Romance – Page 6 – Movie Meister Reviews

December 12, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Happiest Season (2020) – Merry and Gay

Released: 26th November
Seen: 11th December

At the time I write this, I will have seen a little over 150 films so far this year. Considering that 2020 has been a roaring dumpster fire for cinema with every film seemingly moved to some point in the future, that’s not a bad total. Here’s a bad total though, out of those 150+ films you wanna take a guess how many of them featured an LGBT person as one of the named main characters? 15. 15! 15!! That’s one in every ten films that feature a character that openly identifies as either L, G, B or T.

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November 25, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

All My Life (2020) – Oh Life, Oh Liiife, Do Do Do Do

Released: 19th November
Seen: 22nd November

In the romance genre there is an interesting variation that I will lovingly refer to as the “Oops, cancer” film. We’ve seen the story play out before numerous times, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, either girl or boy gets terminal cancer in a way that’s handled with all the grace of the breast cancer reveal in The Room. Recent saccharine films with this story include I Still Believe, a film that was more about preaching the word of god than telling a story about a couple in love going against a powerful disease, and Irreplaceable You, which took the “Oops, cancer” moment and used it as a jumping off point for a film about a dying wife trying to set her husband up with someone to look after him when she’s gone. The films made with this “Oops, cancer” reveal currently take up a solid quarter of the lifetime TV movie schedule. It’s also a film trope that lives and dies on the charm and liability of its leads… so, how does All My Life fare? Better than most, but it still has problems.

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October 23, 2020October 23, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

A Ghost Waits (2020) – Ghost Outside

Soda & Telepaths sent me another fun movie to review, a horror film that’s been doing the film festival circuit called A Ghost Waits and I kinda enjoyed it, go read the fun words I wrote about it

October 2, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

The High Note (2020) – A Little Flat, But OK

Released: 24th September
Seen: 30th September

So, we’re approaching the final quarter of the year. The home stretch. The time when the fat lady starts warming up so she can hit the high note. The point when everyone should have started working on the “Good Fucking Riddance 2020” banners that we will all be hanging up because this year has been, to quote Jake Tapper, a hot mess inside a dumpster fire inside a train wreck. This has definitely been reflected in what has been available at the cinema.

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October 1, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

A Nice Girl Like You (2020) – A Film Like THIS?!

Released: 17th July
Seen: 29th September

Some sex comedies question the human condition and our reliance on the act that the French call “the little death” in order to create a connection, some sex comedies mock the societal hangups we have regarding the act that is required to create life and some sex comedies point at some of the absurd elements of the sexual act itself… then there are the sex comedies that appear to be written by people who have never even heard of the concept of sex and wouldn’t know what to do if you handed them written instructions regarding what parts go where. That’s the best way I can explain something as completely unfunny as A Nice Girl Like You.

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September 15, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

Love, Guaranteed (2020) – Promises Promises

Released: 3rd September
Seen: 14th September

Sometimes, you just want to watch a film where you know the ending before the movie even starts. You just want something that’s safe and digestible, something that you can call the ending absolutely perfectly from the second that you hear the basic setup. In this turbulent world where every day feels like a month and every one of those day-months feels like a free flowing fountain of frenetic feelings, sometimes you just want stability. You want a film you can set your watch to, pop it on and know every step on the way and know that it’s going to be a fun ride. You want a guarantee… Love, Guaranteed.

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September 12, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

After We Collided (2020) – Complete Car Crash

Released: 10th September
Seen: 11th September

2019 brought the hit series After to cinemas and… it was awful. A bland flavourless movie that only exists because the One Direction fanfiction it’s based on did well online. It made about $12 million on a $14 million budget and in a fair world that would mean the series died there… of course, that’s just the domestic total. Worldwide, After made (I swear I’m not joking here) $69 million and therefore it was going to get a sequel. Now, the first film was spectacularly bland so surely the second film is going to be just as bland right? Right?

…So, this is somehow less original than 50 Shades of Grey and a lot less interesting.

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August 26, 2020August 26, 2020 leebutler Uncategorized

Queen & Slim (2020) – Heartfelt and Powerful

Released: 12th March
Seen: 25th August

On August 24th, video emerged of Jacob Blake being shot 7 times in the back by police officers. He was not resisting arrest, he was not armed, he was not in any way a danger to the officers. He was getting into his car after breaking up a fight and was shot by police 7 times IN THE BACK (that ‘in the back’ part is why I’m not going to be hearing your counter arguments on this. not kidding, don’t bother trying to justify this, you can not). Now, fortunately (at the time I type this) Jacob survived this attempted murder by the police, although he is paralysed from the waist down but he is just another in a long line of unarmed black men who have been shot by police who disproportionately shoot unarmed black men.

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August 4, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

The Secret: Dare To Dream (2020) – Keep This Secret

Released: 31st July
Seen: 3rd August

In 2006, The Secret was let loose upon society. The self-help book introduced many to the concept of the law of attraction, namely that if you think about something enough that it will appear in your life (which I can roundly disprove by pointing out that at no point in my life has Chris Hemsworth turned up to my house to feed me freshly peeled grapes, a thing I think about often). The book became a monster hit with people like her holiness Oprah championing it to the masses. Well, it’s 14 years later, so naturally now is the perfect time to start a cinematic universe around the concepts presented in that book.

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July 29, 2020July 22, 2022 leebutler Uncategorized

Love Sarah (2020) – Love?

Released: 2nd July
Seen: 28th July

It’s interesting to think that right now we should probably be inundated with movies filled with giant explosions. Tenet, Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, so many huge blockbusters should be out right now overwhelming our senses but sadly this year the world decided to see just how much it could mess everything up. As it stands there are no really huge movies coming out for a while, leaving a vortex that’s being slowly filled up by the films that would normally be forgotten by the mainstream, or surprise darlings like The King Of Staten Island… I mean, that’s what’s being shown down here where cinemas are open, they just seem to be filling it with whatever they can get their hands on that might normally go straight to DVD or be relegated to a seniors coffee morning screening. That’s as good a transition as I can be bothered to come up with, LOVE SARAH!

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