2020 in Movies

Well, that happened.

Congrats, folks, we made it. Sort of. A lot of us know someone who didn’t, and the rest of us logging a net negative from a year ago. This is not an academic take on the year, and how the hardships allowed us to discover something deeper about the human character. This is also not a high-falutin’ analysis and debrief of the events of the year. This is much simpler than that because I’m not nearly smart enough to do one of those.

This is, rather, my FOURTH ANNUAL BREAKDOWN OF ALL THE MOVIES I WATCHED IN THE YEAR!!!!!!! *airhorn* *airhorn* *airhorn*

Before I tore apart my Facebook friends list with bracket tournaments, I kept track of every movie I watched each year. It all started back in 2017, when I took part in that most time-honored of traditions: I poached an idea from my good friend (and multiple-times failed podcast co-host, Jake Christie). The idea? Watch 100 movies I’d never seen before. I succeeded on December 31st, 2017, with a sweet and quirky little Bigfoot comedy starring (my apparent doppelganger) Michael Shannon called Pottersville.

The stress of only watching new movies, though, was too great for my widdle bwain. In 2018, I told myself, I wouldn’t limit myself, and I started the grand tradition of tracking not only every movie but every TV Show, Book, Podcast, Song, Album (etc., etc.,) I consumed in the year. With the stress of limitations gone, I ended up blowing the previous year out of the water. Then, in 2019, I still watched over 100 movies, and 97 of them were New To Me.

This year, oddly, was different. For some reason, my brain craved comfort and familiarity this year, almost like it was overloaded with new experiences. Weird, right? Movies weren't really the Year-Ending Framing Device they had been in previous years.

That said, I still kept track of more information about the movies I watched than anything else this year. In addition to sporadic notes & errata, I track ten different metrics for every movie I watch. I am, in the end, a man of Data And Lists, and this is my true form, so of course, I have to keep up my Movies By The Numbers analysis. Even in 2020. This is enough of an introduction, right?

2020 Movies By The Numbers

In the Year of our Lord MMXX, I watched 135 movies. Well, if my list is to be believed, I watched 136 movies. On May 24th, I have an entry simply labeled “***”, which leads me to believe that, in addition to Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again, I re-watched another film. This would track, as it’s in the middle of a run of Gay Canon Movies (Legally Blonde, MM!:HWGA, Easy A, Booksmart), but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is I (supposedly) watched. With that in mind, I must keep my official number at 135.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A few weeks after writing this, I was discussing movies with two different friends, Multiple Times Failed Podcast Co-Host Jake Christie and Children’s Book Author Mike Ross. Through these conversations, I realized the Mysterious *** movie was The Lovebirds, and I also completely forgot to record Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, meaning I actually watched 137 films. From here on out, these movies are reflected in the data. Also, I did not like The Lovebirds that much. Whoops.

What’s interesting here is that it is actually the second-highest raw movie count of any year that I’ve kept track. 2018 holds the record at 142, and last year fell at 114. Of the 137 movies, I watched 134 unique films. I only watched three movies twice in this year (The King of Staten Island, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and perennial favorite Willow Creek). I guess, for some reason, I didn’t need cinema to have a repetitive or monotonous experience this year. Who’da thunk? This 134 narrowly edged out 2018’s 133, and handily defeated 1019’s 110 and 2017’s 100.

The Love, Simon Award for Most Viewings in One Year is, technically, a tie between three movies, but I’ve decided to give it to Willow Creek this year. Why, Michael?! WHY?! Simply put: I’ve seen that movie a hell of a lot of times before this year, and it had the biggest difference between viewings. Assuming COVID-19 didn’t up-end the entire year, and movie theaters still existed, I can almost guarantee you the award would have gone to Tenet. I really loved Tenet.

Of the 137 films I watched this year, their names began with 23 of the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet as well as two numbers (1917 and 9 to 5). The three letters I lacked are Q, X, and Z. Now, I don’t need a degree in linguistics to tell you that those are the three letters least-likely to start a word in English. That said, I do have a degree in linguistics.

Unsurprisingly, the letter with the most movies was T (35). But that’s easy as hell when you’re the first letter of the most common word in the English language. (Fascinatingly, Zipf’s Law — remember my Linguistics degree — states that the first most-used word in any language, “the” for English, appears twice as much as the second most-used word [“be”] three times as much as the third most-used word [“to”], and so on and so forth.) After T, the most-used letters were S (12) and C (11). Anyone familiar with Wheel of Fortune knows those numbers aren’t shocking. Especially when you discount all the “The” movies in T, which even beats S at 13. If you decided to count each “The” movie under the first letter of the next word, I do get back Q with 1968’s The Queen.

