Skip to main content

PROFESSOR'S PICKS: 5 Films I Missed in 2020

 


                Given the peculiar nature of this year’s run of movies, neither a traditional “Best Films of 2020” nor a traditional “Most Anticipated Films of 2021” feel appropriate. Instead, I’m going to do something in between: A spotlight of movies that I was looking forward to in 2020 that have now been bumped into a 2021 release date. There are other films set to release in 2021 that I have on my radar (most of them simply premiering later in 2021 than originally planed), but here are five films that I missed this year in 2020.

This installment of Professor’s Picks is partway between a memorial and a forecast. Weep with me, celebrate with me, whichever jives with your inner truth. Anyways . . . five movies long eager to graduate from my list of anticipated movies.

 

1. A Quiet Place: Part II

March 20, 2020  April 23, 2021 September 17, 2021 May 28, 2021

Admittedly, I am kind of cheating with this one. The original March release date actually passed with little ceremony for me as I wasn’t yet on the Quiet Place train. I wouldn’t even see the original 2018 film until a few months into quarantine season. (What can I say? Horror films are a harder sell for me.) Eventually the universe corrected itself, and I found myself dying to see what happens next for the Abbot family.

                This sequel takes place shortly after the events of the first film when the Abbot family must abandon the home that has kept them safe and brave the outside world. Krasinski, who returns to direct the sequel, has shared that where the first film was more a study of family, this sequel is interested in community and how far you will go to help your neighbor.

There’s a lot to be said about how A Quiet Place innovates many conventions and ideologies of the horror genre (hm, someone should write an essay about that . . .) and this follow-up has every opportunity to continue in that tradition.



2. In the Heights

June 26, 2020  June 11, 2021

My reverence for the musical genre is well-documented on this blog. It’s so rare that we see Hollywood spend their dollars on a musical (it’s even rarer to see one led by a minority cast), and just as often as not, the results range from passable to Cats.

I myself am familiar with the source musical mostly by reputation, having only listened to one song in fulness (I prefer to experience a soundtrack for the first time in its narrative context). But I understand In the Heights takes place in a New York district where opportunities are low but community is rich. This is a contrast to La La Land or most musicals where the setting is the red carpeted streets of LA. When the music doesn't come from the sparkle of Hollywood tinsel, it can only come from the story itself. From what we've seen so far, this offering seems to understand that. The trailer displayed an array of snapshots of a vibrant, kinetic, lyrical world where, indeed, the streets themselves are made of music. (Why aren't there more dance numbers in swimming pools?) Maybe Hollywood won’t drop the golden egg this time.


 

3. The Tomorrow War

December 25, 2020 July 23, 2021

                The Tomorrow War was originally going to be Paramount gifting us a summer movie for Christmas, now it gets to be just a straight summer movie.

                Originally titled "Ghost Draft," this blockbuster imagines a future war between mankind and an alien threat. So overwhelming is the invasion that the future enlists the help of the past, drawing in our main character (Chris Pratt, also a producer on this film) from our time to fight in this war. The cast is rounded out by a vast ensemble, enlisting Yvonne Strahovski, JK Simmons, Seychelle Gabriel, Keith Powers, and Mary Lynn Rajskub, among others.

                As someone who wants the signature films of the 2020s to amount to more than just remakes and spin-offs of films of the 1990s, I try to take special interest whenever studios gamble on a non-franchise project. The medium’s creative-lifeblood obviously hinges on more than the returns of any single film, but in a post-coronavirus landscape where major studios like Warner Bros and Disney are actively shifting their model to favor streaming over theaters, the success of an original property like The Tomorrow War should be of special interest to all of us. Can Chris Pratt save the future of humanity? And theaters? We’ll have to wait until this summer to find out.

(EDIT: Okay, maybe I spoke too soon.)

 

4. BIOS

October 2, 2020 April 16, 2021 August 13, 2021

                First announced in October 2017, the film follows “a robot that lives on a post-apocalyptic earth. Built to protect the life of his dying creator’s beloved dog, it learns about love, friendship, and the meaning of human life.” Tom Hanks’ casting as the robot’s inventor was announced alongside the synopsis. The cast is rounded out by Caleb Landry-Jones as the robot with Skeet Ullrich, Samira Wiley, and others.

While few plot details have been revealed, the logline proves tantalizing. The desolation of a post-apocalyptic setting seems a stark contrast to the pathos inherent in a story about a robot learning to care for another living thing. I imagine the final product as something between Children of Men and The Art of Racing in the Rain. There are all sorts of directions the filmmakers could go with that, and I’m eager to see any of them.

