Documentary – Page 6 – Movie Meister Reviews

March 23, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Ascension (2021) – Going Up?

Released: 15th November 2021
Seen: 21st March 2022

In the book Introduction to Documentary, film theorist Bill Nichols breaks down the film genre of documentaries into 6 modes (AKA subgenres), those modes being Poetic, Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive and Performative. Each of these genres is fairly easy to understand and I’ll link to a great post that describes all of them but they’re often handy to give you an idea of what kind of documentary you’re in for, so when I say that Ascension feels like a combination of Poetic and Observational it tells you that this film is going to have some beautiful visuals and just be a fly on the wall following several people… it’s also kind of dull so here we go trying to talk about a film I’m not fond of just because it’s kinda boring, that’s gonna be fun content to make.

Continue reading →

March 12, 2022March 12, 2022 leebutler Review

Attica (2022) – Powerful

Released: 27th January
Seen: 11th March

Attica, the documentary, details the story of the Attica Prison Riot, or as it’s alternatively known “The Attica Prison Massacre”. On September 9, 1971, the Attica prison riot began. Tension had been building in the New York prison for quite some time, due to the overcrowding and violence from the guards who regularly engaged in what can best be described as “Casual racism combined with the torture of the inmates they were charged to protect”.

Continue reading →

March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 leebutler Review

Rebel Dykes (2022) – Queen’s Of My World

Seen as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiWot428Hp4

Britain in the 1980s was not exactly the best place to be openly gay, indeed it was one fraught with difficulty that would culminate in the introduction of Section 28 in 1988, a law that banned the “Promotion of homosexuality” which is basically legal jargon for “Get back in the closet, you queers!”. One group that was not about to take this lying down was a commune of leather-clad lesbians known as Rebel Dykes. They were already a group that was at the forefront of sexual liberation and self-expression but when the time came to fight for their rights, the Rebel Dykes got on their bikes and showed the world that they weren’t going to let something like Section 28 hold them back. This film is all about their gloriously hilarious and dramatic story.

Continue reading →

March 6, 2022March 6, 2022 leebutler Review

No Straight Lines: The History of Queer Comics (2022) – Line Up

Seen as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival

The history of Comic books is long and strange and full of fascinating stories. Sure most people think of comics and jump straight to the Superhero genre that has overtaken popular culture lately but there’s also the stories of Horror comics and how the industry tried to regulate them out of existence, or the stories of underground comics that embraced the weird and the drug-induced. Well, in the documentary No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics, the story being focused on is… well, the history of queer comics, it’s right there in the title.

Continue reading →

March 5, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Being Bebe (2022) – She Brings It To You Every Ball!

Seen as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival

The year was 2009 and on a barely watched network called Logo a TV series called RuPaul’s Drag Race aired. The first season was cheap, filmed just around the regular offices with a makeshift stage and a prize of $20,000 but it still captured serious attention, in particular, everyone couldn’t help but be fascinated by one particular queen. She was regal, she was powerful, she commanded the stage with a presence that oozed from the screen every time she was on it. That queen’s name was Bebe Zahara Benet and she was the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race and in her documentary Being Bebe, you get to learn just what made her into the absolute icon she truly is.

Continue reading →

February 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Boulevard! A Hollywood Story (2022) – Ready For My Close Up!

Seen as part of the Mardi Gras Film Festival

In 1950, the glorious film noir, Sunset Boulevard was released. A film about an aging starlet who sees one final chance to regain her stardom, the film briefly revitalised the career of the legendary silent film actress Gloria Swanson. To this day Sunset Boulevard is revered as a classic of cinema and was the inspiration for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name (that will apparently be turned into a movie for Glenn Close to star in and hopefully win the damn Oscar she’s long overdue). However, before Andrew Lloyd Webber even had the idea of putting the story of Sunset Boulevard to music, Gloria Swanson herself tried to pull it off and the story behind what happened to that show feels all too familiar.

Continue reading →

February 11, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Summer of Soul (…or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021) –

Released: 19th November, 2021
Seen: 11th February, 2022

Well, the time has come for one of the more interesting months of the year, that being the month where I desperately try to catch up on all the Oscar-nominated films that I somehow missed because they all seem to be released around the time the nominations come out. No idea how this is going to work for this year, hopefully, we’ll be able to get through everything but that’s why you’re going to see a whole bunch of 2021 films being reviewed fresh in 2022… fortunately, the first cab off the rank is the absolutely brilliant documentary Summer of Soul (…or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised).

Continue reading →

January 18, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Visible: Out Of Television (2020) – I’m Coming Out

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on June 25th, 2020

The history of television is remarkably short when you actually think about it, if we go by the first demonstration of TV’s back in 1926 then TV is barely even 100 years old… and that’s if we go by when someone first proved that you could beam an image of a face over the airwaves in a way that was recognizably a face, the medium doesn’t even truly start existing in a mainstream way until the 1950s. To put it in perspective, TV is recent enough that Betty White has been on it since TV was 10 years old. (EDIT: RIP Betty White)

Continue reading →

January 8, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

CURSED FILMS SEASON 1 (2020) – Docuseries featuring all the Horror Greats

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on April 1st, 2020. This was the first of several reviews regarding episodes of Cursed Films

Every fan of genre cinema has a favourite cursed films story, one that they would gleefully pull out at the drop of a hat to show how much they love certain films. Legendary cursed horror films like The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Omen, The Crow and Twilight Zone: The Movie have been sources of fascination for fans who want to talk about just why certain films seemed to be magnets for sorrow.

Continue reading →

November 10, 2021November 10, 2021 leebutler Review

Behind the Monsters: Episode 1 – Halloween

So this was going to be run on Soda & Telepaths but with that place being rebranded and reviews no longer being a thing I’m going to run it over here instead. Why yes, this does mean at some point I might end up having to do a whole bunch of work moving 50+ reviews over here, you caught onto that… anyway, enjoy this look at a pretty great series

Behind the Monsters is a documentary series on Shudder that explores a different villain from horror history in every episode, covers the franchises that turned them into the iconic characters that they are and discusses their importance to the culture. Made up of interviews with cast, crew, critics and fans of each film, the franchise promises to cover such classic horror villains as Chucky, Freddy Krueger, Candyman, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead and the subject of the pilot episode that will be talked about today, Michael Myers from Halloween.

Continue reading →