Movie – Page 80 – Movie Meister Reviews

October 3, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

The Boys in the Band (2020) – The Band Plays On

Released: 30th September
Seen: 1st October

In 1968 the groundbreaking play The Boys in The Band premiered off-Broadway. Written by the late Mart Crowley (who passed away in March of this year), the play revolves around a group of gay friends coming together for a birthday party which slowly turns into a chaotic night of revelations, bitchiness and a lot of self-loathing. It’s one of the first plays that showed gay men as actual characters with love lives and personalities, it’s so ahead of the curve that it premiered roughly a year before Stonewall putting it right at the start of the gay liberation movement. The 1968 play would later be adapted into a feature length film in 1970. 50 years after the off=Broadway play premiered, in 2018 it was revived on Broadway and now here we are, 2 years later and we have a new film adaptation and it’s just wonderful.

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October 2, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

The High Note (2020) – A Little Flat, But OK

Released: 24th September
Seen: 30th September

So, we’re approaching the final quarter of the year. The home stretch. The time when the fat lady starts warming up so she can hit the high note. The point when everyone should have started working on the “Good Fucking Riddance 2020” banners that we will all be hanging up because this year has been, to quote Jake Tapper, a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck. This has definitely been reflected in what has been available at the cinema.

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October 1, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

A Nice Girl Like You (2020) – A Film Like THIS?!

Released: 17th July
Seen: 29th September

Some sex comedies question the human condition and our reliance on the act that the French call “the little death” in order to create a connection, some sex comedies mock the societal hangups we have regarding the act that is required to create life and some sex comedies point at some of the absurd elements of the sexual act itself… then there are the sex comedies that appear to be written by people who have never even heard of the concept of sex and wouldn’t know what to do if you handed them written instructions regarding what parts go where. That’s the best way I can explain something as completely unfunny as A Nice Girl Like You.

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September 30, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Enola Holmes (2020) – Elementary School, My Dear Watson

Released: 23rd September
Seen: 27th September

December 26, 2018. A date that will live in infamy. This is the date when Holmes & Watson was released and, despite the year being almost completely finished, made a case to be called one of the worst movies of the year (a case it won, easily, since it made it on my list with 5 days to go!). It was truly a ghastly nightmare but as since then it looks like it may have done something even more sinister… it may have killed the Sherlock Holmes brand!

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September 29, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Feel The Beat (2020) – The Beat Feels Familiar

Released: 19th June
Seen: 23rd September

Not long ago, I reviewed the Netflix original film Work It which was about a young girl trying to put together a dance troupe in order to get into college. Dance films are a very rare breed because they tend to require actors who can pull off the vastly different skills of acting and dancing. The problem with dance films is that it takes something kind of special to break out into the mainstream, films like Dirty Dancing, Hairspray and Step Up managed to infuse dancing with a plot that people latched onto and have kept in the cultural landscape for years… something tells me Feel the Beat isn’t going to be one of those movies, but it’s fine.

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September 27, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Pets United (2020) – These Dogs Can Go To Hell

Released: 11th September
Seen: 21st September

Sometimes a film gives me a very easy opening topic for a review, either there’s some interesting backstory or the film is so boring I decide to compare it to paint drying or it’s an adaptation of a book so I can do some basic research and pretend that I know something about the book or comic that a movie is based on. Then there’s films like Pets United which give me nothing to work with, literally nothing. I mean, I could run through the long list of films about abysmally animated animals going on a quest that I’ve subjected myself to over the past few years in a vain attempt to get more eyes on some of my hilarious takedowns of films that belong in the discount bin at the dollar store (Read my review of The Big Trip) but… after Pets United? I’m just so tired.

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September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

The Social Dilemma (2020) – Oh, You Got Trouble

Released: 9th September
Seen: 20th September

On some level we all know and accept that social media is evil. They sell our data to anyone who asks nicely, the algorithm has a disturbing habit of pushing people towards extremism and they have rules that they enforce sporadically at best. It’s a running joke that when someone we know finally joins Twitter or Facebook, we send them condolences because their lives are about to get dramatically worse. We know these companies are evil… but just how evil are they?

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September 20, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Spiral (2020) – Spinning Right Round Baby

Released: 17th September
Seen: 20th September

When it comes to queer characters as the leads in horror films, I have to admit I can’t come up with many. Nightmare on Elm Street 2 may have put all the gayness into the subtext but it was still there, genuinely groundbreaking for that time (and the subject of a fascinating documentary that I may have reviewed a while ago). Hellbent was a slasher film that made the bold choice to have all the victims and even the main villain be gay men in West Hollywood. Cursed had a gay supporting character, Scream 4 had one character who claimed they were gay (It might’ve been an attempt to not get stabbed, which didn’t work) and that’s where I run out of films (I know there’s more, damned if I can name them). They’re certainly never really pushed by any big companies or made mainstream, so for Shudder to make a horror movie about a gay couple and link the story explicitly to the gay experience is pretty awesome and the film is… good.

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September 19, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

The Devil All the Time (2020) – The Devil Went Down To Ohio

Released: 11th September
Seen: 18th September

In 2011, the novel The Devil All the Time was released and was instantly showered with awards and praise. Written by Donald Ray Pollock as a follow up to his book Knockemstiff, it was a big enough hit that, inevitably, the rights to the book were bought and a film adaptation was announced way back in 2018. Well, now we are here two years later and what did they make? They made… a film. A film with two great performances that is a film, it’s not much more than that.

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September 18, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

An American Pickle (2020) – Dill With It

Released: 17th September
Seen: 17th September

“A Jewish immigrant working in an american pickle factory falls into a vat of pickles in 1919 and is preserved for 100 years, waking up in 2019 where he is put into the care of his only living relative”

It’s a simple concept with a lot of potential, a classic fish out of water story. Ideas like this have brought us such films as Blast from the Past or even the second Captain America movie. It’s a great structure because it can really shine a light on how much people have grown over a certain period of time and can create some fun interesting ideas. An American Pickle definitely has some interesting ideas, even though it hasn’t quite figured out how to go all the way with them.

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