2020 Movie Log in Review

As we all know, 2020 was a year unlike any other. With the pandemic raging and constant political crises unfolding, we needed movies to comfort us more than ever but couldn't leave the house to enjoy them. My 2020 movie log reflects the fact that I usually had company on the couch and that our collective tastes leaned toward movies that took our minds off the overwhelming problems of the day. With that in mind, here's the log for 2020.

 

January 

The Black Cauldron (1985)

But I'm a Cheerleader! (1999)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)

Troop Zero (2019)

MIB International (2019)

Blinded by the Light (2019)

Master of Dark Shadows (2019)

Payment on Demand (1951)

The Strawberry Blonde (1941)

Old Acquaintance (1943)

February

Big Business (1988)

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)

Night of the Comet (1984)

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You (2020)

Birds of Prey (2020)

The Fog (1980)

Shaun the Sheep: Farmaggedon (2019)

Tremors (1990)

March

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Casablanca (1942)

Onward (2020)

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Tremors (1990) - yes, again

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (2020)

April

Smoke Signals (1998)

Jaws (1975)

The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

The More the Merrier (1943)

Willow (1988)

Rashomon (1950)

The Women (1939)

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

May

The Half of It (2020)

Tangled (2010)

Star Trek Nemesis (2002)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Star Trek: Generations (1994)

Escape from New York (1981)

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Emma (2020)

Soap Dish (1991)

June

Rocketman (2019)

The Vast of Night (2019)

Batman Forever (1995)

The Princess and the Frog (2009)

Heartbreakers (2001)

Marty (1955)

July 

Knives Out (2019)

The Haunted Mansion (2003)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Hamilton (2020)

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Mask of the Phantasm (1993)

The Creeping Flesh (1973)

Madam Satan (1930)

Mortal Kombat (1995)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

The Avengers (2012)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic World (2015)

August

Extra Ordinary (2020)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Feel the Beat (2020)

Steel Magnolias (1989)

Jumanji: The Next Level (2020)

Emo - The Musical (2016)

Bill and Ted Face the Music (2020)

September

Countess Dracula (1971)

Twins of Evil (1971)

Stage Mother (2020)

Wonder Man (1945)

The Sons of Tennessee Williams (2010)

Fade to Black (1980)

Poltergeist (1982)

Disclosure (2020)

Valley Girl (1983)

Suburban Gothic (2014)

Kung Fu Hustle (2004)

October

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Paris is Burning (1990)

Theater of Blood (1973)

The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)

The Monster Club (1981)

Vampires vs. the Bronx (2020)

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1989)

The Addams Family (2019)

The Selling (2011)

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

The Petrified Forest (1936)

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

The Red House (1947)

Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)

Paranorman (2012)

The Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting (2020)

November

Now, Voyager (1942)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010)

The Late Edwina Black (1951)

Holidate (2020)

Sabrina (1954)

Hello, Dolly! (1969)

That Touch of Mink (1962)

Return of the Jedi (1983)

White Christmas (1954)

 

December

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

Jingle Jangle (2020)

Barbarella (1968)

Rogue One (2016)

Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Mank (2020)

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)

A Christmas Carol (1938)

The Prom (2020)

Scrooged (1988)

Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020)

A Christmas Story (1983)

Die Hard (1988)

Soul (2020)

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Two Towers (2002)

(And the first movie of 2021 was, of course, The Return of the King!)

Total movies watched in 2020: 128

Side note on 2020 viewing: We also watched all four seasons of Star Wars: Rebels this year, which was time well spent. Other TV series for 2020 included Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Mandalorian, Bridgerton, and the British comedy/quiz series, QI, which became a favorite bedtime show for the whole family.

2020, The Year Without Movies

2020 - a year of masks, not movies.

The last movie I saw in a theater was Onward back in March of 2020. It was spring break for my college freshman, who had brought a friend home for the holiday, and that week we were also finally closing on the sale of our old house, six months after moving into our new one across town. It should have been a celebratory week, but instead the pandemic loomed over us. The small talk at the closing was all about the virus, but in vague terms; nobody had really grasped what was about to happen. We had been to our usual theater earlier that week to see Onward with the kids, but it was never crowded there, and I didn't really think about it. By March 12th, when we closed on the sale and went out to dinner to mark the occasion, I was suddenly terribly aware of how crowded the restaurant was and for the first time felt a sense of panic about other people that has now become all too familiar. By the end of the week we were making a headlong rush back to the college in Florida to clear out the kids' dorms because the school was shutting down.

I haven't been inside a movie theater or a restaurant since then, and I don't know when I'll be back. The restaurant is still there - we've enjoyed their curbside service several times - but the movie theater is gone. I haven't driven by the spot where they're now demolishing it, but I feel its absence. I wonder what the friendly ticket seller we always chatted with is doing now. I hope she found another job before they officially closed the place and sold it. There are other theaters in town, farther from our house and more expensive, but I have no idea when I'll consider going to one of them. Vaccination is probably still months away for me, and by then, who knows what will be happening with all these new variants of the virus?

One of the last movie days with the retirement community.

2020 was a long year for a lot of reasons, but among the things we've lost are the movies. I don't mean streaming, of course. The streaming services had a banner year, and right now they're betting on another one. What we lost was the communal experience of movies that happens in a theater when people who might have nothing else in common gather to laugh, cry, scream, and shout at flickering images on a big screen. Somehow that seems even more precious when I consider the broken, divided state of our nation. We had movies in the Great Depression and World War II to see us through the dark days. They lifted spirits, brought people together, and showed us how to be resilient and brave. In 2020, when we really needed that experience more than most of us could remember, we couldn't have it. All of my film programs with lifetime learners and retirement communities were suspended indefinitely as the virus locked us down. The movie theaters closed, some forever. We had to watch our movies by ourselves, at home, and it isn't the same. 

Some of the new releases have been delayed again and again, waiting for the expected return to normalcy. Others were dropped to streaming services instead, either to lure new subscribers or to get some return on the investment through premiere access fees. Many movies that were in development had to shut down, which means the impact of the pandemic will be felt for years to come. Right now, as we complete the first month of 2021, we really don't know when movies or moviegoers will return. We don't actually know IF they will return, either. It's possible that the future will always be different from the past we've left behind. Perhaps I'll look at this blog post a year from now and feel relief. Perhaps I'll read it and laugh ironically at my naivete. Only time will tell.

I've missed the movies this last year. I've missed the people I shared classic movies with at the library and the retirement community. I've missed being able to think about movies and write about them, but the pandemic and the upheaval in the country have fractured my attention into sharp bits of crisis all coming down like glass. I'll post my 2020 review of films watched soon, but my comforts this last year were more cinematic popcorn than brain food. We'll see if 2021 restores our collective sanity.