leebutler Comedy, Drama

Not Okay (2022) – More Than Okay

Released: 29th July
Seen: 24th August

As much as we might like to pretend it isn’t, the online world is just as important to us as the offline world. Online bullying, doxing, cyber-stalking, these are things that have a real-world impact on people even though the victim and perpetrator might never even be on the same continent. There used to be a time when the sage wisdom when you were a victim of this online harassment was to just turn the computer off, it’ll all go away if you just turn it off… but that’s not true. An online dogpile can destroy you, can ruin your life and drive you to unthinkable places. This has been the reality that Gen Z has been well aware of as they live in that world, they know its true power and it was inevitable that someone of that generation would use that to influence a great work of art, and in Not Okay we have that.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Family, Musical, Netflix

13: The Musical (2022) – Child’s Play

Released: 12th August
Seen: 24th August

In September 2008, the Broadway production of 13: The Musical began its run, a run that would last until January of 2009 after 22 previews and 105 performances. It was a truly unique show as the entire cast and band were made up of teenagers, something that as far as we know has never been done on Broadway before or since. It’s also a bit of a milestone as this was the show that featured the professional debut of eventual pop icon Ariana Grande. In its own way, 13: The Musical is kind of special, an original teen-oriented musical that can be performed with a cast made up entirely of 13-year-olds that isn’t just a junior version of a different show. Naturally, a show with this kind of significance would be a prime target for adaptation… with the thing that made it kind of special being removed.

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leebutler Drama, Netflix, Review, Romance

The Next 365 Days (2022) – Let The Pain End

Released: 19th August
Seen: 20th August

The Next 365 Days Info

Two years ago the world stared in genuine shock and awe as the atrocious rape-romanticisation known as 365 Days was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public. It was, and remains, one of the worst films of the last 10 years with atrocious dialogue, performances, plot and just about everything else that one could imagine. 

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leebutler Drama, Music, Romance

Purple Hearts (2022) – Dishonourable Discharge

Released: 29th July
Seen: 17th August

Recently one of the big discourses around cinema has been the idea that superhero movies are destroying cinema. The idea is that they’re all the same and overwhelming the market, every movie nowadays wants to be just like them so we don’t get anything new or exciting. Respectfully, that feels like a case of hating the popular thing just because it’s popular. As someone who sits through hundreds of films a year for this blog, maybe half a dozen of them are superhero films and if anything, they’re a nice respite because they’re usually at least entertaining enough that it’s a few hours enjoyably spent.

No, you want to know what the real death of cinema looks like? It looks like yet another bland boring romance movie starring a pair of attractive people who can just barely get lines of dialogue out playing boring cliche characters with minimal chemistry (if any) who regurgitate the exact same romance plot we’ve seen a thousand times over… anyway, let’s talk about Purple Hearts

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leebutler Action, Drama, Horror, Review

Prey (2022) – Out Of This World Amazing

Released: 5th August
Seen: 7th August

In 2018, the film The Predator was released to cinemas. It was the 4th entry in the badly named franchise (previous entries being Predator, Predator 2 and Predators… so not confusing in the slightest) and it was probably the worst of the bunch. It almost felt like it was going to put the final nail in the coffin for this franchise which has been kind of coasting on fond memories of the 1987 original. So when there was news of another entry coming out that would take the actually unique film title Prey, it’s fair to say that there was some trepidation about how good the film would be… turns out it might be the best in the whole damn franchise.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

The LEGO NINJAGO Movie

Seen September 23rd

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First there was the Lego Movie, and it showed everyone that you could create a piece of art using a licenced toy that was actually good. Then came Lego Batman, which showed you coulde play around in multiple established universes and still tell your own story. Then there was Ninjago… it was a movie.

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