Reviews by Jane Fae

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Kittens In A Cage (2015)

  Review preview for Kittens In A Cage

  Revel in dialogue that will either have you reaching for the off-button within seconds - or in stitches, throughout.

  Ukulele-playing bad girl Junie Butler gets muscled into prison by her rat fink friends. Abandoned by all, she turns to the warm embrace of her pyromaniac cellmate as they plot to escape.
• 
  The Rookies (2019)

  Review preview for The Rookies

  Like a mosquito that has od'd on psychedelics, the film buzzes its way to a predictable, but nonetheless explosive, climax.

  An extreme sports fan is drawn into a secret crime fighting organisation.
• 
  Red Rage (2019)

  Review preview for Red Rage

  There are whiffs of genius here, though mostly in the parts and the small details, rather than the big picture.

  A murderous vigilante couple tear through the city, serving vengeance to dealers of a new designer drug called Red Devil.
• 
  Burn It All (2021)

  Review preview for Burn It All

  Anger, rage and a rapidly rising body count that would put John Wick to shame.

  An enraged woman battles a ring of violent organ smugglers after returning to her hometown to bury her mother.
• 
  Army Of One (2020)

  Review preview for Army Of One

  Director Stephen Durham has produced an efficient, gripping revenge movie that ticks all the boxes.

  Out hiking, a Special Forces soldier stumbles onto a cartel's compound. Her husband is killed and she's left for dead. The cartel makes two mistakes, killing her husband and leaving her alive.
• 
  Parallel (2018)

  Review preview for Parallel

  I found myself quickly gripped by Parallel.

  A group of young tech developers discover a portal to a multiverse and use it for work, but they're meddling with powers they don't understand.
• 
  Il Mio Corpo (2020)

  Review preview for Il Mio Corpo

  The camerawork is artful.

  Under the Sicilian sunlight, Oscar collects scrap metal with his father. At the other end of town, Stanley the Nigerian migrant gets by thanks to small tasks given by the parish priest. Both share the same desire for a better life.
• 
  A Christmas Carol (2020)

  Review preview for A Christmas Carol

  In truth, this is yet one more safe retelling of an old favourite. Not radical at all.

  A dance-infused interpretation of the seasonal classic.
• 
  Team Marco (2019)

  Review preview for Team Marco

  Thumbs up to director Julio Vincent Gambuto for capturing one aspect of Italianicity abroad in New York.

  Young Marco is obsessed with playing video games and hardly leaves the house. But when his grandfather moves in, Marco’s life is turned upside-down and he’s forced...to go play outside. Nonno introduces him to bocce, leading Marco to round up a team of his own.
• 
  Things We Dare Not Do (2020)

  Review preview for Things We Dare Not Do

  This is a beautiful story that takes you beneath the skin of a culture and a place very different from what us Brits are used to.

  A profile of a Mexican trans teenager on the cusp of adulthood.
• 
  Lowdown Dirty Criminals (2020)

  Review preview for Lowdown Dirty Criminals

  It made me laugh, a lot, on a day when I wasn’t otherwise laughing.

  A black comedy about two incompetent friends who prove inept at delivering pizza and decide to try their luck at crime.
• 
  A Christmas Gift From Bob (2020)

  Review preview for A Christmas Gift From Bob

  This is – apologies for the politics – an essentially Panglossian, Whiggish sort of film.

  James looks back at the last Christmas he and Bob spent scraping a living on the streets and how Bob helped him through it.
• 
  Lucky Grandma (2019)

  Review preview for Lucky Grandma

  Grandma is neither sweet nor innocent: a hard smoking, confrontational battleaxe with, nonetheless a heart of gold.

  Set in New York City’s Chinatown, the film follows an ornery, chain-smoking Chinese grandma who goes all in at the casino, landing herself on the wrong side of luck… and in the middle of a gang war.
• 
  Reboot Camp (2020)

  Review preview for Reboot Camp

  As pastiche, it catches some of the pompousness, ludicrousness that exists within the documentary format.

  A pair of brothers start a fake self-help group and plan to make a documentary to expose the manipulations of some self-help set-ups... only for it to take on a life of its own.
• 
  The Big Scary "S" Word (2020)

  Review preview for The Big Scary "S" Word

  All in all, a worthy film, an interesting film, from director Yael Bridge, who has a long track record of making films about the left and has garnered two award nominations along the way for same. Also, though, pretty toothless.

