leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

The Pope’s Exorcist (2023) – Holy Hell

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 6th April
Seen: 24th July

It’s almost a cliche at this point to bring up The Exorcist when talking about a movie featuring exorcism but it’s kind of impossible, some movies are just such a massive part of the cinematic landscape that anyone else touching that subgenre is inevitably going to be compared to them. Horror in particular has this problem a lot, all slasher movies tend to be leaning into templates made by Halloween or Friday the 13th, all Zombie movies are just riffing on Dawn of the Dead and all exorcism movies are basically just The Exorcist with a fresh coat of paint. You can absolutely do new interesting things with the genre, films like The Exorcism of Emily Rose throwing the genre into the courtroom create an interesting take on the genre… or you can just go “Oh but here’s a real person who actually did this job” and then do another version of The Exorcist but without the brilliance that made the 1977 film an absolute legend.

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leebutler Adventure, Biography, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, History

My Barbenheimer Experience

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

There really is nothing quite like a good old double feature. Two films intentionally curated to be screened back to back and shared by a collective audience who can use one film to build up to another, it’s an idea so fundamental to the film-going experience that at least one film has opened with a song dedicated to the glory of double features (albeit ones of the Science Fiction variety). 

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leebutler Comedy, Review

Mafia Mamma (2023) – Mamma Mia!

Released: 13th April
Seen: 13th July

There are some actors who are so singularly talented that any material they’re given is almost automatically made better just by their involvement, the kind of performer who manages to shine even in absolute garbage. You have some obvious choices, all-time legends like Meryl Streep and Glenn Close are just two examples of people who basically make something great just by being in it. Then there’s Toni Collette, one of the greatest actresses that has ever come out of Australia, a performer who never fails to deliver something incredible and who probably should have at least one Oscar by now (I and many others will never forgive the Academy for snubbing her the year Hereditary came out). She’s truly something special as a performer… so how boring does a film have to be where even Toni Collette can’t make it into anything other than just a dull time?

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leebutler Comedy, Review

Joy Ride (2023) – Joyful

Released: 6th July
Seen: 6th July

When one thinks of the modern road trip movie, there’s a certain image that comes to mind for most audiences. That image is of a group of friends, usually four because that’s how many can easily fit in a standard car but that number can fluctuate, going outside of their normal lives and going on a simple adventure which results in insane shenanigans. This subgenre includes films like Road Trip, Euro Trip, and The Hangover which were insanely popular due to interesting locations, casts with great chemistry, and some decent writing… They were also overwhelmingly white, often using that as a major source of comedy since a bunch of white people in a foreign country and not understanding the customs has been comedy gold for a stunning amount of time.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation

Nimona (2023) – Metal!

Released: 30th June
Seen: 3rd July

The fact that Nimona exists today at all should legally be considered a miracle just based on what it’s been through to get to a screen. Starting life as a webcomic, the film rights were bought in 2015 by Blue Sky Pictures, a Fox company that was planning on making a movie out of it, and had everything gone the way it was originally supposed to, that film would’ve come out in early 2020. Now, if you know your history of insane company acquisitions, you’ll know that in 2019, Disney bought Fox and with that purchase now has ownership of everything Fox has ever made or was making at the time (though let’s be real, they did it because it was the only way for them to get hold of certain Marvel properties that they knew they’d want eventually). This purchase meant that Disney owned Nimona now, and that’s where the trouble started.

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