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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leebutler Drama, Review

The Whale (2023) – Big Damn Deal

Released: 2nd February
Seen: 7th February

To be honest, the thought of seeing a film like The Whale is quite frightening to someone like me. A film about a morbidly obese gay man is something that feels a little close to home, while this reviewer might not be at the ‘morbid’ level of obesity it’s hard not to see the images of Brendan Fraser in his expertly constructed fat suit and not see a slight mirror of my own reality. Hell, the ultimate personal irony in seeing this film is that the cinema that was showing this film has chairs that are just a little too small for me to sit in comfortably. Basically, if anyone was either going to have a deep personal connection with this film or be offended by it, that’s going to be me so it’s weird to realise my main reaction is just kind of shrugging.

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leebutler Drama, Review

The Fabelmans (2023) – Meet The Spielbergs

Released: 5th January
Seen: 7th February

The Fabelmans Info

If one were to make a list of the greatest directors of all time, you wouldn’t get very far before having to write down the name Steven Spielberg. The man has basically been considered one of the best of all time since 1975 (the year he released a little horror flick called Jaws) and every time something comes out with his name attached to it it’s almost certain to be something worth watching. The man just exudes cinema, he understands it better than almost anyone else currently working and seems to have understood what makes a film special for his entire career. With over 40 films to his name it feels like Steven Spielberg has done absolutely everything, except make a film about himself. Turns out, as we learn with The Fabelmans he has broken that barrier too and turns out he’s also fantastic at exposing himself to a large audience… in a non-dirty way.

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leebutler Documentary, Review

Fire of Love (2022) – Red Hot

Released: 11th November 2022
Seen: 5th February 2023

Katia and Maurice Krafft loved two things in life, each other and volcanos. For years the two of them would travel around the world and visit various volcanos, capturing some of the most visually stunning footage of these natural phenomena possible. They were two of the leading volcanologists on the planet until June 3rd, 1991 when they were caught in a pyroclastic flow on Mount Unzen. For years their footage of lava flows has been used to explain the dangers of volcanos and even appeared in documentaries made by other people but now the very footage that these two volcanologists captured will be used to tell their adorable and strange life story in Fire of Love.

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leebutler Documentary, Review

Navalny (2022) – Justice For Alexei Navalny

Released: 11th June 2022
Seen: 27th January 2023

On August 20th 2020, Alexei Navalny was flying from Tomsk to Moscow when suddenly he let out a blood-curdling scream. The scream was to get the attention of the flight crew and anyone who might be able to record as Alexei realised something while in midair… Alexei Navalny, a man known as an anti-corruption giant who was running against Vladimir Putin for the job of president of Russia, had been poisoned. The poison would turn out to be a nerve agent known to be used largely by Putin against his enemies and were it not for the flight making an emergency landing in Omsk, Alexei Navalny would have died on that flight. The documentary Navalny looks into not only why this happened, but the shocking aftermath of Navalny’s unexpected survival.

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