Now, of the 137 movies I watched this year, only 86 of them were new to me. As I hinted to earlier, this is also the lowest number of Movies I’ve Seen In The Year They Came Out since I’ve kept these exhaustive lists. But on the bright side, in 2020 I re-watched more movies I’d seen before than any other year (50)!!! (If you’re wondering why the numbers don’t add up, it’s because I watched Willow Creek twice this year, but I first watched that movie before 2020, so it only counts as one “re-watch”.)

Alright, I’ve wasted your time long enough: I also give each movie a ranking out of 10. The first year, I kept these statistics, I only had three Perfect 10s. I’ll always remember them as excellent encapsulations of my taste in movies: Moonlight, Get Out, and….Baby Driver. Two out of three ain’t bad (I mean objectively speaking, I will fight for Baby Driver till the day I die.)

I’ve always been transparent about one thing: Most Movies Are Good. Based on my “rating out of 10” system, a grade of 7 is a “Bad Grade”. Is this because I don’t know how to rate films without feeling bad about giving a failing grade? Or is it because I rarely watch a movie and walk out feeling bad? It’s probably a mix of the two, but I can usually find something redeemable about (almost) any film I watch. Does this mean that, despite my yearly commitment to tracking all of the movies I watch, in addition to numerous metrics about them, I will never get a job writing about films? Probably? But it doesn’t help that I hooked up with the CEO of Movie Reviews Magazine and ghosted him.

This year, I — unsurprisingly — had more movies get a Perfect 10 than ever before, with 23. (According to my research, the Line Of Best Fit for my yearly Top 10s is y=6.2x-0.5, which means next year will have approximately 30.5 Perfect 10s.) The movies were, and I quote, Cats, Knives Out, Thelma & Louise, Onward, The Hunt, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Legally Blonde, Mamma Mia!: Here We Go Again, Easy A, Booksmart, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Palm Springs, Wet Hot American Summer, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The Social Network, My Cousin Vinny, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Spotlight, Game Change, Gone Girl, Interstellar, and Tenet. My numbers for each rating were as follows:

10 — 23

9.5 — 29

9 — 20

8.5 — 18

8 — 17

7.5 — 7

7 — 16

6.5 — 2

6 — 4

5 — 1

In the end, this give me an average score of 8.6. (This is, of course, not including the Mystery May 24th Movie — here on out referred to as MM24 — though one could imagine it was another Perfect 10, as it was snuggled between four other Perfect 10s.)(Okay I kept this bit in unedited, because I actualy was not a fan of The Lovebirds. Just goes to show you how fickle a queen our memory can be.) I’ll say this: other people may have had a “more discerning” rating average for the year, but I doubt anyone scored as high as me! That’s a B+, I simply had more fun watching movies than them!

Now, without further ado, I present to you all, my Top 20 Movies of 2020:

1. Palm Springs
2. Tenet
3. The Hunt
4. Onward
5. The Trial of the Chicago 7
6. Mank
7. Disclosure
8. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
9. Da 5 Bloods
10. The Binge
11. The Invisible Man
12. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
13. His House
14. Hubie Halloween
15. Crip Camp
16. Birds of Prey
17. Vampires vs. The Bronx
18. Happiest Season
19. Ding Johnson is Dead
20. King of Staten Island

I really like the movies I saw this year. The biggest pleasant surprise, by far, was My Cousin Vinny, but Tenet wasn’t too far off. Other pleasant surprises from before 2020 included Thelma & Louise, and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. They both kind of got lost in the Hell of Early Pandemic Releases, but I cannot recommend The Hunt and Onward more highly.

As for disappointments, the biggest was Mulan. I mean, WOW. What a flop! In terms of height of expectations to depths of execution, it has to be the grandest canyon this side of the Continental Divide. Other disappointments included Police Academy (it made me question if any 80s Boy Comedy is actually good), and Hocus Pocus (it suffers from Nostalgia Disease like Space Jam.)

Of all the movies I watched this year, the Release Year with the largest percentage was 2020. If you had asked me about this a week ago, I would have told you I hardly watched any 2020 movies. Turns out I was, as the kids say, hella wrong.

