leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Romance

Love Again (2023) – Think Twice

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 11th May
Seen: 30th August

Celine Dion is arguably one of the world’s best singers, even if you don’t enjoy her music it’s hard to deny the raw power of her voice. She was one of the biggest artists in the 90s for a reason and has managed to maintain a huge fanbase for almost 40 years because when she’s in her element there are few who could compare. What’s kind of surprising is that despite her voice accompanying some of the biggest films of all time, she’s done very little on-camera work in the film world. Before now it’s been a couple of cameos in TV shows and singing backup for Miss Piggy in Muppets Most Wanted, that’s kind of been it until Love Again came along and said “What if we took our cute little romcom and made it have several scenes dedicated to exclaiming how great Celine Dion is?”

Continue reading “Love Again (2023) – Think Twice” →
leebutler Comedy, Review, Romance

Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) – Charming

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 11th August
Seen: 28th August

Not too long ago, I started making a spreadsheet. Not the most exciting thing in the world to begin a review with I’ll admit but I promise this is relevant because the spreadsheet takes every single film that has been reviewed on this blog and keeps track of how many LGBT characters are in it. Over the course of the last 6-7 years of writing reviews I have seen about 966 films, most of them fairly mainstream. Now obviously each year there has been some fluctuation but in total since the start of this blog, 36 of those films have featured a lesbian woman, 86 have featured a gay man, 23 had a bisexual in them and a whopping 24 had a trans person in them at some point.

Continue reading “Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) – Charming” →
leebutler Comedy, Drama, Horror, Review

Beau Is Afraid (2023) – Creepy and Kooky

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 20th April
Seen: 27th August

Ari Aster is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the horror genre today, one of the people who rode the wave of the recent trend of “Elevate horror” with his fascinating films Hereditary and Midsommar. His films are known for being strange, dark, twisted nightmares with leading performances that get horrifically snubbed whenever award season comes around (The fact that Toni Collette didn’t get an Oscar for Hereditary is a crime that will be dealt with by the Hague when the time comes). With two hit films under his belt and being somewhat of a darling at A24, it stands to reason that Ari has built up more than enough clout to get away with a film that would normally never get made because it was too weird, even for A24. Ari seems to have used that clout to get Beau Is Afraid made and no matter what you might think about it, the fact it got made at all is something special.

Continue reading “Beau Is Afraid (2023) – Creepy and Kooky” →
leebutler Action, Comedy, Review, Thriller

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023) – Ruse of Ritchie

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 12th January
Seen: 26th August

A few years ago, Guy Ritchie released a film called Wrath of Man which I may have called the most average Guy Ritchie film ever made, a film that just takes all the tropes one thinks of when they think of a Guy Ritchie film and does them as casually as possible. It felt especially average since it was the first film that the director made after The Gentlemen, which is still one of the most enjoyable films in his filmography. Well turns out there might be some competition for the title of “Most average Guy Ritchie film” with Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerre… though it absolutely wins the award for stupidest film title, so there’s that.

Continue reading “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023) – Ruse of Ritchie” →
leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review

Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023) – Last Chance

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 9th February
Seen: 22nd August

In 2012 the movie Magic Mike came out, loosely based on Channing Tatum’s real-life history as a stripper. It was a massive hit that showed that a film about strippers could actually be something of a mainstream movie (though this reviewer would argue that it takes itself far too seriously and the only fun bits are the parts happening in the club, the film spends a little too much time talking about furniture repair and drugs to actually be fun) which naturally led to a sequel in 2015, Magic Mike XXL, a film that seemed to get that part of the enjoyment of stripper movies is that they’re cheesy and fun and mostly an excuse to get a bunch of very attractive people to dance in suggestive outfits (and this reviewer would argue it’s better than the original, certainly utilizes the talented ensemble cast’s comedic skills in ways that the first film didn’t). The sequel made so much money that it was inevitable that another sequel was going to happen, it’s just a little sad that it took about 8 years to get Magic Mike’s Last Dance and it ended up being kind of a dud.

Continue reading “Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023) – Last Chance” →
leebutler Comedy, Review, Romance

What’s Love Got To Do With It (2023) – Fine

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 26th January
Seen: 11th August

Sometimes a film title is so strongly tied to the content of the film that the title enters a list of titles that probably should never be used again. Some titles just draw certain images to your mind, for example, a film could never reasonably be called “Philadelphia” again because everyone’s going to make a horrific AIDS joke about it. Some titles just have a link to a topic to them that can’t be ignored… this was the thought process I had when I heard that a film was coming out called What’s Love Got To Do With It? because that is the title of the legendary 1993 Tina Turner biopic and using that title for a silly little romcom felt like an insane choice. Having seen the film, it turns out that it’s not a big deal because something tells me that no one’s going to really remember that this one exists in a few years so there shouldn’t be any confusion happening.

Continue reading “What’s Love Got To Do With It (2023) – Fine” →
leebutler Comedy, Review

80 For Brady (2023) – Legendarily Average

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 27th July
Seen: 5th August

A sad truth about Hollywood is that older actresses tend to get nowhere near as many good roles as they deserve. It’s certainly getting better, last year alone had several great legendary older women turning out some great performances and even getting awards love for it but most of them are being relegated to either side characters or underwhelming grandma roles. Fortunately, there is a slowly growing subgenre of films that video essayist Be Kind Rewind has effectively dubbed Book Club films, which tend to include a group of assorted iconic actresses on a simple little adventure. The downside is that these films don’t really give these legendary actresses much to do beyond just hanging out together and getting a cheque – and in the case of 80 for Brady, four icons are relegated to a barely watchable Super Bowl advertisement.

Continue reading “80 For Brady (2023) – Legendarily Average” →
leebutler Adventure, Biography, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, History

My Barbenheimer Experience

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

There really is nothing quite like a good old double feature. Two films intentionally curated to be screened back to back and shared by a collective audience who can use one film to build up to another, it’s an idea so fundamental to the film-going experience that at least one film has opened with a song dedicated to the glory of double features (albeit ones of the Science Fiction variety). 

Continue reading “My Barbenheimer Experience” →
leebutler Comedy, Review

Mafia Mamma (2023) – Mamma Mia!

Released: 13th April
Seen: 13th July

There are some actors who are so singularly talented that any material they’re given is almost automatically made better just by their involvement, the kind of performer who manages to shine even in absolute garbage. You have some obvious choices, all-time legends like Meryl Streep and Glenn Close are just two examples of people who basically make something great just by being in it. Then there’s Toni Collette, one of the greatest actresses that has ever come out of Australia, a performer who never fails to deliver something incredible and who probably should have at least one Oscar by now (I and many others will never forgive the Academy for snubbing her the year Hereditary came out). She’s truly something special as a performer… so how boring does a film have to be where even Toni Collette can’t make it into anything other than just a dull time?

Continue reading “Mafia Mamma (2023) – Mamma Mia!” →
leebutler Comedy, Review

Joy Ride (2023) – Joyful

Released: 6th July
Seen: 6th July

When one thinks of the modern road trip movie, there’s a certain image that comes to mind for most audiences. That image is of a group of friends, usually four because that’s how many can easily fit in a standard car but that number can fluctuate, going outside of their normal lives and going on a simple adventure which results in insane shenanigans. This subgenre includes films like Road Trip, Euro Trip, and The Hangover which were insanely popular due to interesting locations, casts with great chemistry, and some decent writing… They were also overwhelmingly white, often using that as a major source of comedy since a bunch of white people in a foreign country and not understanding the customs has been comedy gold for a stunning amount of time.

Continue reading “Joy Ride (2023) – Joyful” →