Robert W. Butler for 41 years reviewed films for the Kansas City Star. In May 2011 he was downsized.
He couldn’t take the hint.
OKAY, so here’s the deal. I write mostly about movies. One good thing about no longer writing for the paper is that I’m free to ignore the big dumb Hollywood turkeys that don’t interest me. So don’t expect every blessed release to be written about here. Many films aren’t worth the effort. Besides, at my age it’s not the $8. It’s the two hours.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT ON THIS SITE: Coverage of the indy film scene…docs, foreign films, American independents.
ALSO, reviews of newly released DVDs that I believe to be of interest.
AND every now and then I’ll throw my net a little wider. For example, I’ve launched a series called NEWSPAPER DAYS about my experiences as a working reporter. I’ve written about a big dumb dog we once owned.
What the hell…it’s my site, right?
UPDATE: OCTOBER, 2014: Well, here’s an interesting twist. The Star wants me back as a freelance film reviewer!!! Apparently enough time has passed that they cannot be accused of firing me so that they can rehire me at a fraction of my original pay (I gather the federal government frowns upon that practice.) So from now on I will probably be reviewing a movie a week for the newspaper.
Very thankful you are here to continue to educate, challenge and enlighten us!
Thank you
Bob: Glad to hear you’re still married to Ellen. My curiosity in that regard led me to this page (I Googled “Robert Butler” and “Ellen Vaughan”). I always thought she was very nice, extremely cute, and good-looking when I’d run into her at The Star during the mid-60s and early 70s. And she always seemed to be smiling, which I also appreciated. She was just darling. Tell her I said “Hi.” By the way, like many others, I’m sure, I miss your movie reviews in The Star. I didn’t realize that you were “downsized” in 2011. Management probably thought you were making too much money (ha!). By the way, I’d generally agree with your reviews, once I saw the movies, unlike a lot of people who claimed that you, like most movie reviewers, were out of touch with the common man. I guess I should have been visiting your blog since 2011, which I’ll do from now on.
Phil Koppe (former KC Star copy boy, sports desk “phone boy,” and sportswriter).
Robert, after so many years of reading you I can’t even remember when, I will miss you dearly at the Star. You were/are/will be awesome and i am glad i will still be able to read you on the blog.
Your reviews, insight, and prose were always so spot-on. I could always rely on your judgement for my movie going experiences.
best wishes from one of your many loyal readers.
Love your new website! I will spread the word among friends, and also intend to post a link on Facebook.
The site looks great! It’s already on my Google Reader.
HIGHLY disappointed with our former mutual employer’s action toward you. I am glad to be able to still see your reviews in another venue.
Some Wednesday evening please come and visit an IFC meeting at the Westport Coffee House.
We would be glad to welcome you and all of us at the IFC are very grateful for your unflagging support for local/regional filmmakers.
Best of luck to you in new adventures my friend!
And thank goodness he didn’t take the hint! Personally, I think Mr. Butler is better than the Kansas City Star. Maybe, in parting company with the paper, he has been upsized!
I couldn’t have said it better myself…
Slowly but surely The Star is digging their own grave, but out of the ashes KC will get the paper it truly deserves… and Bob will be writing for it!
Looking forward to following your blog!
Add me to your email list, please. And I look forward to your reviews…always have!
Finally, you get top billing! Thanks for the years of great reviews. Looking forward to many more! ;)
Thursday Preview and the Friday Style sections are dull without you in them. Thanks goodness I can turn to your website for my Bob Butler fix. I hope you’ll be a regular on KCUR now, too. Best of luck, Bob.
Thank goodness I heard you on KCUR the other day, and found your blog. I only have to catch up on 2 weeks of entries!
Well, one more big reason that the KC Star is becoming irrelevant.
And there are so many.
We miss you Robert Butler. Well, maybe now we don’t.
Thanks for keeping on keeping on.
So glad you didn’t “take the hint,” and created this blog! Thank you for continuing to enlighten and educate us about the national and Kansas City Film scene. They ought to make you a regular on KCUR and KCPT! Posted this on facebook, and will spread the good news…Butler is Back!
OMG! Here you are!! You have no idea how much your intelligent, informative reviews have been depended upon through the years.
Terrible decision on the part of the Star!! I sent in my two cents about it but I’m sure it didn’t matter. Our local paper is dying–mostly because of decisions like this–they simply refuse to rise above mediocrity.
Until a friend sent a heads up about your new blog, I’d been trying to decide what to do about movie reviews in the future. The best plan I had so far was the “If (name of certain reviewers) likes it, then I won’t!”
There has never been another reviewer (except maybe Ebert) whose opinion I trust. My movie-lovin’ friends feel the same way! In fact, whenever we spotted an interesting new movie coming out, it became the norm for us to actually wait until you saw it–and you always seemed to see the movies we were excited about–and then go with whatever you thought. That’s a LOT of trust in a reviewer’s opinion! BUT you earned it through the years with your exceptional taste.
