Documentary - Movie Meister Reviews

March 9, 2021 leebutler Documentary, LGBT

Bring Down The Walls (2020) – Another Brick In The Walls

Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)

The Prison Industrial Complex is a topic that’s been touched on by many truly fascinating documentaries for a reason, it’s an obscenely messed up system that is often used capriciously against POC and queer people who are just trying to live their lives. In the US it’s particularly awful, they have the largest number of prisoners on the planet and it’s disproportionately people of colour (largely black and Latin men).

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March 4, 2021 leebutler Documentary, LGBT

Cured (2020) – An Important Piece Of History

Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association took a vote to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM. It was one of the most controversial votes that the board would ever have since homosexuality had been considered a mental illness since the first DSM was printed in 1952. With homosexuality being labelled a mental illness, it was able to be used as an excuse to deny employment or housing or basic rights to an entire class of people. This led to some of the most brutal torture ever done in the name of mental health, and a story that the film Cured tells brilliantly.

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February 25, 2021 leebutler Documentary, LGBT

P.S. Burn This Letter Please (2020) – And Watch This Film Please

Seen as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival (Online Screening)

The history of gay culture is hard not well recorded, this is almost intentional. Thanks to the way that the community at large was treated by a legal system that revelled in arresting gay people for the crime of existing, keeping records wasn’t a high priority. If one were to have letters or photos that caught moments of queer culture, they were either burned by an angry parent determined to pretend that their departed child was straight, or it was destroyed upon request by the person who wrote the letter who would often add “P.S. Burn This letter please” at the end.

Thankfully, someone in the 1950s ignored this request and kept a hold of a series of letters and photos that described the underground 1950s drag and gay scene and now we have a record of this period of the era when the LGBT community was its most secretive.

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February 11, 2021 leebutler Documentary

Strip Down, Rise Up (2021) – The Power Behind The Pole

Released: 5th February
Seen: 8th February

In 2019 the world was rocked by a single moment, that moment being in the movie Hustlers when Jennifer Lopez walked onto a stage while Criminal by Fiona Apple played and performed a pole dance that commanded the attention of anyone who saw it. The pure athleticism and power on display was magnetic and there is no doubt in my mind that this moment led to a whole bunch of women buying poles to fit into their workout routines. Pole Dancing as a workout routine has been around for a long time, and in the documentary Strip Down, Rise Up we get to see just how powerful and meaningful this dance can be for women.

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January 18, 2021 leebutler Documentary

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy (2021) – This Doc Is Wack

Released: 11th January
Seen: 12th January

In the 1980s, the decade of greed and excess, the drug of choice was cocaine. The white powder that filled the noses of everybody who was anybody was almost a status symbol, you can’t tell a story about the 80s without someone at some point saying “And then we did some coke” because it was that ubiquitous. Of course, like all things, there was inevitably a cheaper and more effective version available known as crack. Crack cocaine was instantly deemed the worst thing you could do, and this documentary points out the consequences of that.

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January 6, 2021 leebutler Documentary

Steve McQueen: The Lost Movie (2021) – Fascinating Piece Of Forgotten Cinema

Released: 2nd January
Seen: 2nd January

In the 1960s, one of the coolest movie stars on the planet was Steve McQueen. Star of classics like The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, he was an icon who combined his love of acting with his other passion, F1 Racing. One of the things he was most known for was that love of driving, often doing his own stunt driving in any film he was permitted to. His love of driving was so great that he pushed to make one of the biggest racing movies of all time, a film that would become one of the most legendary unfinished films in history.

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January 4, 2021 leebutler Documentary, Netflix

The Minimalists: Less is Now (2021) – Minimally Good

Released: 1st January
Seen: 2nd January

When I think about minimalism, I tend to think about it in conjunction with the art world. My brain instantly goes to works by the minimalists like Barnett Newman’s Voice of Fire, which is a 5-metre high painting of two dark blue lines with a bold red line right in the middle. Well, it turns out that minimalism is also a lifestyle movement now which basically means to have nothing in your home that you don’t have an actual use for (so bye-bye to that Funko Pop collection).

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November 21, 2020November 21, 2020 leebutler Documentary

Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist (2020) – Possessed by Potential

Released: 19th November
Seen: 20th November

Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist Info

So, fun fact, I was meant to see a film very similar to this about a year ago. When I went to the Sydney Underground Film Festival one of the films that I was meant to see was called Friedkin Uncut, a documentary about the director of The Exorcist. For some reason the film was pulled a few days before the screening and I never got to see it. At the time I could’ve gone to another film that was screening at the same time but instead I chose to just skip it and go to my next film of the day (since that day I had four other films to see).

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November 20, 2020 leebutler Documentary, Horror

In Search Of Darkness II (2020) – Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Released: 18th November
Seen: 18th November

Back in March I talked about a little documentary called In Search Of Darkness, a four-hour long love letter to the 80’s horror film. In short, I felt it was a genuinely great film that was easily digestible, gave a good overview of the genre at the time but had the bad habit of using a lot of films from the same franchise which made it repetitive and robbed the audience of getting to hear about a wider array of films from the decade. So when I found out that they were planning a sequel I had high hopes, even bought it ahead of time, thinking if they could be a little less repetitive with the movies they picked then it could be great…. Sometimes, getting your hopes up can actually end well.

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October 27, 2020 leebutler Documentary

#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump (2020) – He’s Nuts

Released: 28th August
Seen: 26th October

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I do not like Donald Trump. Even back in the days when he had his little reality show I didn’t like him. I watched a little bit of Celebrity Apprentice because Penn Jillette, Lisa Lampanelli and Gilbert Gottfried were on there and I thought it’d be funny to see just what they would do. I also watched his Comedy Central Roast, mostly because I’ve watched every Comedy Central Roast and the idea of people tearing the shit out of that blowhard for an hour just delighted me. I never liked him even before he became president and revealed himself, in my opinion, to be evil. I state this now because this documentary specifically involves Donald Trump and his mental health, a behavioural analysis of the man. I’m going to do my best to be objective about this film, but I want you to know ahead of time that in terms of subject matter, this film was preaching to the choir when it came to me.

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