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July 1, 2024July 1, 2024 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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May 27, 2024May 27, 2024 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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May 18, 2024 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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May 12, 2024 leebutler Horror, Uncategorized

Stopmotion (2024) – Unnerving

Released: 15th March
Seen: 5th May

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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May 5, 2024 leebutler Biography, Comedy, History, Netflix, Review

Unfrosted (2024) – Bland

Released: 3rd May
Seen: 5th May

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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May 2, 2024 leebutler Comedy, Musical, Review

Mean Girls (2024) – Fetch

Released: 11th January
Seen: 1st April

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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April 29, 2024April 29, 2024 leebutler Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Netflix, Review, Sci-Fi

Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver (2024) – Scarring

Released: 19th April
Seen: 28th April

On the 19th of April an interview with director Zack Snyder dropped where he delivered this quote:

You may love or hate my movies, I’m 100% fine with that but a vote against me is a vote for the focus groups. Know by saying ‘Snyder sucks’ you’re also saying “you know what? give me more focus groups! I want Happy Meals!

As one might expect, the second this phrase hit the internet there was a group of people who took issue with it, myself being one of them. This quote kind of speaks to the arrogance of Zack Snyder, how he seems to believe that his films are something so outside the mainstream and doing something so unique that we have to support him for the love of cinema. It is, truthfully, one of the most pretentious things that has ever been said by a director of mainstream cinema… it’s also absolute bullshit because, having now seen Rebel Moon: Part Two – The Scargiver, there’s truly nothing about it that goes against focus groups because it reeks of the most pandering studio bullshit one could imagine.

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April 4, 2024April 4, 2024 leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review, Uncategorized

Slay (2024) – YAAASSSSS!!

Released: 22nd March
Seen: 1st April

A lot of streaming services have taken to making their own original films and for good reason, those films are owned by the streaming service and therefore can’t be taken away by any company (the exception to this is HBO Max who make and take away their own products because HBO Max is run by a fucking moron). There’s a general belief on this blog that those streaming originals are just as valid as any other film and thus they get reviewed, be they from Netflix, Prime or Shudder.

The one streaming service that has been an exception to this and that’s Tubi, which is weird because that’s a free service so their original films are easiest to access. However, their films also just don’t really stand out enough to warrant discussion. No one talks about the Terror Train remake, War of the Worlds: Annihilation or the sequel to the Terror Train remake that came out 3 months after the Terror Train remake so it felt pointless reviewing them when there were bigger things to review. Maybe that snobbery needs to be looked at, maybe some of Tubi’s garbage needs to be ransacked… or maybe I was just waiting for Tubi to release an original film that might interest me and “Drag Queen Vampire movie” is absolutely the kind of film I’m very interested in.

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April 2, 2024 leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review

Dream Scenario (2024) – Dreamy

Released: 1st January
Seen: 31st March

There is no term on the planet that I hate more than “Cancel Culture”, it’s a term that was basically invented by assholes to make it seem like being told to stop being racist/sexist/bigoted was a free speech violation. It’s almost always an attempt for people to brush aside consequences for when they act like an idiot in public… that being said, there are some times when the reaction by the internet is horribly over the top. Sometimes someone in public makes a joke that’s a little off-colour or does something that’s accidentally disrespectful, the internet jumps on them and vilifies them for a while before the person makes a grovelling apology which only makes things worse until the internet moves onto their next target. On Twitter (I refuse to call it anything else than that) we call this the Twitter Main Character where the ultimate goal is not to become that person. It looks like the cycle of the Twitter Main Character has officially gone mainstream because Dream Scenario is basically a feature film based around that concept and it’s just as weird and hilarious as you might expect.

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April 1, 2024 leebutler Horror, Review

Immaculate (2024) – Holy Moly

Released: 21st March
Seen: 31st March

Religious horror is a fascinating genre when it’s done right. The concept of something holy being turned into something evil is a prime concept for horror, the catch is that there is a certain section of the audience who don’t believe in the specific holy element that the film is working with so you have to make them believe in it just enough for the horror to work. When done right you can get great works of horror like The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby (fuck Roman Polanski) or The Omen. When done wrong you get… well, the sequels and remakes of those three movies. Immaculate is the newest entry into the religious horror subgenre and it’s fair to say this is one of the ones that does it right, but also does it in a way that’s gloriously fucked up.

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