So–once again, we can say “Let’s see what Butler says…”! Thank you.
Good job, Bob! You are the latest victim in a series of bad decisions made by The Star.
Glad to see you are forging onward with your cool website.
Thank God you haven’t gone away. Your downsizing is truly an indication that a journalistic apocalypse is upon us. I have greedily, gleefully read your writing since I returned to Kansas City in 1989. You are a local and national treasure. To me you don’t so much write movie reviews as you create literature. I am endlessly entertained and enlightened by your prose even when I’m at times disinterested in the subject of your analysis. Please, please, please keep on keepin’ on! For my part I will continue enjoying your work and do my best to pass it on.
Wow. I feel like a beautiful woman just blew me a kiss…and i’m looking behind myself to see who it’s actually intended for.
Anyway, those are very kind words, if misguided. What the hell…I’ll take it!
This is excellent! Much more room to “play” than in the newspaper, and it looks a whole lot better than entertainment section! Thank you to the good folks at The Fine Arts Theatres for giving you a shout out in “This Week’s Movie News.” Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Hmmm…is there any way to edit our comments before they are out there where the world (which is how big your audience will be) can see that we left out a word (“the” entertainment section), or that we can’t spell, etc.?
We . . I . . miss you, Bob: your talent, wit, personality and presence. Glad you’re here. Eric Adler, Reporter, The Kansas City Star
Bob thanks for saving me tons of cash and energy all these decades by suffering through the bad stuff for us and letting us know where the real quality was. Checking you out was always one of the first things we did before considering going to any film. Great to know your expertiise and sound judgement will be here! Have a great day.
So sorry to hear that you have left the KC Star. Why they keep laying off the talent is beyond me–if the best writers are gone, why would anyone read the paper? Wishing you happy trails from here on up.
youre the only movie reviewer i believe in. the new reviewer at the star cant compare. glad to find you keeping on. thanks for telling me what to look out for at the theater!
Well, gee, thanks. Nice to know I’m still being read. Tell your friends. Hell, tell your enemies.
Sent you a private note about my glee at finding this blog, but let me make a public one as well. I don’t think I fully appreciated exactly how dire the situation at The Star was until I found out you were no longer employed there. If there is a more certain death knell being sounded for print media in this town (and yesterday’s announced demise of The Sun would seem to support my theory), I don’t know what it is.
I will be a frequent visitor here to watch you thrive now that you are free of the shackles of corporate media.
Free at last. Free at last. No big boss at 18th and Grand to tell me what to do. Of course, no paycheck, either. Life is full of tradeoffs. Thanks for the comment, Patrick.
After reading another group of unreliable movie reviews in today’s KC Star, It finally dawned on me that Butler must have ended up somewhere. So glad I found this.
I wish it were easier to find individual movies, by title, on your blog, so I could decide whether to go see them. Is there a way to list the actual titles and link them to your reviews? Maybe this is already possible and I just haven’t yet figured out how to do it!
Dear Anne
Just type in the title (or key words) you’re looking for in the search box. Works for me.
Butler
Robert, I too read you for years in the Star and highly respect your reviews and your writing. I too am glad you are here. Thanks
Glad I found you. Just wanted to see your review of “The tree of Life”
So glad I found your website. I have to sift through intelligent reviews (you’re one of the few) and nitpik until I find something my husband won’t be offended by. I love the movies, he only likes good ones…
You visited my Critical Writing class way back in 1979 (the days of shoulder pads), trading bon mots with John Bremner and telling us that being a reporter mattered. I send the dog out every morning to pick up my paper. Can’t live without my news, even if my faves aren’t in there. What’s the world coming to when Fox News has cred and ethical reporters are laid off?
Rebonka,
Appreciate your comments to Bob, but highly resent the discriminating crack about shoulder pads as being so 1979. I still wear them because god did not bless me with any shoulders of my own. I try to be discrete and have reduced the size and shape of the pads over time, but I need them not to look ridiculously disproportioned. Even though they show through many of my clothes and cause some to stare insensitively, it is a price I have to pay. Be careful with your un-pc remarks as you never know who you might be offending.
Your’re back! I just found you; what a relief. Cancelled my KC Star subscription in protest of your “downsizing”. Have missed you. Posted your page to FB because I think everyone should check in to see what you have to say about movies… and life.
Doesn’t seem that long ago that I was on the second page of a movie review enjoying the insight and intelligence and wit when I stopped and thought “Is this Butler?” Turned back to the byline to confirm that, yes, it was you. To be honest I didn’t aways agree with you, well, usually I did, but even when I didn’t it still gave me a sense as to whether a movie was worth my time and money and I thank you for that. I’ve missed you in the Star. So glad to find you here. All the best. David Lungren
Just found your website…excellent, congratulations, and looking forward to knowing more about the movies!! jen’s mom
It’s great to have access to your movie reviews on this site. I also like the way you are making it your own and focusing on your areas of interest.
