The Last Voyage of the Demeter

Posted on August 10, 2023 at 5:56 pm

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for bloody violence
Profanity:	Mild old-fashioned language including racist epithet
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence with many jump scares and disturbing, graphic images, many characters murdered including a child, fires
Diversity Issues:	An issue in the film
Date Released to Theaters:	August 11, 2023

There have been more than 80 movies about Bram Stoker’s Dracula and many, many more inspired but the original story of the Transylvanian nobleman who sleeps by day, never drinks wine, but sucks the blood from human victims unless they’re lucky enough to be carrying garlic and crosses. We’ve seen decadent but elegant vampires, sexy vampires, teenage vampires, even cute cartoon vampires. And now we have “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” a title that gives away the ending away. That is a good thing if what you are looking for is seeing the ship’s crew picked off one by one, signaled with ominous music. Otherwise, skip it.

It is beautiful to look at. The cinematography of Roman Osin and Tom Stern and the settings from production designer Edward Thomas have created an evocative world of 1890s sailing ships and their ports. But the dialogue is clunky, the story is predictable, and most of the characters are one-dimensional. It just makes films that really make you appreciate the artistry of the best of a beast in an enclosed, isolated space films like “Alien” and “The Thing” even more.

Corey Hawkins is the exception as Clemens, a last-minute addition to the crew when one member is spooked by the dragon insignias on a crate being loaded onto the ship. He is an educated man of science with expertise in celestial navigation and medicine. As the other crew members talk about what they are going to to with the bonus money they will get for an on-time delivery of the cargo, Clemens says what he wants money cannot buy — he wants “to understand the world.”

Also on board, at least a the beginning of the voyage, are the Captain (Liam Cunningham), who has decided this will be his last trip, his young grandson (“C’mon C’mon’s” soulful-eyed Woody Norman), and the crew member picked to take over the Captain’s job, David Dastmalchian and Wojchec

The ship sets sail with high spirits and good humor. But then things start to get unsettling, weird and very scary. We know this already because we see what is happening, but just in case we get suspenseful music and portentous dialogue, both heavy-handed.

There are animals on board, including a beloved dog. Something attacks them. Suspicion falls on the new crew member. Inside one of the crates is…a badly injured woman, unconscious and infected. Clemens gives her blood transfusions while crew members suggest tossing her overboard. He wants to take her to the nearest port but no one wants to miss the on-time bonus. So they keep sailing.

And that means we have one dark, stormy night after another, and that means one victim after another. The woman finally regains consciousness to provide some exposition. Her name is Anna (“Game of Thrones'” Aisling Franciosi) and she is a snack, not just in the current slang sense meaning attractive but in the sense of being a nosh for the personification of evil in the crate with the dragon on it.

This version of Dracula is not the kind to be warded off with a cross or a Bible. He can appear and disappear, and as he gets stronger, there are other powers, too. But he does not have enough powers to make this movie more than a series of jump scares and graphic injuries.

Parents should know that this is a horror movie with a vampire, so almost all of the characters are killed in very graphic and disturbing ways. This includes a child and a beloved pet and characters who sacrifice themselves to save others. Some characters burst into flames. There is some crude talk and a racist epithet.

Family discussion: Who had to make the most difficult choice? Which version of Dracula do you like the best?

If you like this, try: Some of the other Dracula movies including the classic with Bela Lugosi and “Nosferatu” — and the book by Bram Stoker

Jules

Posted on August 10, 2023 at 5:49 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for strong language
Profanity:	Strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Character attacked, sad death of a pet, violent murder off-screen
Diversity Issues:	Ageism
Date Released to Theaters:	August 11, 2023

Martin (Ben Kingsley) goes to every meeting of the town council in his western Pennsylvania community. Given one minute to express his views, he points out that he believes the town motto, “A place to call home,” is confusing and an intersection needs a crosswalk. Martin’s daughter Denise (Zoë Winters), a veterinarian, worries about him because his memory is slipping. She found a can of beans in the upstairs bathroom medicine cabinet and a newspaper in the freezer. But he stubbornly insists that he is doing fine.

And then a spaceship lands in Martin’s back yard, and his primary concern at first seems to be that it crushed his azaleas. He calls 911 but they think it’s a prank and hang up on him. And then something or someone from the spaceship is lying on on his porch.

Martin puts a blanket over his new visitor, and the next day invites him/her/it/them inside the house to get warm. (The characters in the movie call the visitor “him,” so I will, too.). Martin offers him snacks, but the only food the creature will eat are apple slices. Martin goes to the grocery store to buy more apples, explaining to the cashier that there is an alien in his house. “Like an illegal alien?” No, like someone from outer space. Zoe hears about it and gets more concerned.

