Hocus Pocus 2 Promo Image
leebutler Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Review

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) – Wonderful Witchcraft

Released: 30th September
Seen: 30th September

In 1993 the film Hocus Pocus was released to an audience that really didn’t want anything to do with it. At the time it was critically thrashed and the box office wasn’t exactly glowing which is a little understandable when you consider it was released on the same day as the juggernaut that was Free Willy and not too long after Jurassic Park, so audiences were somewhat distracted. Of course, as time went on, thanks to regular screenings around Halloween and the home video market, Hocus Pocus eventually found its audience and became a massive cult hit and has been subsequently reevaluated by many as a pretty damn good family movie with more than enough charm to delight most audiences, along with possibly the best cover version of I Put A Spell On You to ever be recorded. 

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leebutler Drama, Fantasy, Review, Romance

Three Thousand Years Of Longing (2022) – Longing For More

Released: 1st September
Seen: 4th September

George Miller is one of those directors who came on the scene with a film that changed cinema and has almost constantly delivered truly fascinating work. His film Mad Max is, without hyperbole, one of the most important features to come out during the Australian New Wave period that lasted from the start of the 70s to the end of the 80s. He has the distinction of being one of a handful of directors to handle every entry into a long-running franchise, and then we go outside that to see his work on such legendary films as Witches of Eastwick, Happy Feet and the absolutely perfect Babe 2: Pig In The City. He’s the kind of director who you can completely trust to give you a good time in the cinema… usually. With Three Thousand Years of Longing he delivered something else.

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leebutler Action, Drama, Fantasy, Netflix

Samaritan (2022) – Super-meh-ro

Released: 26th August
Seen: 28th August

For a while now we’ve been living in the era of the Superhero. From the moment that Iron Man built a mech suit in a cave with a box of scraps, one of the dominating elements of pop culture has been the superhero story. Everyone has had a go at trying to make their own version of it in order to ride the trend, some have tried to deconstruct it (like Netflix’s Project Power or the horror film Brightburn) but everyone has at least tried to have a go at the concept of a superhero saving the day. 

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leebutler Uncategorized

Blood Moon (2021) – Blood Moon Rising

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on March 22, 2021

The Into the Dark series is a monthly anthology on Hulu centered around the idea of holidays. Every month a new film would be released around some random holiday, this has been the way things were since October of 2018… until, ya know, the plague happened and they took a break between August 2020 and Jan of this year. Well, now it’s March and Into the Dark is back with another holiday film, in this case, inspired by the Spring Full Moon, Blood Moon. 

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leebutler Review

Lucky (2021) – Luck Repeats Itself

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on March 2, 2021

Lucky starts with a premise that’s slowly growing more familiar with every passing usage of it. May (Brea Grant) is a self-help author living with her partner, Ted (Dhruv Uday Singh), and having what could be considered a relatively comfortable life when suddenly a man breaks into their home.

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leebutler Review

Monster Hunter (2020) – A Failure of Godzilla-Sized Proportions

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on January 5th, 2020

Some video games are simple enough that you would think that they shouldn’t be that hard to adapt into a movie. Monster Hunter might have a lot of lore, but when the core mechanic seems to be “Kill a big monster then use parts of that monster to help you kill an even bigger monster” then that basically demands you make a fun Kaiju movie with lots of discount-Godzillas being poked with large pointy things. This shouldn’t be too hard to make at least mindlessly watchable… unless you hand it to the guy who drove the Resident Evil franchise into the ground, then you might have an early contender for the worst film 2021 has to offer. (Edit note: It wasn’t just a contender, it won one of those spots)

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