leebutler Action, Adventure, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) – Action Packed Glory

Released: 11th January
Seen: 26th April

In 2015 George Miller returned to the franchise that began his career after a 30-year break and gave us Mad Max: Fury Road, a film that many would argue (and be completely right to do so) was the best action film of the 2010s. A high-octane explosion-filled joyride through the desert, Mad Max: Fury Road revived a long-dead Ozploitation franchise and took it to Hollywood where it reminded the world that the guy who made the two Happy Feet movies used to be an absolute madman who made films where cars explode just for the fucking fun of it. What was a big surprise back then was that the standout character in the Mad Max movie wasn’t Max but a side character named Furiosa who became an instant classic character who people wanted to know more about. It might’ve taken nearly a decade but Miller has heard our cries and given us the glory that is Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Abigail (2024) – Biting

Released: 22nd March
Seen: 11th May

Radio Silence is the name given to a group of filmmakers, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella who have become power players in the modern Horror genre. They were introduced to the world through their segment of the original V/H/S movie titles 10/31/98, AKA the one where a bunch of friends in Halloween costumes visit a haunted house. Since then they’ve made several smaller films and taken part in other anthologies but got their big break when they released the 2019 gem Ready or Not which got massive critical praise and was probably the film that got them their biggest jobs yet, taking over the Scream franchise after the passing of Wes Craven. It’s safe to say that this little troupe of filmmakers could do anything that they want to do and clearly what they love doing is making big silly fun horror films intended to just be pure over-the-top entertainment and by god that’s exactly what Abigail is.

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leebutler Horror, Uncategorized

Stopmotion (2024) – Unnerving

Released: 15th March
Seen: 5th May

Stopmotion Info

In 2022 the legendary animator Phil Tippett released a little stop-motion film called Mad God which showed that stop-motion animation could be used pretty effectively to create a feature-length horror film. The weird jerky motions of the animation and otherworldly designs blended to create nightmare fuel that lives on in the minds of anyone who saw that film. Well now it’s 2024 and another director has taken on the idea of stop motion being used to tell a horror story, only they’re going to be more direct and use the idea of making a stop motion film to help create the horror… they’re going to be so direct that the film is literally called Stopmotion, you can’t get more direct than that.

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leebutler Biography, Comedy, History, Netflix, Review

Unfrosted (2024) – Bland

Released: 3rd May
Seen: 5th May

Unfrosted Info

Throughout the 1990s it was inarguable that the biggest person in pop culture was Jerry Seinfeld. For nine seasons his TV series was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon, taking the mundane elements of our day-to-day lives and creating iconic television comedy out of them. What makes Jerry’s run as the star of the biggest TV show of the decade so incredible is that he could’ve gone on even longer, indeed he was offered millions upon millions to do a 10th season but he turned it down because he wanted to go out on top. Ever since then, Jerry has mostly stuck to doing little documentaries, talk show appearances and a show about comedians in cars drinking coffee but, except for The Bee Movie, Jerry has never really returned to the world of acting since his show finished… and Unfrosted is a reminder of why he shouldn’t act anymore because it turns out he stopped being good at it in 1998.

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leebutler Comedy, Musical, Review

Mean Girls (2024) – Fetch

Released: 11th January
Seen: 1st April

Mean Girls Info

In 2004, the film Mean Girls was released and changed the cultural landscape as we know it. It’s kind of staggering to think about just how much of current pop culture can be traced back to that one film. The obvious things it did was demonstrate that Lindsay Lohan wasn’t just a child actress and mark the start of Tina Fey’s rise as a comedic force but it also created a ton of jokes that are still referenced today. Fetch, She Doesn’t Even Go Here, Too Gay To Function, the concept of wearing pink on a certain day of the week and the phrase “Cool Mom” all can be linked back to Mean Girls. It defined an entire generation’s sense of humour, it can’t be understated the kind of cultural impact that it had. Hell, it’s 20 years later and we’re still talking about it, and not just because they adapted it into a stage musical which then got adapted into a film musical, the one I’ll be talking about today.

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