leebutler Uncategorized

Uncharted (2022) – Fairly Charted Territory

Released: 17th February
Seen: 27th March

In 2007 the first game in the Uncharted series hit shelves and it was nothing short of a smash hit, selling over a million copies in the first ten weeks and becoming one of the biggest-selling games for the PlayStation. Its success was so huge that there were plans for a movie being made way back in 2008 and for the 14 years since then, the franchise has bounced around with different writers, directors and stars. Just reading over the history of Uncharted it’s kind of incredible that it even got out of the development hell that it languished in for so long but now it’s here and… it’s fine. Nothing to write home about but it’s not awful.

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leebutler Review

Dream Horse (2021) – Dream On

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on June 9, 2021

Dream Horse, based on the documentary Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance, follows a little welsh town that’s landed on hard times. Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) is feeling particularly hopeless, going from between her work at the co-op and her bartending job in order to make ends meet while dealing with her distant husband Brian (Owen Teale) and her parents, both of whom lean on her help more and more. 

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leebutler Uncategorized

Oscar Predictions – 2022

Once more, it is time for us to look at the list of films that the Academy of Motion Pictures has decided are the best of the year and judge their choices based upon personal enjoyment while also complaining that they snubbed my faves because that’s a thing that we do around here (Ninja Badass was robbed of any and all Oscar nominations and I am forever mad about it). This might be the post I have the most fun doing each year, it’s kind of the reason I even started doing this whole reviewing so it’s time to go over their shortlist of nominees and pass judgement but before I do, a couple of points.

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leebutler Review

Ascension (2021) – Going Up?

Released: 15th November 2021
Seen: 21st March 2022

In the book Introduction to Documentary, film theorist Bill Nichols breaks down the film genre of documentaries into 6 modes (AKA subgenres), those modes being Poetic, Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive and Performative. Each of these genres is fairly easy to understand and I’ll link to a great post that describes all of them but they’re often handy to give you an idea of what kind of documentary you’re in for, so when I say that Ascension feels like a combination of Poetic and Observational it tells you that this film is going to have some beautiful visuals and just be a fly on the wall following several people… it’s also kind of dull so here we go trying to talk about a film I’m not fond of just because it’s kinda boring, that’s gonna be fun content to make.

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leebutler Review

Cruella (2021) – Dark Twisted Disney Fun

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on June 8, 2021

Cruella De Vil, one of the most wicked villains of the entire Disney catalog, started her life as a young woman named Estella. Estella was a troubled child, getting into fights at her boarding school and in general making life hard for herself and her mother. Indeed, this side of her personality was so cruel that she would come to name that mood “Cruella”.

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leebutler Review

Nightmare Alley (2022) – A Dark Dream

Released: 20th January
Seen: 19th March

Nightmare Alley Info

In 1946, William Lindsay Gresham wrote the novel Nightmare Alley. The novel was popular enough to be adapted into the 1947 film of the same name. Even though that film didn’t do that well at the box office it’s since been reevaluated as a classic of the film noir genre… honestly, that kind of means it makes perfect sense for Guillermo del Toro to have a go at doing it since the story matches his sensibilities and his films have enough of a timeless quality to them that all you would need to do it put a black and white filter over one of his films and you could probably pass it off as something from the 40s, which they apparently did for a special release of his version of Nightmare Alley which is just goddamn fascinating.

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