Author: Joel Fisher

Daisy (Jency Griffin Hogan) works in a school and as she’s rapidly approaching forty, she’s still single. She goes to her doctor one day, an older man with dated views and he tells her that the clock is ticking for her to have a child. Daisy’s mother, Camilla (Cathie Choppin) is also constantly on her daughter’s back about having a child so that she can finally be a grandmother.

This means that Daisy is feeling the pressure and although things may not be going all that well in her current relationship, she finds that a new man, Jack Palmer (Bryan Langlitz) may change all that.

Days of Daisy is a romantic comedy directed by Alexander Jeffery and co-written by Paul Petersen. However, despite it being billed as a comedy it seems that the filmmakers are hoping that the laughs come from the behaviour of the characters rather than any jokes.

It’s also a bit of a shame that such a film is still being made, because the topic of a woman’s biological clock ticking feels a bit dated. The alternate view where a woman should not feel pressured to have children is raised, however it feels all too brief and only to placate people who may raise that criticism.

There is also a lot going on in the seemingly straightforward romantic comedy. Not only does the story focus on Daisy wanting a child, but there’s also a subplot where she’s arranging an art show for her students and it feels like the audience should be equally invested in this.

Then there’s the student in her class that she has an inexplicably contentious relationship with and the alternate route she goes to in order to have a baby and it all feels too much.

Not to mention that the movie feels like something made that the filmmakers think the audience would want rather than making something genuine. Between the addition of the quirky best friend, the love triangle and the attempts at conflict, it feels like the audience is being pulled in too many directions. This also unfortunately slows the pace of the movie right down to where a clean ninety minutes feels much longer than it should.

Jane (Rain Spencer) has always done well at school, she’s reliable and trustworthy and nobody expects her to misbehave. However, there’s something going on with Jane that she can’t talk to with anybody else.

Her mother (Andie MacDowell) doesn’t understand her, thinks she listens to bad music and criticises her appearance, leaving Jane feeling alone. She has friends though, but she’s in her own head a lot and feels like nobody else understands until she meets Jamie (Patrick Gibson).

Jamie is tall and good looking and he seems to have everything under control, he’s the kind of man that Jane needs in her life and while they get to know each other they find themselves falling in love. However, Jamie’s business is in drugs and before she realises it, he’s dragged Jane down with him.

Good Girl Jane is a dark coming of age drama about a young girl who seemingly has the same problems that any other girl her age would have. She does well at school, but she still feels pressured to act and dress a certain way and she feels trapped.

The film comes across as the type of film that a teenage audience may be able to relate to as they can understand the pressures from family and friends that might pile upon them. However, it also may be a parent’s worst nightmare.

Written and directed by Sarah Elizabeth Mintz and based on her short film of the same name, Good Girl Jane feels at its best when Jane and Jamie are together. On the one hand you show a loving relationship between two teenagers, but on the other hand it may alarm some adults as to how intimate they get and how often it happens.

What really comes through though is Jamie’s manipulation and thanks to Spencer and Gibson’s performances, it feels real and Jane may realise his influence at the same time as the audience. A story which has often been told, Good Girl Jane just about manages to avoid the cliches and feel real while telling a compelling story which doesn’t preach about drugs or sex, but shows reality.

Music touches us all at some point or another in our lives. It could be when we’re growing up and learning more about what we like. It could be connected to a way we realise that we feel about ourselves and realise that there are others who feel the same.

It could also be about the way we’ve always been and the music we hear speaks of our experiences so that we can relate to a particular artist or band. Music reveals who we are and tells others about us as well, because when we find the music that we love then there’s no better way to connect with others.

Mixtape Trilogy: Stories of The Power of Music is a documentary that tells the stories of three people who have connected to music in various ways. Firstly, Dylan talks about how she came to accept herself and her sexuality through following Indigo Girls, an openly gay music duo who were most popular in the early Nineties.

Vijay Iyer, an Indian-American man whose parents emigrated to the US tells his story about how he felt so different growing up in a white town, but found the call of music in an unexpected place. Then there’s Mike Ford, a rapper who decided to put social issues into his music and connect to his community through hip hop after his own personal loss.

