Author: Joel Fisher

When she was a child, Isabella Grosso was sexually abused and it felt like nobody wanted to do anything. She started working as a stripper when she was 16 and continued for 10 years until she found the strength to do something to help other women who had been in her situation. Taking her experience and love of dance, Isabella started She Is…, a dance group comprised of women who have had the same experiences as her so that they can help girls who are going through what they did.

She Is… is a documentary about that group and Isabella’s own life experiences with sexual abuse. A documentary which also hopes to raise awareness about how often it happens and how things have to change.

Travelling to Thailand, the group find a place where little girls have been treated like property. They’re put into clubs and forced to service men who come to pay to have sex with them and they often feel like there’s no way out.

However, there’s also a place where girls have been rescued so that they have somewhere safe to process their emotions and deal with their abuse and that’s where She Is… steps in. Giving these girls a positive outlet and a great experience through dance, the group hope that they can use their personal experiences and their love of dance to help them through it.

A worthy cause which seems to do wonders for the girls, the documentary is paired with interviews with experts who are able to fully convey just how widespread the problem is throughout the world. One that doesn’t shy away from reality and may cause tears of sorrow as well as joy

However, despite there being a group of women who have all had different experiences of sexual abuse and trafficking, the focus is mostly on Isabella. Her story is something that may resonate with many viewers, but perhaps a little more about the other dancers would have helped to broaden the depiction of why they were all there. Not to exploit those experiences or dramatize them, but merely to add more context.

Saying that though, She Is… is a documentary that will break hearts and also lift them up as it shows there may be some hope in the world. It’s just going to take a lot of work.

Lee (Grant Schumacher) is an expert in his field and that field is theft. Being brought in for a job, Lee sees nothing unusual except for when the heist will take place. A new technology has been developed which can transfer a person’s consciousness into the future and into their body, so that from that point they can do what needs to be done and Lee can use it to his advantage.

However, Lee needs help and enlists Sophia (Ariella Mastroianni) and Finn (Caitlin Duffy) to help him in what seems to be an impossible job. Things go awry though when the laws of time start to get in the way and they have to decide how to proceed in order to pull things off.

The Tomorrow Job is a sci-fi action thriller written and directed by Bruce Wemple and seems to be his most ambitious yet. Clearly taking inspiration from Christopher Nolan’s obsession with time travel, Wemple has orchestrated something which may even impress Nolan himself. An original idea which combines all the right element, it may even convince some people that it pulls it off.

The problem is that like much of Christopher Nolan’s work itself, The Tomorrow Job is too complicated for its own good. Unfortunately, this means that whereas Nolan’s movies let the audience decide what’s happening, Wemple’s script doesn’t feel as confident. Meaning that every so often a character has the urge to explain what’s going on to another character and indeed the audience.

There are also deep explorations of the theory of time travel, often which are things that sci-fi loving movie buffs will know and it starts to feel a little too much.

Other elements are also added, but frustratingly get less explanation which may lead audiences wondering about the finer details. The added villain simply known as The Organiser (William Champion) brings a completely different element, which only adds another level of danger for no reason and ultimately, feels completely ineffective and lacking agency.

Also, when you think about it, even the element of time travel isn’t needed as among the action set pieces it adds little to the plot.

Jane (Gillian Jacobs) has just dropped off her daughter at summer camp for the first time, but as soon as she gets into her car, her life changes. Jane’s experiences of her day vary wildly from being involved in espionage to reconnecting with a lost love and she has no idea what’s coming next.

Jane will stay the same person, but the things that happen will range from the heart-breaking, heart-warming and even the surreal. She’ll also be fine with it, because this is her life and the things that happen are just her seven faces.

The Seven Faces of Jane is an experimental anthology which takes one character and puts her into different scenarios all written and directed by different people who have no idea of what the others had done.

Starting out with a case of mistaken identity, The Seven Faces of Jane shows its audience that anything is possible and with Jacobs’ performance, it pulls it all together even when she gets behind the camera herself. It’s also an opportunity to showcase some of the up-and-coming talents with familiar lineage in the names of Xan Cassavetes and Gia Coppola.

