leebutler Action, Adventure, Comedy, Review

Shazam: Fury Of The Gods (2023) – Less Fury Than Expected

Released: 16th March
Seen: 18th March

In 2019, DC released one of its few good films, Shazam. At the time it felt like somewhat of a revelation, after years of a dark and dour DC universe being built with several below-average films that refused to even try to have a little fun, we finally got a film that seemed to understand why this genre is so popular while also having one of the biggest heartfelt stories in all of Superhero media (The Billy Batson story with his mother is still heartbreaking, I will die on that hill). It might not have been the biggest box office hit, possibly because the DC well was basically poisoned even by that point but somehow it got a sequel that got somewhat delayed by the recent plague but is here now… it’s fine, I guess.

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leebutler Editorial

Oscar Predictions – 2023

Once again, the time has come to look over the long list of assorted Oscar nominees and say “I, a person with no stakes in this, believe this film should win the little gold naked man” in pretty much every category. Honestly, this year is the year where just about everyone who should’ve been nominated was nominated and the only reason they weren’t is that there are only 5 people allowed per category, there isn’t any real need for my usual soapboxing about why certain people weren’t part of the nominee list… I will, however, make the call now that there will be 14 cringy slap jokes made and none of them will be funny.

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leebutler Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Scream 6 (2023) – Scream A Little Louder

Released: 9th March
Seen: 8th March

On June 6th Neve Campbell made an announcement that she was not going to appear in Scream 6 due to negotiations with Paramount falling through when they didn’t give her the money that she felt she was worth to the franchise. This was, quite frankly, insane to believe because Neve Campbell is the face of the Scream franchise, as important to it as phone calls and the concept of horror movie trivia so for Paramount to decide to just not give her what she is worth is abysmal on their part. It is my sincere hope that when Scream 7 comes around they actually give her what she deserves and then some because I don’t know how many films in this franchise they can make without the iconic Sidney Prescott… apparently, they can make at least one though because, despite this serious issue, Scream 6 is actually fantastic.

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leebutler Comedy, Review, Thriller

Cocaine Bear (2023) – THE BEAR DID COCAINE!

Released: 23rd February
Seen: 5th March

In 1985 a 175 kg black bear in the wilderness of Tennessee came upon a bag of cocaine that had been dumped from a plane by Andrew C. Thornton II, a noted drug dealer (who, hilariously, jumped from the plane with his cocaine and died because his parachute didn’t open). Like any good bear who finds a fuckload of cocaine, this big black bear ate so much cocaine that it was later found dead from an overdose. This bear has since been taxidermied and given the glorious name of Cokey The Bear… this is a completely true story, this absolutely happened. The only thing we don’t know is what this bear did between finding the cocaine and dying from the overdose. Cocaine Bear decides to answer that question and it’s absolutely glorious.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Netflix, Review

The Sea Beast (2022) – Beastly

Released: 8th July 2022
Seen: 4th March 2023

The Sea Beast Info

The Sea Beast has taken up the spot of the surprise 5th Oscar nominee in this years Best Animated Feature category, it’s the film that’s seemingly there just because they had to round it out to five nominees. The other four are getting nominated time and time again in several other awards shows but The Sea Beast is basically the one in this category that scraped on in. Theoretically, that means it could probably be the one that was missed out of all of these nominated films due to its likelihood of winning being minimal, but it’s also one of the easiest to get a hold of since it sits on Netflix… and you should go watch it because it’s actually pretty damn fantastic.

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leebutler Action, Drama, Review

Top Gun: Maverick (2022) – Right Into The Dangerzone

Released: 26th May, 2022
Seen: 26th February 2023

Top Gun Maverick (2022) Info

The second biggest movie worldwide of 2022 was Top Gun: Maverick, a surprise sequel that comes 36 years after the classic 80s film that most people would remember as “The one with Dangerzone and that homoerotic beach volleyball scene”. It was an undeniable smash hit, heralded as the film that saved cinema after the pandemic seemingly destroyed it (indeed, it’s the second film since the start of the pandemic to cross a billion at the box office). It was truly the biggest story in cinema in 2022 and I pointedly didn’t go see it. 

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Comedy, Review

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – Otherworldly

Released: 16th February
Seen: 22nd February

Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been somewhat polarising for people who are fans of this cultural juggernaut. In the aftermath of the Infinity Saga and dealing with the events of Endgame, Phase 4 has felt somewhat uneven to some viewers who have been vocal about not really knowing where it’s been going. Personally, this hasn’t felt like a big deal since it felt pretty obvious to me that phase 4 is pulling the double duty of dealing with the aftermath of Endgame (This being the major thread of films like Multiverse of Madness, Love and Thunder and Wakanda Forever) and setting up the Multiverse that will clearly be a large factor for phase 5 (This idea is explored in things like Loki, No Way Home and What if?). Sure they’ve been a little haphazard about how to use these ideas and haven’t really made it clear on what’s to come but the groundwork has been laid… and now with Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania they’ve decided to start showing their hand.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review

Triangle of Sadness (2023) – Eat The Rich

Released: 2nd February
Seen: 7th February

It is a truth almost universally acknowledged that the rich are a bunch of bastards, very few who aren’t either rich themselves or a bunch of pathetic bootlickers could argue with that idea. In our capitalist society it turns out that most of the problems that we have as a people are basically due to the actions of a handful of obscenely wealthy people (emphasis on ‘obscene’). The only good thing about these people is that they make for excellent comedy fodder, after all who the hell is going to be offended by a joke at the expense of a billionaire… other than the aforementioned bootlickers. 

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