Opening this Weekend

Bloodshot

The Hunt

I Still Believe

My Spy

Hope Gap

Sorry We Missed You

Les Misérables (2019)

Extra Ordinary

Terra Willy

The F13TH Fan Film Mixtape

Box Office Predictions

  1. Onward
  2. I Still Believe
  3. The Invisible Man
  4. Bloodshot
  5. The Hunt

What You Should See

Looks like it’s going to be a big year for TV!

So if you haven’t heard, there’s this thing called coronavirus running around, which is actually wrong because “coronavirus” is an umbrella term for a family of respiratory diseases, the virus is actually called COVID-19 (which is actually wrong, because COVID-19 is the name of the disease [which is actually wrong, because the name of the virus is actually called SARS-CoV-2, because science is deliberately opaque and pendantic when all we want is a name!?]), and it’s now a pandemic?!

So everybody stay home!

What’s truly scary about COVID-19, other than how quickly it’s spreading is that we don’t know enough about it to know what to do (and having Trump as President is really badly f*cking the response up too).

Now I’d imagine you didn’t come here for an amateur dissertation on a global pandemic disease based on 5-10 minutes of research on my part, and you may be asking yourself what all this talk about coronavirus/COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2/the unmitigated disaster that is Trump’s Presidency has to do with this weekend’s new movies, so here’s where I make the connection:

  1. It might not mean THAT much for this weekend’s new movies.  But it doesn’t look good.
  2. It means EVERYTHING for the new movies to follow.

In an effort to increase general social distancing, one of our best weapons against spreading disease, large public events are being cancelled or postponed left and right, including Austen’s SXSW and Coachella in Indio, California recently.  E3 2020 is no more.  The NBA season has been suspended.  The MLB just pushed the start of its regular season back.  The NHL shut down and may not even have a playoffs (and wouldn’t that be SO OILERS)?  March Madness is disappearing amongst all this mid-March respiratory disease madness.  Talk shows are being filmed without live audiences.  Broadway‘s going away for at least a month.  Tom Hanks is sick.  Norway.  And movies are being pushed back big time, because what else are theatres than large gatherings of people coughing and sneezing in the dark (although less so lately, amirite Cats?  I’m such a b*tch!)?

No Time to Die, the new James Bond movie, was an early casualty, moving from its original April 10th release to November 25th, Fast & Furious 9 just went from May 22nd to April 2nd, 2021 (that’s almost a whole year!), and maybe worst of all, because we were JUST a week away, A Quiet Place II, once scheduled to open next Friday, March 20th, will now come out WHO KNOWS WHEN.  Because new theatrical releases don’t make money when everyone’s staying home (not to mention the theatres themselves; hopefully there’s some kind of insurance for that).  And who knows what’s next!  Black Widow?  Wonder Woman 1984?  Mulan is being pushed back now?  Dear God, another New Mutants delay!  And lest we think TV is safe, Riverdale has also suspended production “out of an abundance of caution” (a phrase we should get used to hearing a lot this year), and as much as that last one may not be any great loss for anyone (because Riverdale has gotten so bad lately!  I’m such a b*tch!), it’s a dark portent for all of us assuming things will be okay as long as we have our precious, precious TV to watch.

But at least none of this week’s new movies were cancelled?

If you’re still thinking about seeing a new movie this weekend (because it may be our last), unfortunately (and much like we all wish the NHL had suspended the season a day earlier after last night’s Edmonton-Winnipeg game), this weekend’s new movies leave more than a little to be desired.  Even though there are a lot of them.  To start, all of this week’s big movies — superscience/déjà vu actioner Bloodshot, comedy My Spy (which was itself pushed back from its original July 2019 release for strategic reasons), dark comedy The Hunt (which was pushed back from its original September 2019 release for political reasons), and Christian movie I Still Believe (which… well, Christian movies never count anyway) — look anywhere from not good to irredeemably bad.  Smaller movies, including Hope Gap, a new French version of Les Misérables, and Terra Willy don’t look so hot either, and the only things I would tell you to see are weird comedy Extra Ordinary and affecting, post-2008-financial-crisis family drama Sorry We Missed You (both only at Metro Cinema).  And you and I both know you were never going to see either of those anyway.

So what are we to do, so close now to the end of the world, with everything postponed or cancelled or perhaps never to be?  Well… Westworld picks up with its third season this weekend.  So that’s something.  Because they (i.e., coronavirus COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2) can take our social gathering lives, but they can never take our freedom to watch TV!  At least not the TV shows that are already in the bag and haven’t had their shooting schedules disrupted….  At least…!

Oh, and just for good measure: