Review – The Last Voyage of the Demeter

I’m a huge fan of the idea of taking a small moment from a well-known work and spinning it out into a story of its own. But my enthusiasm for the concept often leaves me underwhelmed by the execution, which was definitely the case here. The tale of the hapless crew of a sailing ship picked off one at a time by a thirsty vampire could have been good. But the plot meanders so much that eventually it stops making sense. For example, our heroes discover where Dracula sleeps during the day. But for no good reason – unless I missed something somewhere, which is definitely possible – they don’t kill him. Production values are good, but that isn’t enough to make up for the threadbare plot. Plus a loss of a point for animal cruelty, including the death of a child’s pet dog. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Priscilla

How can something this horrific possibly be this boring? Part of the problem is Sofia Coppola’s typical excess of art house conceits. The decision to use Priscilla Presley’s memoir of her life with Elvis as the primary source material also guaranteed that the script would be too honest about their relationship for the liking of the estate (thus the absence of Elvis’s music on the soundtrack) while at the same time not being honest enough about the abusive nature of their dating and married lives. The result is pretty but also pretty dull. Mildly amusing

Review – Nimona

I’m a big fan of Noelle Stevenson’s source novel, so I admit I was nervous about how Netflix might adapt it. Turns out they did a good job with it, not completely faithful but close enough to preserve the spirit of the story. The digital animation worked well, too. Worth seeing

Review – The Devil on Trial

This documentary covers the real murder that supplied the story for the third Conjuring movie, the ridiculous case of a defendant who sought acquittal based on the notion that he was possessed by a demon at the time of the crime. I both loved and hated the decision to wait until the end of the movie to let one of the interviewees tell the truth about the whole mess. Mildly amusing

Review – The Pope’s Exorcist

With all the resources at the Pope’s command, you’d think he could come up with a better exorcist than a curmudgeonly Russel Crowe, a rogue priest with his own brand of demon expulsion. Despite his extensive track record, the old guy’s really struggling with his latest assignment: a boy who apparently spent long enough in a creepy church to end up with a bad case of demonic possession. Along the way to casting out the unclean spirits, we get a lot of backstory drama that doesn’t make the tale dramatically more interesting. Mildly amusing