leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review

The Holdovers (2024) – Hold On

Released: 11th January
Seen: 17th January

Making an original Christmas film is an art that seems to be lost. Sure every year there’s the requisite retellings of A Christmas Carol that everyone tries to tell but an actual enjoyable film that captures a Christmas spirit is hard to come by. The last truly great one that I can think of might be Violent Night, which falls into that category of “What if we took something wholesome and made it say fuck while it bled out”, it’s just not easy to pull off but when you can make something that captures a very specific element of the Christmas season you get something kind of special, and The Holdovers definitely captures something kind of special.

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leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Night Swim (2024) – Sinking Feeling

Released: 4th January
Seen: 16th January

A big discussion that’s been going on lately concerns film length, how films nowadays seem unable to be under 2 hours and how a lot of films that go for 3 hours or more don’t really need to waste that amount of audience time. What this whole issue comes down to is the idea that certain stories only really need a certain amount of time to tell them properly, Some films need 3 hours to explore every little crevice of their story, others can handle the story in 90 minutes. Then there are short films that often prove how effective they can be with only a couple of minutes, there’s even an entire channel dedicated to films that only last for 5 seconds long because that’s all they need to get the job done… Night Swim is one of those films that probably should’ve stuck to being a short 4-minute film instead of trying to take its general idea and stretch it forcibly into 100 minutes.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review

Destroy All Neighbors (2024) – There Goes The Neighborhood

Released: 12th January
Seen: 15th January

At the start of this year, I put up a list of the best films of 2023 and top of that list was something called Cocaine Bear, a film that to this day delights me with its simple direct fun. Honestly half the time I go see a movie that’s what I go for, something that’s just uncomplicated fun that can be enjoyed without much thought at all. Horror comedies tend to be probably the best genre for doing this because often they are so heightened in their stupidity that even the average ones can be good enough for a fun time, especially when they embrace their own insanity and do something unexpected. This is why Destroy All Neighbors is such an enjoyable time, although it probably isn’t going to end up topping this year’s best list.

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leebutler Action, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Netflix, Review, Thriller

Lift (2024) – Drop It

Released: 12th January
Seen: 15th January

Lift Info

It’s become something of a joke lately that Netflix keeps producing so many films that they can’t even properly advertise them all, but it’s also probably for the best that they don’t because a lot of them are strangely forgettable garbage that’s just kind of created so that Netflix has a library of films that will never be taken away from them. What’s weird about this is that Netflix spends an absolutely jaw-dropping amount on films that, at best, will spend an eternity sitting in their digital library where they aren’t really designed to turn a profit. These are blockbusters that are made without the intention of getting blockbuster profits, a strange phenomenon that would maybe be OK if it led to fun enjoyable films… but it doesn’t, it leads to content like Lift. 

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leebutler Drama, Review

Society Of The Snow (2024) – We Live In A Snowciety

Released: 4th January
Seen: 7th January

In 1972 the Old Christians Club rugby union team boarded a plane in Uruguay, along with several family members and supporters, with the intent of getting to Chile to compete against an English rugby team. Part of this flight required a trip over the Andes mountain ranges, a trip that in normal conditions would be perfectly doable but the weather was bad enough to make it impossible to see. The details of how the crash happened are far too complicated to put in the opening paragraph of a film review but the core point is that the plane crashed in the snow-covered mountains, the 45 passengers and crew on board were effectively lost in the snow and debris. 

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Romance

Good Grief (2024) – Grief, It’s Good

Released: 5th January
Seen: 7th January

Telling gay stories in film is kind of a landmine sometimes. It seems more often than not those stories deal with immense tragedy, loss of family or just having one of the leads getting a specific fatal illness and dying for a dramatic conclusion. It’s rare to see a film about gay joy or even just gay resilience, it feels like more and more films are just kind of depressing in tone and it’s kind of sad… so it takes someone pretty damn talented to take a film about a gay man dying and turn it into a charming, funny and also emotional tale that feels somewhat hopeful by the end. Fortunately, Dan Levy is just that damn talented and has brought us Good Grief, something so charming and sincere that it’s just so soothing to watch.

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leebutler Documentary, Netflix, Review

Bitconned (2024) – Nice Freaking Time

Released: 1st January
Seen: 1st January

Cryptocurrency is possibly one of the biggest scams to ever go mainstream in recent years. What’s sold as a way for regular people to make money without relying on banks is in reality a playground for con artists to squeeze money out of gullible rich people who see a new technology and dive in without thinking. The Crypto market has brought us the bitcoin and the NFT, both of which are totally bogus ideas that are hopefully on the way out soon but until then there’s a cornucopia of stories about crypto schemes and scams, one of which revolves around the company Centra Tech, the story of the rise and fall of that company and its founders is the basis for Bitconned.

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leebutler Editorial

The Best Performances of 2023

2023 has been a pretty great year for film, even though it hasn’t been particularly profitable. Hell, this year’s Oscars might’ve been one of the best in a long time because every one of the actors who got honoured was someone that people love and they all delivered some great performances, and this year everyone seemed to up their game and bring even better performances than last year. 

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leebutler Editorial

The Top Ten Worst Films of 2023

2023 feels like the first year in a while where things can somewhat come back to normal, which is to say that it still sucked but we could actually go outside every now and then. Of course just because we decided the plague was over doesn’t mean the world didn’t almost explode, indeed several wars have been going on all year which has put a deep divide through the world and there’s also the constant lingering threat that next year might have America deciding to put a known fascist back in the most powerful position on earth for funsies… so, of course, my way to deal with this and several other bits of bile is to unleash them in list form about films I didn’t like.

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leebutler Editorial

The Top Ten Best Films of 2023

2023 in film has been kind of strange, it feels like the cinema is starting to approach returning to what it was pre-pandemic but there’s been some massive shake-ups in what a hit film can be. Instead of Superheroes dominating the box office, this year Barbie ran the roost and even helped meme a serious drama to near the top of the box office (If you try to claim Oppenheimer could’ve made that much without the Barbenheimer meme, I will laugh in your face). Small-budget horror films managed to dominate early in the year and a few old franchises came back and surprised everyone, either by being surprise hits or vanishing in seconds (remember how we had an Indiana Jones film this year? Did anyone see it, cos I know I didn’t).

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