leebutler Drama, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi

The Life Of Chuck (2025) – Oh Life

Released: 14th August
Seen: 11th December

When you think of a Stephen King story, you inevitably think of some weird horror story with a terrifying concept and a probably less than satisfying final act. You might also think of his sci-fi work, his grandiose epic The Dark Tower or The Stand. What might be thought of less are his dramatic works, despite them being adapted into truly grand movies. Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, movies that can genuinely surprise people when they learn it’s a Stephen King adaptation (I’ve literally seen this happen, I’ve shocked people by saying “The Green Mile is based on Stephen King). He doesn’t really get to flex his dramatic writing muscles as much because everyone generally wants a Stephen King book to be scary, but back in 2020 he released a novella called The Life of Chuck. The novella caught the eye of Mike Flanagan, who is one of the modern horror heroes, and he adapted it into a film of the same name which is certainly heartwarming but… well, let’s begin the review before I go into that.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Crime, Family, Mystery, Review

Zootopia 2 (2025) – Sssensational

Released: 27th November
Seen: 8th December

In 2016, Disney released Zootopia, which told the story of a society made entirely of animals (as in lions, tigers, bears, oh my) that was dealing with the disappearance of the predator class of animals. A buddy cop mystery movie told with just a ton of adorable animals in people clothes was basically a license to print money for Disney, which would rake in over a billion dollars from this one movie alone, and that still only made it the 4th highest-grossing movie of the year, which really says a lot about how insane the box office was only a decade ago. In the years since Zootopia has remained a very popular property, even getting a TV show on Disney+ in 2022, but it’s taken until now for Disney to get around to making a sequel, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

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leebutler Documentary, Review

Strange Journey: The Story Of Rocky Horror (2025) – Sweet

Released: 5th December
Seen: 6th December

The first time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show was on a VHS tape while at home sick from school. For a long time I had been aware of the VHS tape that sat in the house, an impossible to miss set of ruby red lips on the cover, hovering wickedly under the words “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” printed in slightly-raised silver writing. Like everyone else on earth, I’d heard of the film before, indeed my school even taught us how to do the Time Warp at one point so elements of the film had entered my consciousness but the film itself hadn’t, so in my sickly state, I watched the film for the first time and was soon transfixed by it. It’s brilliant songs, completely mental performances and strange references that flew over my head just washed over me in that living room. Even on a crappy VHS tape, the magic of Rocky Horror worked on me, as it does for most people who see it. At that moment I joined the cult, the cult that has kept Rocky Horror in theatres and in the public consciousness for 50 years. Now seems like the perfect time to celebrate this truly insane film with a documentary and Strange Journey: The Story Of Rocky Horror is the exact kind of documentary that this classic deserves.

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) – Uggh

Released: 4th September
Seen: 6th December

Ed and Lorraine Warren were complete and utter con artists whose damage to the people they claimed to help won’t be fully known for years to come. For literally decades they would go from town to town and “investigate” strange goings-on and somehow come to a “scientific” conclusion that this meant they found some form of demon. All the time just a whole mess of demons, it’s never mental illness or epilepsy or strange coincidences… nope, always demons. I’ve said this before, literally verbatim because I copied that opening section from my review of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It which I still regard as the worst mainline Conjuring movie (The spinoffs are somehow worse, but none fill me with as much actual rage as The Devil Made Me Do It). One might hope that they would stop this franchise at some point, Horror as a genre is in a new era that’s not exactly suited to what The Warren’s and their lies could inspire but nope, we now have The Conjuring: Last Rites and my god, I hope this is the end because even the lies are getting repetitive and dull.

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leebutler Comedy, Review

The Roses (2025) – Thorny Fun

Released: 28th August
Seen: 6th December

In 1981, William Adler released his eighth novel, The War Of The Roses, about a couple who slowly feel their marriage falling apart and go through an absurdly horrific divorce. This story got adapted into a film of the same name in 1989 which was a massive hit, making $160 million on a $26 million budget. As a pitch black comedy, the chances of it being remade probably seemed unlikely (remaking comedies is rare enough, remaking pitch black comedies about couples who divorce and almost torture each other to death is something that was almost never going to happen) but here we are in 2025 with The Roses coming out and honestly being funnier than you might expect it to be.

