lines “giant horse cock” and “I have an abnormally small cock” in the same scene. You just can’t get that anywhere else but here.

Like most movies, this one knows that the world’s most dangerous question is “Do you find me attractive” and that there’s no answer that doesn’t end badly once it is asked. Not all of the humor works here but when it does it is big laughs. On the balance, this is a rare breed of movie that walks the tightrope that is adult sex comedies. It occasionally falls off the wire but to its credit it gets back on and starts walking forward again, and that’s worthy of respect. This is solidly entertaining, rather funny and likely to be one of those movies that people will look at when Schwartzman, Scott and Schilling become A-list stars.

REASONS TO GO: Good chemistry among four leads. Very funny when it’s funny.
REASONS TO STAY: Not all of the humor works. Definitely awkward.
FAMILY VALUES: Graphic nudity, sexual situations and foul language..
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Filming took place over a mere 15 days, very quick for a feature film.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 4/29/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews. Metacritic: 73/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Ex-Machina

The Lucky One

Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling save the last dance for each other.

(2012) Romance (Warner Brothers) Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner, Jay R. Ferguson, Riley Thomas Stewart, Adam Lefevre Robert Terrell Hayes, Joe Chrest, Russ Comegys, Sharon Morris, Ann McKenzie, Kendal Tuttle, Courtney J. Clark, Jillian Batherson. Directed by Scott Hicks

 

The novels of Nicholas Sparks and the films that are based on them tend to sparkle with a certain patina of sentiment. They are filmed in rich autumnal colors, through hazy lenses smeared with Vaseline. They are the stuff of modern day fairy tales.

Logan Thibault (Efron) is a Marine serving in Iraq. While on his last tour he goes on a raid of a home and comes under heavy fire from snipers. He watches as men from his company and others are cut down by the insurgents.

The next morning he and his men are lounging around the now-secured area when he spies a photograph in the rubble. Curious, he walks over to it, bends over and picks it up to see a beautiful blonde  – when an explosion wipes out the men he’d just been standing with.

The rest of his tour he survives again and again, sometimes without rhyme or reason. One of his fellow Marines jokes that the girl in the picture is his guardian angel. Logan isn’t laughing though; he thinks she might just be.

After leaving the Marines he goes to visit his sister and her family in Colorado but it’s clear he has issues. He’s jumpy, morose and when startled reacts violently. He knows he can’t stay with his sister and her bratty sons; he decides to go find the woman in the photograph. By pure happenstance he stumbles on a picture of the lighthouse in the back of the photo with the woman and decides to hoof it from Colorado to Louisiana.

Six years later, he arrives in Louisiana with scarcely a bunion, his impossibly well-behaved German Shepard Zeus by his side. He shows the picture around town and is led to the local pet groomer’s where he finds the object of his search, Beth Clayton (Schilling). She is divorced from Keith (Ferguson), the town sheriff and son of the powerful Judge Clayton (LeFevre) and at the moment an uneasy peace exists between them, threatened by Keith’s alcohol abuse. Beth lives with her son Ben (Stewart) and her grandma Ellie (Danner) and their business is sorely in need of some help. Beth mistakes Logan for a respondent to her want ad but something about him – the fact that he confessed to having walked from Colorado to Louisiana made her a bit reluctant to hire him. However Ellie – who possesses a Sense About These Things – hires him on the spot, hoping he’ll re-ignite Beth’s spark.

Boy does he ever. It takes a few games of chess with Ben (who takes to the newcomer like a tick to a Golden Retriever), a fully clothed outdoor shower for the two of them together and a couple of beers and before you can say Logan’s Your Uncle, Ben the two of them are canoodling.

But the suspicious Sheriff doesn’t like having his ex hanging around another man and when he finds out that he has the Picture, he blabs it to Beth whom Logan neglected to mention that little tidbit of information to. Who had that picture and why will lead Beth to break things off with Logan, even though everyone and their cousin Moe knows that he’s The One for her. What will it take to get the two of them together? How about a freakish rainstorm?