Sandy (Harriet Sansom Harris) sees the alien and cautions Martin to keep him a secret. They decide to call him Jules. Another neighbor, Joyce (Jane Curtin) thinks he looks more like a Gary.

This is a low-key charmer, a kind of “E.T” for AARP. Jules does not speak and it is not clear how much he understands, but the look of his character is well designed (with movement by Jade Quon) to gain the trust and affection of Martin, Sandy, and Joyce, and of us in the audience. He is small in stature but humanoid in shape, with arms, legs, and face that look familiar to earthlings, and a peaceful blue skin color. His eyes seem knowing and his expression is solemn. He draws pictures of cats for Martin, and eventually the three senior citizens will figure out why.

Although there is an (off-camera) moment of violence and a sad loss, there’s a gentleness to the story that is very endearing. Because Jules is silent, people around him tend to open up to fill the silence, sharing confidences with him. Harris and Curtin are wonderful in those scenes. Director Marc Turtletaub’s understated tone allows these performances to bloom so that finally we feel that Jules’ superior intelligence is proven by his choice of a landing spot.

Parents should know that characters use strong language, and assault, and a violent death offscreen that is graphically described.

Family discussion: Do you think you will ever meet an alien? How will Tim react to his father’s message?

If you like this, try: “Cocoon” and “E.T.”

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Posted on August 2, 2023 at 5:40 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for sequences of violence and action, language and impolite material
Profanity:	Some crude schoolyard language: crap, puke, piss off, etc.
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended and tense peril and violence, threats of wiping out humanity, scary creatures, weapons, disturbing images, sad deaths, barfing
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 4, 2023

Imagine a movie much more artistically ambitious than the toys it is based on. Yes, that would be “Barbie.” But it turns out “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” is a nice surprise, with exceptionally inventive and vibrant animation and a funny script from the prolific Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (“Superbad,” “Pineapple Express,” “”Sausage Party”), Jeff Rowe (“The Mitchells vs. The Machines”) and Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez (“The Addams Family 2,” “Detective Pikachu”), and an all-star cast of voice talent that knocks the films best lines out of the park and into the next town.

We know the drill so well we can recite it along with the movie. Baby turtles and a rat were exposed to radioactive ooze (do not call it slime). The rat was Splinter (voiced here by Jackie Chan), who became an adoptive parent to the and 15 years later the turtles were walking upright, talking, trained in ninja-style combat, and named for four groundbreaking Renaissance artists: Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu) told briskly and energetically, establishing the stakes. In this version a scientist named Baxter Stockman (Giancarlo Esposito) created the ooze because he always felt like an outcast, closer to animals than to humans. Don’t think too hard about why, if this is so, he would want to mutate the animals so they would be closer to humans, just go with it.

Scary henchmen for imperious Cynthia Utrom (Maya Rudolph) arrive and kill Stockman. The ooze and the rat and turtle babies are washed away into the sewer. After one disastrous try, Splinter decides that to keep his adopted sons safe from humans, they would stay out of sight forever. But the teenagers want to explore the world and meet people. They’d even like to go to high school. A crime boss named “Superfly” has been organizing heists around the city. The turtles think they could win the support of the human community if they can stop him.

They have one human friend, a high school student and aspiring reporter named April (Ayo Edebiri of “The Bear”). She has been researching Superfly, and she wants to write about the turtles, so they team up.

The animation style has an engaging looseness, even messiness, to it, a welcome change from the pristine perfection of hyper-lifelike CGI or the thin, under-designed images of the original cartoons. There are plenty of pop culture references (Adele, “Avengers: Endgame,” Cool Ranch Doritos — party size), and some self-aware jokes (Donatello wonders why his only weapon is a stick — and learns to appreciate it, too). The interplay between the four turtles is high-spirited and Chan makes a warm-hearted and concerned adoptive dad. And when we meet up with Superfly and his team, we get a new bunch of characters with wild designs and brilliant voices. Paul Rudd’s mutant Gecko with a fondness for Four Non Blondes is one of the great cinematic treats of the summer. Rogen, his “Platonic” co-star Rose Byrne, and John Cena add their voices. But the standout of the film is Ice Cube as Superfly, who hates humans, but loves bowling.

Parents should know that this movie has extended fantasy-style peril and action with some scary-looking monsters and disturbing images, crude schoolyard language (crap, puke) and references, and a sad death.

Family discussion: What is the best way to show people you deserve appreciation and respect? Which turtle is your favorite and why?

If you like this, try: the other TMNT stories, “The Mitchells vs the Machines,” “The Bad Guys,” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)

Haunted Mansion

Posted on July 26, 2023 at 7:54 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for scary action and some thematic elements
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended horror-style images, scary ghosts, many references to murder and mayhem, disturbing images, very sad (offscreen) deaths
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 28, 2023

I am a huge fan of Disney World’s Haunted Mansion and I enjoyed this movie but I have to admit the biggest laugh I got was from the opening credits listing Jared Leto as “The Hatbox Ghost.” I mean, talk about too on the nose.

We will not speak of Disney’s first attempt to make a movie based on one of its most popular attractions, except to say that this one is much, much better, with a starry cast, Disney’s can’t-be-beat production design from
Darren Gilford, and, like the theme park attraction, just the right balance of chills, thrills, and comedy.

I highly recommend the “Behind the Attraction” episode about the creation of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and Disney World (on Disney+). It has a lot of fascinating behind-the-scenes details about the people and the choices that went into creating the creepy house with elongated elevator, the “Doom Buggy,” and the hitchhiking ghosts that follow you home. You will see th “breath mint, no it’s a candy mint” back-and-forth about whether it was supposed to be funny or scary, and how it ended up as both. Director Justin Simien (“Dear White People” and screenwriter Katie Dippold expertly balance scary and funny in the tradition of the attraction and of classic haunted house films like “The Cat and the Canary,” “The Canterville Ghost,” and “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.”

The setting, like the imaginary location of the Disney World attraction, is New Orleans. We meet our reluctant hero, Ben Mathias (LaKeith Stanfield) as a shy astrophysicist specializing in lenses to view the previously unseen around us, as he is meeting the woman who will become his wife, Alyssa (Charity Jordan). She says she is also in the business of locating the unseen. She conducts ghost tours.

A few years later, Alyssa has died, and Ben is consumed with grief and guilt. He drinks too much, and he is a grumpy tour guide, strictly history, nothing paranormal. (I’ve been on a New Orleans ghost tour, by the way, well worth it, but watch out for some damaging misdirection.) He gets a visit from a priest named Kent (Owen Wilson), who has been asked to perform an exorcism at a huge haunted mansion recently purchased by a doctor (Gabbie, played by Rosario Dawson with a severe hairstyle), a recent widow with a young son. Ben has no interest in the job and is certain there is no such thing as ghosts, but he cannot resist the $10,000 fee. He half-heartedly pretends to use his fancy lens in a camera with a dead battery to seek ghosts in the house and pronounces it ghost-free.

Needless to say, it is not. And one of the ghosts, a very soggy one, follows him home and forces him to return, this time with a working camera. Soon Gabbie, her son Travis (Chase W. Dillon), Kent and Ben are trying to figure out what is behind all of the hauntings, along with two other members of the team, historian Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito) and medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish). This self-titled Dream Team has to figure out how to placate the evil spirit before he collects his 1000th soul and is able to wreck havoc on the rest of the world.

The fabulously talented cast gives their all and their all is great fun to watch. Stanfield is, as always brilliant, giving us authenticity in the depiction of his sense of loss without conflicting with the movie’s overall heightened tone. Haddish is hilarious but grounded as the medium, and DeVito gets a chance to, I’m just going to say, get wild. Fans of the attraction will get a big kick out of the many references to its most beloved and iconic objects and characters. This should be a Halloween favorite for generations of families.

There is also a powerhouse list of supporting performers, including Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota, one of the attraction’s most iconic figures. The original was named for Imagineer Leota “Toombs” Thomas, who provided the spooky head chanting incantations in the crystal ball. Daniel Levy has a tiny role (please let there be deleted scenes) as an actor in another spooky historic mansion. And Hasan Minhaj is very funny as a skeptical but very accurate police sketch artist. As for Oscar-winner Leto, well, he is, as is often the case, unrecognizable as a character originally designed for the attraction but not added until much later, when the technology caught up with the concept.

The movie is scary at times but the references to many murders and offscreen deaths that have caused devastating grief for the characters is more disturbing than the gruesome imagery. Simien is very good at breaking the tension with humor just when it is needed. Like the theme park classic, t is sure to be a Halloween favorite for generations to come.

NOTE: Reportedly, Simien insisted on a Black leading man. For those of us with a sense of movie history, it was especially satisfying to have a Black man as the hero, because this genre often had some of the most damaging stereotypes in movie history, with the only Black characters being terrified in a silly manner as comic relief.

Parents should know: This movie includes many scary and disturbing paranormal images and concepts, with murderous ghosts and grisly images. There are extremely sad offscreen deaths, including a parent and a wife.

Family discussion: Do you believe in ghosts? What did the characters learn about the best way to deal with them? Watch the “Behind the Attraction” episode about the Haunted Mansion and when you get a chance, visit it!

