leebutler Action, Biopic, Drama, History, Sport

The Smashing Machine (2025) – Oh, Smashing

Released: 2nd October 2025
Seen: 9th February 2026

Over the last several decades, one of the biggest names in cinema has been The Rock, AKA Dwayne Johnson. His films have grossed billions of dollars; he is currently the 10th-highest-grossing actor of all time, and he did all that without having to appear in a Marvel film or anything involving Avatar. He’s one of the highest paid, most recognisable and most beloved film stars of recent years… but he’s not a great actor. Let’s be honest, no one’s ever accused him of giving a transformative performance in his entire career; the man is a personality who effectively plays himself in every single film he ever appears in. Now this isn’t a bad thing per se, a lot of very famous actors are kind of known for playing themselves in every film that they do (Ryan Reynolds, Jack Black, Will Ferrell just to name the first three that come to mind). With Dwayne Johnson, however, it comes with the fact that he not only plays the same character, but he’s doing it at a time when his wrestler-turned-actor contemporaries John Cena and Dave Bautista are delivering genuinely great, layered acting performances that demonstrate a range that Dwayne just hasn’t been able to do. What Dwayne’s been needing for quite some time is a chance to show off his skills, to stretch himself and prove that he isn’t just a one-trick pony… The Smashing Machine does kind of prove that, but in a way that also really shows off his limitations

Continue reading “The Smashing Machine (2025) – Oh, Smashing” →
leebutler Drama, Review

Sentimental Value (2025) – Intriguing

Released: 25th December 2025
Seen: 28th February 2026

It’s often hard to figure out how to open these reviews; the style developed almost a decade ago out of an understanding that a single paragraph would be placed above the fold, and I’ve just carried that on like it was a standard element of writing. Something that just happened several years ago for no particular reason is now locked in, will probably be standard until something dramatic changes, and I’m forced to re-evaluate how things are done… You could consider that process to be something of an imperfect metaphor for Sentimental Value, a film that revolves around the idea of how things that happened in the past can still have a massive impact on people several years later. Is it the best metaphor out there? No, is it the best I could do for this opening paragraph that inevitably means nothing other than tone setting for the rest of the review? Also no, but it’s what we’ve got.

Continue reading “Sentimental Value (2025) – Intriguing” →
leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Thriller

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025) – Rosy

Released: 7th August 2025
Seen: 27th February 2026

We all know the famous phrase “Life’s a bitch, and then you die”. That phrase feels more relevant today than ever, where everything just feels constantly overwhelming. Burnout is real and is not only happening in people’s professional lives but in their personal ones. Day-to-day events just pile up in a way that feels insurmountable and unfixable because the people who could fix them are unavailable. That’s a feeling that we’ve all had before and it’s the kind of emotional destruction that could make for a fascinating film, or at least a fascinating performance, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is fortunately both of those things.

Continue reading “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025) – Rosy” →
leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Sport

Marty Supreme (2026) – Ping Pong Boy

Released: 22nd January
Seen: 7th February

In the history of cinema, the genre of the sports movie has presented us with some truly great films that stand the test of time. From A League Of Their Own to Air Bud, all genres and levels of prestige have been the subject of a good sports movie. Almost every sport you can think of has had a film focused on it, including table tennis. Of course, up till now, most table tennis films haven’t exactly been the most well-known; perhaps the biggest one would be Forrest Gump, but that’s not so much a table tennis film as it is a film where someone played table tennis at some point. Honestly, the sport of table tennis hasn’t had its big, sweeping, dramatic epic until now, and Marty Supreme is undeniably the ultimate in table tennis cinema.

Continue reading “Marty Supreme (2026) – Ping Pong Boy” →
leebutler Editorial

Best Performances of 2025

Every year, I try my best to put together a list of the 20 best performances of the year, though last year I was only able to make a 10-person list due to personal reasons. This year, I more than made up for it with a 20-person list of performances that were the best of the year. Now, as usua,l I wish to bring up that “Best” is a marketing term which really just means “Shit that I liked a lot”, these aren’t going to be the award winners or things that might be considered the height of the craft but they are the most fun, interesting or jaw dropping performances of the year that I just couldn’t stop thinking about. Of course, every list needs some honourable mentions, so here’s mine with no explanations for why they’re here (Ask nicely and maybe I’ll explain them… or not)

