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

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) – Timely

Released: 25th July
Seen: 27th July

Six years ago, a little independent film called Deadpool 2 was released to cinemas, doing incredible business and cementing the legendary Merc with the Mouth as an iconic addition to the superhero genre. I know it feels like an absolute eternity since 2018, it was a different time before a plague basically upended our world and changed absolutely everything but you have to remember that 2018-2019 was probably the peak era of the modern Superhero genre, culminating in the cataclysmic cinematic event known as Avengers: Infinity War, followed a year later by Avengers: Endgame. Looking back with the gift of hindsight, Endgame marked the point where the superhero genre peaked and it’s probably never going to be that great again but at the time it felt like there would be no end and surely the next big thing would be another Deadpool movie. Surely it would be, Deadpool 2 was the 5th highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office, it was so popular they re-released it with new footage to make a Christmas movie, surely this meant that we’d get another run around with the funny red menace.

…then the plague happened, no one wanted to go to the movies anymore and Superhero films entered a slump. 

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leebutler Crime, Horror, Review

Maxxxine (2024) – I’m A Star…?

Released: 11th July
Seen: 14th July

In March of 2022, the world was introduced to Maxine Minx in a little horror film called X. The film revolved around a group of people making a porno film on a farm that they were renting from an elderly couple – an elderly couple that would go on to murder most of the people making that film except for final girl Maxine Minx. X was a fascinating film, combining a classic 1970s-era slasher film with the rise of Porno-Chic that was occurring around that era thanks to films like Deep Throat or The Devil in Miss Jones and contained one of the most fascinating slasher villains in the form of Pearl, an elderly woman who resented the sexual freedom of the young people who were on her farm. Something else that set X apart was a post-credits scene that revealed that not only would there be another film in this setting, but that it had already been filmed and would be released 6 months later. 

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Review

Inside Out 2 (2024) – Deep Thoughts

Released: 13th June
Seen: 30th June

In 2015 Pixar released Inside Out, a fascinating film that explained the complex concept of emotions in a funny, heartwarming way and was incredibly accessible for people to understand. In my humble opinion, it’s also the best thing that Pixar has put out that didn’t include Woody or Buzz Lightyear. It was truly a miracle of a film that has some of the most beautiful imagery and emotional beats (Seriously, you want to make me cry like a baby in under 10 seconds? Just start singing “Who’s your friend who likes to play?” and I’ll lose my damn mind). It was about as close to perfect as you could get from the Pixar people and it made so much money that it was inevitable a sequel would happen. It took almost a full decade for them to make it happen but now we finally have our follow-up to the emotional rollercoaster that was Inside Out and fortunately, Inside Out 2 manages to live up to the expectations that were set for it.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Review

The Garfield Movie (2022) – Here Comes Garfield!

Released: 30th May
Seen: 30th June

In 1977, Jim Davis was working on a comic strip called “Jon” about a cartoonist named Jon Arbuckle and his cat Garfield. The strip had been called Jon for a year already but Jim smartly changed it to Garfield just before the strip would get printed nationally. It soon became an undeniable phenomenon, with the kind of merchandising that’s normally reserved for Sci-Fi epics and superheroes. It would go on to create a long-running beloved animated comedy called Garfield and Friends, a dozen animated specials, a second series that only finished airing in 2016 and two live-action movies that we try our best to forget. What hasn’t been tried yet is a full-length animated motion picture released in cinemas and now we have one… it’s fine.

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