Mike Schulz talks with Dave Levora and Darren Pitra about the hypnotic qualities of Levora’s lava lamp, as well as stuff cinematic. Schulz, sadly, did not like Meg 2: The Trench as much as he did the first film. 2018’s The Meg, directed by Jon Turteltaub from Steve Alten’s 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (aka “Jurassic Shark”), was well aware of the goofiness of the premise, and so everyone, including Jason Statham and the best-boys, had fun with it. In Ben Wheatley’s sequel, everything is dead serious. Schulz has invested such hopes that the fun of the first film not be lost in the second, so Wheatley has left him the critical equivalent of a newly-minted vagrant wearing a barrel with suspenders. DAMN you, Wheatley! Schulz loved Theater Camp, the directorial débuts of Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, from a script they co-wrote with Ben Platt and Noah Galvin. Given that Schulz is an overgrown theater kid, he warns that those not as inclined as he to, or had spent enough time within, that world might not get as much out of it. Starring Gordon, Galvin, Platt, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Nathan Lee Graham, Ayo Edebiri, Owen Thiele, Caroline Aaron, and Amy Sedaris, Theater Camp is a mockumentary set among “the young and the fabulous” as they spend their summer doing summer-stock productions of Damn Yankees, Cats, and The Crucible Jr. (“It would have been better if we got to see any of these scenes,” Shulz says, “but I guess [the filmmakers’ inability to secure the] rights kept us away.”) Levora said Schulz’s review made him want to revisit Wet Hot American Summer, which had its own memorable theatrical scenes, and Schulz concurred that the humor of Theater Camps falls within the spectrum of David Wain’s 2001 classic. Levora also said he didn’t expect Schulz to like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, given we’ve already had decades of permutations on Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s creation. But Schulz, who said he was impressed with the animation he had seen in the previews, admitted that he had a lot of fun with what director Jeff Rowe did with the script he co-wrote with Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Dan Hernandez, and Benji Samit, even though what that august crew serve up is yet another origin story. (“We know. Already.”) Schulz appreciated the “really sharp, sharp jokes and gags and great vocal performances,” in particular Ice Cube, who plays the villain, whom Schulz says “has not been that funny since the Jump St movies.” Rogen, Maya Rudolph, and Paul Rudd also contributed their vocal cords and comic timing to the material, which helped. As for the core Ninja Turtles, you should know that Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and Donatello are all voiced by teenagers (Shamon Brown Jr, Nicolas Cantu, Brady Noon, and Micah Abbey, respectively), who all sound like “hyper-caffeinated thirteen-year-olds who are all just hanging out and all trying to top each other with their references” — you know, presumably how latter-day teenagers behave. Now, you wouldn’t figure product-placement to be such a concern in an animated film, but the animators’ depiction of a Pizza Hut pie enjoyed by the Turtles managed to make Schulz hungry for pizza afterward, so that’s worthy of some form of acknowledgment. (How far off are we from the Oscars adding a “Best Product-Placement” award to its list?) The films opening this weekend include The Last Voyage of the Demeter, directed by André Øvredal and starring Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, and Javier Botet. Last Voyage is based on a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, “The Captain’s Log,” which depicts the strange doings aboard The Demeter as it transports Count Dracula’s coffin from Carpathia to England — an event with which Francis Ford Coppola dispensed in one minute in his 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If you aren’t familiar with the original novel, or haven’t been given the gist of it somehow or other by 126 years’ worth of pop culture, then we’ll leave you to it. No spoilers HERE! Tom Stern’s cinematography looks impressive, conveying the impression of “Alien on a boat.” Bragi F Schut Jr and Zak Olkewicz wrote the original script back in 2003, only to see it languish in “development hell” (a concept that deserves its own film), watching it pass through several different hands, and endure as many re-writes, before Øvredal secured the rights in 2019 and thereafter got things moving. Having seen what too many cooks can do to your original idea, Schut Jr and Olkewicz must be gratified to see it emerge intact (more or less — Olkewicz was commissioned to furnish an updated draft). Hope they like it. Levora said he saw a twenty-minute film, “Bad Crossing,” which appeared on the anthology show Love, Death, and Robots on Netflix and had much the same vibe as Schut Jr and Olkewicz’s work, so avoid that one until you’ve seen Last Voyage. Also opening is Jules, directed by Marc Turtletaub and starring Ben Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris, Zoë Winters, Jade Quon, and Jane Curtin. Premise Beach, yo: Milton (Kingsley) and Joyce (Curtis) while away the hours in a small town when a UFO lands in their backyard, depositing one Jules (Quon). Pitra wonders if we’ve got another ET the Extra-Terrestrial on our hands, with pesky authorities in pursuit of Milton and Joyce’s backyard visitor, who actually has important lessons for humans in treating each other better that do not involve vivisection; or perhaps even Ron Howard’s Cocoon (elderly cast meet agreeable alien, who bestows much vigor upon them and invites them to crash with him back at his galactic pad). Schulz says the vibe is all “Spielbergy,” albeit mid-budget (something you don’t see much anymore), so who knows which way it will lean? Hopefully not towards Mac and Me. . .

“Meg 2: The Trench,” “Theater Camp,” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”