In terms of accessibility and quality, it was still a year of riches. So what if we didn’t get our usual fall complement of big-ticket Oscar movies? This new, temporary normal allowed smaller movies-films that might otherwise have been lost among glitzier releases-to grab the spotlight for once. But the one thing we can say is that the movies didn’t let us down. In all ways, this year was unlike any other. Some of us watched them after long days or nights spent outside the home, as necessary workers-in that context, a bright spot of entertainment means even more than it would in a normal year.
We watched them as a way to unwind after a long day of re-creating our work routines at home, perhaps with the additional stress of caring for (and teaching) kids unable to go to school. We also watched them with anxiety roiling within us, and sometimes with tragedy unfolding just outside our door. It’s not just that we watched movies, for the most part, on a small screen at home.
There’s no subtle way to put it: 2020 has been a truly strange year for movies, a mini-epoch that has forced us to reckon with what movies can be and mean.
