leebutler Action, Crime, Comedy, Review

The Naked Gun (2025) – Surprising

Released: 21st August
Seen: 27th November

In the world of spoof comedies, one of the biggest franchises to ever grace the genre is the Naked Gun franchise. Based on the TV series Police Squad that was cancelled after a single season, Naked Gun was a massive cultural touchstone that spawned several sequels and is really the point where Leslie Nielsen went from serious actor to comedic legend (Yes he did Airplane! before this but you can literally look at his filmography and see that he pretty much never touches a serious film after Naked Gun). Of course the last film in the Naked Gun franchise was a little over 30 years ago now, Leslie has been gone for 15 so the idea of reviving the franchise is one that really shouldn’t have made it past the concept stage but somehow a new Naked Gun movie ended up being made and, to the shock of everyone, it’s actually really good.

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leebutler Comedy, Review

Oh, Hi (2025) – Nice To Watch You

Released: 25th July
Seen: 2nd November

One of my personal favourite film performances in cinema history is by Glenn Close in the movie Fatal Attraction. The story of a woman who has a one-night stand with a married man who then goes absolutely insane and basically tears his life apart because she refuses to be ignored is captivating and that performance has stuck with me since the moment I first saw it. Indeed the entire genre of a scorned lover seeking revenge on their partner is so wickedly fascinating that any time you have a couple breaking up and one of them deciding to make sure the other knows how much it hurts, I am there with a beaming excited grin so you can imagine my joy reading the plot of Oh, Hi and expecting a modern take on the idea. Well, if this is the modern take… ok, it’s fine, I guess I don’t need to see any boiled bunnies, but something of that level would be nice.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Romance

A Nice Indian Boy (2025) – Lovely

Released: 4th April
Seen: 2nd November

It seems so long ago now, but it was only 7 years ago back in 2018 when a little film called Love, Simon came out. A film that took the standard story of the teenage romcom and did a gay twist on the formula, which made it feel special. It feels like that let people in the industry know that they could actually make gay films with some mainstream appeal, which has led to a few really nice, simple and enjoyable films that have been accessible to more than just a queer audience. It’s a sad truth that films featuring queer people in general tend to just be relegated to underground films, if we even get to be part of them (Do not give me the whole “Oh gays are in everything” crap, I literally have a spreadsheet that will prove you wrong). So it’s really nice to see that we get to have a gay version of the “Person invites their new partner to meet their family” genre, especially one that’s as downright heartwarming and charming as A Nice Indian Boy.

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leebutler Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Review

Freakier Friday (2025) – On And On And On

Released: 7th August
Seen: 20th September

In the year 2003, Disney did something absolutely unheard of by the company… They released a remake of one of their previous films. The film being remade was 1976’s Freaky Friday, which was a fairly decent success with several Golden Globe nominations and featured a young Jodie Foster (who would also be in Taxi Driver that same year, 1976 was a wild year to be Jodie Foster) so remaking it probably seemed like a foolish idea, but it went ahead. The film would star Lindsay Lohan in one of the roles that would go on to define her career and Jamie Lee Curtis in probably one of her most beloved performances outside of a slasher film. Together, they made a little piece of millennial magic. Anyone who was a teenager in 2003 knew this film and loved it on some level. Hell, just play a few notes of Take Me Away and anyone of that specific generation will have flashbacks to Jamie Lee Curtis shredding the guitar solo like she’d been a rockstar for her entire life. It was an undeniable sensation, it was the 20th highest-grossing film of 2003 and is a real fan favourite live action Disney film. It’s actually shocking that it took 22 years for them to make a sequel to it, but now they have… It’s fine.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, Review, Thriller

Anything That Moves (2025) – Is It Sexual? Yeah!

Released: 14th September
Seen: 14th September

The final film I saw this year at the Sydney Underground Film Festival was chosen pretty much at random. I ran into that situation that I’m sure a lot of people have run into when it comes to film festivals. I bought a set of 5 tickets and used 4 of them for films I was interested in, so the last one was going to be chosen pretty much at random. I want to note that I entered this movie without any prior knowledge or preconceptions about what it would be like. It’s one of those films where the basic description in the booklet made the final choice for me… probably should’ve picked something else, I’m not going to lie.

