OVP: Previously, in 2020

 2020: A Look Back

We are kicking off our 18th Oscar Viewing Project retrospective after finishing up 2003 this past weekend, and we're doing it on the morning of the Oscar nominations themselves, so a nice bit of synergy.  We have been going at a breakneck pace over the past few weeks that I'm learning isn't sustainable, so we're not going to do that in 2020, but we'll be doing at least two articles a week, probably more (I'm having a "me" weekend this weekend and this will be part of that discussion).

That's enough behind-the-scenes, so I want you to sit back, relax, and transport yourself...actually, since we're going to 2020 you're already sitting back, stuck in your house, and likely have spent the past few months watching reruns of The Office and Schitt's Creek more than anything else (and hopefully mailed in your ballot early!).  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Box Office

This is what the Top 10 at the (Domestic) Box Office looked like:

1. Bad Boys for Life

2. Sonic the Hedgehog

3. Birds of Prey

4. Dolittle

5. The Invisible Man

6. The Call of the Wild

7. Onward

8. The Croods: A New Age

9. Tenet

10. Wonder Woman 1984*

10. Tom & Jerry: The Movie*

Obviously, like much of our discussion of last year's Oscars will be for the next 7-10 weeks, this is going to need an asterisk.  For starters, this is only for 2020, but the Oscars were eligible from 2020 through late February in 2021.  As a result, if we extended this to movies released during that time, Wonder Woman 1984 would barely be edged out by Tom & Jerry: The Movie.  The second, and much more critical thing here is that a global pandemic (that's still going on, though not with the accompanying mass quarantine) put much of the worldwide box office out-of-commission.  This resulted in only one film (Bad Boys) getting over $200 million domestically, and only one other (Sonic) crossing $100 million.  All but slots 8-10 premiered prior to quarantines becoming commonplace.

Despite watching a shocking amount of movies while I was stuck inside, I saw only one of these in theaters (Tenet), and it was a drive-in.  I was starting a new job at the beginning of the quarantine & foolishly was taking a break from movie theaters when I should've been shoveling films down.  Additionally, very few of these became Oscar players in any fashion (only Onward & Tenet will be mentioned in this series), and I'll be honest-I had no interest in most of the rest and other than those two only saw Wonder Woman and The Croods.  If there's a movie on this list you think I should see, I'm open, but none of them scream out to me as mandatory.

The Films I Missed

While I've seen all of the Oscar nominees, I haven't seen every film in 2020.  In addition to the films I just listed, there are a few films that were in contention at precursors that didn't make it to the Oscars.  Some of the bigger names I'm missing are I Care a Lot, French Exit, Music, and The 40-Year-Old Version.  I'm definitely planning on seeing The 40-Year-Old Version in the coming weeks as part of my "catch up" from 2020 for My Ballot, but the others are a no from me (Music feels like a cinematic mistake based on every review I've read, and the other two hold no interest despite me liking the leads...I'll hear defenses of French Exit if I should give it a shot, but I Care a Lot is way too mean for my headspace these days unless I'm required to watch it by the Academy).  Since 2020 is so recent there's only a couple of films that I plan on seeing from 2020, but I'll hear out any defenses of movies that Oscar totally skipped in the comments!  With that, we'll get to Makeup & Hairstyling in the coming days.