Reviews by Jane Fae

Order by: Date, A–Z

• Extinction (2019)

  Review preview for Extinction

  It is funny, sharp, and like the best of the short film genre – all creds to director Jack Cooper Stimpson - pretty much every second works towards sketching a neat, clear picture of the issues with minimal lines.

  A political satire about climate change. Focused on the protest group Extinction Rebellion.
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  Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil (2019)

  Review preview for Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil

  An interesting side to this film is how Disney continue to stick two fingers up to the reactionaries.

  The Disney villain battles to save her realm.
• 
  Lemebel (2019)

  Review preview for Lemebel

  This is not conventional narrative, start to end, born in, schooled at, died documentary.

  A multi-layered portrait of one of South America’s most important and most provocative artists, a tireless fighter in dictatorial Chile and an uncomfortable gay activist who spoke out – right up to the end of his life.
• 
  Evil Come, Evil Go (1972)

  Review preview for Evil Come, Evil Go

  Not a film i'd recommend to anybody, unless late night, at a party, with a large bowl of popcorn and an audience prepared to laugh at it, not with it.

  A religious fanatic murders people who are engaging in sex and enjoying it.
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  Transfinite (2019)

  Review preview for Transfinite

  There is a unity of style and approach that means even though you are watching many films, you still end up with a sense of watching just the one.

  An anthology film in which supernatural trans and queer people from various cultures use their powers to protect, love, teach, fight and thrive.
• 
  A Girl's Band (2018)

  Review preview for A Girl's Band

  Watching the film I fell in love with at least half a dozen great bands and female performers.

  A former bassist chronicles the stories of female musicians in Argentina, their music and their activism.
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  Brief Story From The Green Planet (2019)

  Review preview for Brief Story From The Green Planet

  Whatever you expected to happen is not about to do so.

  When Tania finds out that her grandma has spent her final years in the caring company of a cute purple alien, she embarks on a journey through small-town Argentina with two close friends to deliver the creature back to its origins.
• 
  The Hummingbird Project (2018)

  Review preview for The Hummingbird Project

  This is a story of building a thing against impossible odds.

  A pair of cousins embark on scheme to make millions in High Frequency Trading.
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  Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion (2018)

  Review preview for Asterix: The Secret Of The Magic Potion

  It is good to see the women taking charge, though this happens sufficiently often in Asterix that it is close to becoming a trope in itself.

  The village druid enlists the help of Asterix and Obelix to find a young druid to share his secrets with.
• 
  Berlin, I Love You (2019)

  Review preview for Berlin, I Love You

  A series of pieces that each, in its own right, has some merit, but which together never quite gels.

  Ten stories of romance play out against the backdrop of the German capital.
• 
  The Fable (2019)

  Review preview for The Fable

  The film builds neatly, slowly to a serious turning point just past the half way mark. After that....you're on your own!

  A darkly comic portrait of an assassin who works for the yakuza.
• 
  Alien Crystal Palace (2018)

  Review preview for Alien Crystal Palace

  This is a mess. An ambitious mess...but mess nonetheless.

  A crazy scientist is on a quest to create a new, immaculate, androgynous being.
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  Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway (2019)

  Review preview for Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway

  Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway reboots the genre by both using and subverting its conventions.

  Two CIA agents are tasked with the perilous mission of destroying the Soviet Union, but as they enter a VR simulation their mission turns into a delirious trap, with the fabric of reality unravelling around them
• 
  Only You (2018)

  Review preview for Only You

  A seriously intelligent script.

  A couple who fall in love at first sight face problems when they try to conceive.
• 
  For Love Or Money (2019)

  Review preview for For Love Or Money

  After an opening that fans of the genre will recognise from time honoured tradition, it takes an abrupt turn to the left and...after that, nothing is the same.

  A fairy tale romance takes an unexpected turn when Mark discovers his beautiful bride-to-be, Connie, has actually been plotting against him.
• 
  Cold Blood (2019)

  Review preview for Cold Blood

  This is a thoughtful, suspenseful film.

  A hit-man lives isolated in a cabin at the edge of a lake. One day, an injured woman arrives in front of his house. To save her, he could well risk his own life.
• 
  Silver Slipper (2019)

  Review preview for Silver Slipper

  A story that could at so many points have engaged and involved the audience seems to take place entirely behind a plate glass screen of teenage boredom.

