Drama – Page 27 – Movie Meister Reviews

July 28, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Fatal Affair (2020) – Dead Boring

Released: 16th July
Seen: 27th July

From the writer director who brought us Secret Obsession and no less than 19 movies with the title The Wrong (Noun) comes the newest Netflix movie to make me worry about that company’s idea of quality control. Every time there’s some weird looking Netflix original that was clearly rejected by everyone else, I just wonder why Netflix is doing this. It’s not like they don’t know what good movies look like, they funded The Irishman when no one else would and took chances on great films like Roma, Klaus and The Two Popes. They have the ability to be picky and only buy the good projects, instead of buying another dud like Fatal Affair.

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July 25, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

365 Days (2020) – It Hurts

Released: 7th June
Seen: 24th July

On this blog I have been almost gleeful in tearing apart the 50 Shades of Grey franchise and just about anything that looks like it. I put the last two films in the franchise on my worst lists for 2017 and 2018, Freed was actually my worst film of 2018 and I stand by that ranking. It’s obvious rip-off After was also on the worst list in 2019 and the attempted tie in movie Book Club only missed out being put on the list because it was the only film that hired people who could act. In general I’ve found this franchise to be one of the worst things to happen to culture in recent years due to its romanticisingof rape and misrepresentation of BDSM, along with just generally bad writing. I genuinely thought that someone couldn’t come up with a worse attempt at a romantic plotline… and I guess the writers of 365 Days heard that and went “Challenge accepted” because oh boy, OH BOY!

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July 24, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

The King Of Staten Island (2020) – It’s Good To Be The King

Released: 16th July
Seen: 23rd July

It has to be said that one of Judd Apatow’s greatest talents is how he creates a film to support his leads. If you’re Judd’s friend and he makes you the star of his film, chances are it’s going to show off your talents in the best light possible. He made the film that turned Steve Carrell into a household name, he managed to give Amy Schumer a great comedy that shot her into the stratosphere… hell, he’s responsible for one of the last good Adam Sandler movies. His skill is undeniable and now he’s taken that ability to work with someone’s strengths to SNL regular Pete Davidson and created a genuinely great little film.

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July 10, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

The Current War (2020) – Shockingly OK

Released: 19th March
Seen: 6th July

The last time I got to see a film in a cinema was the 21st of March when I went to see Onward. Even back then I kind of knew that I wouldn’t be walking into a cinema for a while but no way could I have known it would be a little over 3 months. In that time we’ve watched as film after film has been pushed back to be released either in the latter half of this year or sometime in 2021, if not just sent straight to digital streaming where they probably should’ve gone in the first place (Hello Artemis Fowl) and I was left to wonder just what would be the first film I saw when the cinemas would reopen. Well, they finally opened my local up again and to the shock of no one, the pickings are slim so I decided to dive into a big theme of this year in cinema… “Hey, what’re the Avengers cast doing to follow up Endgame?”. Well, technically this film was made BEFORE Endgame but still, I figured seeing Dr Strange, Spiderman, Beast and Zod running around in period outfits and arguing about electricity would be a fairly good time and I almost got what I expected, so that’s nice.

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June 28, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Da 5 Bloods (2020) – Bloody Good

Released: 12th June
Seen: 27th June

Throughout the year, I keep a document listing every film I see. I do this mostly as a refresher for when I make my end of year lists and the Oscar predictions, since some films may have been amazing but because my memory is so iffy sometimes I may not think about it right off the bat. I also keep a second list, a ‘potential best and worst’ list so if something stands out as particularly good or particularly bad then I won’t forget it when the time comes to make those lists. By June of last year, I had a top 10 best list I could’ve posted and still had to make some really painful cuts. This year? I barely have a top 5 I feel that confident about, that’s how empty this year has felt. You can undoubtedly blame most of this on the current plague we’re experiencing that has pushed so many films back over a year and only left us with streaming films. Add to that the general rule that the prestige films tend to wait until around the time the Oscar nominations are being sorted out and it’s been a slow year and someone needed to throw something out to fill the void… enter Spike Lee.

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June 10, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Emma (2020) – More Like Em-meh

Released: 13th February
Seen: 8th June

Time seems to have no meaning anymore, it really doesn’t. I could swear to you that my last review was a few days ago and I would be so very wrong because it’s been two whole weeks. Obviously, these last few weeks are not exactly the weeks where anyone wants to hear the opinion of some random Australian about whatever movie he stumbled upon but it still feels like this year is going at the weirdest pace ever. Time is meaningless, up is down, left is right and people still somehow think the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is scary. I don’t get it, I really don’t but what I do get is that I need to pick up the pace and catch up on some movies that have finally made it to VOD when their cinematic runs got cut short or abandoned in general. Today, we talk about the 2020 adaptation of Emma.

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May 6, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

The Last Thing He Wanted (2020) – No One Wanted This

Released: 27th January
Seen: 5th May

So, while I’m still learning how to effectively write these reviews, I have slowly developed a system that works for me. After I do the first paragraph (usually designed to be just eye-catching enough that if you were to scroll through my main page that it might make you want to know more) I will then stop and think about how to describe the plot. I might have IMDB open to remind me of character and actor names but I can usually come up with a decent enough plot synopsis that doesn’t give away more than I need to in order to get you to know just what kind of movie I’m talking about. The plot synopsis is always a quick thing for me, I try to keep it short and sweet because if you want a proper plot synopsis then Wikipedia is in the next tab over. I add it for context and little more than that… this time? I’m tempted to skip it because the plot is so poorly constructed that even just adding it for context feels pointless but it’s my structure now so I feel obligated to try.

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May 4, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Dangerous Lies (2020) – LIEEEEEEEES

Released: 30th April
Seen: 2nd May

About a year ago I did a review for a film called Secret Obsession which was basically Netflix picking up the scraps left over from a Lifetime all-you-can-eat-buffet and turning it into something meant to resemble a film. It wasn’t exactly good and you could kind of tell what network it was made for originally but I figured “Oh well, if Netflix does a Lifetime movie every now and then that could be entertaining. Sometimes those are campy enough for a laugh” and Netflix apparently heard me and decided to make an even blander wannabe lifetime movie… I’m so ready for 2020 to be over.

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April 28, 2020August 16, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

Stargirl (2020) – Aggressively OK

Released: 13th March
Seen: 26th April

In 2000, Jerry Spinelli released the novel Stargirl to critical acclaim. The book was a New York Times bestseller, won multiple awards and even had a sequel called Love, Stargirl. It even got adapted into a stage play and has led to the creation of groups known as Stargirl Societies, designed to encourage young people to be themselves. With all this acclaim and cultural impact, a film adaptation was somewhat inevitable and since Disney is a mega-corporation with a streaming service in search of original content it seems only logical that they would be the ones to take the ball and run with it… or, in this case, take the ball and casually walk down a footpath with it while whistling music by The Go-Go’s.

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April 17, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

Mistaken (2017) – Mistake

Released: 2nd Feburary 2017
Seen: 16th April

Ever since 9/11, the world has been different. That right there is what we would call “The Biggest Understatement Of All Time” but it needs to be said. This was particularly obvious in the days and weeks following it but what also followed was a ton of films about how we, as a society, would handle the crisis. If you want a really good in-depth look at the various forms of 9/11 media that formed in the years since that day, Lindsay Ellis did a two–part video essay about 9/11 based media that’s fascinating to see. What’s less fascinating to see is the film Mistaken, which is a shame because it has a brilliant concept and does less than nothing with it.

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