This year, I watched 34 movies that came out in 2020. Of those 34, I rewatched two, bringing the “total” to 36. After 2020, the year with the most movies was 2019 (big shocker there) with 15, followed by 2018, 2016, 2013, 2011, and 2010, each with 5 movies. 2013 edges them out slightly because I watched Willow Creek twice, but if you only count unique films, the tie remains.

Last year, I watched at least one movie from every year going back 24 years to 1995. That was pretty impressive! That is until I tell you that this year I extended that record all the way to 1989, a solid 31 years. I also watched at least one movie from every decade going back to the 40s (that’s EIGHT DECADES). The oldest movie I watched was 1941’s Citizen Kane (in preparation for Mank), and the newest movies were Wonder Woman: 1984 and Soul, both released on Christmas Day. Below is the breakdown of the rest of this year’s movies by year:

As per uzh, I watched at least one movie every month of 2020. This year, May held the record for most movies in one month, with 22 (no repeats). This ties my record for Most Movies Watched In One Year with December 2017. Most likely, May holds this year’s record because I was laid off from my job due to/despite the Global Fucking Pandemic, starting May 2nd. Suddenly, I had a bunch more time on my hands, and some especially theatrical New York kids no longer had an outlet. Ha ha!

After May, the month with the next-highest body count is December (typical). The two months with the fewest movies are January (4) and February (6). I guess I had better things to do then, probably indoors and in large groups.

If people flock to Michael Springthorpe’s Movie Write-Ups, it’s for one specific metric: Does It Say The Name Of The Movie In The Movie.

This is a quality I’ve long sought after in films, and I think you’d be equally surprised by how many movies don’t meet it as those that do. The rules are simple: Is the title of the movie uttered, as is, at some point in the main run time of the movie? While you’d assume the answer would be a simple yes/no, I also account for movies where the title is only seen written down (Alien) — not counting title cards — and sung (Ready or Not) — only counting songs that exist in the world of the movie that the characters can hear, not soundtracks.

53 movies Said The Name Of The Movie In The Movie this year (54 if you count both Willow Creek watches). This was, unfortunately, countered by 76 movies that Did Not Say The Name Of The Movie In The Movie (78 with the two other re-watches). (And 4 movies where the Name Is Written Only.) This gives us a pass rate of only 39%, which drops us back down to tie with 2018, after 2019’s 43%. Now, I watched 12 documentaries this year, and you typically don’t expect them to Say The Name Of The Movie In The Movie. That said, 5 of them did (Circus of Books, Dick Johnson is Dead, Disclosure, The Skunk Ape Lives, and Class Action Park)!

All this is to say: more movies should say the name of the movie in the movie. Fix this, screenwriters.

W O M E N !

This year, I started recording which movies I watched were directed by women. On the list, they are denoted by any film whose title is in bold.

Even an idiot who lost their glasses could tell you the numbers don’t look great. Out of 137 movies, only 13 were directed by women, or a little less than 10% (9.5% because I simply must be accurate). Obviously, this reflects poorly on the industry, yadda yadda yadda, but I am aware and capable enough to do better. So this is me saying right now: In 2021, at least 20% of the movies I see will be directed by women. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, but none of the movies I saw were directed by the same woman. Those thirteen women were:

Olivia Wilde ⋅ Jennie Livingston ⋅ Cathy Yan ⋅ Mimi Leder ⋅ Kirsten Johnson ⋅

Autumn de Wilde ⋅ Clea DuVall ⋅ Susan Lacy ⋅ Nisha Ganatra ⋅

Niki Caro ⋅ Karyn Kusama ⋅ Beeban Kidron ⋅ Patty Jenkins

(As a note, none of the directors of movies I watched identified as any gender other than “man” or “woman”, hence the binary writing. This is part of my effort in 2021, though obviously not included in my 20% goal.)

In 1985, Alison Bechdel (of Fun Home fame) wrote a series of panels in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For that first formally proposed the idea of what is now known as the Bechdel Test:

1. Does the movie have at least two named female characters,
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something other than a man?

Bechdel credits the idea to her friend Liz Wallace, who was inspired by the writings of Virginia Woolf. While reductive (by design), the test is a basic measure of whether a movie has “good representation” of women. Spoiler Alert: most don’t.