  Consideration of the decades long debate about "socialism".
• 
  Beasts Clawing At Straws (2020)

  Review preview for Beasts Clawing At Straws

  As a directorial debut from writer and director Kim Yong Hoon, this is about as good as it gets.

  A Louis Vuitton bag stuffed full of cash sends a group of hard-luck lowlifes on a desperate chase for fortune.
• 
  Josephine Baker: The Story Of An Awakening (2018)

  Review preview for Josephine Baker: The Story Of An Awakening

  A strong narrative voice-over is cut with insights from black commentators, providing a far more interesting, more rounded picture of Baker than I had before.

  Portrait of the life and activism of the famous Parisian dancer.
• 
  Submerge (2013)

  Review preview for Submerge

  It is, overall, pretty vanilla both in content and presentation.

  An swimming student seduces her tutor.
• 
  Kajillionaire (2020)

  Review preview for Kajillionaire

  Kajillionaire is strong, disturbing stuff.

  Low-stakes grifters, Old Dolio and her parents invite a chipper young woman into their insular clan, only to have their entire world turned upside down.
• 
  A.E.S.O.P. (2019)

  Review preview for A.E.S.O.P.

  The dialogue from writer Johnny Severin is neat, witty, clever, with more than a few culinary references tossed in for the observant.

  In a future where ageing can be prevented, a statistician barred from having romantic relationships because of her job finds herself falling in love.
• 
  Naughty Books (2020)

  Review preview for Naughty Books

  It's a little bit of an eye-opener and, if you have not considered this issue before, it will provide you with new perspective and new insights into a topic not much explored in the mainstream.

  A documentary about the boom of self-published romance novels in the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey.
• 
  The Lady In The Portrait (2016)

  Review preview for The Lady In The Portrait

  This is an intelligent, sumptuous period piece, shining an intriguing light into the corners of the 18th-century Imperial Court of China.

  An empress commissions a painting of herself from a French outsider and Jesuit priest in hopes of stirring her husband's interest in this lavish period piece.
• 
  Kill Ben Lyk (2018)

  Review preview for Kill Ben Lyk

  You need to feel some sympathy for someone, not be so irritated by the constant screaming and panicking that you can’t wait for the killer to arrive and finish them off.

  A YouTuber named Ben Lyk is put in a safe house with his namesakes after they start getting bumped off one by one.
• 
  Julia Scotti: Funny That Way (2020)

  Review preview for Julia Scotti: Funny That Way

  Whatever your own personal circumstance, if you are trans, there is much here that you are likely to find very recognisable.

  Documentary tracking Julia’s comeback, the rough life on the comedy circuit, and the return of her children after a 15-year estrangement.
• 
  Around The Sun (2019)

  Review preview for Around The Sun

  I can imagine those who enjoyed it wanting to go back and watch again and again.

  Touring a repossessed chateau, a film location scout falls for its flirtatious representative, who recounts the story of an influential book written there. But is their connection for real, or just a projection of the book's characters?
• 
  The Fight (2020)

  Review preview for The Fight

  An eye-opener of a documentary.

  Inside the ACLU, a team of scrappy lawyers battle Trump’s historic assault on civil liberties.
• 
  Infamous (2020)

  Review preview for Infamous

  A glossy, upbeat immorality tale of our times.

  Two young lovers rob their way across the southland, posting their exploits to social media, and gaining fame and followers as a result.
• 
  Alice (2019)

  Review preview for Alice

  The script is sharp, witty and not afraid to ask awkward questions.

  Alice, a happy and perfect wife and mother has her life turned upside down when she discovers her husband is living a secret life.
• 
  Spy Intervention (2020)

  Review preview for Spy Intervention

  There is a kernel of a good idea here.

  When the world's greatest spy meets the woman of his dreams, he abandons his adventurous existence and settles into the security of suburbia.
• 
  Divos! (2020)

  Review preview for Divos!

  An all-round fun film to watch.

  Teenage egos collide when a self-proclaimed "Broadway Legend in the Making" is forced to share the spotlight with the school's star athlete in the high school musical.
• 
  Coded Bias (2020)

  Review preview for Coded Bias

  The real issue set out in Coded Bias.. is that we are stumbling headlong into a world in which major life-changing decisions for every one of us are taken by impersonal unrelenting computer algorithms.

  Considering the racial bias issues of AI and facial recognition.
• 
  Sisters With Transistors (2020)

  Review preview for Sisters With Transistors

  Stops you in your tracks and makes you look at things you thought you knew about through fresh eyes.

  The story of electronic music's unsung heroines.
• 
  Dating Amber (2020)

  Review preview for Dating Amber

  The comedy dries up from around the middle of the film.

