leebutler Biography, Fantasy, Music, Musical, Review

Better Man (2024) – A Different Man

Released: 26th December 2024
Seen: 24th February 2025

Biopics in general have never been my thing, mostly because they’re pretty much all the same. A performer gets famous, does a lot of drugs, pisses off a lot of people before finally pulling through and becoming the superstar that was worthy of making a biopic about. It’s all the same and only ever becomes interesting based on the lead actor’s performance. It’s such a predictable formula you can almost guess what song will be performed after each drug-taking montage if you know enough of the main musician’s hit songs. The only biopic in recent memory that was actually good enough to make me enjoy it would be Rocketman which took the life of Elton John and turned it into a lavish musical that ignored the constraints of linear time to present the story of Elton’s life. I’ve been genuinely waiting for someone to look at that movie and steal what made it work to see if it could be replicated, imagine my surprise when Take That bad boy Robbie Williams did that exact thing and threw in a CGI monkey just for the fucking hell of it.

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leebutler Biography, Drama, Music, Review

Maria (2025) – Ave Maria

Released: 30th January
Seen: 15th February

The world of opera is one that this reviewer is not exactly well versed in, to put it mildly. The number of operas that I’ve seen could be counted on one hand and it’s literally only the Jerry Springer Opera so it’s not like that counts for anything. This is to say that I, and possibly most non-Opera fans, have no idea who Maria Callas is or what about her would make her such an important figure to be worthy of a biopic. Sure you can take a look at her Wikipedia and see her referred to as “The Bible of Opera” but without knowing her it means you effectively have to go in blind and learn about her as the film progresses… on some levels, Maria is a fascinating way to get to know this performer and makes you want to know even more. On other levels, it makes it hard to get to know this woman.

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leebutler Biography, Biopic, Drama, History, Review

The Apprentice (2024) – Dump Trump

Released: 10th October 2024
Seen: 28th January 2025

Donald Trump is one of the worst human beings ever to set foot on planet Earth. He’s a racist, a sexist, a bigot, a fascist, a probable tax cheat, an adjudicated sexual abuser (I want to call him a rapist but apparently you can’t call him that because, according to the civil suit, he only forcibly penetrated E Jean Carol with his fingers and not his penis so we’re going to stick with sexual abuse), a man responsible for the spread of so much covid misinformation that we will never be able to put an end to that disease even though we had the tools to stop it and that’s just referring to the stuff he’s done in the last 5 years. History books are going to write about this man in the same tones that we now talk about a certain German man who also had a really shitty hairstyle… but unfortunately for all of us, this absolute scumbag piece of shit got to be president because enough idiots fell for his scam which means his life actually has historical importance and so, like a lot of other presidents before him, Donald Trump gets to have his own biopic… fortunately, it’s a biopic that shows him for what he is: SCUM! (and yes, I put this up the top of the review because if this paragraph upsets you because of me insulting Trump, the film is going to do worse so you are warned… you’re welcome)

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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 Biography, Drama, Netflix, Review, Sport

Nyad (2023) – Goes Swimmingly

Released: 3rd November 2023
Seen: 7th February 2024

In 2013 at the age of 63, Diana Nyad did something borderline impossible. She swam from the shores of Havana, Cuba to the beaches of Key West, Florida. The journey was 110 miles long and involved her staying in the water for 53 hours to complete it… it also took her 5 tries, four of those happening while she was in her 60s. Along with her team in a nearby boat and her coach Bonnie Stoll, Diana pulled off something truly staggering that’s only been accomplished by 2 other people before her (That we know of). Now sure, the Guinness World Record people and the World Open Water Swimming Association have not certified the swim (short version, they claim it counts as assisted because she wore a protective suit to avoid being stung by jellyfish and may have been touched every now and then by crew members who were trying to help her every now and then during the 2 and a half days she was swimming in the freezing ocean) but fortunately the biopic Nyad gives us a version of the story worth hearing.

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leebutler Biography, Biopic, Drama, History, Music, Review, Romance

Maestro (2023) – Play Me Off

Released: 20th December 2023
Seen: 15th January 2024

With the Oscar nominations being announced just a few days ago, the time has come to tackle the annual tradition of playing catch-up on every nominated film that I somehow managed to miss throughout the year. Sometimes a film just isn’t released down here before the nominations (That’s happening with over a dozen films that I could see), sometimes a film is released but falls past the radar of must-see (how the hell was I meant to know that The Creator would be an Oscar nominee) and sometimes a film just seems like it’s going to be something I’m going to hate trying to review and because this is an unpaid hobby I avoid it until absolutely required… my dislike of biopics put Maestro firmly in that category and while I can admit it’s great, it’s still not my cup of tea.

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leebutler Biography, Drama, History, Netflix, Review

Rustin (2023) – Historic

Released: 16th November
Seen: 23rd November

Bayard Rustin was born in 1912 and lived one of the most fascinating lives that you will ever skim through on Wikipedia. Raised as a Quaker, the man was openly gay back when that was a much more dangerous thing to be than it is now (and oh boy is it still dangerous now), he recorded several albums of gospel music, was at the forefront of many civil rights movements and even ended up adopting his lover in the 80s because they were unable to get married so had to do the most creative workaround ever to ensure they had their rights. The man is genuinely fascinating, someone who should probably have an entire docuseries made about his life but if you were to pick one event from his remarkable life to make a movie about it seems fitting that his work in organising the legendary march on Washington would be the focal point for the biopic Rustin.

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leebutler Biography, Drama, History, Review

Flamin’ Hot (2023) – Heart-Warming

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: 9th June
Seen: 3rd September

In the episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend titled “Josh’s Ex-Girlfriend Is Crazy” there’s a song titled The End Of The Movie where noted songperson Josh Groban reminds us of a universal truth… “Life doesn’t make narrative sense”. This reality creates a problem when someone becomes famous enough to warrant a portion of their life being turned into a biopic, a strange series of events has to be somewhat retrofitted into a three-act film structure in a way that might not be completely accurate but still tells a satisfying story. 

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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 Biography, Drama, History

Tetris (2023) – Fittingly Exciting

Released: 31st March
Seen: 22nd April

In 1985, back in the USSR, a man named Alexey Pajitnov was tasked with testing out a new piece of hardware to figure out what it was capable of. Of the many things he tried, one thing he did was make a game where a set of blocks fell from the sky in random shapes consisting of four squares and if you lined them up, those blocks would disappear. That game was called Tetris and for a game that is such a ubiquitous part of gaming, the story of how it ended up managing to be released outside the Soviet Union (that’s how long ago this was, Russia was still the Soviet Union at the time) is absolutely bonkers and told wonderfully in the movie Tetris… shame because I was hoping the Tetris movie would be an insane attempt to turn the actual game into a narrative but hey, a biopic works too.

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