Comedy – Page 18 – Movie Meister Reviews

November 6, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Locked Down (2021) – Lock It Up

Released: 14th January
Seen: 5th November

Covid has had an interesting effect on the world of cinema, not only have people had to postpone some pretty major films or change how they film them but some have decided that they’re going to use this hellish time as inspiration. This has led to some genuinely incredible films like Host but it’s also led to absolute drek like Songbird. One of the films that I remember being advertised very early on in this pandemic was a little comedy heist film called Locked Down and the memory was that the trailer promised a good time… the trailer lied, this film is shit and I’m going to complain about its shitness.

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November 3, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Bingo Hell (2021) – Bingo Heck

Released: 1st October
Seen: 1st November

In October of last year, Blumhouse films released 4 movies direct to Prime Video as part of a series titled “Welcome To The Blumhouse”. The films (The Lie, Black Box, Evil Eye and Nocturne) may not have been great but they all displayed a certain amount of promise, introduced some new talent and all broke from tradition by having a diverse cast that wasn’t the typical set of teenage dirtbags that litter the genre like so many soon-to-be-carcasses. Clearly that little experiment did pretty well because this year they’re back with 4 more films and today we’re going to look at Bingo Hell, because evil killer bingo is right up my alley.

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October 25, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Vacation Friends (2021) – Vacation Acquaintances

Released: 27th August
Seen: 24th October

There is a specific kind of comedy movie that goes something like this. A stuck in the mud guy who lives a boring life runs into a loud eccentric maniac who somehow manages to keep living despite being borderline insane. This leads to a series of shenanigans, a fight between the two leads and eventually they make up or the smart ones let reality set in to keep them apart. At its best you can get something like The Cable Guy which took this premise to its darkest point, at worst you get something like The Wrong Missy which is a film that should be used to torture prisoners. Today we’re going to look at the comfortable middle with Vacation Friends, because I need something nice and easy.

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October 1, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Free Guy (2021) – GOTY Material

Released: 12th August
Seen: 29th September

The video game movie is obscenely hard to get right, some might suggest that it’s impossible because once you remove the players’ ability to influence the action then you fundamentally change the story to the point where any adaptation just won’t work… I’d suggest it’s just because the people making movies don’t know anything about video games other than they make money, so why not make a movie about them.

Things can go horribly wrong, from the story not suiting the game (Hi Sonic) to the actors being horribly cast (Super Mario Brothers… both live action and the upcoming animated versions honestly. Seriously, Chris Pratt is Mario, that’s a thing that’s happening), it’s so easy to screw up. Then along comes Free Guy to do a video game movie absolutely perfectly.

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September 30, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (2021) – Shantay You Slay

Released: 17th September
Seen: 27th September

In 2011 the BBC documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 hit the airwaves. It told the story of Jamie Campbell, a 16 year old boy who wanted to be a drag queen and debut his drag persona of Fifi La True at his school prom. Keep in mind that back in 2011, Drag wasn’t as mainstream as it is now. At that point Drag Race, the show that would basically push the artform into the mainstream, was still a scrappy little show in its third season on Logo that would be lucky to rack up a half million viewers so going to school in drag was a big damn deal. Big enough to warrant a documentary.

That documentary then was seen by enough people to catch the eye of the West End and become a monster hit musical called Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and now the time has come for this hit stage show to turn into a movie.

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September 27, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Routines (2020) – Routine

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

Political Correctness is ruining comedy. That’s the phrase you will hear by a lot of comics who got really big in the 90s and haven’t changed their act at all in the 30 years since they started, expecting the same jokes that worked back then to get the same reaction now. You’ve undoubtedly noticed comics who get really upset that they can’t tell a joke that mocks a certain minority group but the truth is… well, maybe those comics just aren’t actually funny anymore and need to update their material. Routines feels like someone decided to take one of those comics and place him in a dramatic story of love and loss and it works – occasionally.

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September 25, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Ninja Badass (2020) – This Is What Film Should Be!

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

I swear on my life, the plot description I’m about to type is accurate. I did not make a single solitary word of this up, this is a 100% accurate description of the plot of the absolutely glorious Ninja Badass. If anything, I’m leaving stuff out because you wouldn’t believe it was part of the film.

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September 23, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Sweethurt (2020) – The 90s Are Back Baby!

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

Back in the late 90s, there was a huge boom for comedies about teenagers behaving badly while also being kind of charming. Films like She’s All That, American Pie… basically, everything that would eventually be parodied by Not Another Teen Movie. It was this huge thing and these films were massive, to the point where their parody literally gave us Captain America. Of course, it’s been so long since this kind of comedy was a big thing that it feels like no one does it anymore… so thank god for Sweethurt bringing back that classic feeling.

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September 20, 2021September 25, 2021 leebutler Review

An Ideal Host (2020) – One Hell Of A Dinner Party

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

One of the genres that’s consistently hard to get just right is the Horror-Comedy. Sure some films do hit that mix right out of the park (Evil Dead 2, Tucker & Dale Vs Evil, etc) but for the most part they tend to either be more horror or more of a comedy and never quite hit that perfect balance. Today’s film, An Ideal Host, leans on the side of caution and splits the film into doing comedy at the start, horror at the end and it actually works out pretty well.

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September 19, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Zero Fucks (2020) – Unsubtle As Hell

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

It shouldn’t be a controversial statement to point out that Donald Trump is a giant raving douchebag with fascist tendencies, a boner for his daughter and a penchant for being extremely rapey while also giving zero fucks about the very concept of democracy… it shouldn’t be, but welcome to 2021 where everything is awful and we learned nothing from history because we let basically Hitler with a bad tan run wild with a government all of his own for 4 years and we’re currently living through something that can only be compared to the Spanish Flu of 1918. Things suck and they will continue to suck until the earth is finally done with our shit and kills us all… what I’m saying is that now is the perfect time for a film like Zero Fucks which is basically just 80 minutes of venting several years of built-up anger at the state of things.

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