leebutler Editorial

Sunshine Blogger Award

Introduction

 

Sometimes you wake up and find out that, as you slept, you got nominated for something big and important like a Nobel Peace Prize… othertimes you wake up to see you’ve been nominated for the Sunshine Blogger award, which is actually latin for “Fun silly listicle where half the work was done for you by the person who nominated you” which in this case was by the amazing The Blog Complainer who is just generally a great reviewer who you probably already follow, or at least you should. Go on, go over there and click the Follow button, I’ll wait.

 

So basically this is one of those “Do a thing and then get 11 others to do a thing” lists which in general I have avoided in life but… well, it’s free content, this one looked like enough fun that I could enjoy it and I get to come up with a bunch of questions at the end so let’s see how this goes.

sunshine.jpg

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leebutler Editorial

DC Did What Marvel Didn’t

For the last decade, Marvel has basically owned the cinema landscape. Since the release of Iron Man, they have never left the top 10 highest grossing films list of each year, the only exception being in 2009 when they didn’t release a film (remember when there was a year that didn’t have a Marvel film? Memories). In all that time they have proven to dominate the cultural conversation around movies, and recently they even added an Oscar to the collection of things they pulled off. But there is one thing that they didn’t pull off yet, that their competitor DC just pulled off with Shazam! and I’m in the mood to talk about that. The catch is, in order to talk about it I have to spoil a few things so if you haven’t seen Shazam! then be warned, I’m spoiling a lot of major moments that you’re going to want to see so this is where you abandon this editorial discussion and go see the film, then come back because I require validation.

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leebutler Editorial

Oscar Predictions – 2019

So, this year’s Oscars are going to be a complete farce aren’t they? I mean, have you all been following how everything’s been going over there? With them cutting categories from the broadcast then putting them back in and not having a host because they decided that it wasn’t important enough to hire a new one when their last one quit because he refused to say “I’m sorry” when it came out that he’d made homophobic statements that technically count as jokes because he didn’t mean them (because that’s a joke now, apparently). Oh and then there’s the stuff about them nominating a film made by an accused sex offender,  one of the directors being kind of called out for flashing people on set, then there was the stuff about them not showing all the Best Original Song nominees until they got serious backlash from everyone, including Lin Manuel Miranda who literally wrote one of the songs that weren’t going to be performed… yeah, this ceremony is going to be a mess and because it’s going to be a mess, it’s time to be messy and pick who I, someone with no influence whatsoever, think should get each one of these formerly-prestigious awards that are now basically glorified advertisements for movies that they want people to go see and not an actual display of what would be considered “Best” of anything… I’M BITTER, IN CASE YOU CAN’T TELL!

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leebutler Editorial

The Top 10 Best Films of 2018

Another year has come and gone, the first time I’ve been doing this for a full year (Albiet in bursts) and this has been really nice. Final year of University was good, this year I had 10K views on this blog and while that’s not a lot to some, it means a ton to me. Even when I was sitting through films I hated, I was loving that I got to do this and try and explain why you should or shouldn’t see them even if there were times that my explanations were not well worded (Working on that is my new years resolution). But, as is tradition with reviewers there are now lists to make and this list is the ‘Best’ list (AKA just the ones I liked the most but no one ever admits to that openly because ‘best’ is the term people serarch for, even though calling something ‘best’ is a very bad term for a subjective artform like film). Before we get to that, here’s the parameters for the lists we’ll be doing.

  • I did not see every film. I saw a fair few of them and was seeing them since the start of the year but thanks to final year of Uni stuff, I missed some because doing assignments came over going to movies so if something from isn’t on the list that probably should be, there’s your first potential reason.
  • Only films released in Australia in 2018 are going to be on this list. Specifically films need to have a wide release, wide enough that I can get to see them at a massive chain cinema like Event. Festival screenings are nice and all but they do not help me in this situation becuase, at the moment, I’m not paid for this. So this means films like If Beale Street Could Talk, Mary Poppins Returns, Green Book and The Hate U Give and are not eligible because, while they may have had screenings before the end of the year that I just couldn’t get too, they didn’t have a proper wide release. They’ll be eligible for the 2019 list and hopefully by then maybe Hollywood will stop being idiots and just release a movie worldwide on the same day instead of making some countries wait 3 months and then wonder why there’s piracy. Basically, if there isn’t a review on this blog about it, I didn’t see it.
  • Netflix films are totally eligible for both lists. Indeed any video on demand movie is available for scrutiny, no matter how they had to release it. If they sent it out to be viewed by an audience, then they should be ready for critique.
  • These are merely my opinions and you are absolutely entitled to disagree with me for any reason, go nuts, make your own list in the comments or question my order. That’s fine. What’s not fine is just saying “Your list sucks” with no reason behind it, critique is fine but blind attacks with no reason isn’t. Again, just my opinion.

With that said, before we get to the list, I have several honorable mentions, because this year was so good that I couldn’t be restrained to just one

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leebutler Editorial

The Kevin Hart Conundrum

Buckle Up

Over the last few days, there’s been a bit of a battle going on over the internet regarding tweets that were made by Kevin Hart in 2011. These tweets came to light because Kevin Hart became the Oscar’s host and since that get’s you in the headlines, people start digging around. When they dug deeper they found there were more than a few homophobic tweets made by the actor.