I’ve kept track of Bechdel Test scores for movies since 2018. It’s not always easy; sometimes you’re so engrossed in the movie that you’re not sure whether or not two female characters spoke to each other about something other than a man. (Although, to be frank, that’s usually a sign of a failing grade and a sign in general that the movie isn’t great for female representation.)

This year, 51 movies definitely passed the test, giving an overall score of 38%. This is a worse score than last year AND the year before, so great fuckin job, Michael. That said, 13 movies are listed as “Yes?” (or some variation). Again, if I’m not even sure if this little, bare-minimum thing happens, it may as well be a No. BUT FOR THE SAKE OF DATA, I must include it. Additionally, 8 movies were listed as “Maybe?” and 12 as “No?”. Finally, 53 movies got a “No” rating.

Here’s the fun part: I’ve been keeping track of this for three years now, so I have multiple pieces of data for some movies.

The King of Staten Island got two scores this year, “No” and “For a line or two”. Because the “No” came on my second viewing, I’m ruling this movie, ultimately, as a NO. Sorry, Ariana.

Alien had an iffy “Yes”, specifically saying “Yes, if it counts Ripley calling the alien a bitch” because the main Alien is identified as female. While this would normally be a fun answer that leads to a “No”, this is literally the example of a passing movie from Bechdel’s original comic.

Vice got a “Maybe” from me this year. I think I’ll side with my original rating of the Dick Cheney biopic — ”No”.

Coco got a “No” this year, but received a “Maybe” on my first watch. This is the only movie I won’t give a “final score” to, because I think it has the best chances of meeting the requirements (and isn’t a biopic about Dick Cheney).

Most interestingly, Willow Creek received a “No” and a “Yes” from me this year. Previously, it had received a “No”. I am ultimately giving it as “Yes”. Why? Because the protagonist’s girlfriend asks the museum worker woman about Bigfoot — who in this movie (based on the Patterson-Gimlin Footage) is a multi-gender being, specifically a believed-female in the aforementioned footage! So it counts! But, more importantly, this shows how silly the “bare minimum movies” are!

This year, I started keeping track of a new metric, and one that is quite important to many viewers: Does the Dog Survive? Folks, I am shocked by how few movies have dogs in them. Fix this, screenwriters.

The rules for this are simple:

1. There must be a dog in the movie at some point
2. Based on all known factors, the dog must still be alive at the end of the runtime

As alluded to, most movies, simply do not have dogs. To be precise, 117 of the 132 unique movies don’t have dogs in them whatsoever. That leaves us with only 17 movies! Fortunately, though, the dogs survive ELEVEN of those 17 movies! (Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Knives Out, Best in Show, Legally Blonde, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Moonstruck, Scooby-Doo, My Cousin Vinny, The Invisible Man, The Aristocats, and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) In 1917, there is an already-dead dog, and in The Banker, Halloween, Jaws, Interview with the Vampire, and Coco, one or all of the dogs die. (That being said, it’s not sad when the dog dies in Coco, in fact, it’s for the best/not entirely sure if they’re dead or not. Regardless, it’s all good.)

Notes: Okay so, full disclosure, I’m not done. I just like to put this section before the end, because it’s mostly silly stuff.

• Legally Blonde — It is mind-blowing how many iconic lines come from this movie.
• Dark Light — This movie is a four. But it gets an 8 because of how consistently predictable and schlocky it was. A marvel.
• The Binge shocked me with how great it was.
• Game Change and The Queen both got SO goddamn close to saying the name of the movie in the movie WITHOUT ACTUALLY SAYING IT (“Game changer” “game changing”, “the queens” “a queen” “that queen”)
• The Prom isn’t great, but Nicole Kidman is having the most fun in it, and that’s all that matters.
• The actress Wunmi Mosaku stars in both the TV show Lovecraft Country and the movie His House, and she dominates every scene she’s in

I loved many characters in movies this year:

• Louise Sawyer in Thelma & Louise (Susan Sarandon)
• Crystal Creasey in The Hunt (Betty Gilpin)
• Denise Jacobsen and Steve Hoffman in Crip Camp
• Brenda Morelli-Cushman in First Wives Club (Bette Midler)
• Jane and Tipper Caldwell in Happiest Season (Mary Holland and Mary Steenburgen)
• Tyler Hughes in Let Them All Talk (Lucas Hedges)
• The Protagonist in Tenet (John David Washington)
• Mank in Mank (Gary Oldman)

I loved many scenes in movies this year:

