Drama – Page 19 – Movie Meister Reviews

November 11, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Antlers (2021) – Prickly

Released: 28th October
Seen: 9th November

Horror has always been a great genre for talking about the more difficult, darker topics that might be a little too much for other genres. The use of allegory and metaphor can be even more powerful than just discussing a certain topic outright, look at recent hits like Get Out which was just a 2 hour allegory for racism but touched on more elements of the subject than any drama could ever hope for. It’s a powerful tool when used well and Antlers certainly tries to use it and gets a lot out of it, but there’s something kind of off here that makes it fail to live up to its full potential.

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November 8, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Eternals (2021) – Not Your Normal MCU

Released: 3rd November
Seen: 3rd November

It’s kind of nice having a whole bunch of Marvel films back in cinemas again, with several coming out this year and even more next year, it’s like it was before the world went to hell and back. Well, now it’s time for one of the big ones… Eternals, directed by the woman who brought us Nomadland and that has been getting a thrashing by critics who proclaim it to be the worst MCU film. Is it really the worst MCU film or is this some backlash to actual serious attempts at diversity? Yeah, probably the second one.

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November 2, 2021November 29, 2021 leebutler Review

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) – Luke Warm

Released: 13th May
Seen: 1st November

There were a lot of films I missed this year thanks to the several months of lockdown we had. If a film had a cinematic release between June and October then chances are good that I couldn’t see it because my home state wasn’t completely stupid and shut down a bunch of places to try and stop Covid from getting out of hand (which… OK didn’t work, but there was an effort made). So now that a lot of those films are slowly turning up on streaming services the time has come for me to get to work on catching up and I have to admit I was kind of interested by Those Who Wish Me Dead when I saw the trailer for it, and it basically delivered on what I expected.

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October 24, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

After We Fell (2021) – We Fell Down Went BOOM!

Released: 9th September
Seen: 24th October

Ever since 50 Shades became the biggest thing in books, every idiot who could write a half-competent bit of smut tried their hand at it and let those be turned into movies. The 50 Shades film trilogy is widely regarded as awful, the gangster rapist version known as 365 days was not just bad but one of the worst films I’ve ever seen… and then there’s the After franchise, a truly hateful little series based on fan fiction about Harry Styles that’s so vile he should sue for character defamation. Somehow the first After made enough money to warrant a sequel and then the second After movie, After We Collided made… less money. Now we’re onto After We Fell and it’s just absolute garbage.

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September 30, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (2021) – Shantay You Slay

Released: 17th September
Seen: 27th September

In 2011 the BBC documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16 hit the airwaves. It told the story of Jamie Campbell, a 16 year old boy who wanted to be a drag queen and debut his drag persona of Fifi La True at his school prom. Keep in mind that back in 2011, Drag wasn’t as mainstream as it is now. At that point Drag Race, the show that would basically push the artform into the mainstream, was still a scrappy little show in its third season on Logo that would be lucky to rack up a half million viewers so going to school in drag was a big damn deal. Big enough to warrant a documentary.

That documentary then was seen by enough people to catch the eye of the West End and become a monster hit musical called Everybody’s Talking About Jamie and now the time has come for this hit stage show to turn into a movie.

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September 27, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Routines (2020) – Routine

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

Political Correctness is ruining comedy. That’s the phrase you will hear by a lot of comics who got really big in the 90s and haven’t changed their act at all in the 30 years since they started, expecting the same jokes that worked back then to get the same reaction now. You’ve undoubtedly noticed comics who get really upset that they can’t tell a joke that mocks a certain minority group but the truth is… well, maybe those comics just aren’t actually funny anymore and need to update their material. Routines feels like someone decided to take one of those comics and place him in a dramatic story of love and loss and it works – occasionally.

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September 24, 2021 leebutler Review

Bone Cage (2021) – Beautiful and Heartbreaking

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

There’s been a recent trend online where people are posting pictures of notes at local restaurants or other businesses that say that they don’t have enough staff because a lot of their workers left during the pandemic. It’s been a long time coming for workers of all kinds to realise that they don’t need to be treated like dirt anymore and don’t need to take demeaning jobs that make their lives actively worse so it’s nice to see people standing up and basically forcing a lot of big companies to pay their workers a livable wage and treat them better… of course, there are still those who might be stuck in a job that they hate due to circumstances beyond their control, which is the central idea behind Bone Cage and god damn is it just an incredible film.

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September 22, 2021 leebutler Review

Externo (2021) – The Medium Sized Short

Seen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival

One of the more fun things that have been happening over the last several years is just watching slowly as more and more people develop an attitude that can best be described as “Hey, those people who collected Marie Antoinette’s head had the right idea, maybe it’s approaching time to do that again to a different bunch of rich assholes”. It seems like the majority of us have finally cottoned onto the idea that we’re not going to become independently wealthy and those who already have the money won’t be sharing any time soon. Pointing out the power and influence the wealthy hold is certainly a great idea for a film… Externo tries it, kinda succeeds, but also kinda bores.

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September 1, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Let Him Go (2021) – Can’t Hold Back Anymore

Released: 4th February
Seen: 29th August

Let Him Go follows elderly couple Margaret Blackledge (Diane Lane) and George Blackledge (Kevin Costner), proud parents to their son James (Ryan Bruce) who is married to a young woman named Lorna (Kayli Carter). James and Lorna have their own son, little Jimmy, and things seem to be going well for this little family until one day when James falls from his horse and breaks his neck.

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August 31, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

The Little Things (2021) – Little Point

Released: 18 February
Seen: 25th August

The Little Things is a police drama about a pair of cops hunting down a serial killer. The cops consist of one wild card cop, Joe “Deke” Deacon (Denzel Washington), and one straight laced rule following cop, Det. Jim Baxter (Rami Malek). Together they make quite a strange pair as they hunt for their killer. It looks like they might have it when they run into oddball Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) and they focus heavily on him but could the difficulties of their job make them unable to actually solve the crime? It certainly seems to stop them from making a film that’s as exciting as it should be considering the talent that’s on screen… yeah, there’s so little to talk about with this one that one of MY reviews starts with the plot instead of a wild tangent, I’m just as shocked as you are.

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