leebutler Review

Altered Carbon Season 2 (2020)

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on March 17th, 2020. This is from when S&T gave out percentage scores on a fancy layout and I somehow kept track of that

Altered Carbon first popped up on Netflix on the 2nd of February 2018. Based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan, the series made waves before a single episode aired by being one of the most expensive shows to be created by the streaming service. Once the series hit the internet it turned out to be very popular, popular enough to get a second season that dropped on the 27th of February and an upcoming anime film on the 19th of March. The first season of this cyberpunk noir detective series was certainly one that required your full attention but rewarded you for it with some of the best characters on TV and some incredible action scenes that made it stand out. Season two certainly started that way, but it stumbled right near the finish line.

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leebutler Review

Re-Displacement (2020)

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on February 6th, 2020.

Opening on a therapy session set in a calm-seeming office, Re•displacement starts off very quietly. We get a quick little introduction to Leo (Nico Mirallegro), a sympathetic soul seeking help from Doctor Michelle (Nathalie Cox) who has an experimental treatment. The treatment is similar, in many ways, to a virtual reality simulator that allows Leo to walk through his own memories to come face to face with a trauma that he’s been desperately trying to keep buried for years. This is quickly explained within a few minutes of the short beginning, allowing us to relax and enjoy this ride.

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leebutler Review

Bad Boys For Life (2020)

NOTE: So for the last 2 years I’ve been producing reviews for Soda & Telepaths who sadly closed their doors at the end of 2021. Thus, I now have a large amount of assorted reviews from the last 2 years that need somewhere to go and so they will be put here… slowly, on days I don’t have a new review to put up so I won’t flood anyone’s page/emails with a dozen reviews.

These are as close to how they were over on S&T, though that site had a different layout and style I had to work within so it might not be exactly 1 for 1. Also, in some cases, old reviews might have been deleted from the site before I got to them (like this one) and I have to rely on old notes I took.

With all that in mind, here is my first review for S&T that was posted back on January 16th, 2020.

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leebutler Review

House Of Gucci (2022) – Camp Couture

Released: 1st January
Seen: 2nd January

Camp is not an easy thing to properly explain. I could assign you the legendary Notes On Camp essay by Susan Sontag and that might get it across, or we could go with the description that John Waters gives in his episode of The Simpsons “The tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic”. It’s not easy to call out what is and isn’t camp, though there is no real midground on camp. Either something is camp or it’s not (there is no such thing as subtle camp, if someone tells you otherwise then beat them with a tent pole) and it’s sometimes it’s hard to call… not in this case though, House of Gucci is so fucking camp that it’s accepting kids for a summer program right now.

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leebutler Uncategorized

Best Performances of 2021

2021 has been one hell of a year and we’ve already talked about the best and worst films, but sometimes there are specific performances that really just demand to be praised that aren’t necessarily in the best or worst films. Some performances are so good that they demand praise even if the film they’re part of is awful, and some are just pure fun and deserve to be talked about because we should be able to admit to enjoying them. 

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leebutler Review

The Top Ten Worst Films of 2021

It’s been a bad year, the last several years have been bad years and there’s just so much bile that builds up over the course of 12 months that it needs to be let out in one long post about the meaningless hobby I’ve decided to have. Hell, not long before I hit the publish button on the best list, we lost Betty White so there is plenty of anger and rage stored up that needs desperately to be released.

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leebutler Review

Being the Ricardos (2021) – You’ve Got Some Explaining To Do

Released:21st December
Seen: 27th December

Being the Ricardos Info

The I Love Lucy show might be one of the biggest TV shows in history, not just in terms of ratings but in influence on the comedy landscape. Every single sitcom since then has wanted nothing more than to be even half as important as I Love Lucy – and very few matched it. The power couple of Lucy and Desi Arnez created a trailblazing show that changed television forever, while also dealing with a whirlwind of a marriage and many problems in their personal andprofessional lives. That fascinating period in TV history is the foundation for Being the Ricardos which is certainly an interesting take on this time but I’m not sure if it’s a great take.

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leebutler Review

Don’t Look Up (2021) – Look Straight Ahead

Released: 25th November
Seen: 26th December

Don't Look Up Info

There’s a joke that’s been going around lately that relates to the way that the entire planet has responded to the insanity of the covid pandemic. “Guess we have to remove the phrase ‘avoid like the plague’ from our lexicon since we apparently don’t know how to do that”. It’s a dark commentary on how we as a species just seem to be unable to mildly inconvenience ourselves in the short term in order to avoid long term catastrophe. Of course, this isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s been happening for years around Climate Change among a host of other issues. This strange behaviour is what a film like Don’t Look Up is trying to comment on but it has the slight problem of having to compete with the actual insanity of reality.

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leebutler Review

Dear Evan Hansen (2021) – Return To Sender

Released: 9th December
Seen: 18th December

Dear Evan Hansen Info

Dear “Dear Evan Hansen”,

Today was going to be an amazing day, and here’s why. Because today all you had to do was just be a decent movie. Not even a great movie, I think we both know you were never going to be great but good would’ve done us both a whole lot of good after the kind of year we’ve both had. I know you’ve had quite the bad year yourself what with all the people throwing mud your way since your little trailer came out and expecting you to be the next Cats. Well, I have good news Dear Evan Hansen, you’re not the next Cats… cos I’d go and see Cats again.

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