leebutler Editorial

The Best Performances of 2022

2022 has been another weird year in the ‘pandemic trilogy’ and it’s been another rough one to get through but what has certainly helped, at least on some level, has been a bevy of amazing performances by some incredibly talented actors who have made going to the cinema worthwhile… yes that is a stupid way to start this list, we work with what we have around here.

What follows is a list of 20 performances (plus 5 honourable mentions) that I quite liked in 2022. You might not agree with the people I picked, you might think I’m stupid for picking some of them and you would be right on that but it’s my blog and this is my list, to make it you just have to be wildly entertaining in some way and if you can get here by being absolutely batshit crazy, well good for you. We’re only going with films released in Australia that I’ve been able to see, same as the best and worst lists were except this one is longer because sometimes there are good performances in bad films and they deserve a special list of their own. Also, one person per film for the main list because it makes for more of a challenge so any extras go straight to the honourable mentions list

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leebutler Review

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) – Almost Totally Badass

Released: 15th July
Seen: 28th July

Normally I start these things with a little fun thing that will provide some context for the review, either on why the film exists or on a bit about the genre or even just a bit about my relationship to the material in order to try and paint a broader picture. Today, just a little mild housekeeping before I talk about Gunpowder Milkshake. My home state of NSW has been in lockdown thanks to covid for the last month, which is why I’ve had the time to basically do one of these every day and why you might’ve spotted I missed out on some recent releases like Space Jam 2, Fast & Furious 9 and Escape Room 2. Well, that lockdown’s been extended throughout August so I’m gonna miss a bunch of those releases too, which is particularly annoying cos I know some of the big ones are gonna be on HBONow and I can’t access that (I think) so please just keep my home state in your thoughts, hopefully we can get things on track and return to normal… anyway, let’s talk about a film that only released in cinemas down here but was also on Netflix in the US so was therefore relatively easy to access.

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leebutler Uncategorized

Soul (2020) – Soulful

Released: 25th December
Seen: 25th December

Sometimes I wonder exactly what devil Pixar made a deal with in order to produce its films, because it’s getting to the point where their output is just consistently great. Even their worst film (The Good Dinosaur, I will not be taking arguments at this time) is better than what a lot of their competitors make and when they hit something out of the park it turns into one of the best films of all time. This year they already made one great film with Onward, which got shafted due to the pandemic, and were meant to release Soul in June. That pandemic made them pull Soul and then they had to rethink its release… enter Disney+, which now houses the best Pixar film of the year in Soul.

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leebutler Uncategorized

Otherhood (2019) – Eh

Released: 2nd August
Seen:3rd August

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no job on earth harder than being a mother. It’s a 24/7 job that starts the second the child is born until the second one of the two people involved in the mother/child dynamic is no longer on the earth. Mothers will do anything for their children, including taking part in an elaborate bribery scandal to get their obscenely well off children into expensive colleges that they don’t deserve to attend. Mothers truly are something special, and they remain mothers even when their children have moved to another town and begun living lives that are completely separate from their parents. Of course, sometimes kids can be jackasses and forget to call their mothers while they’re off living their lives. When that happens there’s only one thing to do… an elaborate comedy about invasion of privacy that ends up going well for everybody!

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