Because of your interest in this industry, you might enjoy attending the Kansas City Digital Storytelling Forum on June 21st. Here’s a link to information about the event:
http://rjionline.org/events/kansas-city-digital-storytelling-forum
This is a community based effort to make significant things happen for digital storytelling in our region.
Glad you are still doing reviews. Had to bounce around the internet looking for you and am glad I found you. Can’t sort or search your reviews on rottentomatoes so I’m glad you’ve put this wordpress site together.
I know that you want to do your own thing… but you have to review movies like The Dark Knight Rises when they drop. I need your input!
So…what are you hearing about 2016: Obama’s America? Any idea if it will be hitting the KC-area anytime soon?
No date yet…but you know it’s gotta be a few weeks before the election.
Bob, I’ve really missed your writing and am glad to have stumbled across your site! Had resorted to Yahoo users reviews because, frankly, no one out there is as fun to read as you. Thanks for keeping it going.
I found your site through a link via KCUR and am sorry I did not find it earlier. I look forward to reading your always thoughtful, informative and humorous writings on films and the film industry. Persevere.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ll try to make that one.
Bob, I just saw and loved “Tom and Harry” and want to know how I can get a copy of that film.
I was born in 1930 in the “north end” of K.C. and am an Italian-American.
Could you please advise me how to find that film so I can show to my entire family.
Thank you ery much.
Marie Whitmer mariewhitmer@gmail.com
YES!!!!! You’re still around!
Your site is great. One more reason not to re-subscribe to the Star.
My son and I would like to see Hyde Park on the Hudson. We live in the Kansas City area. However, it is being so limited in its release, we would have to go to St. Louis to see it. What is this all about? Are they afraid Bill Murray might be in line to win an award or something? How can we have our voices heard when we don’t agree with the distribution of the powers that be?
Hyde Park will open in KC shortly after New Year’s.
Great site Robert!!! Keep ’em coming. Where is the background image of you on the homage taken?
Monument Valley, UTAH
Great site, glad I found it. I am an employee at the Alamo Drafthouse and I am becoming obsessed with the theater’s history. You wrote a column back in 2007 talking about it’s decline into a grindhouse. Do you have anymore stories about the building like the one you included in the column about the guy getting stabbed during a screening of the Fog back in 1980? It is pretty easy to come by the basic history or the building, but it is the personal stories that make the history come alive. If you could share any more stories or direct me to any resources I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
Here’s one…at one point in the late ’70s the wife and I were in one of the small upstair auditoriums (they had been carved out of the balcony after the place was turned into a multiplex). The movie was “Magic” with Anthony Hopkins. Anyway, throughout the movie was accompanied by the sound of a very large rodent chewing inside the wall beside us. I do hope it was chowing down on a 220-volt wire.
Bob Trussell, who is still at the Star, has lots of “Empire” stories. He was my second string movie reviewer and saw an awful lot of those grindhouse programs.
Sure. Send it to bobbutler@kclibrary.org
I love your movie reviews. You write so entertainingly, if that is a word!
Gee…thanks.
Hey Robert, sorry about the Star’s decision. Ford did it to me, anyway… Nancy and me are back in the “realm”. Nancy is now at Heartland Health in St. Joe. We have a 60 acre “farm” near Gower Mo. Still miss the old Fairway hood. Hope you are doing well.
Brian
Oh yea… You look very pro on TV.
Robert W.
I remember you called…6:30pm in 1981 to fire me from writing my music column for The Kansas City Star. BLACKBEAT was never my column, really. But I know the feeling of suddenly being fired. I wrote those reviews for over two years, never missed a deadline…but that’s split milk. I thought of you often; wondered what became of you. Life happens. It comes around. It always does.
Mr. Butler.
Just wanted to reach out, because my wife reminded me of something…
I grew up reading your reviews. You and Ebert taught me a lot about writing and, more importantly, how to think about movies.
My mom died yesterday.
I thought you might get a tickle out of the fact that she sent me all of the newspaper clippings of your reviews to Memphis (I attended Rhodes College and stayed), before the age of the Internet (well, the Internet existed, but she didn’t know how it worked).
Your work means a lot to a lot of people.
Thanks,
T. Suchman
Thank for yesterday’s review of the Gnomist, we are intrigued but the showing is sold out. I saw some update on the Internet that the Firefly Forest was discontinued last June. I was hoping you might verify that for those of us that might have wanted to take that enchanted walk. Thank you for your work! You are very much appreciated. Thank you,
Kathleen Harvey
Still my favorite critic .. the best ever.
I still read your reviews on a weekly basis from Florida. Sad to hear that Tivoli in Westport has closed. Please give my regards to Jerry Harrington.
Keith Cohen-“The Movie Guy”
Former critic and SME grad
Robert W.
Congrats.