• The Final Chase Scene in Thelma & Louise
• The fight between Crystal and Athena in The Hunt
• The Firefighting Scene (made me cry both times) in The King of Staten Island
• The Argument by the Pool in The King of Staten Island
• The Drunk Mom Night in The Binge where they yell “Show your dick and balls! Show your dick and balls!” at Vince Vaughn
• The Closing Credits Song for The Binge
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World — Scott dramatically getting ready, but then it slows down and is normal when he ties his shoes carefully

A lot of movies had fantastic quotes, and you know I recorded those bad boys:

• Saved! — Mandy Moore’s Hilary Faye Stockard yells “I am FILLED with Christ’s Love!” as she hitsJena Malone’s Mary in the back with a bible
• Happiest Season — ”JUST RIP IT” “Stay out of this, Sappho!” “I’m Sloane.”
• Let Them All Talk — ”Whoa….””that’s a blemish…..but he was acquitted, so”
• In Tenet, someone says “Don’t try to understand it” in the first 20 minutes, and that’s a good thing to get out that early.
• Old School — Will Ferrell says “You tell anyone about this, I’ll fucking kill you! Just kidding, we’ll have him back by tonight” when kidnapping pledges for the fraternity.
• In Brokeback Mountain, Jack says “You know, friend? This is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.” as he is dishing out all his emotions in the last time he and Ennis see each other.
• My favorite line of the year, though, is from Mank, where the titular character drunkenly pukes at a fancy party and says “Don’t worry, folks, the white wine came up with the fish”

Okay, I usually end with this section, but this year was a little silly, so I’m putting that thing down, flippin’ it, and reversin’ it.

I watched movies with people this year.

Well, in all transparency, I mostly didn’t. 74 movies that I watched were completely by myself. It’s sometimes the most fun way to watch movies. I absolutely love going to some Midtown theater, bypassing everyone because I bought my ticket on Fandango, and sitting in the back to see some, excuse my French, absolute connerie of a movie. I also love cuddling up in my bed or on my couch to watch some movie Every Other Gay Person I Know has yelled at me for not having seen.

But seeing movies with people is where the real magic happens. That’s why seeing a movie alone in a theater is always better than watching alone in your room. Hell, that’s why my “rating system” is ultimately based on each viewing of every movie I see. Watching a movie is An Experience, and every time is different.

I wasn’t legally allowed to watch movies with that many people this year. (Or, rather, I wasn’t allowed to legally watch with others for like a month and a half, then the government decided it would just close its eyes about COVID until it went away. I almost included raw data in this, but I! Am! Being! Positive! Here! And! Not! Talking! About! The! Thing!)

So this was the Year of the Roommate for many of us. And what a great year it was. My apartment had 11 different people living in it in 2020 (NOT going into that), and four of them made up my Top 5 Movie Partners (shout out to my mommy, Suzanne Redmond, for breaking into #3!).

The top spot, unsurprisingly, goes to my Tiger King and Schitt’s Creek partner Laura, the roommate who’s been with me throughout all of 2020, with 20 movies (a record for movies I’ve seen with another person). In a close second is my other Quarantine Queen, Lauren, with 19 movies. Following my Mommy is my substitute Mommy, Nicole, who joined and left us in 10B in a flurry, but not before joining me for 8 movies. Rounding out the five is last year’s Silver Medallist, Robbie, with 6 movies.

After The People I Literally Lived With (and my Mommy) came My Daddy and My Sister, who loyal readers will know that I’ve been living with since before Thanksgiving, and Former-Roomate-Now-Neighbor Faith (Paris is Burning and [unwillingly for her] Willow Creek).

Everyone else I watched movies with only clocked one notch on my cinematic bedpost. They included one-time roommates Julia and Zie (as well as Zie’s then-boyfriend, now-fiancee). Two of them are longtime family friends Claire and Jim Loper (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), one of them is Corey, a friend of my roommate Lauren’s (Hocus Pocus). I was also lucky enough to watch one movie with Nicole’s son Hayden (The King of Staten Island).

I also watched one movie this year with a boy. You know what I mean. And here’s the craziest part: it was virtual, baby! We weren’t even together! But we watched it on TV at the same time and texted furiously throughout.

Lastly, I watched ONE good movie in theaters this year with friends. I’ll get into it more in a second, but I want to thank Sam, Serah, Hunter, Andrew, Lauren, and Chaz for making Cats one of the best times I had watching a movie all year.

