leebutler Action, Adventure, Review, Thriller

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One (2023) – Mission Possible

Released: 8th July 2023
Seen: 29th January 2024

At this point, the Mission Impossible series exists for one reason and one reason only, to basically make the entire world believe that Tom Cruise is the most badass human being alive. Sure, there’s a story, espionage, action and comedy that appeals to the masses and delivers high-octane thrills as needed but its principal job at the moment is to help launder the image of a man whose entire life is so intertwined with the evil that is Scientology that he needs people to ignore that and focus on the cool stunts that he can perform. It’s kind of a neat trick because normally it works, normally Tom Cruise movies open so big and make such a splash that we talk about how he saved cinema or something like that. So what does it take for a Mission Impossible film to underperform like this one did? I mean, mostly it was just bad luck with the strikes and people not going to the movies as much but it’s also a case of diminishing returns.

Continue reading “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning – Part One (2023) – Mission Possible” →
leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Night Swim (2024) – Sinking Feeling

Released: 4th January
Seen: 16th January

A big discussion that’s been going on lately concerns film length, how films nowadays seem unable to be under 2 hours and how a lot of films that go for 3 hours or more don’t really need to waste that amount of audience time. What this whole issue comes down to is the idea that certain stories only really need a certain amount of time to tell them properly, Some films need 3 hours to explore every little crevice of their story, others can handle the story in 90 minutes. Then there are short films that often prove how effective they can be with only a couple of minutes, there’s even an entire channel dedicated to films that only last for 5 seconds long because that’s all they need to get the job done… Night Swim is one of those films that probably should’ve stuck to being a short 4-minute film instead of trying to take its general idea and stretch it forcibly into 100 minutes.

Continue reading “Night Swim (2024) – Sinking Feeling” →
leebutler Action, Comedy, Crime, Drama, Netflix, Review, Thriller

Lift (2024) – Drop It

Released: 12th January
Seen: 15th January

Lift Info

It’s become something of a joke lately that Netflix keeps producing so many films that they can’t even properly advertise them all, but it’s also probably for the best that they don’t because a lot of them are strangely forgettable garbage that’s just kind of created so that Netflix has a library of films that will never be taken away from them. What’s weird about this is that Netflix spends an absolutely jaw-dropping amount on films that, at best, will spend an eternity sitting in their digital library where they aren’t really designed to turn a profit. These are blockbusters that are made without the intention of getting blockbuster profits, a strange phenomenon that would maybe be OK if it led to fun enjoyable films… but it doesn’t, it leads to content like Lift. 

Continue reading “Lift (2024) – Drop It” →
leebutler Horror, Review, Thriller

Suitable Flesh (2023) – Skin-Crawlingly Creepy

Released: 27th October
Seen: 24th December

In 2020 we lost the great Stuart Gordon, one of the gods of 80s horror. The man gave us such glorious works as Re-Animator, From Beyond and Castle Freak along with having a hand in classics like Honey I Shrunk The Kids. A lot of the work that made him an undeniable icon of the genre was his adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft stories and a lot of those films were written by Dennis Paoli who has screenwriting credit on five of Gordon’s films, those being Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, Castle Freak and The Pit And The Pendulum. It’s safe to say that a large number of the early films that gave us an idea of what a Stuart Gordon film could be wouldn’t exist in the same way without Dennis Paoli’s writing. So, the question is what would happen if you paid tribute to Stuart Gordon by getting Dennis to write another adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft film and let the director of Wrong Turn 2 handle the direction? Turns out, you get something that’s pretty fucking fun.

Continue reading “Suitable Flesh (2023) – Skin-Crawlingly Creepy” →
leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Thriller

Saltburn (2023) – Brilliance On The Dance Floor

Released: 16th November
Seen: 24th November

In 2021, Emerald Fennell released Promising Young Woman, which quickly became one of my favourite films that I’ve ever been able to review. The year it came out I proclaimed it the second best film of the year, had the fourth best performance of the year and was adamant that the film should win every single Oscar it was nominated for. I was an evangelist for the film and when talking about it on the Best List I said, quote “if Emerald Fenell walks into your office and asks to make a movie, you hand that woman a blank cheque and let her go wild”… It’s clear that someone was listening to this request, because if Saltburn isn’t what happens when Emerald Fennell goes wild, I don’t know what is.

