For further background on the year in film, please refer to the Some Other Movies From 2020 entry.
The following thing happened in 2020:
- COVID.
- Wearing masks
- Washing hands frequently.
- Abject terror.
Excellent
1. The Sound of Metal
Riz Ahmed stars as a metal drummer who loses his hearing. My brother's in a touring metal band, and the details felt right to me.
2. The Courier
Benedict Cumberbatch stars as a reluctant spy passing on Russian secrets to the West on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There's nothing revolutionary about this movie, it's just a solidly written and solidly filmed story of the world - and a single man - on the brink of ruin. Cumberbatch might make most of his money playing Doctor Strange, but between this movie and The Imitation Game he's proven his talent many times over.
3. Another Round (a.k.a. "Druk")
Four teachers in Denmark study the effect of continuous alcohol consumption on their daily lives. The director has a light touch and doesn't dwell too much on the darker parts of human nature. Mads Mikkelson is great in the lead, and the rest of the cast pulls their weight. It was nominated for several Oscars, and won for Best International Feature Film.
4. Nomadland
The book that inspired this movie was also reviewed here. The movie is a work of fiction, while the book is a nonfiction account of individuals struggling to survive an economy dominated by Amazon and other corporations. Both the film and the book highlight a lot of the same problems and personal struggles, but as you'd expect the movie is more of a personal journey and less of a broader picture.
As you're probably aware this film would go on to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress at the last Academy Awards. It won several other awards as well, and probably deserved all of them. As far as the movies I've seen from 2020 go, only Another Round (above) comes close in terms of story and characterization, and I'd be hard-pressed to say which movie I liked better.
Fun Fact: Director Chloe Zhao split her time between filming this movie and pre-production on Eternals. I'll be seeing Eternals this weekend and I'm really looking forward to it.
5. The Father
Anthony Hopkins picked up a second Oscar for this look at a man in the grip of senile dementia. Be warned it's not a happy movie, and for me it brought back memories of 2014's Still Alice, another movie in which the protagonist comes to question his/her own sense of reality.
Fun Fact: This movie was the second adaptation of Florian Zeller's play. The first was 2015's Floride ("Florida").
Some Good Ones
1. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie: Mugen Train
Why DID this movie make so much money? Why was it such a hit? Was it all because of COVID? Or does this anime have a following I'm not aware of? Am I really that old? Is it 2021 already?
I skipped over this in the theater because I had no idea what it is. I've just watched it and I still have no idea what it is. Something something demon slaying something. It was the highest-grossing movie of 2020, and the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time. The story, involving a demon who possesses a train and attempts to kill our heroes in their dreams, is somewhat interesting, but really, only a unique combination of COVID-inspired circumstances could have led to this movie doing as well as it did.
2. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Not nearly as funny as the first one, but of course Sacha Baron Cohen is so famous now that "hiding in plain sight" isn't possible. This sequel definitely has its moments, but I found myself smirking at it more than laughing out loud.
3. Greyhound
Tom Hanks captains a WWII destroyer in search of a Nazi U-boat. I can't say it's a bad movie, but my attention wavered at times. I suppose the reason was the level of detail this movie goes into. The details make it seem very authentic, but listening to Hanks bark orders at various people got old after a while. Surprisingly he also wrote the script, by himself, without any co-writers.
Fun Fact 1: This movie was shot aboard a Canadian ship from the time period, the HMCS Montreal. It was filmed in 2018, but COVID pushed the theatrical release back so far that Sony eventually gave up altogether, and sold the film to Apple, which released it digitally.
Fun Fact 2: Tom Hanks also pops up in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm above. The Borat sequel offers a colorful explanation of how he famously contracted COVID.
4. Soul
Disney/Pixar film in which a jazz musician encounters the afterlife. It's aspirational in the way Wall-E was aspirational, and while it's good I can't say it's that good. I think Wall-E made an even bigger point about what it means to be human, whereas what Soul is saying is more of an affirmation of things we already know.
5. Boss Level
In another part of the multiverse Frank Grillo starred in a big budget, cinematic adaptation of The Punisher. That movie was also directed by Joe Carnahan and it was AWESOME.
In this part of the multiverse Grillo stars in Boss Level as a man forced to repeat the same day. No, it's not Groundhog Day, no, it's not Edge of Tomorrow, but Boss Level is an engrossing action movie with an endearing sense of humor. Oh, and Mel Gibson's the bad guy. Definitely worth a look.
6. The Croods: A New Age
The funniest comedy of 2020? Quite possibly. Definitely better than Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Croods 2 has all the weird charm of the original while managing to seem fresh 7 YEARS after the first movie.
7. The Night House
Rebecca Hall should be in more movies like this. She's got this wonderful, evocative face and a way of saying every line as if there was some kind of secret pain behind it. In The Night House she plays a bereft woman discovering her deceased husband's secret, and with any other actress in the lead this film would have only been half as good. I'm not familiar with director David Bruckner's other movies, but he recently finished the Hellraiser reboot, and after seeing this film I'd be interested in seeing that one.
8. A Quiet Place Part II
Of course it's not as good as the first one. Still, as sequels go they knocked it out of the park. Emily Blunt returns with her three (mostly) silent children in tow, this time with Cillian Murphy as an underdeveloped character who probably causes more trouble than he's worth.
Some Bad Ones
1. Greenland
Starring Gerard Butler! BIG red flag. The first half of this movie isn't bad, even if it'll remind you of far superior world-ending movies like War of the Worlds, 2012 and Armageddon. The second half is where they get into trouble - so many pauses in the flow of action so that various characters can have "moments." In terms of dramatic impact it's on par with 70s disaster epics like The Towering Inferno or Earthquake, films that walk a line between tragedy and unintentional humor.
2. Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula
Why not just call it Boat to Busan? Maybe they figured that would go over people's heads?
Whatever the reason, this movie is basically Escape from New York set in Korea with zombies. Of course A LOT of zombie movies have ventured into similar territory, from the countless Night of the Living Dead sequels, to the Resident Evil sequels, to whatever other zombie movies aren't in those two long-standing franchises.
Train to Busan 2 doesn't add anything to the genre. It's not even as good as the original. The car chase near the end goes on for way too long, various zombie-addled soldiers do predictable things, and as in Greenland above characters seem to have endless time for "moments" in the midst of firefights, zombie attacks or combinations thereof.
3. Mulan
Whitewashing! Bad! Shooting in Xinjiang! Bad! Misrepresenting Chinese culture! Bad! Not as good as the original! Bad! No talking dragon! Bad! No songs! Bad! Bad! Bad!
Actually Mulan wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Could that actress pass for a man? Hell no. Is this movie terrible? Not by a long shot, but it gets very implausible toward the end, and the fact that this is a Western movie made for Western audiences becomes glaringly obvious. The Chinese people in this movie don't act very Chinese, and the conclusion is far from satisfying.
And what about the fellow soldier she liked? Did "female empowerment" mean that she had to give him up?
Fun Fact: The bad guy look familiar? That's Jason Scott Lee, who played Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
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