JUDY AND PUNCH: 3 ½ STARS
"Judy and Punch," a new film starring Mia Wasikowska and now on VOD, is set in the mid-17th century. There are lace collars and cuffs, petticoats, breeches and jerkins on display but make no mistake, this is a timely tale of ideology over logic, of justice, revenge and puppetry.
The action begins in Seaside, an English town the movie tells us is nowhere near the sea. It's the first clue that not everything is right in this small settlement. It's a place where women are stoned to death on the suspicion of witchcraft (one woman is killed because she stared "at the moon for a suspiciously long time") and law and order is administered by angry mobs. It's here that Judy (Wasikowska) and Punch (Damon Herriman) eke out a living as puppeteers, making money by passing around a hat. She is clearly the more gifted artist, but there is little room left for her in the spotlight as his ego takes up so much space. He is an ambitious but arrogant artist who craves attention almost as much as he thirsts for booze.
When his drinking leads to an unspeakable turn of events, Punch's venal nature comes to the fore, and in a case of his Punch and Judy style art imitating real life, he puts his own self interest ahead of everyone, particularly his gentle-natured wife who must seek vengeance for his deeds.
"Judy and Punch" finally gives Punch his comeuppance after centuries of bad behaviour. That's not a spoiler, just the premise of the movie. The why and how of his punishment provide the subtext that makes the movie timely. A study in toxic masculinity, of abuse and misogyny, the movie mixes very dark satire, brutality and puppets to tell a story of addiction and domestic abuse.
Wasikowska grounds the story, playing Judy as a gentle soul pushed to extremes by tragic circumstances. Herriman — who played Charles Manson in both "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and "Mindhunter" — is a flamboyant Punch, a calculating drunk incapable of loving anyone as much as he loves himself. They are the movie's yin and yang, and the conflict between them leads to a dark conclusion, equal parts magic realism and real life.
"Judy and Punch" is an impressive debut from actor-turned-director Mirrah Foulkes. Although uneven, it cleverly balances everything from humour and tragedy to fairy tales and feminism in a sly story of love and vengeance.
2040: 3 ½ STARS
Many parents wonder what kind of world their children will inherit. The question played on filmmaker Damon Gameau's mind so he did a deep dive. The result is "2040," a relentlessly upbeat documentary about what a sustainable, environmentally aware world would look like in twenty years when his daughter Velvet will be 25 years old.
Crew in tow, Gameau heads off for a worldwide trip to study how various countries are utilizing already existing technology to combat climate change. But instead of heading out with a head full of thunder, he brings a tone we don't often hear in the enviro discussion: optimism.
Using inventive talking-head interviews mixed with cute kids, animation, humour and CGI recreations, he's looking for answers to difficult questions surrounding the mass assembly of cars, the over-harvesting of land, beef production and other hot button topics. An exercise in what he calls "fact-based dreaming," the idea is simple, What would happen if we used already existing technologies and systems to improve the planet? It's a question designed to inspire, not alarm the viewer. He uses real life examples of these technologies at work —i.e., a micro-grid solar-power sharing in Bangladesh — to show the world of possibilities that exist on the planet.
Gameau is an entertaining host in the mould of Michael Moore, a documentarian who is also part comedian. He's the spoonful of sugar that keeps the movie's scientific information at eye level. He's an amiable presence, although an erotic yoga scene feels out of place and even inappropriate.
"2040" is clear, simple and uplifting in its message and even supplies a hopeful, dramatized glimpse at what the world could look like when Velvet (played by Eva Lazzaro) is an adult. That Utopian vision of the future is all the more interesting in that it is based in technologies and systems that already exist.
LAST MOMENT OF CLARITY: 2 STARS
In the publicity material for "Last Moment of Clarity," a new crime drama starring Samara Weaving and Zach Avery, the movie is being billed as a Hitchcockian thriller. I have a different, more accurate term. Hitchschlockian. It's a little clumsy, I know, but it sums up the film's mix of schlocky twists and turns that make up the plot.
Georgia (Samara Weaving) and Sam (Zach Avery) are a couple. She's an aspiring actress and photographer and he has the incredible misfortune to have an apartment window that faces a crime scene. When he picks up one of her cameras and absentmindedly snaps a photo he captures Russian mobster Ivan (Udo Kier) killing a woman. Ivan sends his henchmen over to kill Sam and get the camera. They botch the job, and after several stray bullets fly, Georgia is shot. Thinking she is dead Sam hoofs it, hiding out in Paris.
Cut to three years later. Sam, now working in a cafe run by Gilles (Brian Cox), takes a day off to go to a movie and lo and behold the lead actress, Lauren Creek, looks just like Georgia, except now she has blonde hair. One Google search later he discovers she is an up-and-comer but has virtually no online personal history. Convinced this movie star with an enigmatic past is the love of his life, he jets off to Hollywood to track her down.