Yup, this is Nicholas Sparks through and through, laden with coincidences and conveniences. In an interview, he talked about the book having a theme of destiny and fate, items he claims he doesn’t believe in himself. Me, I don’t buy it – most of Sparks’ books have an element of events conspiring to bring true love together by the final chapter, or tearing them apart.

Efron plays the taciturn Logan and we all know that he saw a lot of Bad Things over there because he’s supposed to be haunted. We can tell he’s haunted because his expression never changes. Ever. And his periwinkle blue eyes seem to look right through things. Efron may not be the most expressive actor on the planet but I know he can act. I’ve seen him do it in other movies. I think he either decided to play Logan as a soul-dead person, or he was told to by the director. Either way it was a poor choice. Even so, he has enough natural charisma that I actually liked his character. Go figure.

Schilling doesn’t generate a lot of heat with Efron and really doesn’t do much to make me think Beth is worth walking down the block for, let alone thousands of miles. Danner alone gives her role anything that can be qualified as memorable.

Yet despite all this I liked the movie much more than I thought I would and certainly much more than other critics did. I liked the story line and I liked Efron and I liked the dogs (there are LOTS of them) and I liked the Louisiana setting. I walked out with a good feeling and even though the movie is terribly flawed, I would still count it as a success just for that reason.

REASONS TO GO: Much better than I expected it to be. I liked Efron in this, although I would have liked a bit more expressiveness from him. Nicely photographed.

REASONS TO STAY: A little too over-reliant on coincidence.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some war and domestic violence as well as a bit of sexuality and drinking.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The filmmakers changed the location of the film to Louisiana from North Carolina where the book was set.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 5/5/12: Rotten Tomatoes: 21% positive reviews. Metacritic: 38/100.The reviews are solidly negative.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Message in a Bottle

ARMED FORCES LOVERS: The studio screened the film in advance on military installations throughout the world as a way of saying thank you to the men and women in uniform.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: The Five-Year Engagement

New Releases for the Week of April 20, 2012

THE LUCKY ONE

(Warner Brothers) Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Riley Thomas Stewart, Adam Lefevre, Blythe Danner, Jay R. Ferguson, Robert Terrell Hayes, Joe Chrest. Directed by Scott Hicks

A young soldier’s life is saved in Afghanistan when he pauses to pick up a photo of a woman from the rubble; his platoon, where he’d been standing just moments before is wiped out by an explosion. After his tour of duty ends, the soldier vows to find the woman and thank her. Against all odds, he finds her – and has trouble explaining why he was looking for her in the first place. Soon enough, he falls in love with the comely lass, but there are those who’d rather not see the relationship happen. From the works of Nicholas Sparks.

See the trailer, featurettes and a promo here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 (for for some sexuality and violence)

Chimpanzee

(DisneyNature) Tim Allen (narrator). The latest Earth Day Disney nature feature follows a young chimpanzee named Oscar for the first four years of his life. His life is irrevocably changed when tragedy befalls his mother and he finds himself with a surprising ally.

See the trailer and featurettes here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Nature Documentary

Rating: G  

Think Like a Man

(Screen Gems) Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, Kevin Hart, Gabrielle Union. A group of women read Steve Harvey’s best-selling book and put the information in it to good use in the romantic skirmishes we call modern dating. Stung, the victimized men determine to turn things around by using the book against their women. And here I thought dating was supposed to be fun.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Urban Romantic Comedy

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, some crude humor, and brief drug use)  

Vicky Donor

(Eros Entertainment) Yami Gautam, Annu Kapoor, Ayushmann Khurrana, John Abraham.  The desperate director of a fertility clinic whose success rate has been taking a nosedive sees his fortunes reversed when he discovers a handsome, virile Punjabi whose donated sperm begins creating babies left and right. When the young man falls in love however, his shady past as a sperm donor threatens to kill his relationship before it begins.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood

Rating: NR