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Circus of Books (2020) – The Happiest Show On Earth

Released: 23rd April
Seen: 23rd April

In 1960 at 8230 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, a little bookstore named Book Circus opened up. Loaded with hardcore gay pornography, the store managed to keep the doors open until 1982 when Barry Mason found out that the store was in trouble and wound up buying it. One brief name change later and the little porno store owned by a cocaine addict would turn into the mom and pop shop Circus of Books, still dealing in gay pornography and run by a former special effects engineer and a heavily religious journalist. It would become one of the most important hotspots in gay culture and would be there for a lot of essential moments in queer history. This documentary tells that story through the eyes of the daughter of Barry and his wife Karen and it tells it beautifully.

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Reel Redemption (2020) – Faith Films Redeemed

Released: 1st January
Seen: 22nd April

I’ve made it no secret on this blog that I have something of a problem with Christian Films. Not because of the Christian element, I firmly believe that every single community deserves to see themselves on screen, but because lately they’ve been kind of… oh, what’s the term? God-Awful wastes of the time I have left, that’s it. In general, I look for them to show some form of quality filmmaking and instead I tend to find a lot of the films are little more than sermons that wrap themselves up in the blanket defence of faith. What I’ve been wanting for some time now is for someone to show me why I should give this growing subgenre any semblance of respect… enter Tyler Smith’s documentary/video essay Reel Redemption to make such an argument.

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Cursed Films – Twilight Zone: The Movie

Vic Morrow. Myca Dinh Le. Renee Shin-Yi Chen. These are the names of the people who died on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. You might not even know that film exists, you might not even remember what happened during the film but you undoubtedly heard about the helicopter crash that changed everything. On the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie a shot of a helicopter flying over a Vietnam village went horribly wrong and those three actors were killed when the helicopter crashed onto the set. It’s an accident that changed how films are shot and effectively ended the era of the 70s auteur director where we were fine with madmen in charge of film sets… and it’s the subject of the finale for Cursed Films, and what a finale it is.

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Cursed Films – The Crow

Before I begin this, I’ve already talked about the other episodes in this series before. If you’re curious on my thoughts regarding the Poltergeist and The Omen episodes you can head over to Soda & Telepaths to read them, and then you can go to my review of the episode around The Exorcist. I’ll be dropping my review for the final episode in the next few days but now that I’ve officially seen every episode of this amazing little docuseries and now that I’ve completed the entire thing, I can definitely say that it’s a series that improved dramatically over the course of its run. Its structure got tighter, the middle section became more relevant and they were clearly building it up to the pair of ‘Cursed Films’ that are easily the most emotionally devastating. 

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Cursed Films – The Exorcist

Over on Soda and Telepaths, I recently had the opportunity to write about 2 episodes of the series Cursed Films, the episodes in question being about the movies Poltergeist and The Omen. I suggest you go over there and read it because in that I talked about the series as a whole and my hopes for it (also because it’ll make me look really good if people go there because of me… I can be a selfish promo whore occasionally). One thing I did lament about was that I wasn’t going to get to see the rest of the series because Shudder only streams in America and I had no chance to see the rest of it. Well, apparently Shudder are also big promo whores because they sent me another screener for the first episode of the series and my belief has always been that if you’re going to send me screeners then I’m going to watch and review them. Heck, I have 6 more films in my emails that sent me screeners that I will be getting to over the coming weeks, I’ve just been slow because of *gestures to the state of the world right now*

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In Search Of Darkness (2019) – Finding The Light

Released: 13th October 2019
Seen: 10th March

In Search Of Darkness Horror Doc Info

I may have mentioned it once or twice (or as many times as I am legally permitted) but I love a good horror documentary. Give me a documentary on how a horror film came to be and I’m a happy boy. The Crystal Lake Memories documentary, all 6+ hours of it, remains my favourite film documentary of all time and a recent film Memory: The Origins of Alien was a great look at one of the greatest horror films of all time. The problem with this kind of documentary though is that it only ever seems to talk about just one film and some days you just want to talk about an entire genre of film… enter In Search Of Darkness, a crowdfunded documentary celebrating one of the greatest decades for horror. 

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Miss Americana (2020) – Look What You Made Me View

Released: 31st January
Seen: 27th February

Taylor Swift Miss Americana Info

The career trajectory of Taylor Swift is one that can only be described by referencing objects that defy the laws of physics. What she has somehow pulled off throughout her career is basically impossible and yet she made it look effortless. To list her many accolades and the records she has broken would probably take so long that I dare not even try to start such a list. She is easily the biggest artist of this generation, I’d probably even be bold enough to put her influence above other icons like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga if I wasn’t so completely terrified that doing so would end in my dismemberment by a horde of fans who would track me down and end me. She’s a big goddamn deal and will probably still be a big goddamn deal long after we all are dead and buried. What’s helped her along the way is that every-girl image that almost seemed like it was too perfect to be true. Surely there had to be something hiding underneath that layer of schoolgirl innocence that sung about teardrops falling on her guitar… and now, we know what happens when that image is destroyed and we finally get to meet the real Taylor

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leebutler Review

Pooh: The Derrick Rose Story (2019) – Play Ball!

Released: 11th April
Seen: 22nd November (Lift Off Film Festival)

So, I’m not anything close to a sports guy. I don’t get them, I don’t understand them and I have just never enjoyed them. I don’t watch or play them, they do nothing for me. You ask me about Pooh, I’ll start talking about a little yellow bear who is all stuffed with fluff but if you ask a basketball fan about Pooh, they’ll start talking about a man named Derrick Rose who was a rising basketball star that signed on to the Chicago Bulls in 2008 where he was destined for greatness, being the youngest person to win the MVP award and a whole bunch of other sports titles that I do not understand… and then he tore his ACL (Anterior cruciate ligament) and all hell broke loose. Pooh: The Derrick Rose Story charts all of it, from Derrick’s days in Chicago learning to play through to today and it is a shocking tale, to say the least.

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Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story (2019) – Powerful

Released: 13th August
Seen: 13th November

On May 30th 2017, a photo was uploaded on the internet that would change Kathy Griffin’s life forever. The photo was of Kathy in a blue dress holding a mask with piss-yellow hair covered in ketchup, clearly a reference to a certain president whose name I won’t mention because it’s my review and I get to do stuff like that. The photo was immediately condemned on all sides and Kathy went through the standard cancellation procedure where she lost all her current gigs and had to do the apology tour we send comics on when they make a bad joke. None of this was asked of photographer, Tyler Shields, who not only never apologised, but who continues to work to this day (not saying he should’ve gone through it too, just pointing out that he seems to be doing fine while Kathy’s the one dealing with everything). Anyway, for Kathy this went far beyond your standard “Cancel culture” reaction, this was a steroid induced destruction of a life and career because of one photo. I want to state up front that I did not like the photo in question, I thought it went too far and wasn’t funny… I’m also aware that it was a joke referencing a comment the person depicted in it said and that, at least at the time, Kathy was apologetic for it. What followed was a reaction that even literal rapists don’t have to go through, and this year Kathy finally said “ENOUGH” and let the world know what happened in one of the best and most heart stopping concert films I’ve ever seen.

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