August 17, 2023 Movie Mike on Planet 93.9 with Dave and Darren — “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” and “Jules”

Mike Schulz talks with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about The Last Voyage of the Demeter, director André Øvredal’s adaptation of the “Captain’s Log” chapter from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula — ever heard of it? Schulz assures us that “the only thing wrong” with The Last Voyage is that “it’s not scary and it’s repetitive” — usually the sign of death for a movie critic, but for Schulz, ‘tis but a flesh wound, as it’s “surprisingly easy to sit through and it looks great.” He also praises the cast for providing characters in whom one can invest one’s feelings, so when one of the less savory characters gets, y’know, disemboweled, you feel somewhat terrible about it. Since practically everyone aboard the Demeter is a doomed slice of humanity, the film is infused with a sense of tragedy about it from the start because, y’know, Dracula’s gonna do what Dracula’s gonna do. It also helps that the film goes light on the CGI, and uses an actual human, Spanish actor Javier Botet, to portray Dracula. (Botet has Marfan’s syndrome, which has given him extremely long fingers, and makes him a natural fit for playing monsters.) As mentioned before, the only thing wrong with The Last Voyage of the Demeter is that it’s not scary. That sounds a bit like a doctor informing the patient’s family that their dear parental figure has survived in every sense except physically. But Schulz said he’d see it again, presumably to appreciate the artistry of the enterprise more fully. Then there’s Jules, directed by Marc Turtletaub and starring Ben Kingsley, Jane Curtin, Harriet Sansom Harris, Zoë Winters, and Jade Quon. It was everything our intrepid trio thought it would be from last week’s preview: ET meets Cocoon, with the heavies being government agents looking to capture and study the alien harbored by Milton (Kingsley) and his friends. They just want to study it, y’see; maybe cut its head off if that’s what the science recommends. . . basically, every evil-fed cliché we’ve been spoon-fed since Reagan took the oath of office. Levora sounded surprised to hear that the film was still hanging around, with one daily screening at 10AM. Schulz believes the actors themselves are reason enough to catch it, particularly Jane Curtin, who’s been killing it in every film in which she’s appeared this past decade and change. Among the previews Schulz has been tasked with catching is the new DC Universe film Blue Beetle, directed by Ángel Manuel Soto and starring Xolo Maridueña as the titular hero. Levora thought it looked pretty good, but then, the previews for The Flash left him with the same feeling. According to the press release, Maridueña portrays Jaime Reyes, a college grad who becomes the symbiotic host of The Scarab, who’s only too happy to grant the young go-getter with a super-powered exoskeleton with which he can — what? Fight crime? Push balls of dung along a path for one’s dinner? A scarab does what a scarab does, so either sounds plausible, particularly if you think fighting crime is a lot like pushing balls of crap around: There will never be any shortage of either against which one must push. Schulz thinks it sounds “like Shazam all over again,” so his antennae is already up. Our three stop to riff on how so many scenes from too many latter-day super-hero films feature variations on scenes from the classic TV show The Greatest American Hero. Those who remember that Eighties-era show recall how Ralph Hinkley, a remedial-ed teacher played by William Katt, was gifted by aliens with a special suit and cape. As Hinkley lost the instruction book during the pilot episode, he never got a handle on how to use its powers. The show lasted three seasons, and Hinkley was crashing into stuff right up to the final minutes. (“Robert Culp’s exasperation on that show spoke for all of us!” says Levora.) Another forthcoming film is Strays