New films streaming this week
Netflix, Amazon announce additions to lineups
Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland´) and Damon Herriman (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood´) play the title characters in “Judy Punch,´ married puppeteers who share the names and a few personality traits - of their most famous creations: the hapless marionette Judy and her abusive, slapstick-wielding husband Punch, whose shows always end with the former getting smacked over the head by the latter. But the titular reversal of the names we know from the traditional “Punch and Judy´ performances, which date to the 17th century, suggests a MeToo update by Australian filmmaker Mirrah Foulkes, who has turned the tale into a much more darkly comic and at times shockingly violent revenge fantasia. Set in the fictional English town of Seaside (which on-screen titles tell us is “nowhere near the sea´), the story gets underway after the alcoholic, philandering Punch, who does not share his wife’s talent, accidentally kills their baby and, in a fit of guilty rage, beats Judy to a pulp, leaving her for dead. Nursed back to health by a matriarchal community of outcasts who have been ostracized for witchcraft, Judy hatches a way to punish and or teach Punch a lesson. Foulkes brings the atmosphere of a puppet show to Seaside, which is a place caught somewhere between Shakespearean times and the 20th century. Her command of the film’s tonal plate tectonics is sure, even when the film is shifting abruptly from the death of a toddler to broad comedy. Unrated. Available June 5 on various streaming platforms. Contains violence (both puppet and human), strong language and brief partial nudity. 116 minutes.
Indie filmmaker Abel Ferrara (“Bad Lieutenant,´ “The Addiction´) hasn’t made a scripted drama since 2014’s “Pasolini,´ about the controversial Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. His star in that film, Willem Dafoe - who has worked with Ferrara on several other proMects - returns in “Tommaso,´ playing a version of Ferrara. Dafoe’s character, a 60-something American filmmaker, lives in Rome, like the 68-year-old Ferrara, with his much younger wife (played by Ferrara’s actual wife, Cristina Chiriac, not yet 30) and their 3-yearold daughter (played by Ferrara and Chiriac’s real daughter). The film was shot in Ferrara’s apartment, and Tomasso, like Ferrara, is an addict in recovery. Tommaso spends a lot of the film in A.A.-type meetings. This is, however, no documentary. Many scenes appear to be dreams nightmares, fantasies, hallucinations or wish fulfillment. You might find it helpful to imagine that nothing on screen can be trusted to be, quote-unquote, true. In that sense, it’s mostly a story of an aging artist’s insecurities - creative, sexual, etc. - and the lies they feed him. That said, it’s enlivened by Dafoe’s head-on commitment to the performance as a man bewildered by his own self, and a filmmaking style that demands you keep your own wits about you. Unrated. Available June 5 at afisilver.afi.com. and sunscinema. com. Contains sex, nudity, violence and strong language. 116 minutes.
“The Wild,´ winner of the best environmental film prize at last year’s Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival, looks at how the construction of North America’s largest open-pit copper mine threatens the world’s largest wild salmon run, in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Unrated. Available June 5 at afisilver.afi.com. 65 minutes.
Set in the future, and based on a 2009 graphic novel, “The Last Days of American Crime´ tells the story of Graham Bricke (Edgar Ramírez), a career criminal who gets wind of a secret government plan to end lawbreaking forever by broadcasting an electronic signal that makes it impossible to commit any illegal act. Bricke plans to go out in style by pulling off one last heist. Unrated. Available on Netflix. 148 minutes.
Leonardo DiCaprio co-produced “And We Go Green,´ a documentary about Formula E racing, in which all cars are electric. According to 9ariety: “The film winds up working at cross-purposes, alternating between an enthusiastic advertorial for green technology and a highlight reel of the 2017-18 season. This cake-and-eat-ittoo approach thins out both aspects of the film, despite a few fascinating story lines that bubble up.´ Unrated. Available on Hulu. 99 minutes.
Adapted from Colin Wilson’s semi-autobiographical 1961 novel about the Beat Generation in England, “Adrift in Soho´ follows an aspiring writer (Owen Drake) who arrives in London’s Soho in search of like-minded bohemians. “The characters are all manners, no personality, and the Marring new-wave style becomes exhausting,´ according to the Guardian. The problem with the Soho of the movie “is that it never strikes you as a terribly interesting place to be.´ Unrated. Available on various streaming platforms. 108 minutes.
In “Phoenix, Orgeon,´ James Le Gros plays a 40-something struggling graphic novelist who lives in a trailer. 9ariety writes: “To put it simply - and, yes, gratefully - ‘Phoenix, Oregon’ is the sort of movie a lot of us need right now. It’s an undemandingly enMoyable and reassuringly predictable dramedy in which nothing, not even the sourball attitudes of its comically unpleasant malcontents, ever is allowed to get out of hand or unduly strain credibility.´ R. Available on various streaming platforms. Contains strong language. 108 minutes.
“Feral´ stars Annapurna Sriram at Yazmine, a young homeless woman who lives in tunnels beneath New York City. Film School ReMects says that, “In stringing together a few moments in time with Yazmine, ‘Feral’ asks us to take note of the unnoticeable, and the result is a film that honors its character without turning her into an easily digestible message.´ Unrated. Available on various streaming platforms. 74 minutes.
The documentary “Spelling the Dream´ examines the dominance of Indian American competitors in the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 1999. Unrated. Available on Netflix. Contains nothing obMectionable. 82 minutes.
Structured as a one-way conversation with the filmmaker’s now 4-yearold daughter, the environmental documentary “2040´ considers what the world will be like when she turns 25. Unrated. Available at themiracletheatre.com. Contains nothing obMectionable.