 

5. Raya and the Last Dragon

November 25, 2020 March 5, 2021 

   I set my movie calendar by Disney and Pixar titles the way most audiences do with Marvel or Star Wars films, but in between the company’s conquest over the last few years their animated offerings have gotten lost in the shuffle. Walt Disney Animation Studios hasn’t released a non-franchise film since Moana back in 2016. (Imagine a four-year wait between Frozen and Big Hero 6.) Raya and the Last Dragon brings an end to that drought.

                Drawing inspiration from southeast-Asian cultures, Raya and the Last Dragon tells the story of a young warrior (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) on a quest to find Sisu, the last dragon (voiced by Awkwafina), who holds the key to restoring peace to her divided kingdom.

                Raya won’t be the studio’s next musical (audiences will have to wait until Disney’s November offering, Encanto, for that) but the genre does catch my interest. The movie has been billed as a kung-fu adventure film a la House of Flying Daggers set against a fantastical backdrop that animation so effortlessly provides. Disney’s marketing campaign has yet to start, but so far all signs point to Raya being Disney’s next animated champion.


 

One of the hardest things about 2020 for me has been the waiting. The waiting, the waiting, the waiting. We're not quite out of the woods yet, but we may only have to wait a little longer. Whatever we've missed out on these last several months, we can take some consolation that there are good times still to be had. Raise a glass to 2021.

 --The Professor


Honorable Mentions: Jungle Cruise, Black Widow, West Side Story, The Batman, Death on the Nile, The Woman in the Window, Sound of Freedom

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Earthling: Some Observations on "Natural Masculinity"

I’ve talked quite a bit about “toxic masculinity” across his blog, but I want to talk for a moment about a companion subject–“natural masculinity.” I’ve heard several other names and labels assigned to the idea, but the general concept is this idea that men are disposed to behave a certain way and that sOciETy forces them to subjugate this part of themselves. Maybe some of us were raised by someone, or currently live with someone, who buys into these attitudes. Maybe they’re perfectly fine most of the time, but once they meet up with Brian from sophomore year and go out into the mountains for a “weekend with the guys,” a sort of metamorphosis takes place. Jokes that were unacceptable to them become hilarious. Certain transgressions lose their penalty. Gentle Joe kinda mutates into a jerk. This is all propelled and reinforced by the idea that this is how men just are , and that entitles them to certain actions. And who are these women to infringe upon that God-given right? Gladiator (2...

Professor's Picks: 10 Disappearing Movies Still on My Watchlist

    Let me introduce this piece by discussing one of my favorite movies, 1938's  Le Quai des Brumes , "Port of Shadows."     This ancestor to noir film sees a despondent military deserter drifting to the foggy banks of Le Havre. There, he comes across a 17-year-old runaway pursued by several malicious parties. Their chance meeting teases a new and brighter future for these two drifters, forcing even the most nihilistic of us to consider the meaning of love and purpose in a meaningless world.       I saw the film for the first time for Media Arts History I, and I was absolutely transported. In a semester that offered some of the most dry, challenging films I had to watch for any class, this film was just a breath of fresh air.  E verything you imagine when you think of a "French movie," even if you only know them by pop culture parodies, this was all of that. The moodiness, the melodrama, the romance, it's all there, and to such great eff...

REVIEW: Don't Look Up

      The premise of Netflix's new film, "Don't Look Up," is simple: two scientists discover a giant comet that is absolutely going to collide into earth, and the people of the world need to be warned. Telling people that the world is going to end is the easy part. The hard part is getting them to take it seriously.      The media circus surrounding the end of the world is made only more hilarious seen through the eyes of our main characters: soft-spoken Professor Randall Mindy (Leonardo Dicaprio) and slightly disaffected grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence). It says a lot about the writing of this movie that even with the apocalypse just on the horizon, our protagonists with their complex inner lives keep us anchored in the conflict, never distracting us from it.    But despite the writing and performances, t he film still can't escape the flaw inherent in its design. While most of the film's targets (politicians, clickbait editorials, ...

"When Did Disney Get So Woke?!" pt. 1 The Disney of Your Childhood

  So, I’m going to put out a somewhat controversial idea here today: The Walt Disney Company has had a tremendous amount of influence in the pop culture landscape, both in recent times and across film history. Further controversy: a lot of people really resent Disney for this.  I’ve spent a greater part of this blog’s lifetime tracking this kind of thing. I have only a dozen or so pieces deconstructing the mechanics of these arguments and exposing how baseless these claims tend to be. This sort of thing is never that far from my mind. But my general thoughts on the stigmatization of the Disney fandom have taken a very specific turn in recent times against recent headlines.       The Walt Disney Company has had some rather embarrassing box office flops in the last two or three years, and a lot of voices have been eager to link Disney’s recent financial woes to certain choices. Specifically, this idea that Disney has all the sudden “gone woke.”  Now,...

