Drama – Page 17 – Movie Meister Reviews

January 13, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

BLOOD QUANTUM (2020) – An Important And Extremely Entertaining Shudder Exclusive

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on April 30, 2020

Zombies, one of the most overused creatures in media today. If you name a genre then sure enough, there’ll be a zombie-filled version of it somewhere. There are zombie romance films, zombie westerns, hell a little over a week ago I was watching a Disney zombie musical that was popular enough to warrant a sequel. Zombies are everywhere and everyone uses them but sometimes they get used for something special. Every now and then a zombie property breaks out from the bonds of the genre to actually be something special. Blood Quantum is one of those movies.

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January 12, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Defending Jacob: Season 1 (2020) – Chris Evans’ Long-Awaited Return To Television

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on April 27, 2020. It was a review of the first 3 episodes of Defending Jacob, I have yet to complete it (because Apple+ was so bad guys… so bad!)

Chris Evans has had what you might call a monster of a year. He starred in Avengers: Endgame AKA the biggest movie of 2019, followed that up with critical acclaim in Knives Out and has now well and truly broken away from his image as Captain America with his brand new series Defending Jacob on Apple+, a streaming service that no one likes… but they might want to give it a shot for this series.

One quick note before we begin, I’m basing this review on the three episodes that were available on April 24th. A new episode will be released weekly, anything said here is based on the opening trilogy of episodes so take that for what it’s worth.

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January 10, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

LOCKE & KEY: SEASON 1 (2020) – Great For Locke Down!

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on April 15th, 2020.

In 2008 IDW Publishing released the first issue of Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez. The book gained a cult following pretty quickly and was actually optioned to be a TV series back in 2011. They even shot a pilot for Fox TV which would’ve starred, not kidding, Jesse McCartney AKA that kid who sang Beautiful Soul (I don’t know why this amuses me, I thought I’d share that info anyway).

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January 9, 2022 leebutler Review

October Faction: Season 1 (2020) – Thinking of watching it? Don’t.

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on April 1st, 2020.

In 2015, IDW Publishing released the first volume of The October Faction, a series that revolved around retired monster-hunter Frederick Allen and his family. Netflix, always hungry for content, scooped up the rights for this comic and decided to make it into a Netflix original series… a series that they dropped on the 23rd of January and I suspect you heard nothing else about it because it didn’t catch anyone’s attention. Turns out there’s a reason for that… It’s genuinely one of the worst shows on Netflix.

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January 7, 2022 leebutler Review

Altered Carbon Season 2 (2020)

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on March 17th, 2020. This is from when S&T gave out percentage scores on a fancy layout and I somehow kept track of that

Altered Carbon first popped up on Netflix on the 2nd of February 2018. Based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan, the series made waves before a single episode aired by being one of the most expensive shows to be created by the streaming service. Once the series hit the internet it turned out to be very popular, popular enough to get a second season that dropped on the 27th of February and an upcoming anime film on the 19th of March. The first season of this cyberpunk noir detective series was certainly one that required your full attention but rewarded you for it with some of the best characters on TV and some incredible action scenes that made it stand out. Season two certainly started that way, but it stumbled right near the finish line.

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January 6, 2022 leebutler Review

Re-Displacement (2020)

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on February 6th, 2020.

Opening on a therapy session set in a calm-seeming office, Re•displacement starts off very quietly. We get a quick little introduction to Leo (Nico Mirallegro), a sympathetic soul seeking help from Doctor Michelle (Nathalie Cox) who has an experimental treatment. The treatment is similar, in many ways, to a virtual reality simulator that allows Leo to walk through his own memories to come face to face with a trauma that he’s been desperately trying to keep buried for years. This is quickly explained within a few minutes of the short beginning, allowing us to relax and enjoy this ride.

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January 4, 2022 leebutler Review

House Of Gucci (2022) – Camp Couture

Released: 1st January
Seen: 2nd January

Camp is not an easy thing to properly explain. I could assign you the legendary Notes On Camp essay by Susan Sontag and that might get it across, or we could go with the description that John Waters gives in his episode of The Simpsons “The tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic”. It’s not easy to call out what is and isn’t camp, though there is no real midground on camp. Either something is camp or it’s not (there is no such thing as subtle camp, if someone tells you otherwise then beat them with a tent pole) and it’s sometimes it’s hard to call… not in this case though, House of Gucci is so fucking camp that it’s accepting kids for a summer program right now.

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December 28, 2021December 28, 2021 leebutler Review

Being the Ricardos (2021) – You’ve Got Some Explaining To Do

Released:21st December
Seen: 27th December

The I Love Lucy show might be one of the biggest TV shows in history, not just in terms of ratings but in influence on the comedy landscape. Every single sitcom since then has wanted nothing more than to be even half as important as I Love Lucy – and very few matched it. The power couple of Lucy and Desi Arnez created a trailblazing show that changed television forever, while also dealing with a whirlwind of a marriage and many problems in their personal andprofessional lives. That fascinating period in TV history is the foundation for Being the Ricardos which is certainly an interesting take on this time but I’m not sure if it’s a great take.

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December 27, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Don’t Look Up (2021) – Look Straight Ahead

Released: 25th November
Seen: 26th December

There’s a joke that’s been going around lately that relates to the way that the entire planet has responded to the insanity of the covid pandemic. “Guess we have to remove the phrase ‘avoid like the plague’ from our lexicon since we apparently don’t know how to do that”. It’s a dark commentary on how we as a species just seem to be unable to mildly inconvenience ourselves in the short term in order to avoid long term catastrophe. Of course, this isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s been happening for years around Climate Change among a host of other issues. This strange behaviour is what a film like Don’t Look Up is trying to comment on but it has the slight problem of having to compete with the actual insanity of reality.

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December 19, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Dear Evan Hansen (2021) – Return To Sender

Released: 9th December
Seen: 18th December

Dear “Dear Evan Hansen”,

Today was going to be an amazing day, and here’s why. Because today all you had to do was just be a decent movie. Not even a great movie, I think we both know you were never going to be great but good would’ve done us both a whole lot of good after the kind of year we’ve both had. I know you’ve had quite the bad year yourself what with all the people throwing mud your way since your little trailer came out and expecting you to be the next Cats. Well, I have good news Dear Evan Hansen, you’re not the next Cats… cos I’d go and see Cats again.

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