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leebutler Editorial

Adventures in Sponsored Content *THIS POST IS NOT SPONSORED IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM*

So if there is one thing that anyone who has read my writing could work out about me, it’s that I’m not exactly a subtle person. I couldn’t do subtle to save my life. What you may not know is just how small of a website this is. In the first year of writing, I had about 1500 views, a peak month in November when I had 400 views and my best article was my mother! review which sat at a very tidy 100 views. I’m not even big enough to be considered small, but I enjoy this and hope that in the future I’ll be able to do more of this kind of work. Now, why am I writing this? Why am I bothering you with something that seems so congratulatory even when there is nothing to congratulate me about. Well, because I’ve clearly somehow made it to the big leagues because this right here is a paid editorial. Or at least, it would be if I accepted the payment.

TL:DR version: Media Top tried to get me to write an article for them, I got a ton of information about the process they use in order to dupe unsuspecting bloggers and decided to share it with as many people as I possibly can!

Strap yourself in, this is going to be a long one but I promise you it’s worth your time.

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leebutler Editorial

Let’s Fix ’50 Shades Freed’

Fifty Shades Freed - Official Trailer [HD] 025.jpg

Of all the movies to become obsessed over, why did this have to be the one to grab hold of me? For over a week now I can’t get this film out of my head and not because it’s good. No, my problem with this film is that it’s actually fixable and could’ve been watchable with some mild tweaks. Admittedly, they were mild tweaks that were never going to happen because E.L. James has complete creative control and she is the worst writer to currently be published but still, this was salvageable.

What follows is me going through the film, figuring out what elements could change to make it work. I will be spoiling large amounts of the story, but if you’re reading this then chances are you either saw the film already and are curious how it could ever be salvaged or you don’t plan on seeing it. Keep in mind that I’m only worried about the film. I am treating this like its own original work and not as an adaptation, mostly cos I’m not reading the damn books.

Before we get to that though, we have to deal with a fundamental problem that would require redoing the entire trilogy from the start.

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leebutler Editorial

So Let’s Talk About The Variety ’50 Shades’ Article

Why the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Trilogy Is an Ode to the Idea of Consent

That’s the headline that was used for quite possibly the worst of all takes on the 50 Shades of Grey franchise. Just read over that again and if you’ve seen the 50 Shades movies (Or read my reviews for Darker or Freed) then you’ll begin to notice why I was laughing uncontrollably reading this. I want to state, for the record, I have no ill will towards Variety or the author, I’ve got a sickening feeling this is something written either out of naivety or the studio paid for it in order to try and distract from the narrative but here’s the thing, either way, this isn’t OK and so I’m going to go through the article and list all the problems with it… because clearly, someone has to.

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leebutler Editorial

The Top 10 Worst Films Of 2017

In 2017 I made myself a promise. That promise was I was going to try and see as many films as I possibly could and while it’s allowed me to see some great films I might’ve missed (They’re on my other list, my nice list, along with my rules for what will go on these lists so go back and check that), it also made me see some awful movies I wish I’d not seen. Same rules from my good list apply here, and remember that these are just my opinions. If you liked these movies, great, good for you. I didn’t and I will gladly explain why I loathed them. These aren’t just films I didn’t like for silly reasons, these are films I never wish to see again in my life and possibly even after it.

Here is my list of the Top 10 worst films of 2017.

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leebutler Editorial

The Top 10 Best Films of 2017

In 2017 I made the decision to try and see every film that came out around June and review them. That decision lead to this blog, to a brief stint as a contributor to Moviepilot and even a chance to be an official reviewer at a film festival. I look forward to doing this for 2018 and doing it from the beginning of the year but right now, like every single person who ever does a large number of reviews I have a best and worst list to produce. Just to make sure the parameters are known to everyone, here are the guidelines I’m using for this and the next list.

  • I did not see every film. I missed the first third of the year cos I wasn’t doing this all year (Though I did try to catch up), and I missed pretty much everything in October due to poor planning and University stuff so if something from those times isn’t on the list that probably should be, that’d be why.
  • Only films released in Australia in 2017 are going to be on this list. This means wide releases, not just festival screenings. This means films like All The Money In The World, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, The Shape Of Water Or Ladybird, among others, aren’t popping up here because I have no legal way of seeing them and thus can’t include them. They’ll be eligible for the 2018 list and hopefully by then maybe Hollywood will stop being idiots and just release a movie worldwide on the same day instead of making some countries wait 3 months and then wonder why there’s piracy. So if there’s a film you think should be here, check IMDB for its release date in Australia and that’ll answer that.
  • Netflix films are totally eligible for both lists. Indeed any video on demand movie is available for scrutiny, no matter how they had to release it.
  • These are merely my opinions and you are absolutely entitled to disagree with me for any reason, go nuts, make your own list in the comments or question my order. That’s fine. What’s not fine is just saying “Your list sucks” with no reason behind it, critique is fine but blind attacks with no reason isn’t. Again, just my opinion.

With that said, before we get to the list, I have one special mention…

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