One year since COVID shut down movies

This weekend one year ago was when COVID hit closest to home for me. Sports had been taken out, but when they shut down theaters that's what got me. It was the last weekend for over 5 months that I could go to a movie. 

One year later theaters are back up and running. Granted the release schedule has been decimated, and a lot of big movies have been given streaming releases, but at least there is stuff to see. Fingers crossed Black Widow makes it. 

And I ended up using up all 3 of my AMC A-list spots this weekend. 

1. TOM AND JERRY

I was hoping this could be like The Adventures Of Rocky and Bullwinkle (movie version of an old show, cartoon characters in the real world, super cute female lead). It's not. It's content to just be a silly little kids movie with no ambition. We get a very, VERY dull celebrity wedding subplot (where we learn Colin Jost can not act), and a lot of mugging by the overqualified Chloe Moretz and Michael Pena. 

THE FATHER

In almost any other year I think Anthony Hopkins is winning a Best Actor Oscar for this film about a man suffering from Alzheimer's (but not with Chadwick Boseman the favorite). The film is expertly crafted to make you feel like you are right there with him, as most of the film is directly from his perspective. So characters may be played by different actors from scene to scene, or entire scenes may have never happened at all, and most of the film takes place in Hopkins' loft (or does it?). It's not done as a narrative gimmick at all. We do know for sure that the terrific Olivia Colman is his daughter. Hopkins is so known for always being so alert and in control that it's particularly jarring to see him like this (a late movie emotional breakdown is especially crushing).

BOOGIE

Written and directed by Eddie Huang, whose work spawned Fresh Off The Boat. This is another Asian-American story, about a high school basketball star. I literally did not recognize a single actor in this. The guy who plays Boogie though is very charismatic, as is the actress who plays his girlfriend. It has its fair share of sports movie tropes and Boogie's mom is like Jessica from FOTB drained of all likability. But it has some welcome grit and realism to it.

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