A few words on what to expect from TMW in the coming weeks.
Words by Eric Hillis
Firstly, make no mistake, the world is currently in the midst of a crisis. In the grand scheme of things, movies are relatively unimportant and our readers' health is more important to us than their entertainment. With that in mind, any recommendations we give for movies currently playing or opening soon in cinemas shouldn't be taken as an endorsement to visit a cinema. While we hope cinemas can cope with this crisis and come out the other side in a good financial position, we'd hate to think that someone might put themselves at risk because they read a rave review of ours.
At time of writing, some cinemas have shut their doors for the next couple of weeks, perhaps a lot longer, while others are operating at limited capacity. Hollywood has reacted by cancelling major releases. The upcoming Bond movie, No Time to Die, was the first casualty, pulled a few weeks ago, but with the recent escalation in governments' responses, other films like A Quiet Place Part II, Mulan and The New Mutants have also had their releases pulled.
Put simply, don't expect any big budget Hollywood productions in your local multiplex any time soon. Obviously, press screenings for such movies are also cancelled so don't expect any reviews from us for such fare either.
At TMW we've always covered a wide swathe of releases, not just the blockbusters, so such measures will have little impact on our coverage. Indie distributors are, for now, going ahead with their UK/ROI releases, but obviously this is subject to change.
So if all cinemas close and no new movies are released, what can you expect from TMW? Well, we're currently in the process of knocking out reviews from the 2020 Dublin International Film Festival. We saw so many movies at the fest this year that we'll be continually posting reviews for the next few weeks, and you can keep track of our DIFF reviews here. We also have reviews in the can for some indie and foreign language movies that are currently scheduled for release in the coming weeks.
Blu-ray reviews will continue as normal, unless disc distributors decide to pull releases. Ren Zelen's 'The Films That Made Me' and Mike Vaughn's 'Mike's Strange Cinema Cavalcade' columns will continue, as they aren't reliant on new releases.
If all new releases are cancelled, don't worry, cinema has been around for almost a century and a half, so there are lots of movies for us to turn our attention to.
With a lot of you stuck at home indefinitely, you're likely looking for something to watch. A lot of great movies have been recently added to Netflix, and you can find some of our recommendations on the below twitter thread.
We know lots of you are stuck at home and don't feel like visiting the cinema this weekend so here's a thread on movies we recommend that are currently available on @NetflixUK #isolationessentials #Netflix— 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕄𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕖 𝕎𝕒𝕗𝕗𝕝𝕖𝕣 (@themoviewaffler) March 14, 2020
Speaking of twitter, our account @themoviewaffler is the best place to reach out to us if you're looking for movie recommendations. We'll also be using it to repost reviews from our vast archive over the coming weeks, giving you lots of recommendations.
Things may change somewhat, but we're not going anywhere. We hope we can take your mind off reality in this tough time. Stay safe, and hopefully at some point in the future, we'll see you at the movies!
We'll let Doris Day have the final word on this one...