leebutler Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi, War

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot (2019) – Don’t Judge A Film By It’s Title

Released: 8th February
Seen: 12th August

Sometimes a film title tells you everything that you need to know about a movie before you even walk into the cinema. A title like Scream, short and pithy as it is, tells you the exact reaction the filmmakers hope to get out of you. A title like Sharknado tells you that you’re in for something gloriously silly and over the top. So how do you think I reacted when I saw that there was a film with the title The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot? That’s right; I was elated because that is one of the most glorious titles that I have ever read in my life. It’s a title that drips with promise and potential, the suggestion of some glorious insanity that will be the kind of film that you watch drunk with friends. It sounded so fun and so camp… and then the film started and delivered a very different film that I’m still unsure about.

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leebutler Biography, Drama, War

Tolkien (2019) – Everybody’s Tolkien At Me

Released: 13th June (Advance Screening)
Seen:7th June

To say that the 1937 book The Hobbit was a game changer would be an understatement. When it comes to the fantasy genre, one could say that The Hobbit and its follow up novels are the reason the fantasy genre still continues to have a life. It’s a work that inspired countless authors and, of course, eventually, lead to three of the most beloved movies of the last 20 years with the iconic Lord of the Rings trilogy. They also made movies based on The Hobbit but we don’t talk about those. Those films were huge though, truly massive moments that are landmarks of cinema and when they ran out of Hobbit movies, someone had to find something to fill the void and since the rights for the stories are with Amazon for that upcoming prequel series, the only way to fill the void would be to do a story about the author himself. You can almost hear the executive squealing with delight when they came up with that idea, even more joyful when they realised that Tolkien was in the First World War so they could do a huge battle scene. Basically, this was a way to get another Lord of the Rings movie out on a smaller budget and it would’ve worked so wonderfully… if, ya know, it was engaging.

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leebutler Drama, Romance, War

The Aftermath (2019) – Bland

Released: 23rd April
Seen: 3rd May

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So, this one is going to be exceptionally hard to write about. In general, when a movie gives me a lot to work with it’s fairly easy to sit here and explain why it does or doesn’t work. A particularly good or bad film can almost create its own review through sheer excitement or revulsion. What’s a lot more difficult to write about are movies where I feel absolutely nothing, not a shred of emotion either for or against the film. A generic boring slog will always be the hardest thing to write about because while describing why the movie is a generic boring slog, I have to attempt to ensure that this review isn’t a generic boring slog… though it does help when the boring film shouldn’t actually be boring based upon its subject matter.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, War

Overlord (2018) – 100 Nazi Scalps!

Released: 6th December
Seen: 3rd December (Advanced Screening)

One of the great joys of doing this is getting to really see some intense hard-hitting films. As I slowly start to finish out 2018 I look back and think about the hard intense thrillers, the powerful dramas, the deep explorations of the human psyche that I have sat through for the last 12 months and after all that it’s about time that I got to have a nice simple movie that I could switch my brain off during and just enjoy for its visceral delight in being over the top… and Overlord provided me exactly that.

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leebutler Action, Drama, History, War

Dunkirk

Seen 20th July

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Christopher Nolan has one of the best track records in film. The man knows how to put together a movie better than most. When he does blockbusters they bust every block around, when he want’s to go cerebral and produce a weird dream movie then he makes the most elegant dream movie ever. He’s a fantastic film maker… usually.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, War

Wonder Woman

Seen June 15th

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For as long as I can remember, there have been talks about a Wonder Woman movie. There were talks of TV series pilots, including the infamous NBC pilot that basically turned Wonder Woman into a sociopath who didn’t care about anyone or anything other than the size of the tits on her action figure (And god do I wish I was kidding about that). At one point Joss Whedon was going to handle the movie but that didn’t pan out. Basically for pretty much my entire life there was only one live action Wonder Woman who went by the name of Lynda Carter, as far as I’m aware she is the only person to play the part on film… until Gal Gadot came around, and thank Zeus that she turned up when she did.

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