  Over the course of the summer after her graduation, a young woman decides to auction off her virginity on a website.
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  The Captor (2018)

  Review preview for The Captor

  A nice study in group dynamic.

  In 1973, an unhinged American outlaw walked into a bank in Sweden demanding millions in cash in exchange for his hostages. The events that followed would capture the attention of the world and ultimately give a name to a new psychological phenomenon: Stockholm syndrome.
• 
  #Like (2019)

  Review preview for #Like

  Pirozek knows exactly what she is doing and while this film will likely attract loud and widespread cries of #NotAllMen from the less fair sex, women will understand very well what is happening here.

  A young woman vows revenge on the man who sexually exploited and bullied her sister online.
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  Bellingcat: Truth In A Post-Truth World (2018)

  Review preview for Bellingcat: Truth In A Post-Truth World

  This is the fascinating tale of the rise of two trends – the citizen journalist, and open-source journalism.

  Looking at open-source investigation and the world of the 'citizen investigative journalist' collective Bellingcat.
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  Loners (2019)

  Review preview for Loners

  Overall the film is competent, witty, intelligent.

  A group of introverts forced to socialise after the government declares a War of Loneliness must join together to fight for the right to be alone.
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  Tigers (2014)

  Review preview for Tigers

  There is no flab in the telling of this story, nor any excess sentiment either.

  Devastated when he discovers the effects of the infant formula he's peddling, a young salesman takes on a multinational corporation.
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  No Box For Me. An Intersex Story (2018)

  Review preview for No Box For Me. An Intersex Story

  By nodding in, by not forcing the pace, this documentary allows intersex voices to be heard.

  A burgeoning movement aims to demystify intersex identities and stop the practice of forced surgical interventions.
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  XY Chelsea (2019)

  Review preview for XY Chelsea

  We are left with the bare facts of Chelsea's actions and her elevation to iconic status, without any real perspective.

  Following the shock commutation of her sentence, whistleblower and trans woman Chelsea Manning prepares to leave an all-male military prison in Kansas and transition to living life for the first time as a free woman.
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  Where Justice Ends (2018)

  Review preview for Where Justice Ends

  This puts the lie absolutely to anyone claiming that being trans is the easy way out.

  A documentary looking at conditions within the US prison system and the injustices that befall transgender people encountering the law.
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  Avengers: Endgame (2019)

  Review preview for Avengers: Endgame

  Directors Joe and Anthony Russo use the length to explore more than one significant theme in depth and to shift tone markedly from hour to hour.

  The remaining Avengers take a final stand.
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  Stuck (2017)

  Review preview for Stuck

  In many ways it feels more like a succession of power music videos, with almost every one memorable and worth a replay.

  A musical about six strangers who get stuck on a New York City subway together and change each others lives in unexpected ways.
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  Motherhood (2018)

  Review preview for Motherhood

  This is a feminist film in every sense of the word.

  Two couples and a surrogate lay bare the complications, contradictions, heartbreak, and absurdities implicit in how we think about motherhood.
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  Start With Half (2019)

  Review preview for Start With Half

  A good idea, well executed.

  An ailing conservative widower and his queer grandchild are brought together by a marijuana muffin.
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  Captain Marvel (2019)

  Review preview for Captain Marvel

  Cap Marvel is another powerful woman hero to add to the line-up.

  A superhero gets caught up in a galactic war.
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  Markie In Milwaukee (2019)

  Review preview for Markie In Milwaukee

  With its light touch, candid camera approach, this documentary gets under the skin of the issue.

  A documentary about a midwestern trans woman who struggles with the prospect of de-transitioning under the pressures of her fundamentalist church, family and community.
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  1 Billion Orgasms (2018)

  Review preview for 1 Billion Orgasms

  Brent Kinetz and Terence Mickey have produced something quite insightful.

  Story of an engineer who attempted to create a sex toy watch.
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  Cold Pursuit (2019)

  Review preview for Cold Pursuit

  You might be forgiven for thinking: oh no! This is just Taken with snow! In every sense. But then, the film turns and something not quite right that you had begun to notice about it begins to take hold.

  A snowplow driver seeks revenge against the drug dealers he thinks killed his son.
• 
  Jan Palach (2018)

  Review preview for Jan Palach

  The film is both intense and frustrating.

