Keep on rolling Even if we can't return to the multiplex, 2021 movies will deliver all the escapism we need By: Randall King Posted: 3:00 AM CST Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021

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This article was published 09/01/2021 (1792 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If there was ever a year in which we would come to appreciate going to the movies it was 2020.

As Joni Mitchell once sang: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” And for large swaths of the year, the moviegoing experience was taken away from us as a protective measure against COVID-19 transmission.

That leaves the movie fan longing to return to the multiplex in 2021. But in the face of a slow vaccine rollout, it is more likely we must come to terms with the fact that this year, like 2020, movie enjoyment is at best going to be a mix of streaming, specialty channel exclusive releases and — fingers crossed — theatrical releases.

In light of that, where we usually offer up 10 reasons to go to the movies at the beginning of every year, we now present: 10 reasons to keep seeing movies this year.

1. Supporting your local talent

Just as we did our best to patronize local businesses as much as possible, we should support movies that sprang forth from our local talent. We eagerly await availability of Guy Maddin’s latest short films (in partnership with collaborators Evan and Galen Johnson), including The Rabbit Hunters, a Maddin-esque meditation on Federico Fellini made with the director’s muse, Isabella Rossellini (The Saddest Music in the World), and Stump the Guesser, about a carnival psychic (Adam Brooks) thrown for a loop when he realizes he is in love with his own sister. Maddin himself isn’t sure when the films may be available, so watch this space.

2. Supporting your local industry

Does any movie poster sum up 2020 quite like the one for director Ilya Naishuller’s Nobody, which sees star Bob Odenkirk being punched in the head from all sides? Set for theatrical release on Feb. 26, the shot-in-Winnipeg film casts Odenkirk as a PTSD-suffering suburbanite whose dark past unleashes a firestorm of violence after his family is assaulted by home invaders.

From the director of Hardcore Henry, it promises to be a huge action movie, even if Odenkirk (of Better Call Saul) is the unlikeliest of action heroes.

You can’t say that about Liam Neeson, of course, who toplines The Ice Road, lensed in Gimli and elsewhere in Manitoba. He plays a trucker who leads a rescue mission when a remote northern diamond mine collapses. Director Jonathan Hensleigh has said the script was inspired by Henri-George Clouzot’s 1953 classic Wages of Fear. No release date has been announced yet, but given all the cancelled productions in 2020, it may find a berth for itself sometime later this year.

3. A break from reality: Superhero fantasy

It’s no picnic living with stay-at-home orders, daily case/death counts and minimal human contact. So a retreat to the superhero movie is an inevitability, especially since many of releases set for 2020 were postponed to 2021.

Among these: Morbius (March 19) starring Jared Leto as the hideous vampire/antihero; Black Widow (May 7), something of an origin story for Scarlett Johansson’s Avenger angel. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (July 9) is a Marvel outing starring Chinese-Canadian actor Simu Liu as the title kung-fu master; The Suicide Squad (Aug. 6) is a do-over effort of the DC villain supergroup, with the return of Margot Robbie as the manic Harley Quinn (let’s face it, the only reason to watch the 2016 original Suicide Squad). The Eternals (Nov. 5) presents an all-new Marvel super-group unveiled as Phase 4 of the Marvel Universe roll-out. Finally, Dwayne Johnson stars as Black Adam (Dec. 22), a slave-turned-superhero from the DC folks who gave us Shazam.

4. A break from reality: Franchise favourites

The King’s Man (March 12) returns us to the Kingsman realm of out-there comic book espionage, this time focusing on the origin of the private intelligence organization in the dawn of the 20th century as they take on a sinister conspiracy to plunge the world into war. Ralph Fiennes and Gemma Arterton star. The latest James Bond movie No Time to Die gets released April 2, a full year later than intended, with Daniel Craig resuming the Bond character for perhaps the last time.

Godzilla Vs. Kong (May 21) sees a duel of the movie titans from the ongoing Warner Studio franchise. Ghostbusters Afterlife (June 11) sees another kick at the Ghostbusters universe after the disappointing box office of the 2016 effort starring Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. With Mission Impossible 7 (Nov. 19), Tom Cruise gets to show us what all the on-set fuss was about in the continuing adventures of superspy Ethan Hunt.

Finally, The Matrix 4 (Dec. 22) presents a return to the alternate realities of the Matrix universe, which became hopelessly convoluted in Matrixes 2 and 3. Hopefully, Keanu Reeves will provide some continuity back to the original.

5. A break from reality: Horror returns

Hollywood is evidently hoping horror will still be a useful mechanism to help process real-life horror. We will finally see A Quiet Place 2 (April 23), in which a family struggles to survive in a soundless post-apocalyptic world where sensitive-eared monsters hold sway. Halloween Kills (Oct. 15) sees Jamie Lee Curtis once again facing off against the relentless Michael Myers in a direct sequel to the 2018 reboot by David Gordon Green.

6. A song for your heart

Musicals were making headway back into the movie marketplace, so a couple of notable entries will get released this year, including the delayed In the Heights (June 18), based on the stage musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Steven Spielberg’s long-awaited take on West Side Story (Dec. 10), in which the racial tensions of the 1961 original prove frustratingly relevant today.

Respect (Aug 13) stars Jennifer Hudson as the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin in what promises to be a shocking biopic. The Beatles: Get Back (Aug. 27) sees director Peter Jackson working some editing/restoration magic in a doc about the Fab Four’s last days before their breakup.

7. Women’s stories

There aren’t enough. We are looking forward to Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland (Feb. 19), starring the great Frances McDormand as a woman who realizes she will have to hit the road and live out of a van if she wants to continue making a living.

The United States Vs. Billie Holiday (Feb. 26) offers up a fresh perspective of the legendary jazz singer and how she was targeted by the federal government in an effort to racialize the nascent war on drugs. It stars singer-songwriter Andra Day, with a script by Suzan-Lori Parks, the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

8. It’s always time for cartoons

The Bob’s Burger Movie (April 9) is a full-blown musical based on the beloved TV series about greasy spoon maven Bob Belcher and his “You’re all horrible” family. Minions: The Rise of Gru (July 2) offers up another go-round for those freakish mastermind enablers.

It’s not a cartoon, exactly, but Cruella (May 28) does give us a live-action origin story explaining how the would-be dog-skinning villainess Cruella De Vil (Emma Stone) got so warped.

9. Heavy hitters

While there are no release dates attached, we can expect new films from the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson — Soggy Bottom may or may not be about the making of the 1976 Barbra Streisand version of A Star Is Born, starring Bradley Cooper as a Jon Peters-like movie producer — and Joel Coen, who goes it alone without brother Ethan for The Tragedy of Macbeth, with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.

Wes Anderson brings out the quirk for The French Dispatch, a much-needed “love letter to journalists” starring Frances McDormand (again!), Timothée Chalamet, Bill Murray and Saoirse Ronan. The great Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) remakes the sordid noir classic Nightmare Alley, with Bradley Cooper (again!) starring as a con-man who poses as a psychic.

Director Ridley Scott made a name for himself, pre-Alien, with a movie called The Duellists. He seems to be going back to his origins with The Last Duel, about a battle to the death between two men (Adam Driver and Matt Damon) following an accusation of rape by the wife of one of them.

10. The New Heavy Hitters

Quebec director Denis Villeneuve continues his sci-fi run (after Arrival and Blade Runner: 2049) with Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel already filmed once by none other than David Lynch. The cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. In Last Night in Soho, director Edgar Wright (Sean of the Dead) goes for full horror with a mysterious story of madness set in the Swinging ‘60s.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing