A Quiet Place Part II signified the return to the movie theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. Ironically, the John Krasinski (Promised Land, Away We Go) directed sequel to 2018’s surprisingly successful A Quiet Place was tabled for its March 2020 release just before the global pandemic ravaged the world. I give movies like Tenet, News of the World, and Wonder Woman 1984 much credit for releasing their films during the year, knowing they would earn far less revenue than if they had waited. I don’t fault movies for delaying their release, but I applaud the big-budget ones that did not. While 2020 allowed more independent films to take center stage at the theaters that continued operating during the shutdown, those movies didn’t necessarily succeed. It was an abysmal year overall for movies. I did go to the theaters 10-15 times between mid-March 2020 and mid-May 2021. Except for once or twice, only a dozen or so people were at my shows.
Category Archives: 2020
Joe Bell (2020)
Sometimes, when producing a movie, it is based on having a great story, while at other times, it is based on having a great cast. Of course, many other factors can make or break a film, but let’s concentrate on these first two and ask a simple but essential question. What happens when you potentially have the first two, but they conflict? I believe that director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard, Monsters and Men) likely faced that decision in Joe Bell. Here, he had the true story of a father walking from his hometown in Oregon to New York City to raise awareness for bullying after Jadin (Reid Miller), his openly gay 15-year-old son, committed suicide after being repeatedly tormented at school because of his sexual orientation.
Four Good Days (2020)
I sure did want to like Four Good Days, Rodrigo Garcia’s (Albert Nobbs, Passengers) Heroin-recovery-centered drama co-starring (Mila Kunis – Black Swan, The Book of Eli), and Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons, Fatal Attraction). It had everything I wanted in my heaving-hitting addiction dramas. It had a strung-out lead in 31-year-old Molly (Kunis) and that one person that, hopefully, all people have who will do anything to save this person they so dearly love. In this case, it is Molly’s mother, Deb (Close). The elements were in place for this to be a movie that knocked it out of the park. However, it was so severely flawed that it sometimes inadvertently detracted from the story it was trying to tell. As much as I struggled with its flimsy screenplay, its miscasting of Deb with Close, and its peculiar ending, it stuck with me so much that I wanted to go home immediately after watching it to review it. There is zero percent chance that Four Good Days ends in my 2020 Top Ten Movies of the Year list, but I fully imagine that I will remember every little bit about this movie at the end of the year as I do today (May 6th), and not for the wrong reasons.
The World to Come (2020)
Hope. Love. Tragedy. Despair. We desire the first pair of words. We dread the second pair. When we experience all five of these emotions in the order presented here, what comes after experiencing despair? Death? Rebirth? Complacency. If the suffering is deep enough, is any coming out of it? Do we even want to? Do we believe that we can find joy again? If we do, will we recognize it? Will we embrace it? In Mona Fastvold’s (The Sleepwalker) The World To Come, we spend 98 minutes with Abigail (Katherine Waterston – Mid90s, Alien: Covenant), a grieving mother who has spent the year before unsuccessfully trying to process her young daughter’s death.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
The astounding Gone Girl, unfortunately, it is not. The disappointing The Girl on the Train it, fortunately, is not. First-time director Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Women (intentional or not) is a film that falls somewhere in between, even if that was never an intention or a consideration by anyone else watching the film. I mention comparing the three because 2014’s nearly flawless Gone Girl was this intense, methodical movie based on a novel centered on revenge against a man she felt had wronged her. Then it felt like 2016’s The Girl on the Train was a movie that was rightfully or wrongfully being compared and expected to be as successful as Gone Girl, partially because it was also based on a very successful novel, had an A-list leading actress (Rosamund Pike, Emily Blunt) had an edgy and creepy vibe to it, and ironically had the word “Girl” in the title. Promising Young Woman has elements of both movies. It has an amped-up revenge plot similar to Gone Girl and the mystery detective aspect of The Girl on the Train. You don’t need to watch either of the movies mentioned above to see Promising Young Woman. While there are some aspects of each, this film carries its weight, though it doesn’t hurt to be in the same conversation as two well-known films in the movie community.