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leebutler Comedy, Crime, Review

The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man (2025) – Crap

Released: 12th September
Seen: 12th September

This year, I managed to make it to my favourite film festival in the world, the Sydney Underground Film Festival. It’s the kind of film festival that pushes the boundaries of good taste and often surprises me with what it presents. Last year, I didn’t have the time to actually review what I’d seen because of my full-time job, so it’s really nice that this year I can return to reviewing what I went to see this year. This is the third film that I saw there, and when I looked at the schedule of what was on offer, I saw that on the same day there was a perfect pair of films. The first was the documentary on the Butthole Surfers, which I absolutely adored. Within an hour of that film finishing, I would then be able to see a film called The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man… Well, you can imagine my delight at the comedic value of following Butthole Surfing with Pee Pee Poo Poo, that’s too perfect a pair to pass up and with a title like The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man, surely it’ll be some dumb fun to numb the brain with, right? Well… it was dumb, I can definitely call it dumb.

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leebutler Comedy, Horror, LGBT, Review

Queens Of The Dead (2025) – Dance Or Die

Released: 11th September
Seen: 11th September

In 1968, the world of cinema changed forever with the release of a little underground horror film with the simple but provocative title of Night Of The Living Dead. To say it changed the world of cinema forever might be an understatement. It revolutionised the Horror genre, presenting a form of violence that hadn’t been put on the screen before. It contains one of the greatest examples of a black main character in horror, was at the start of the independent film boom of the 70s and, of course, essentially created the modern Zombie that everyone has referenced since then.

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leebutler Action, Comedy, Horror, Review, Sci-Fi

The Toxic Avenger (2025) – I Love You Toxie

Released: 29th August
Seen: 30th August

In 1984, a little independent film company known as Troma released a film that would change the course of the company forever. What started as a little low-budget horror film tentatively titled Health Club Horror would be released with the more memorable name The Toxic Avenger. To say that this film became a cult hit would be a massive understatement. The Toxic Avenger was the kind of cult hit that defined Troma. Toxie would turn into their official mascot and appear in several other movies. The Toxic Avenger would also turn up in other media, video games, comic books, a hit off-Broadway musical and even a Saturday morning children’s cartoon named The Toxic Crusaders. 40 years later and a certain subsection of the world still loves this big green freak in his torn up tutu, so much so that it almost feels inevitable that Hollywood was going to remake this little underground film because that’s just what happens to these cult films, someone will always try to recreate the lightning in a bottle that the original somehow had… so imagine my shock when they actually pulled off the magic trick of making this film work!

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leebutler Action, Comedy, Crime, Review, Thriller

Novocaine No Pain (2025) – Painless

Released: 13th March
Seen: 9th August

Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) is a rare medical condition that basically makes the person who is born with it (as it’s a genetic disease) unable to feel pain. On the one hand, this sounds like a great thing, a life without pain sounds good in theory, but in practice, it means that it’s easy to do things like bite off sections of your tongue or burn yourself without ever noticing you’re doing it. It’s the kind of medical condition that’s a favourite of strange medical shows because what show isn’t going to love a story about someone who doesn’t feel pain. It doesn’t seem to get much time in the sun when it comes to cinema, though, until Novocaine No Pain (which is what the movie Novocaine has been titled in Australia, for reasons that make no sense) which is possibly the first CIP Action Comedy and it’s just generally fantastic.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Netflix

A Minecraft Movie (2025) – Loading…

Released: 3rd April
Seen: 22nd June

Is there even any point to doing this? No, seriously, was there any point for any reviewer to even consider touching this movie? Sure, I’m reviewing it several months after it was a phenomenon, largely because there is no way in hell I was going to be in a cinema while a bunch of people went insane for a zombie jockey on a chicken, but even when it was just coming out, what was the point of reviewing it? A movie based on Minecraft is one of those things that’s almost certainly never going to be some kind of critical darling but no matter what it was going to make a shitload of money. Not only did it end up doing that (Currently it’s the highest grossing film of the goddamn year) but it ended up being responsible for the trashing of several cinemas when audiences forgot how to watch a damn movie and lost their minds during a scene where a zombie boy rides a chicken. A Minecraft Movie is review-proof, there is no point… except that I saw it and I just have to ask, am I old now? Am I too old for this? Have I aged out of stupid childish trash? No, it’s the children who are wrong.

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