Well, now is the time when I usually recount all the various, marvelous locales in which I feasted upon the cinema this year. Lol.

This year was so fucked up, I stopped recording the location for where I watched movies, because I didn’t want to keep writing “Home — New York” every goddamn time. Theaters closed! And we couldn’t be with each other most of the year! For the first time in about 26 years, I didn’t see a single movie alone in the theatre, with a way-too-large barrel of popcorn soaked in “butter”, only to get tired of it halfway through, and crave nothing but an apple for the next 90 minutes. No offense, but being robbed of that experience frickin blows.

Since I’ve been keeping track of all this data about movies, I have only ever watched movies in over 20 locations (21, 23, and 25, respectively). This year? I watched them in 6. That’s right, 6. I know this isn’t all that shocking to anyone not spending New Year’s in Puerto Vallarta right now, but that’s a big deal! SIX locations, two of them being homes of mine! ONE was the crowd-favorite “in the air” (When Harry Met Sally). The other three were three movie theaters in Manhattan: AMC Lincoln Square, AMC Village 7, and Regal Union Square. Excuse me, this might be the Bud Light Seltzer hitting me, but I need to listen to an AJR song and cry for a second.

Okay, I’m back.

I never even got to go to AMC Magic Johnson. No friends’ houses. No random movies at work at the job that laid me off (for seemingly no reason?!). I…….folks, I miss movie theaters. (In all honesty, I am still crying and listening to AJR, and may very well be throughout the rest of this essay. Jesus, if I call this an essay, does that mean I’ll get hired by Movie Reviews Magazine?)

On January 15th, I saw 1917 by myself in the Regal Union Square. It was late, after a BATSU! show. I wandered over, because the theater was still open, and I absolutely had to see all of the movies nominated for Major Oscar Categories. I ate too much popcorn on a fully empty belly, and I loved every second.

On Valentine’s Day, I didn’t have dinner with my lover. Instead, I saw the Julia Louis-Dreyfus-Will Ferrell vehicle Downhill with my roommate Robbie. It would be one of the last times I saw him because I went away for that weekend and he moved back to Kansas. It was also the last time I went to a movie theater.

Lastly — or rather, firstly — on January 4th, I re-watched Cats. I got together with my friends Sam Stone, Serah Bennett, Hunter Rothstein, Andrew Quimby, Lauren Killer, Chaz May, and others (do NOT get mad at me). We met in Sam’s cramped, indoor apartment. I brought a movies card game to play as we all got intoxicated by our poison of choice. Eventually, we took the train to Lincoln Square and watched the film. At this point, the Cats fervor had metastasized to Rocky Horror levels. The audience, as a whole, decided we didn’t care about “the rules” of watching a movie in polite society anymore. We cheered, we laughed uproariously, we clapped, sang along, and waved our arms to “Mr. Mistoffelees”. The next day, I looked at another friend’s Instagram story, only to see an audience singing “Oh well, I never was there ever…” and I excitedly told her we had been at the same show last night, only to find out through conversation that two separate showings of Cats in Manhattan that night had broken out into song. It is, and forever will be, the greatest time I’ve spent in a movie theater in my life.

I realize I said this wasn’t going to be A Whole Thing about 2020, and it won’t be. But movies were dramatically impacted this year, and they remain impacted, as we look down the barrel of 2021 and see headlines like “Warner Bros. Puts All Films on HBO Max” and “At Current Rate, It Will Take 10 Years to Vaccinate Everyone in the United States”, it’s easy to get scared about the future of moviegoing. But I am optimistic. (Of course I am, it’s my whole thing! I gave 23 movies a Perfect 10 this year alone!)

Some day, we will be back watching movies together again. Someday soon, I will have to bear through the least funny movie I’ve ever watched as a group of my friends laugh hysterically at it. Someday soon, I’ll wander over to an AMC theater at 3pm to watch an Oscar-nominated film and be the only person in the audience besides the oldest Upper West Side couple I’ve ever seen in my life. Someday soon, I’ll be drunk off White Claws, singing an Andrew Lloyd Weber song I didn’t know before that night, standing and waving my arms with a row of friends and a mass of strangers. We’ll be back. And when we are, I’ll be on my phone, checking to see what I recognize that actress from.

Full data spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BOy8pWt4Y8HB_AQp4uc-rFPy6sLq73gHmhYNpHI6Tp8/edit