Spending time with each of the people it wants to focus on, Mixtape Trilogy tells their stories and reveals things about them which may dispel the myths about the kinds of people audiences may think they are at a first glance. For example, Dylan may seem like a deranged fanatic considering how many times she’s seen her favourite group (350+ and counting), but time with her reveals a very personal story and her connection to the music feels no more ridiculous than any other hobby.

People may also see Vijay Iyer and have certain expectations of what he is like and what his music may be like—based on his background and education. However, through his music and discussions of what he plays, it becomes clear what drives him to do what he does.

However, it’s Mike Ford that may have the most powerful message that he chosen to tell himself and in fear of sounding like a cliché, his story may be the most inspiring of all. Mixtape Trilogy is a documentary that really digs into the roots of what matters in music and may make audiences realise how it can mean so much.

Laura (Jackie Van Beek) and her husband, Bruno (Damon Herriman) have had better days in their relationship. Laura is feeling the stress of her work and Bruno has lost that spark that they once had. Then one day Laura’s mother gives them a gift, a weekend retreat where they can go and learn about each other and rekindle their relationship.

Unsure about the generous but unusual gift, they accept and find themselves heading off into the woods to find themselves and each other. However, the allure of Bjorg (Jermaine Clement), the inspiring guru who leads the group may be too much for their marriage.

Nude Tuesday is a comedy drama from New Zealand with a unique and quite ingenious premise. That’s because every actor in the film is speaking gibberish. Then once filming had finished, English comedian and actress Julia Davis was given the task of writing the subtitles – and allowed to say anything she liked.

What comes across as a stroke of genius, an idea the likes of which surely could have been considered before becomes quite refreshing in today’s cinematic landscape. What could have been just another foreign language film becomes something that talks about how we all approach films that are not in the English language, or avoid them entirely.

Nude Tuesday seems to have broken that barrier, giving its audience an experience of watching a foreign film, but without actually having to watch one. This means that audiences nervous of having to read while they watch a film can feel comfortable with knowing that everybody else is in the same boat.

However, there could have been many ways in which to make the film and for those looking for something suitably weird to go along with the leftfield concept may be disappointed. That’s because the decision was made to follow the story on screen with the subtitles. It may have been a different experience if there was a wildly different story in the subtitles than what was seen on screen. However, doing so with a clear idea of the visual language of the film means that the story becomes the drive of the film.

As a story in itself, Nude Tuesday is fairly ordinary with some quirky elements. However, the added aspect of the subtitles and made-up language end up just being a gimmick. There are moments that will raise a smile like the imaginary language put into popular songs and it may even encourage audiences to watch more foreign films. However, the majority of the humour depends on your familiarity with foreign films and your relationship with sex.

Chop and Steele may very well be the biggest and most successful creations of Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher. Having grown up together, Pickett and Prueher realised that they both had the same likes and dislikes and the same sense of humour. As adults, they decided to pursue comedy as a career and although their methods were unconventional, they had some (very) modest success.

Then they came upon an idea, writing press releases and sending them to television companies, the duo created some very unique and yet non-existent characters with some extraordinary abilities. Perfect for the morning show on your local TV network, but also perfect for comedy because their talents were just as made up.

This got the attention of viewers and for a time they saw the funny side, however one television company did not and so Chop and Steele created by Pickett and Prueher became a question of taste. Chop and Steele is also the title of the documentary about their rising careers and their brief brush with fame.

Showing all that they do, the two grown men with the silliest sense of humour wanted to make people laugh. So, gathering as many VHS tapes that they could find, they soon began a tour called The Found Footage Festival where they premiered these weird and wonderful tapes for a paying audience and they loved it.

The problem was that while all this was going on, the very nature of comedy was being debated on a national scale.

They had become an overnight hit and were getting closer to the establishment than they had ever been before and they weren’t comfortable. Their documentary may start out as very funny and imaginative, but soon it becomes about how hard it is to make comedy – especially if you’re in danger of being sued.

Backed up by Bobcat Goldthwaite, Reggie Watts and David Cross, Chop and Steele are shown to be more than just two characters put into the line of fire for all the wrong reasons. However, despite a lull in the documentary with their changing careers and the pandemic, you may start to think about what happens when the wrong people don’t think that you’re funny.