The year popcorn at the multiplex morphed into Netflix and a cuppa on the sofa

The year had hardly begun when Covid-19 struck. It changed the way we viewed films. Social distancing wasn’t as much of a problem in cinemas as it was in pubs or at rock concerts but it still took away from the experience. The ‘reel’ thing wasn’t the ‘real’ thing anymore.

People steeped themselves in boxsets, mini-series, popcorn at the multiplex morphed into Netflix and a cuppa on the sofa”

In January the virus was little more than a news story. We watched footage of people walking robotically through Chinese streets wearing masks and we thought: How strange. We saw people stranded on ships that became gigantic maritime hospitals. While we felt sorry for them, we probably didn’t feel any more empathetic than we did for anyone else on Sky News that day.

Then coronavirus made its way towards us. We waited for it like a tsunami, like a tidal wave. By now things had changed, changed utterly. Suddenly it wasn’t just a news item anymore. It was part of our lives. And our deaths.

By the time it struck, I’d only seen a handful of films -the decidedly odd Jihad Jane, the whimsical Dream Horse, the Orwellian Vivarium.

Oscar ceremonies

The Oscar ceremonies still went ahead in February. South Korean comedy-thriller Parasite became the first foreign language film to win Best Picture. Joaquin Phoenix bagged an overdue gong for Joker. Renee Zellweger won Best Actress for Judy as I predicted. She was sensational.

Afterwards the film world went a bit crazy. There were frantic reschedulings, downsizings, cancellations. Covid-19 infections surged as a new word entered our lingua: ‘lockdown’.

People steeped themselves in boxsets, mini-series, popcorn at the multiplex morphed into Netflix and a cuppa on the sofa. The distinction between the ‘Big Screen’ and the small one became tenuous. Projects gravitated between both. We saw the prioritisation of a character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in Ratched.

Adventure

Marco Pontecorvo’s Fatima uplifted us. There was retro charm in adventure films: Project Power, Superman: Man of Tomorrow, Wonder Woman 1984.

We were intrigued by biopics like Radioactive and Shirley, confused by loose adaptations like Les Miserables which had little or nothing to do with Victor Hugo’s original. Will Ferrell’s Eurovision Song Contest send-up, The Story of Fire Saga, entertained us…mildly.

There were imaginative thrillers like Tenet, Ava, 7500. Hillbilly Elegy became cultish for a while. Russell Crowe went bats in an intriguing road rage movie, Unhinged. But did we really need the Arthur Conan Doyle mutant, Enola Holmes? Or Sacha Baron Cohen’s tasteless Borat Subsequent MovieFilm?

We needed to share our views even if we couldn’t speak to people in the flesh”

Hugh Grant proved there was more to him than a reconstructed Cary in The Undoing. Disney plc tried to take us out of ourselves with Hamilton, Black Beauty, Mulan, Muppets Now.

But Covid-19 was at the back of our minds always, not just when we were watching apocalyptic films like Amy Seimetz’ She Dies Tomorrow which had shades of it. Even romantic films were tinged with darkness – Hope Gap, The Roads Not Taken, Nocturnal, Still the Water, Chemical Hearts.

The merits and demerits

We argued about the merits and demerits of The Broken Hearts Gallery, Rebecca, The Crown. We were vouchsafed revisionist depictions of old classics, sequels, prequels. We got documentaries, mockumentaries. We discussed them on Zoom, on emails, on phone calls. We needed to share our views even if we couldn’t speak to people in the flesh. We came together, as the epidemiologists advised, by staying apart.

Sean Connery died in the autumn. There was much ‘whataboutery‘ regarding future James Bonds. Could they be black? That wouldn’t have worked for me any more than Dev Patel worked in the remake of David Copperfield at the beginning of the year. Especially if Idris Elba got the nod.

I wasn’t being racist. Neither was I being sexist in debunking the idea of a female Bond. We needed to be faithful to the character Ian Fleming created. It wasn’t Jane Bond.

There was too much emphasis on this aspect of Connery’s career. It was only when he got out of Bondage that he shone as an actor. Obituaries were near-hagiographic but then a 1970s interview surfaced where he spoke of slapping women who misbehaved. It put a dent in them.

Dissension

An alleged past sexual misdemeanour by Woody Allen came back to haunt him too. Dissension was reflected in the corrosive reviews of a memoir he wrote, and his (swansong?) film A Rainy Day in New York.

Another actor perceived to have been sexually abusive was Johnny Depp. He lost a libel suit against the media for branding him a wife-beater. The decision will almost certainly affect his career adversely from now on. If you’re going to go after a newspaper for such an allegation it’s advisable to have the wife in question onside. Amber Heard wasn’t.

The case represented poor judgment on Depp’s part. He was guilty of ‘hubris’, the old Oscar Wilde sin. Let’s remember Oscar brought tragedy down on his head when he took the Marquis of Queensbury to court for libel. Depp had also initiated the action. Sometimes in life, as they say, we have to ‘suck it up’ when we get bad publicity. Paper doesn’t refuse ink.

Diego Maradona died towards the end of the year. In remembrance of him I re-watched Asif Kapadia’s marvellous documentary, Diego. Here was another fallen idol like Depp. He recovered from the ‘hand of God’ goal scandal but not from cocaine addiction or associations with crime bosses.

Genius

I preferred to remember his genius on the pitch. How was it that so many geniuses died young? George Best said he had nothing to replace the high of scoring a goal when he retired. I suspect something similar happened to Maradona.

The world moved on. After nearly a year of praying for a Covid-19 vaccine, four arrived at the same time in late November. It was like the Irish buses, duck or no dinner.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed they work. It would mean returning to some sort of ‘old’ normal in 2021.

And returning to those palaces of dreams we call cinemas.