There may never be an opportunity to put these filmmakers together again and The Seven Faces of Jane seems like the perfect time to show what they can do.

This also gives some new filmmakers a chance to show their directorial talents. For those who are fans of Community, this also means that the reunion of Ken Jeong (behind the camera) and Joel McHale along with Gillian Jacobs will raise a smile. Even if their on-screen story may not be what audiences were expecting.

Thankfully, The Seven Faces of Jane also manages to avoid being a passion project. With each director announced in the end credits, it gives them all a chance to show what they can do without fear of who came before and after. It also doesn’t feel like a showcase for Jacobs’ talents either. Instead, it shows what a group of talented people can do with no constraints other than a little time and budget.

Colton Briggs (Nicolas Cage) did some terrible things in his past. He would shoot first and ask questions later and leave many bodies in his wake. Twenty years later though, Briggs is a changed man and runs a convenience store with his wife, Ruth (Kerry Knuppe) and their daughter, Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong).

However, one day a man called James McAllister (Noah le Gross) rides into town and knocks on Colton’s door. Not one to take no for an answer, McAllister gets angry when he doesn’t get what he wants and takes it out on Ruth who pays the ultimate price.

Finding his wife dead and having nothing left to keep him from the man that he was, Colton takes Brooke out into the wilderness to track down McAllister’s gang to get his revenge.

The Old Way is a Western directed by Brett Donowho and written by Carl W. Lucas which answers the question of what would happen if Nicolas Cage were to star in a Western. A versatile actor who has taken on many roles over his career and someone who has perhaps not been too picky as to what he chooses, it certainly feels unusual that audiences haven’t experienced a Cage inflected Western up until this point.

It’s a pleasure to say then that the audience’s expectations may be satisfied in The Old Way. However, if you’re looking for a wide-eyed gun totting maniac performance from its lead then you may be disappointed, as Cage opts for a more grounded and nuanced performance.

Although never knowingly phoning in a performance, audiences should perhaps remember the actor rather than the crazy caricature that some of his films have leant upon a little too much.

Saying all this though, The Old Way does give its audience a Nicolas Cage Western, but it does little else. There are some good performances, particularly from Armstrong who may have a bright future, but story wise it plays out more or less as you’d expect. There are many revenge movies like this and they all play out the same way and it’s good to remember that there have been, and will be many of this kind.

Devlin (Toby Wynn-Davies) is the head of a team that are investigating tornados, hoping to harness their power to be used in a way to benefit humanity. The trouble is that it doesn’t seem like they really know what they’re doing, and when a tornado takes one of Devlin’s team away and it catches fire, it becomes far more dangerous than anyone anticipated.

Pierce Moore (Daniel Godfrey) is a man with a dark past, he lives alone and that’s just how he likes it. However, his past is about to catch up with him as a gang of criminals invade his house and want the information that he has. The likelihood of both of these threads coming together is rare, but stranger thing have happened.

Firenado is a natural disaster movie directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Scott Jeffrey who have garnered some attention for their upcoming movie, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Until that onslaught of your wholesome childhood memories being ruined occurs though, Frake-Waterfield and co. have put together a generic twister movie to keep you entertained.

Unfortunately, if this is the pique of their imagination of what they can do with a very limited budget, then their most famous creation may be a huge disappointment.

The problem with natural disaster movies is budget, the types that you love to see on the big screen such as Twister, Volcano and San Andreas have all been designed with the effects and stunts in mind to give then audience a thrill. It doesn’t even matter that there is very little plot or characterisation.

However, if you have no budget and a big idea then your characters and plot better be interesting enough to watch. This is where Firenado falls short, because it feels very much like the production was aware of its limitations, but didn’t have enough of a good story or characters to keep things going.

There is a certain amount of fun to be had with it though as you can imagine the likes of Christopher Lloyd, Jason Statham and even Jack Black making appearances that the movie seriously wanted to evoke. However, with a hero who delivers his lines like he’s been dubbed by another actor and characters that nobody cares about, Firenado is about as forgettable as it should be.