There he reconnects with Kat (Carly Chaikin), an old high school friend, now working as a film publicist. She doesn't believe his story but agrees to help him find the truth — is it George in disguise? Is it mistaken identity? Or has Sam gone over the edge?
The cliches come hard and fast in "Last Moment of Clarity." Characters are imported directly from the thriller department at Central Casting with dialogue to match. The best and most authentic line in the whole film comes from Chaikin, who is more interesting than either of the lead characters, when she says, "This is so f***ing dumb!" As a viewer you'll be saying the same thing.
"Last Moment of Clarity" simply isn't as clever as it needs to be. Twists are telegraphed in advance and worse, the very idea that a dye job is enough of a disguise to keep Georgia incognito… while starring in Hollywood films. No amount of stylish low angle shots and atmospheric cinematography can fill the holes in this plot.
SURVIVE THE NIGHT: 1 STAR
The idea of stalling for time in a bad situation makes perfect sense in real life. In "Survive the Night," a new home invasion film now on VOD, a disgraced doctor tries to buy time to protect his family as some very bad men hold them hostage. Trouble is, it's a movie, and his stalling techniques bring the action in this plodding thriller to a dead stop.
"One Tree Hill" star Chad Michael Murray is Rich, a doctor whose once-promising career was cut short by a malpractice suit. "I cut when I should have stitched or stitched when I should have cut," he says. "I don't even know!" Disgraced, he now lives on a remote farm with his parents, (Bruce Willis and Jessica Abrams), his wife (Lydia Hull) and their teenage daughter (Riley Wolfe Rach) and works at a small clinic, patching up injured farmers.
It's there that Jamie (Shea Buckner), a low-level crook with impulse control issues, first sees the doc and hatches the plan to invade Rich's home and get some much-needed medical treatment for his brother Mathias (Tyler Jon Olson). If Rich doesn't operate, Jamie promises to fill the family with lead. Rich fears that if he operates and Matthias dies, chaos will ensue.
Cue the stall tactics.
The suspense-free plot of "Survive the Night" — which should really have been titled "Survive the Night and Most of the Next Morning" — relies on characters doing unrealistic and just plain stupid things in almost every scene. If you took a drink every time Rich did something that only made his situation worse, you'd be hammered by the second act. Or, if you're not a drinker, take a sip every time Bruce Willis looks like he's happy to be part of this movie. You'll be stone cold sober as the end credits run.
"Survive the Night" is the rare "thriller" where you don't root for anyone, the heroes or villains. Even a car chase goes nowhere… literally and figuratively. It's like a thriller made by people who have never actually seen a thriller and who based this one on stuff their friends told them about "Panic Room" and "Funny Games."
BECKY: 2 ½ STARS
"Becky," a new thriller featuring former sitcom star Kevin James as the King of Criminals, and now on VOD, is a mix of home invasion movies like "The Strangers" and plucky-kid-fights-back flicks like "Home Alone."
Lulu Wilson is the title character, a fourteen-year-old who never got over the death of her mother. When her father Jeff (Joel McHale) announces his engagement to girlfriend Kayla (Amanda Brugel), Becky goes ballistic and takes off into the woods behind their weekend cottage, hiding out in a treehouse fort. She narrowly misses the arrival of Dominick (James), a neo-Nazi with a swastika tattooed on the back of his bald head, and his goons. They're there looking for a key that was supposed to be in a container in the basement.
Trouble is, it isn't there.
Thinking Jeff knows where it is, Dominick resorts to the usual home invasion techniques of information gathering — intimidation, snarly rhetoric and when all else fails, torture — not realizing that Becky is lurking in the woods. When he discovers where she is, and that she has the key, he sends the goons to get her. What he doesn't realize is that the tween is, "as strong willed and vindictive as they come."
Cue the homemade deathtraps and bloodshed. "There once was a little girl who had a little curl in the middle of her forehead," she taunts Dom. "When she was good she was very, very good but when she was bad she was horrid."
"Becky," I suppose, was to be to Kevin James what "Foxcatcher" was to Steve Carell, or Mo'Nique in "Precious," a way to break out of comedy and into drama. While it is shocking to see the "King of Queens" without a quip on his lips or Adam Sandler at his side, he's never menacing enough to be believable. Perhaps it's his hilariously stilted dialogue or maybe it's just hard to take a guy who made a career playing a heroic mall cop seriously.
Either way, he's supposed to be a bad, bad man but compared to Becky he's a peacenik. Set loose in the woods, the teenager calls on every ounce of her bottled-up rage to unleash holy, bloody hell on the men who did her family wrong. She lets her freak flag fly in ways that would make Anton Chigurh look positively tame by comparison.
"Becky" doesn't have a whole lot of surprises. Instead it relies on bloody situations to drive the horror of its message home.
