I have taken, and continue to take, all the coronavirus changes in stride.But one I didn't realize until it was quite late in the game was that I wouldn't be able to review new movies anymore.
Not so fast.
There are still new movies coming out, they just aren't coming to your local cineplex. Nothing is coming to your local cineplex, in fact, other than maybe a couple stray tumbleweeds.
But Netflix? That's a different story.
I've only reviewed a select few Netflix movies for ReelGood. It's not that I don't consider Netflix movies legitimate. I didn't once, but I gave that up some time ago.
Rather, it's that I don't usually notice exactly when something is dropping on Netflix, and I maintain the editor's old-school notion of having a "news peg" for a piece of writing. Although standards on this front have relaxed in recent years, I still consider movie reviews to consist of a first look at a hot new item -- or at least a first look in the country where I'm currently located. (Movies sometimes release here a full six months after they release in the U.S.)
But that's going to change. It's going to have to.
Not the reviewing a hot new item part, but the knowing when movies first release on Netflix part.
And so it was that last week I googled that article that'll tell you exactly what's releasing on the streaming service during a particular seven-day period. That's how I found The Platform, the Spanish language sci-fi horror satire whose poster you see above. You can read my review here.
And what a great find, as it turned out. I waited until its Friday night release to watch it, and gobbled that thing up right then and there. It's a cousin of the movies Cube and Circle, so if you liked those movies, here's another geometrically themed movie title for your consideration.
Anything else that came out last week? It's already ancient history. (I didn't really like the other choices, anyway.)
No one says I have to sacrifice my principles as a journalist just because it's coronavirus. Sure, I could go back and review Spenser Confidential or A Fall From Grace or Horse Girl, but those titles are already stale.
And that's okay, because if nothing else, Netflix will keep giving me the new and the fresh.
Films themselves are a bit like a virus, fighting to stay alive despite attempts to extinguish them. They want to be seen. And seen they will be. And reviewed they will be. By me.
No, I won't be able to see Mulan, or Wonder Woman 1984, or probably even Tenet, which is not scheduled to come out until July.
But the next Platform?
I'll be ready, my pen poised over the paper.
Metaphorically speaking, anyway.