If you like this, try: “The Canterville Ghost,” “Ghostbusters,” “The Cat and the Canary,” “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” and “The Addams Family” and its sequel

Barbie

Posted on July 18, 2023 at 7:15 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language
Profanity:	One bleeped strong word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Kens drink a lot of "brewski"
Violence/ Scariness:	Fantasy peril, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 21, 2023

I came out of the “Barbie” movie feeling better about Barbie’s world and better about mine, and I think you will, too. Greta Gerwig directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach, and it is utterly captivating, engaging honestly with all that is enticing and all that is troubling about the world’s most popular doll and the way she is both symbol and perpetuator of positive and negative aspirations. Barbie is available in every possible profession, from pilot to doctor to President to nine different Olympic athletes, twelve different kinds of chef, seven different kinds of musician and five kinds of singer including jazz and rap. She works at McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and See’s Candy, and operates a stall at the farmer’s market. She is a pet groomer, a corporate Chief Sustainability Officer, and she sells Mary Kay products. There are dozens more, plus whatever the girls (mostly) who play with her can dream, but her ridiculously exaggerated feminine shape and essential plastic, consumerist role are concerning. I admit, I had and loved my Barbie, then tried to dissuade my daughter from Barbie-ism. She was given a Barbie and Ken by an aunt, and she loved them. I was wrong. Resistance is futile.

This film begins with all of the fun of Barbie world, as we meet “stereotypical” or original Barbie (Margot Robbie), whose life is one perfect day after another. She wakes up in her Barbie dream house, enjoys her pretend breakfast, then stops by the beach, where the Kens hang out (their job is “beach” — not lifeguard, not surfer, just beach). She believes that the Barbies took over from the centuries-old tradition of giving little girls baby dolls, so they could pretend only to be mothers and housewives, the chance to play with adult woman dolls mastering every profession led to unobstructed opportunity and accomplishment in the real world. In Barbie world, everything is pink and pristine, and everyone (almost) is a Barbie or a Ken. The Supreme Court is all Barbies. Construction crews are all Barbies. President Barbie (Issa Rae) presides in a pink version of the White House. The Barbies love to have girls’ night sleepovers and huge parties with choreography. Kens are just there to admire and support the Barbies. Ryan Gosling plays the Ken who lives for the brief moments each day when Barbie notices him.

Every day is the same and every day is perfect…until one day things start to go wrong. Barbie starts to ponder the prospect of death. Just as disturbing, her perfectly arched, high-heel-ready feet are suddenly FLAT!! She visits Weird Barbie (no one does weird better than Kate McKinnon), who offers her the red pill/blue pill option: does she want to stay in blissful ignorance or does she want to visit the real world, where the dark thoughts of the person playing with the doll are coming from.

And so Barbie and Ken find themselves rollerblading on a real beach, and immediately getting into trouble. For all of her consumer purchases, Barbie does not have any money. When they escape the real world and get back to Barbie world and bring that trouble with him. Ken has learned about the patriarchy and likes the idea of men running everything. The Barbies have never had to face a challenge like that. Will the Kens take over Barbie world?

The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto and production design by Sarah Greenwood make Barbie world enticing and Robbie and Gosling inhabit their roles with endless charm that almost disguises the precision of their craft. This is not a parody or a high satire. The terrific screenplay skillfully mixes the silly with the heartfelt and the actors deliver with every shift.

Adorably, Gerwig and Baumbach bring in some of the most strange and esoteric aspects of real-life Barbie history and as we see in the closing credits all of it is real. Michael Cera plays Allan, based on a briefly available friend for Ken. We also see the pregnant Midge, the Barbie who is also a camera, and pubescent “Growing Up Skipper.” And we get a monologue from working mother Gloria (America Ferrara) that ties together the crushingly unrealistic expectations of women that Barbie represents and perpetuates. And narration from Dame Helen Mirren is a lovely touch. The Barbies and Kens are diverse in race and body type, with Simu Liu and Rae so good they left me wishing for a spin-off. The movie comes down on the side of heart and brain, fantasy and reality, and, of course, the Indigo Girls.

There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine.

Parents should know that this movie is not for children. There are references to the dolls’ lack of genitals and some mild sexual references, Kens drink a lot of beer, and there is a bleeped out bad word. More important, the film deals with issues of purpose and meaning and struggle that younger viewers may find troubling.

Family discussion: Have you ever played with a Barbie? If not, why not and if so, which Barbie did you like?

If you like this, try: Forever Barbie, a terrific history of the doll, and Barbie and Ruth, the story of the real-life Ruth Handler, played by Rhea Perlman in the film