5 Films 2020-ized for Your Amusement

Posted under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS, SNAPSHOTS

The pandemic has rocked the entire world in one way or another. One has to wonder how it will affect culture moving forward.

Let’s use World War II as a precedent in these “unprecedented” times . Personally, I’ve seen at least thirty WW2-era productions. So, how might COVID-19 influence some of the stories we tell in the future?

Using some familiar romantic comedies as a funny reference, let’s imagine…

Love Actually

If you thought logging into Zoom meetings and Facetiming was an exciting way of finding deep connections with people… um, what the hell is wrong with you?

Picture it, Love Actually‘s multiple storylines unfolding through streaming screens and smartphones in this 2020-ized version. Yeeeaaahhh.

This film has been referred to as a romantic holiday classic by some, and as a cinematic turd that seems to float to the top of the bowl each holiday season by others. In either case, we can all meet in the middle and agree that this version would blow corona-infected chunks.
 

When Harry Met Sally…

That classic scene where Meg Ryan vigorously demonstrates a fake orgasm would lose a lot when muffled behind a mask, and the humor of “I’ll have what she’s ordering out” certainly wilts a bit, 6ft apart in a takeout line.
 

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

Weddings are hellacious enough to put together without the charming culture clash of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but now imagine sudden Stay-At-Home orders hurling all of those plans like a dish into a fireplace. Opa? NOPE-ah!
 

Pretty Woman

I mean… sure, the modern world is getting used to dating apps and other ways of “connecting” online, I guess. However, the 2020-ized version of this movie just doesn’t seem like it could get away with a Cinderella story vibe. Even though the original was a basically a fish-net-stockings-to-riches tale.
 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

It’s difficult to imagine a 2020-ization of a movie that has the word “travel” in its title. And it’s also pretty strange (and counter-intuitive to controlling contagion) to imagine girlfriends connecting their life paths by taking turns sharing a pair of Cheeto-dust infused sweatpants at each of their respective homes.

““

Needless to say, these movies would all suffer terminally by being 2020-ized.

Take heart, though. However crappy the cultural new-norm winds up being, remember, there will always be sci-fi and fantasy movies without face coverings, and they can always make more WW2 movies!