Lock Down Your Lockdown Film Schedule
Done with work chat? Would you rather sit back and relax than read about all the marketing? John, from our creative team, has popped together a list of quality films ideal for making your quarantine pass quickly.
The last line of dialogue in John Carpenter’s 1982 film ‘The Thing’, is, “Why don’t we just wait here for a little while, see what happens.”
Well, that’s kind of what we’re all doing right now. Sitting here. Waiting. Isolated. (Albeit not being hunted by a shape-shifting alien in Antarctica).
So, while we’re all hiding away from the outside world, join me, won’t you?
Join me on a journey into the unknown, an odyssey into the unfamiliar, a jaunt, if you will, to… your couch. That’s right, people, as the self-appointed ‘Film Guy’, it is my job to help you “complete Netflix” this holiday lockdown season.
‘Blue Ruin’ is first on the list. You’ve not seen it, have you? Tisk, tisk. (I feel like that was almost a haiku). For those of you who have seen it… yeah, you know. Oh, friends, this one is, as they say in my native Scotland, “a guid yin”. Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, this tense, Neo-western is a nail biter and then some. It stars Macon Blair as a more than down on his luck, cowardly anti-hero, seeking bloody revenge. I can’t say much without spoiling it, so please give it a watch on Netflix – ASAP. Neo. Western. I mean, if that doesn’t make you want to watch it, I don’t know what will.
If you’re quite fancy, you’ve probably got access to an Amazon Prime Video account. Well, that will come in handy for our next film, as it is included with the membership. I give to you, Jon Favreau’s passion project, ‘Chef’, a giant, warm hug, disguised as a film about a chef who reinvents himself in a food truck. (Warning: This film will make you hungry and desperate to cook up a meaty storm. Please food shop responsibly during these trying times.)
This next one is a gem. A mere six and a half minutes into ‘Blindspotting’, you know you’re in for something special. Carlos Lopez Estrada directs real life childhood pals, Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, in a very vibrant and powerful film about race, language and over-priced kale juice. The script is sharp, angry, fresh, funny and full of heart. It got a little lost in the shuffle when it was released in 2018, but you can find it on Netflix now and you can thank me later.
Okay, big finish time… you know what, curveball! Towards the end of February this year, Netflix dropped all seven episodes of a show called ‘I Am Not Okay With This’. If you have any eyes, ears and/or a heart, I implore you to get this watched. It is super moreish. I can’t say much more than that without going over my allotted word count, but what I will say is, the entire first season is shorter than one Lord of the Rings film. So, aye, belter.
Now, I was going to write down some honourable mentions, but you never know, they might just let me take over the blog again before the lockdown ends, so I’ll hold onto those titles for now. I hope you watch and enjoy at least some of my picks. If you don’t like any of them, I’m sorry we don’t vibe this time around, but I’d be interested in hearing yours, so let me know. The world is a very strange place right now, and many of us are trying to do whatever we can to maintain some kind of normality. So, let’s keep sharing film picks, tv shows, books, albums, and hopefully, it will give us some light relief while we work our way through this.
In the meantime – hey, why don’t we just wait here for a little while, see what happens…
Author: John Campbell