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leebutler Review, Thriller

Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025) – Go Away Now

Released: 15th May
Seen: 2nd December

In 2023, Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye decided to try his hand at acting with the miniseries The Idol and the reviews for that series were absolutely scathing on a level that very few shows could get. It had an infamously bad production history, and every episode was met with brutal vitriol as it became apparent to everyone paying even a little bit of attention that Abel was not a good actor. Honestly, the reviews were so bad that it seemed like it should stop him from ever being asked back to try and do anything even close to acting again… but alas, lessons were not learned and someone decided to give him a movie where he confirms he can’t act and his co-stars prove that even their incredible talents can’t save this crap.

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leebutler Action, Comedy, Review

Fight or Flight (2025) – Gloriously Silly

Released: 4th September
Seen: 1st December

In 2022, a little film called Bullet Train came out that asked the logical question, “What would happen if you put Brad Pitt on a Japanese bullet train full of assassins?” The answer was a pretty fun movie with a lot of wild over-the-top cartoon characters, a lot of inventive action scenes with stunts by a guy who did a lot of Marvel work and the director of Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2. It was the kind of film that was just balls to the wall fun, at times those balls made their way through the wall because they were slammed against it with such velocity. It was also a pretty big hit, and like a lot of big hits, it’s almost required for someone to try and make a knockoff version of it. Enter Fight or Flight, which takes Brad Pitt and replaces him with Josh Hartnett and jams some wings on the train to turn it into a plane. With that, you have another pretty damn fun movie.

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leebutler Comedy, Crime, Review, Thriller

Caught Stealing (2025) – Steals The Show

Released: 28th August
Seen: 30th November

Darren Aronofsky is the kind of director who seems to revel in polarising the audience, in making a film that’s going to get an extreme reaction no matter if it’s positive or negative. There aren’t really any films in his catalogue you could say are just good or well-liked; you either love his stuff or hate it. In recent years, even though I’ll admit he’s obscenely talented, I just wasn’t into his work on films like Mother! Or The Whale, but in the past, he’s delivered truly breathtaking work like Black Swan so undoubtedly there was a chance that he was going to win me back at some point with one of his works. It feels like Caught Stealing seems to be the first time that Darren has tried to make a film with a strong mass appeal (hilarious to say in retrospect since it bombed at the box office), and honestly, it’s just a damn good time.

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leebutler Action, Comedy, Crime, Review, Thriller

Nobody 2 (2025) – Fun

Released: 17th October
Seen: 29th November

In 2021, a little film called Nobody was released to the public. The film could be basically described as a mass-appeal suburban version of John Wick, filled with some truly incredible action sequences, a captivating lead performance by Bob Odenkirk and enough charm to elevate the already excellent material. It was a genuinely glorious little film that easily was one of the best of 2021 (and while being a good film in 2021 was a low bar because of how that year was still a pandemic recovery year for the movies, believe me when I say that Nobody was still genuinely fantastic). It was the kind of film that seemed like it was destined to be a franchise and deserved a sequel just to see what this little family did now that their father’s clandestine history had been revealed. Well, in Nobody 2, the Mansell family decide that the way they’re going to handle things is by going on a summer vacation… it will go exactly as expected.

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leebutler Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Review, Sci-Fi

Frankenstein (2025) – Monsterously Great

Released: 7th November
Seen: 28th November

The story of Frankenstein has been told so many times that, at this point, it’s actually a surprise when a full year goes by without someone attempting to tell their version of the legendary Mary Shelley tale, arguably the first science fiction story. Obviously, cinema’s love of this story began with the 1931 Universal classic by James Whale, but ever since then, it’s a well that people keep plunging their buckets into, hoping to extract something special. Of course, a lot of the time the well feels like it’s run dry because everyone has done every possible thing you could imagine with this character, there shouldn’t be anything new or interesting that could be done with him… but then along comes the legendary Guillermo Del Toro to use his special magic on the story and make it feel fresh once more.

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