leebutler Drama, Sport

Air (2023) – Let’s Get Some Shoes

Released: 5th April
Seen: 17th April

Air Info

In the history of sports, there are a handful of people who are so talented at what they do that it transcends the world of sports and they just become a part of the culture, and there is no one in history who exemplifies that more than Michael Jordan. Even if you don’t know a damn thing about basketball, even if you’ve never seen a single game and couldn’t give a single solitary crap about any of it you know who Michael Jordan was. He is widely considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time, some might even argue that he’s the greatest sportsman of all time. 

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Review

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) – Let’s-a go.

Released: 5th April
Seen: 12th April

When it comes to the world of video games, there is no character quite as well-known and iconic as Mario. For 40 years the short Italian with the red hat has been lighting up video game consoles and being the blueprint for an entire genre of games that he still basically runs to this day, and probably will until the universe implodes and we all die. He is such an icon that it’s kind of surprising that there’s only been a single movie made about him and it is, to be charitable, a tortuous trip through 90s consumerist dystopian fiction wrapped in an absurdist nightmare.

It’s a film that people mostly enjoy in the way most cult films are enjoyed, because they’re incredibly strange and mockable and it’s impossible to believe that someone actually made this happen. It’s an adaptation that was so bad that it put an end to the idea of Nintendo games getting made into movies up until the 2019 release of Detective Pikachu proved that they could actually work, leading to Nintendo giving the Mario Brothers one more chance… thank goodness.

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leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Review

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) – Natural 20

Released: 30th March
Seen: 30th March

In 1974, the very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons was published and it pretty quickly became a mainstay of pop culture. Every decade seems to change how people look at it, be it back in the 80s when it was a very large part of the Satanic Panic bullshit or in the 2000s when we were talking about the first film adaptation that carried the name or even the 2010s when Stranger Things reminded people of why they enjoyed playing this game back in the 80s when the adults said it was evil and satanic. Even now it still maintains high popularity with an untold number of web shows and podcasts dedicated to variations on this classic tabletop RPG… I’ve never played it once, so I went into this movie completely blind and had a great time but who knows how a fanboy might react to this.

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leebutler Biography, Drama, Family, Review

Dog Gone (2023) – Doggone It!

Released: 23rd March
Seen: 28th March

Dog Gone Info

It’s slowly starting to feel like the mortal enemy of this reviewer is dog-based films. No idea why, dogs are better than people and are truly precious on every level so surely just telling a story about a cute doggie doing cute doggie things should be enough to make for a nice movie but it seems like it’s just not to be. Films that use dead dogs as a plot point, boring but overall fine stories about police dogs and even films about dog shows that end up being pulled from cinemas to remove a joke that people compared to child grooming have all come out in the time that this blog has existed and every time the film is either irritating or bland or irritatingly bland. So, where does Dog Gone fit in? Honestly, it’s harmless… harmlessly bland.

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leebutler Action, Crime, Review, Thriller

John Wick: Chapter Four (2023) – Mr Wick, Welcome Back

Released: 23rd March
Seen: 25th March

It’s a little stunning to think that it was only ten years ago we were first introduced to John Wick, a hitman who merely wanted to live out his life in peace with his car and his dog who ended up being attacked and having his car stolen and dog killed. Thus began the legend of John Wick which has carried through three of the best action films of the last 20 years. Each entry in the John Wick franchise feels like it’s been dared to one up the film that went before it and so far, every single time it’s pulled that off with some of the most elaborate and intense action sequences to be put on film. Well now we’re here at Chapter 4 and it must be said, they certainly TRY to one-up themselves from the last time.

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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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