  A reconstruction of the final months of Palach´s life, describing his path to becoming 'Torch Number One'.
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  Tehran Taboo (2017)

  Review preview for Tehran Taboo

  The society it depicts is one in which ordinary people – and especially women – are crushed beneath the joint burdens of a medieval moral code, and an unfeeling bureaucratic enforcement process.

  An insight into the society of underground Tehran.
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  Aquaman (2018)

  Review preview for Aquaman

  Aquaman is a far from bad way to pass a couple of hours at the cinema

  Arthur Curry learns that he is the heir to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis and must step forward to lead his people and be a hero to the world.
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  The Misandrists (2017)

  Review preview for The Misandrists

  Something like a cross between Carry On Solanas! and The Beguiled

  A radical female ‘army of lovers’ is preparing itself to fight for a world without men.
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  Pulse (2017)

  Review preview for Pulse

  Perhaps there are certain questions that we don't need asked; or if they are to be asked, a certain care in the way they are asked would be helpful.

  After a series of humiliations, a young disabled man looking for love decides to transition – but not in the manner you’d expect. Set in an alternative present in which medical procedures are drastically different, the question of what it means to change gender is complicated by the question of what it means to find love when you have a disabled body in an ableist world.
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  Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald (2018)

  Review preview for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald

  Grand chases and massive effects.

  In an effort to thwart Grindelwald's plans of raising pure-blood wizards to rule over all non-magical beings, Albus Dumbledore enlists his former student Newt Scamander, who agrees to help, unaware of the dangers that lie ahead.
• 
  Siberia (2018)

  Review preview for Siberia

  About the only element this film shares with John Wick is Reeves' determination to play his part with near zero emotional inflection.

  When an American diamond trader's Russian partner goes missing, he journeys to Siberia in search of him but instead begins a love affair.
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  Jonathan (2018)

  Review preview for Jonathan

  It is carefully crafted, the work of a film-maker who is very in charge of what he is doing.

  Jonathan is a young man with a strange condition that only his brother understands. But when he begins to yearn for a different life, their unique bond becomes increasingly tested.
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  Mirai (2018)

  Review preview for Mirai

  Thumbs up here for graphics that are colourful, inventive and always interesting.

  A spoiled boy has to cope with the arrival of a new baby sister - and much more.
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  Mrs Hyde (2017)

  Review preview for Mrs Hyde

  Although we alight at many points of interest throughout the journey, we never stop long enough anywhere to explore.

  After a teacher is struck by lightning, she discovers a powerful and dangerous alter ego.
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  Robin Hood The Rebellion (2018)

  Review preview for Robin Hood The Rebellion

  This is low budget medieval grunge. The outlaw camp consists of half a dozen sheets hung from trees in the middle of a wood: the Sheriff's castle is an obvious ruin.

  With his true love captured by the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham, the legendary Robin Hood and his crew of outlaws execute a daring rescue to save her.
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  President Blaník (2018)

  Review preview for President Blaník

  The narrative is patchy and uneven.

  Czech political satire.
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  Bleeding Steel (2017)

  Review preview for Bleeding Steel

  This is a sci-fi action romp with a sense of humour and tongue firmly in cheek.

  A Special Forces agent is assigned to protect a scientist and his creation from a sinister gang.
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  The Watermelon Woman (1996)

  Review preview for The Watermelon Woman

  This film is well aware of its own limitations: knows it can only pose the questions here, while answers will take time and belong, perhaps, to later generations.

  A young black lesbian in Philadelphia tries to track down a once legendary actress.
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  The Green Lie (2018)

  Review preview for The Green Lie

  This is political in a way that is rarely found in documentary.

  Documentary makers explore corporate claims about sustainability.
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  Golden Dawn Girls (2017)

  Review preview for Golden Dawn Girls

  Too much of this fascinating material was subordinated to the question of what to call them, to the point where the director's insistence on that single question started to get in the way.

  A documentary about the women of Greece's Golden Dawn party.
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  Anote's Ark (2018)

  Review preview for Anote's Ark

  This quiet, documentary takes the viewer on an interesting, intriguing journey, ending on a question mark.

  A documentary looking at the impact of climate change on the island nation of Kiribati.