Continue reading “Saltburn (2023) – Brilliance On The Dance Floor” →
leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023) – Bearly Enough

Released: 26th October
Seen: 23rd November

In 2014, a man named Scott Cawthon released a game called Five Nights at Freddy’s. The idea of the game was incredibly simplistic, you played a bodyguard who has the job of watching over a defunct pizzeria via a set of monitors rigged up to cameras all around the building. There are only two doors into the room that can open and close and you have to just get through a series of five shifts from midnight to 6am, which is difficult because the animatronics in the restaurant are alive and are coming to get you.

As the nights go on, the game gets harder and harder and if you fail then one of the animatronics leaps at the screen creating a loud jumpscare that ends the game instantly. It’s a simple game that happened to get noticed by a certain segment of gamers who play games while overreacting on camera and soon became an obscenely popular franchise with a new game being churned out seemingly every couple of months. It was such a monster hit that a film adaptation was inevitable, indeed one was greenlit in 2015… it’s languished in production hell for 8 years but now it’s out and you can kind of tell this thing has been rewritten a couple dozen times, but it’s not like my opinion matters on the subject.

Continue reading “Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023) – Bearly Enough” →
leebutler Action, Horror, Review, Thriller

The Wrath Of Becky (2023) – OH MY GOD!

Released: 16th November
Seen: 23rd November

In 2020 a little film called Becky came out and delivered something that cinema desperately needed, a 14 year old girl who kills a whole assload of Nazi assholes in various wild and wonderful ways. It was an absolute blast of a film, filled with great performances by absolutely everyone involved and created an instantly iconic female character with Becky. It was a film that I enjoyed so much it made the honourable mentions list on my best films list that year and the Kevin James performance was the 11th best performance on my list. When news of a sequel came out you can imagine the genuine excitement that built, more fun time with Becky violently killing a bunch of bastards just sounded like the best thing possible and thank goodness, The Wrath Of Becky absolutely lives up to the standard set by the film that came before it.

Continue reading “The Wrath Of Becky (2023) – OH MY GOD!” →
leebutler Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Review, Thriller

The Killer (2023) – Fincher Strikes Again

Released: 10th November
Seen: 15th November

The Killer Info

David Fincher is arguably one of the greatest directors working today, a man who has made several of the greatest films of the modern era who people revere as a director for good reason. Even when his films aren’t instant classics there’s something interesting going on with them, at bare minimum, his films will give you something to think about and will probably be full of great performances on top of it. His name alone is basically a marker of quality so it should come as no shock that once again Fincher has made a fascinating film about a dark immoral character and asked us to take a closer look at how mundane they actually are and once again it’s strangely fascinating.

Continue reading “The Killer (2023) – Fincher Strikes Again” →
leebutler Horror, Mystery, Review, Thriller

Thanksgiving (2023) – Oh Honey, THANKS-LIVING

Released: 17th November
Seen: 15th November

Thanksgiving Info

In 2007, the film Grindhouse got a sadly small release to the world, a release that flopped because people seemed to just hate fun that year. Those who did see this glorious little event were treated to a pair of wonderful throwbacks to the days of the grindhouse cinema which were split up by a set of hilarious fake trailers for movies like Werewolf Women of the SS and Don’t. Some of these fake trailers would end up being turned into feature films, those being Machete and Hobo With A Shotgun but there was one trailer that people have spent the last 15 years begging to be turned into a movie.

Continue reading “Thanksgiving (2023) – Oh Honey, THANKS-LIVING” →
leebutler Horror, Thriller

Night Of The Hunted (2023) – Oh Shoot!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 20th October
Seen: 30th October

For some strange reason, the idea of a movie diving into politics annoys a certain class of people who seem to think that movies used to be apolitical and only recently got infected. The truth of the matter is that all art, on some level, is political and some films are just more overt about it than others. This goes double for the Horror genre which has always been a great place to play with heavy political ideas (Look at Night of the Dead, Get Out or They Live for some prime examples of this) and recently has had a few films tackle the divide between the right and the left. Films like Tone Deaf or The Hunt tried to find ways to make fun of the divide, showing it to be comical and extreme in ways that maybe made for a half-decent film but was not great about the way it presented its politics. Night of the Hunted also has some problems with how it’s presenting politics, but without as much fun in how it’s trying to present those politics.

Continue reading “Night Of The Hunted (2023) – Oh Shoot!” →