Monday, February 01, 2021

2020: The Motion Pictures

It seems hard to believe that it's already February 1 and I haven't watched a single movie this year yet. Not only that, but it's almost been a year since the last time I went to the movies, in early March 2020, when theaters went dark after the pandemic we're still living through started sweeping the world.

Eventually, by the end of August, a few chains started reopening, including AMC, the one I always go to now thanks to the A-List subscription model they instituted after the revolutionary MoviePass demonstrated it could be successful . . . before crumbling under poor management.

Still, I've kept clear because frankly it's not worth risking your health (and life) or that of the people around you for a movie (that you can always watch later on TV). And given the anemic box office hauls of the few titles that weren't rescheduled, I wasn't alone in reasoning that way.

Hopefully, with the vaccine rollout, this summer things will start going back to normal. I doubt I'd venture back into a closed environment for hours at a time (I usually go for a double feature) until I've gotten the shot myself.

On top of that, given that I had fallen tragically behind with reviewing the movies I had watched (my list seemingly ran away from me and accumulated over 520 titles!!!), I decided to pause movie-viewing and catch up with the TV shows still on my radar, rather than rent or stream more titles, just so I wouldn't add more to the backlog and to give myself a chance to finally catch up, which I was able to do in the span of about six months.

Anyway, this is the meager list of movies I watched in 2020:

9

1917

8

A Hidden Life

Just Mercy

Little Women

Marriage Story

Onward

The Invisible Man

The Two Popes

7

Jumanji: The Next Level

Murder on the Orient Express

The Gentlemen

The Irishman

The Last Full Measure

The Lodge

The Way Back

Uncut Gems

6

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Spies in Disguise

Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

The Grudge

The Hunt

The Langoliers

Trolls

Underwater

5

Bloodshot

Frozen II

Gretel & Hansel

The Rhythm Section

4.5

Candyman

3

Cats

The Turning

It's not a lot of titles, but I guess it's better than nothing, right?

Unfortunately, I'd only really list three for the title of Best Picture:

  • 1917
  • Marriage Story
  • The Two Popes

and my personal award would go to 1917, a visually stunning masterpiece that tells a story well worth knowing.

Well, that's it I guess. Let's hope 2021 brings better tidings . . .

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