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It’s a new year, and that means only one thing: Time for another batch of film flashbacks in five-year increments. I do this every year, because it’s always interesting to me to look back at the landscape of a given year in pop culture. Thus, I will be beginning by looking at the movies of 2020. This is a year fully within the same landscape of movies that we live in now…but also not.
Obviously, 2020 was the year that COVID-19 ruined the movie industry. The sixth-highest-grossing movie domestically (U.S. and Canada) was Call of the Wild. You know, that Harrison Ford movie based on the Jack London book with the eerie CGI dog? It made $62.3 million domestically. And it was in the top 10. Bad Boys for Life and Sonic the Hedgehog were the only movies to clear $100 million, because they beat the serious pandemic months when theaters were shut down. One of them was a legacy sequel that paved the way for another, and the other one kicked off what is now a popular trilogy. All things considered, Sonic the Hedgehog ended up working out. Take that, creepy CGI teeth.
Ugh, remember Scoob!? Or Artemis Fowl? They spent years trying to make a third Bill & Ted movie, and it was pretty fun. Most people completely missed it. Keanu Reeves shaved for that movie! This was the year that paced a woeful Oscars. Anthony Hopkins over Chadwick Boseman to close the ceremony. I may not need to say more. However, I felt this then and it’s maybe palatable to say now, but Boseman was decent at best in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He gave the fourth or fifth best performance in that movie. Honestly? Not Oscar worthy.
My favorite movie of 2020 is Tenet, and I was not a big Christopher Nolan fan before that. It wasn’t a tough battle, though. What a brutal year for film. What a brutal year for the world. What a cheerful place to begin this process. Oh well. Next time it’ll be 2015!