  A pair of gay teenagers fake a relationship to avoid prejudice.
• 
  End Of Sentence (2019)

  Review preview for End Of Sentence

  All praise to the acting here, as each star deliver characters with depth and meaning, without the encumbrance of lengthy self-exposition.

  A widower embarks on a journey to fulfil his wife's wish to have her ashes scattered in Ireland, taking his estranged son along for the trip.
• 
  Pandora (2019)

  Review preview for Pandora

  On the plus side, this is a series targeted at a young audience, and it might just fill a niche of sorts.

  Science-fiction series about a young woman who enrols at Earth's Space Training Academy.
• 
  Blood And Money (2020)

  Review preview for Blood And Money

  The scenery, for those that enjoy snow-covered waste, is utterly gorgeous at times.

  A retired veteran hunting in northern Maine stumbles across a dead woman and a large sum of money.
• 
  Clementine (2019)

  Review preview for Clementine

  What does happen is likely nothing at all like what you expected to happen.

  Reeling from a one-sided break-up, heartbroken Karen breaks into her ex’s lakehouse. There, she strikes up a complicated relationship with provocative younger woman Lana.
• 
  In Bed With Victoria (2016)

  Review preview for In Bed With Victoria

  I like that this film includes a good deal of interesting, amusing gender role reversal

  Comedy about a single mum trying to strike a balance in her life.
• 
  Inside The Rain (2019)

  Review preview for Inside The Rain

  Fisher has not taken the easy route, of creating Ben as pure victim to rage against the evil and conventional.

  College film student Benjamin Glass (played by writer-director Aaron Fisher) has it all: ADHD, OCD, borderline personality. And he’s also bipolar. When a misunderstanding threatens to expel him from college, Glass pushes back.
• 
  Four Kids And It (2020)

  Review preview for Four Kids And It

  It adds useful continuity to the psammead canon.

  Adaptation of the children's classic.
• 
  The Street (2019)

  Review preview for The Street

  Because it is filmed over time and because it is the result of so many conversations, it has depth.

  Documentary charting the gentrification of a street in London's Hoxton, where locals face being priced out.
• 
  The Social Ones (2019)

  Review preview for The Social Ones

  Thanks to a great ensemble cast...it gets away with delivering lines of utter absurdity with a deadpan seriousness that in lesser hands would fall flat.

  Mockumentary about the lives and anxieties of a group of social media “influencers”.
• 
  Duck Daze (2019)

  Review preview for Duck Daze

  This is a community that, one suspects, director Alison Piper understands well.

  Johnina gets revenge on her childhood abuser and the community that enabled him, with the help of a duck.
• 
  My Big Beating Voice (2018)

  Review preview for My Big Beating Voice

  The great thing about it is the sense and maturity that they bring to difficult debates.

  Young women discuss race and gender inequality.
• 
  Glue (2019)

  Review preview for Glue

  Uses sharp observation and economy of dialogue to set a scene.

  A woman waits to meet her ex for the first time since their break-up.
• 
  Meet Me By The Water (2016)

  Review preview for Meet Me By The Water

  This is a sweet little film about the dangers of caring too much.

  In a small fishing town on the West Coast of Scotland a young Asian woman must decide whether to leave home and family for a new life in South America.
• 
  Little Miss Westie (2018)

  Review preview for Little Miss Westie

  This is very much fly-on-the-wall documentary, with explanations and expiation left up to those involved.

  Story of Ren, the first out transgirl to compete in the Little Miss Westie Pageant. Coaching her through the competition is her older brother Luca, who previously took part in the pageant when he lived as a girl.
• 
  Plus One (2019)

  Review preview for Plus One

  Not bad, not brilliant.

  In order to survive a summer of wedding fever, long-time single friends Ben and Alice agree to be each other's plus one at every wedding they’re invited to.
• 
  No Fathers In Kashmir (2019)

  Review preview for No Fathers In Kashmir

  A film that bears watching and watching again.

  A teenage British Kashmiri, Noor, retraces her roots. She is joined by Majid, a local Kashmiri boy who is more smitten by her exotic foreignness than her obsession with unravelling the mysteries of their disappeared fathers.
• 
  Brittany Runs A Marathon (2019)

  Review preview for Brittany Runs A Marathon

  The problem - and it's a massive, elephant in the room style problem - is that it is very hard to tell whether this is a woke film trapped in a judgemental body or vice-versa.

  A woman living in New York takes control of her life – one city block at a time.