THE SMALL SCREEN
NEW STREAMING MOVIES AND TV THIS WEEK
“Firestarter”: Stephen King’s creepy tale of a young girl with pyrokinetic powers has a new adaptation from director Keith Thomas. Ryan Kiera Armstrong takes on the role Drew Barrymore originated in 1984 as the girl saddled with the impossible responsibility of protecting her family and herself against the government agency that hopes to weaponize her powers. Zac Efron plays her father opposite Sydney Lemmon as the mother. R. Available on Peacock; also showing in theaters. 1 hour, 34 minutes.
“The Time Traveler’s Wife”: Devotees of Audrey Niffenegger’s novel made its 2009 film adaptation a success despite mixed reviews. Perhaps the intricate sci-fi romance is better suited to a series, which HBO is offering with Rose Leslie and Theo James as the challenged lovers. “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” adapted from the 2003 book by the ever-reliable Steven Moffatt (“Sherlock,” “Doctor Who”), follows the zigzagging relationship of Henry, born with a genetic glitch that causes him to jump across decades, and Claire, whose devotion to him is timeless. TV-MA. Premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday on HBO and HBO Max. “Senior Year”: Stephanie Conway is a popular high school senior in 2002, but a cheerleading accident puts her in a coma for 20 years in this new comedy. After waking up at age 37 in 2022, Stephanie, played by Rebel Wilson, decides to re-enroll and finish out her high school career. Directed by Alex Hardcastle, a veteran of American sitcoms like “New Girl,” “Parks and Recreation” and “The Mindy Project,” the movie co-stars Sam Richardson, Alicia Silverstone, Chris Parnell and Angourie Rice as young Stephanie. R. Available on Netflix. 1 hour, 51 minutes.
‘MONSTROUS’
Christina Ricci stars in a horror film that morphs from haunted-house thriller to creature feature to something else entirely — and something far more interesting. As Ricci’s Laura arrives in rural California from Arizona with her son Cody (Santino Barnard), apparently fleeing an abusive ex-husband, the house seems to be haunted, albeit in a fairly conventional way: flickering lights and other electrical disturbances, a dripping faucet, unexplained rips in the upholstery, and Cody talking about the “pretty lady from the pond” only he can see. Set in the 1950s (at least by appearances), and filmed with the kind of cheesy creature effects that Laura watches on her black-andwhite TV, “Monstrous” plays with cliché and distorted perception, doing a lot with a little. It’s got a twist, as you might expect, and it’s not a bad one, turning something off-puttingly conventional into, well, a nicely resonant surprise. R. Available on demand. Contains terror, mature thematic elements and brief violence. 1 hour, 29 minutes. “Operation Mincemeat”: A period drama based on a real operation in World War II in which British intelligence officers use a dead body dressed as an officer of the Royal Marines in an attempt to dupe the Axis powers and keep the Allied invasion of Sicily a secret. The film, directed by John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), stars Colin Firth and Matthew Macfayden (both of whom, incidentally, have taken spins as Mr. Darcy) as well as Kelly Macdonald and Penelope Wilton. PG-13. Available on Netflix. 2 hours, 8 minutes.
“A-ha: The Movie”: The Norwegian synth-pop band best known for “Take on Me,” the mid-1980s hit that has lived on in the pop culture imagination well beyond its shelf life, is the subject of a new documentary. The film, according to The New York Times, “plays like a slavish yet intermittently lucid Wikipedia entry.” Not rated. Available on demand. 1 hour, 49 minutes. “American Masters: Waterman — Duke: Ambassador of Aloha”: Duke Kahanamoku gets his due in this episode of “American Masters” narrated by Jason Momoa. Kahanamoku won a total of five Olympic medals in the 1912, 1920 and 1924 Games and was an advocate for his native Hawaii and surfing. The documentary, directed by Isaac Halasima, traces Kahanamoku’s rise to fame, encounters with racism, and role in Hawaii’s transition from a kingdom to U.S. state. Archival footage and new interviews, including with top surfers Laird Hamilton and Carissa Moore, help tell the story. TV-PG. Available on PBS.org.
“Our Father”: This true-crime documentary follows the case of Donald Cline, an Indianapolis fertility doctor who used his own sperm to impregnate his patients instead of the samples they had been promised, whether from anonymous donors or their husbands. TV-MA. Available on Netflix. 1 hour, 37 minutes.