Continue reading “Best Performances of 2025” →
leebutler Horror, Review

Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) – Gifted

Released: 14th August
Seen: 11th December

In 1984, Silent Night Deadly Night was released right at the height of the slasher boom of the 80s. It was made pretty much for the same reason a lot of horror films were made then, namely “Oh Halloween was popular, so pick a holiday and stick a killer on that date and we can print money” and sure enough they made a silly little horror film for just under a million dollars and expected it to do good business and that was that. What happened instead was that it became one of the biggest controversies of that era, the poster sparked massive protests, and critics tore the film to shreds for the crime of making Santa Claus a murderer. The film was pulled from cinemas due to those protests and in that moment, the protestors inadvertently gave Silent Night Deadly Night a place in horror infamy, which in turn resulted in the franchise becoming a cult hit. It would end up getting four sequels, one of which gave us the legendary “GARBAGE DAY” clip that was a hot meme for a while, and the film was remade back in 2012 because every slasher film got a remake in that era. Now once more it’s time for them to throw an axe in Santa’s hand and see what he does… and this time, it’s actually pretty good!

Continue reading “Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) – Gifted” →
leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Influencers (2025) – Like

Released: 13th December
Seen: 12th December

In 2023, Shudder released Influencer which was immediately a critical hit and got pretty good viewership numbers, at least good enough to warrant making a sequel. Now, at the time I was one of the few who didn’t love the film, I thought it had good ideas but I wasn’t a fan of the execution. Upon a recent rewatch I’ve slightly changed my mind, mostly because the central performance of the character CW grew on me. It still felt a little bit lackluster to me, but it moved to just being generally good so I was hopeful about the sequel… and sure enough, Influencers turned out to be absolutely brilliant.

Continue reading “Influencers (2025) – Like” →
leebutler Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) – Miraculous

Released: 12th December
Seen: 12th December

In 2019, Rian Johnson released Knives Out to an unsuspecting public, and the world embraced and fell in love with his all-star cast and murder mystery. It was a true masterpiece, a definitive work in the murder mystery genre that had people salivating for more. That’s when Netflix did one of the few truly cool things that they’ve done in a long time and gave Rian Johnson 400 million dollars to make two new entries in the franchise, the first one of those was Glass Onion in 2022, which was also absolutely brilliant and proved that Knives Out had genuine franchise potential. Now we’ve been blessed with Wake Up Dead Man, the third movie in the Knives Out Franchise, and I’m fully at the point of insisting that Rian Johnson continue making these films until either he or Daniel Craig is no longer with us, because once again he’s made an actual masterpiece.

Continue reading “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) – Miraculous” →
leebutler Drama, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi

The Life Of Chuck (2025) – Oh Life

Released: 14th August
Seen: 11th December

When you think of a Stephen King story, you inevitably think of some weird horror story with a terrifying concept and a probably less than satisfying final act. You might also think of his sci-fi work, his grandiose epic The Dark Tower or The Stand. What might be thought of less are his dramatic works, despite them being adapted into truly grand movies. Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, movies that can genuinely surprise people when they learn it’s a Stephen King adaptation (I’ve literally seen this happen, I’ve shocked people by saying “The Green Mile is based on Stephen King). He doesn’t really get to flex his dramatic writing muscles as much because everyone generally wants a Stephen King book to be scary, but back in 2020 he released a novella called The Life of Chuck. The novella caught the eye of Mike Flanagan, who is one of the modern horror heroes, and he adapted it into a film of the same name which is certainly heartwarming but… well, let’s begin the review before I go into that.

Continue reading “The Life Of Chuck (2025) – Oh Life” →
leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Crime, Family, Mystery, Review

Zootopia 2 (2025) – Sssensational

Released: 27th November
Seen: 8th December

In 2016, Disney released Zootopia, which told the story of a society made entirely of animals (as in lions, tigers, bears, oh my) that was dealing with the disappearance of the predator class of animals. A buddy cop mystery movie told with just a ton of adorable animals in people clothes was basically a license to print money for Disney, which would rake in over a billion dollars from this one movie alone, and that still only made it the 4th highest-grossing movie of the year, which really says a lot about how insane the box office was only a decade ago. In the years since Zootopia has remained a very popular property, even getting a TV show on Disney+ in 2022, but it’s taken until now for Disney to get around to making a sequel, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

Continue reading “Zootopia 2 (2025) – Sssensational” →