An Earnest Defense of Passengers

          Recall with me, if you will, the scene in Hollywood December 2016. We were less than a year away from #MeToo, and the internet was keenly aware of Hollywood’s suffocating influence on its females on and off screen but not yet sure what to do about it.       Enter Morten Tyldum’s film Passengers , a movie which, despite featuring the two hottest stars in Hollywood at the apex of their fame, was mangled by internet critics immediately after take-off. A key piece of Passengers ’ plot revolves around the main character, Jim Preston, a passenger onboard a spaceship, who prematurely awakens from a century-long hibernation and faces a lifetime of solitude adrift in outer space; rather than suffer through a life of loneliness, he eventually decides to deliberately awaken another passenger, Aurora Lane, condemning her to his same fate.    So this is obviously a film with a moral dilemma at its center. Morten Tyldum, direc...

"When Did Disney Get So Woke?!" pt. 2 Disney vs the 21st Century

  In the first half of this series , we looked at this construction of the Disney image that the company has sold itself on for several decades now. Walt himself saw the purpose of his entertainment enterprise as depiction a happier world than that which he and the audience emerged from, and that formed the basis of his formidable fanbase. But because the larger culture only knows how to discuss these things in the context of consumerism, a lot of intricacies get obscured in the conversation about The Walt Disney Company, its interaction with larger culture, and the people who happily participate in this fandom.  Basically, critics spent something like fifty years daring The Walt Disney Company to start being more proactive in how they participated in the multi-culture. And when Disney finally showed up in court to prove its case, the world just did not know what to do ... The 21st Century          With the development of the inter...

REVIEW: Mufasa - The Lion King

    To get to the point, Disney's new origin story for The Lion King 's Mufasa fails at the ultimate directive of all prequels. By the end of the adventure, you don't actually feel like you know these guys any better.           Such  has been the curse for nearly Disney's live-action spin-offs/remakes of the 2010s on. Disney supposes it's enough to learn more facts or anecdotes about your favorite characters, but the interview has always been more intricate than all that. There is no catharsis nor identification for the audience during Mufasa's culminating moment of uniting the animals of The Pridelands because the momentum pushing us here has been carried by cliche, not archetype.      Director Barry Jenkins' not-so-secret weapon has always been his ability to derive pathos from lyrical imagery, and he does great things with the African landscape without stepping into literal fantasy. This is much more aesthetically interestin...

REVIEW: Encanto

    It was around Disney's 50th animated feature, Tangled , that this critic first came into film discourse. A lot has changed within the House of Mouse in the years since, and we now find ourselves the recipient of the Disney canon's 60th feature film, Encanto , directed by Jared Bush, Byron Howard, and Charise Castro Smith. What does this latest entry contribute to the library? Turns out, quite a bit.     Nestled in their enchanted house, Casita, the Madrigal family dazzles their community with their fantastical gifts. Elegant Isabella makes flowers grow in her footsteps, young Antonio chats it up with the local wildlife, and Mirabel ... wishes she had a gift like the rest of her family. It's hard to feel important when you're the only one in your family without a superpower, especially with your grandmother constantly shoving you into the corner.  But all is not right in paradise. The magic is fading from Casita, and Mirabel is the only one who can keep her f...

Meet Me in St. Louis: The Melancholy Window of Nostalgia

I don’t usually post reviews for television shows, but it feels appropriate to start today’s discussion with my reaction to Apple TV+’s series, Schmigadoon! If you’re not familiar with the series, it follows a couple who are looking to reclaim the spark of their fading romance. While hiking in the mountains, they get lost and stumble upon a cozy village, Schmigadoon, where everyone lives like they’re in the middle of an old school musical film. She’s kinda into it, he hates it, but neither of them can leave until they find true love like that in the classic movie musicals. I appreciated the series’ many homages to classical musical films. And I really loved the show rounding up musical celebrities like Aaron Tveit and Ariana Debose. Just so, I had an overall muddled response to the show. Schmigadoon! takes it as a given that this town inherits the social mores of the era in which the musicals that inspired this series were made, and that becomes the basis of not only the show...

Investigating Nostalgia - Featuring "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Pokemon: Detective Pikachu"

The 1700’s and the age of exploration saw a massive swell of people leaving their homelands for an extended period or even for life. From this explosion of displacement emerged a new medical phenomenon. Travelers were diagnosed with excessive irritability, loss of productivity, and even hallucinations. The common denominator among those afflicted was an overwhelming homesickness. Swiss physician Johannes Hofer gave a name to this condition. The name combines the Latin words algos , meaning “pain” or “distress,” and nostos , meaning “homecoming,” to create the word nostalgia .  Appleton's Journal, 23 May 1874, describes the affliction: Sunset Boulevard (1950) “The nostalgic loses his gayety, his energy, and seeks isolation in order to give himself up to the one idea that pursues him, that of his country. He embellishes the memories attached to places where he was brought up, and creates an ideal world where his imagination revels with an obstinate persistence.” Contempora...