Film – Page 66 – Movie Meister Reviews

July 24, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Synchronic (2021) – An Interesting Time (Travel)

Released: 11th February
Seen: 23rd July

Time travel in movies is always a fun thing to try and deal with because everyone will try to logic around it. I saw this happen most recently with Endgame where a large amount of people kept trying to explain away how none of the time travel stuff made sense because it should’ve created alternative timelines and things of that nature (something that grew so large that Marvel just spent a full season of television going “look, if an alternate timeline did happen, these space cops would come and stop it”). I have a personal rule about time travel in movies, which is “It’s not a real thing, it’s literally a trick to explain why modern day people are in the past, stop overthinking it” which is possibly why I had a somewhat good time watching Synchronic which might have one of the more interesting uses of Time Travel I’ve seen in a while.

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July 23, 2021July 23, 2021 leebutler Uncategorized

9to5: The Story of A Movement (2021) – What A Way To Make A Doco

Released: 1st February
Seen: 22nd July

The last year has not exactly been easy for anyone, but especially those in a regular nine to five job that found themselves suddenly unable to work and make the pittance they’d been making previously. Seems like finally this idea of barely getting by with a back breaking job has found a limit that can’t be ignored, since we now know that at any moment something can happen that will just force the planet to shut down for a year. What we’re seeing now, as things very slowly start approaching normal (APPROACHING, we are nowhere near normal again and stop acting like it) is workers have finally had enough of their low wages and poor treatment and are fighting back… a story that feels eerily similar to the one told in the documentary 9to5: The Story of A Movement

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July 22, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Cosmic Sin (2021) – Nap Time

Released: 11th March
Seen: 21st July

There was a time, long ago, when Bruce Willis wasn’t just a movie star. He was, without hyperbole, one of the most famous entertainers on the planet earth. He was the lead in Moonlighting, which was a global phenomenon, he starred in absolute classics like Die Hard, Pulp Fiction and 12 Monkeys. Hell, the man made two albums with the legendary Motown records and had a top 10 single with the Pointer Sisters as his backup singers, he was the definition of a global superstar… so why the hell is he still working now when he clearly stopped giving a fuck way back in the 2010s and hasn’t put in a decent performance since… what, Looper? He’s certainly not giving a decent performance in Cosmic Sin, but then again no one is.

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July 21, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Love, Weddings and Other Disasters (2021) – Uggh

Released: 28th January
Seen: 19th July

So, currently, my home state is going through a lockdown thanks to covid, which means that I’m basically relegated to only reviewing movies I can see from home… and because I’m Australian that means anything that WB releases is not available for streaming down here, so that’s why you’re not seeing a Space Jam 2 review and might not even see a Suicide Squad review (unless I somehow find a way to make HBOMax work from down here which feels like too much effort for those films). This means I’m going to have to review Netflix movies or films that are cheap on Google Plus and that’s what led me to Love, Weddings and Other Disasters which is a film so painfully bad that it makes me regret almost everything in my life up to this exact second.

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July 20, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Long Story Short (2021) – Too Late

Released: 11th February
Seen: 18th July

I really do wish that I got to review a lot more Australian films here, it feels like I should because there should be a lot more of them available but unfortunately (due to a complex series of issues surrounding tax laws and funding bodies) there just aren’t that many made. Hell, the closest I’m gonna get to really doing Aussie films is whenever I talk about films that use us as a backlot. An actual Australian film with a fully Australian cast and crew feels rare these days (I believe the last one I did was The Dry way back at the start of the year) so when I find something like Long Story Short I feel excited to get to share a piece of Aussie culture that might have slipped through the cracks… and then I watch it and realise that it probably fell through the cracks because it’s threadbare and can fit through those cracks very easily.

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July 19, 2021 leebutler Review

Barb And Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021) – A Great Trip

Released: 12th February
Seen: 15th July

A good comedy is hard to find nowadays, it almost feels like every joke’s been told and you have to really do something pretty different to stand out among the crowd. Heck, sometimes doing something remarkably different might mean you just get released unceremoniously to VOD where people can just not notice you, despite you being a film that stars several of the biggest film stars in recent history which would’ve probably been wonderful to see in a cinema… oh well, at least Barb And Star Go to Vista Del Mar is so unique that it’s probably going to work for audiences whenever they discover it, no matter how long that takes.

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July 18, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021) – Bewitching

Released: 16th July
Seen: 17th July

In the last two weeks, the Horror community has been treated to the first two parts of the Fear Street series. Both parts have been outstanding, glorious slasher throwbacks that honoured the material they were referencing and didn’t skimp on the gore or lesbianism. They were truly brilliant and have been leading up to this, the final part of the epic story of Sarah Fier and the town of Shadyside. It not only has a lot of questions to answer but it has to live up to the spectacular first two parts… so, how is Fear Street Part Three: 1666? Exactly as good as it needed to be, which is to say, “downright spectacular”

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July 17, 2021 leebutler Review

Vicious Fun (2021) – Campy Out

So because it’s about time I got back on the saddle, I went off and wrote a review of the campy slasher flick Vicious Fun over on Soda and Telepaths. You know the drill, head on over there and read it so that I can look as good as possible

July 16, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Good on Paper (2021) – Blank Page: The Movie

Released: 23rd June
Seen: 13th July

When a stand-up comic takes their act and turns it into a movie you can have a few different results. If you want a really good example of a comic’s act made into a pretty good movie, Trainwreck took Amy Shumer’s set and created a fairly fun film with enough jokes to make it through. You could also just film a particularly important set and release it, like Kathy Griffin did with her most recent comedy special that revolved around her recent controversy… third option is to take one specific joke from a set, make it into a film and forget to put jokes in there completely. Sure, that idea might sound good on paper but in practice you get… well, the film Good On Paper.

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July 15, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

The Unholy (2021) – DAMN IT!

Released: 15th April
Seen: 12th July

Of all the horror genres there are, the is one that I’ve never been exactly fond of and that’s the paranormal horror. Things like Paranormal Activity or Annabelle where there’s a haunting and the film is usually nothing but a set of jumpscares surrounded by mediocre characters who don’t run for their lives when that’s the safe and sensible option. Sometimes there can be exceptions, the first Conjuring movie is a prime example of a film in this genre that understands how to put tension and real stakes in to make it work… we don’t have a film like that today, we have The Unholy and I hate it.

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