leebutler Editorial

Oscar Predictions – 2025

Every year on this blog I talk about the Oscar nominees and the potential winners in each category. It’s the reason this blog exists and it’s a fun thing to do around this time of year, even when (thanks to a real-world job that takes a lot of my time) I’ve missed a few of the bigger films that got a bunch of nominations. I still can look at some of the bigger trends and have a guess about how the ceremony is going to go… it also doesn’t help that, as usual, some of these films are incredibly hard to find in Australia in a way that I can legally see them at a convenient time. So, here are my predictions for what will win, what should win and the wild card choice that might sneak in at the last minute.

Besides, if the members of the Academy can vote for movies to win the award without ever watching them, I can predict what they’re going to do without seeing everything.

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leebutler Drama, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Conclave (2025) – Oh Lord

Released: 9th January
Seen: 2nd February

When a pope dies there is a process that has to be done in order to select a new pope known as a Papal Conclave. The basic idea is that all eligible cardinals come to Rome where they are sequestered in a large room and vote on the next pope. They do this repeatedly over and over again until someone has a two-thirds majority and then they become the new pope. The cardinals are not meant to interact with the outside world during this process and each time a vote happens the votes are burned and the colour of the smoke tells the outside world that there’s a new pope. This feels like the kind of thing that was meant to be turned into a political thriller and thanks to Conclave it has been… it’s good, it’s very good, honestly, there’s not much more that can be said than that but I’ll try.

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leebutler Editorial

The Best Performances of 2022

2022 has been another weird year in the ‘pandemic trilogy’ and it’s been another rough one to get through but what has certainly helped, at least on some level, has been a bevy of amazing performances by some incredibly talented actors who have made going to the cinema worthwhile… yes that is a stupid way to start this list, we work with what we have around here.

What follows is a list of 20 performances (plus 5 honourable mentions) that I quite liked in 2022. You might not agree with the people I picked, you might think I’m stupid for picking some of them and you would be right on that but it’s my blog and this is my list, to make it you just have to be wildly entertaining in some way and if you can get here by being absolutely batshit crazy, well good for you. We’re only going with films released in Australia that I’ve been able to see, same as the best and worst lists were except this one is longer because sometimes there are good performances in bad films and they deserve a special list of their own. Also, one person per film for the main list because it makes for more of a challenge so any extras go straight to the honourable mentions list

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leebutler Uncategorized

Holmes & Watson (2018) – The Defective Detective

Released: 26th December
Seen: 27th December

Holmes & Watson Info.png

In all of literature, one of the most beloved and adapted characters is that of Sherlock Holmes. The story of a genius detective who goes around solving crimes, defeating Moriarty and working with his friend Dr Watson is the stuff of legends that everyone has had a crack at. He’s been in action oriented films, weekly episodic TV shows, miniseries, he was a gnome at one point, an animated rat another time, a doctor for a very long period of time and even a Japanese puppet. Sherlock Holmes has been everything and in every kind of movie… and now, he can add “Awful unfunny comedy” to the long list of film projects he’s been associated with.

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leebutler Uncategorized

The Lego Batman Movie

Released 30th March (Australia)

Seen 11th November

Lego Batman.jpg

Directed by Chris McKay
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Jared Stern & John Whittington
Produced by DC Entertainment, Lego System A/S, Lin Pictures, Lord Miller, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, Vertigo Entertainment, Warner Animation Group, Warner Bros. Animation & Warner Bros
Starring Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson & Ralph Fiennes

Earlier this year I saw Lego Ninjago, a movie that was clearly spewed out to capitalize on the cinematic success that was The Lego Movie. At the start of that review, I mentioned that “Lego Batman… showed you could play around in multiple established universes and still tell your own story”. I knew this because my younger brother told me the basic storyline of the Lego Batman movie and, at that point, I hadn’t seen Lego Batman. I’ve now rectified that and somehow, it makes me think Lego Ninjago was actually worse.

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