Posts by Jeremy Butler

“I like to remind you all what this competition is about. It is about excellence in butter.”

It’s trophy wife vs. Little Orphan Annie in this dysfunctional dark comedy about America’s leading cause of high cholesterol. Equipped with an impressive cast of Hollywood’s elite, Butter does it’s best to entertain; however, the collaborative efforts of Jennifer Garner, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Wilde, and Ty Burrell may not be enough to boost a lot of the more subtle comedy of the film; I know it wasn’t enough for me.

Yes, the found footage technique: the first person narrative technique designed to give the audience the impression of the film being pieced together from a series of video recordings usually left behind by characters now believed dead. The technique existed before but became internationally popular when the film The Blair Witch Project was released. In recent years, the technique has been used more and more with such films Paranormal Activity and Chronicle; these are examples of when the found footage technique works; well, you can add V/H/S to that list.

Split up into six different stories, the film reminded me of summer camp when you sit around the campfire at night and tell ghost stories (these stories have much more blood and gore than the stories my friends used to tell, of course).  Six stories and nine directors (I know it’s a disproportionate amount of directors, but Radio Silence is actually a four-man team), think of it as a video collection of horror tales, and trust me, you will be scared.

“Sometimes it’s better not to touch your dreams, take it from someone who knows.”

What a difference three years makes. That’s right, the beloved series decides to return with a flash forward three years ahead, giving the series a new and fresh outlook with some new faces and a few familiar ones as well. The time may have changed, but thankfully Hank Moody sure hasn’t, still managing to get himself in all kinds of trouble despite his best intentions. This year he must deal with an unstable ex-girlfriend, his daughter’s philandering boyfriend, and keeping his extremely volatile new client from finding about the tryst he had with the client’s girlfriend; it can only happen to Hank Moody.

“Through the good times and the bad, you were the best I never had.”

Who became successful? Who completely changed? Who stayed the same? For all the questions that are asked at every 10 year high school reunion, 10 Years is dedicated to you. Equipped with a stellar cast of Hollywood’s next generation elite: Channing Tatum, Justin Long, Rosario Dawson, Kate Mara, Brian Geraghty, Ari Graynor, Kate Mara, Oscar Isaac, and the list goes on.

Think 28 days later set in 1945 with Nazis, or at least that was my first interpretation of Outpost: Black Sun. Considering how relatable it seems to that film, and being a huge fan of the Danny Boyle series, I really wanted to like Outpost. In reality, however, it took multiple viewings of the beginning for me to grasp the plot of the movie. Now I believe myself to by a fairly intelligent guy, so the idea of having to watch the beginning of a film more than once to comprehend the plot is enough to make me write a movie off. However, once I made it out of my cloud of confusion, something happened…it got interesting.

The story starts off with the introduction of Lena (Catherine Steadman, The Tudors), daughter of holocaust survivors who after the death of her father, picks up his mantle of hunting down Nazi war criminals, specifically the ones who ran the concentration camp her parents were housed in. After tracking down the second to last war criminal on her list, she learns that not only is her final target well hidden, but he has created something that has the potential to help the Third Reich accomplish world domination.

“Killing is easy. High school is hard.”

Granted that it’s generally not really a good idea to endorse a series that advertises the idea of high school assassin (especially something that uses the quote seen above), but when it is done as well as Aim High, you sort of have to roll with it. A web series equipped with comedy, stunts, and a little bit of teenage melodrama, Aim High does in a fraction of the time what so many television shows failed to do…entertain.

“Hold up! Wait a minute! Let me put some Brown in it.”

With this DVD I learned a valuable lesson (several actually), about not judging a book by its cover. Around the time it was announced that this show would premiere on TBS, I was in the middle of watching Tyler Perry’s first series on TBS, House of Payne. Assuming that Meet the Browns would nothing more than a variation on what House of Payne was, I ignored this show. However you know what they say happens when you assume, and that’s just what happened to me.