WONDER WHAT ELSE 2020 HAS IN STORE?
DAMON SMITH LOOKS AHEAD TO SOME OF THE MAJOR RELEASES HOPING TO TEMPT AUDIENCES BACK TO THE BIG SCREEN THIS YEAR
LIGHTS, cameras, hand sanitiser. Almost five months after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the lockdown in response to the growing threat from the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing numbers of cinemas are reopening across the UK and Ireland with new safety protocols designed to keep masked audiences safe in the soothing dark of the auditorium.
Beginning on August 26 with Christopher Nolan’s ingenious sci-fi thriller Tenet, the rest of the year boasts high-profile releases that can only be enjoyed on the big screen. Reignite your enduring love affair with the cinema-going experience.
TENET (12A) Released:
IT IS 10 years since British writerdirector Christopher Nolan gleefully twisted the minds of audiences with his high-stakes espionage thriller Inception.
Nolan’s new adventure, which is shrouded in secrecy, is the first major studio blockbuster since the pandemic and promises another jaw-dropping feast for the senses. Tenet follows a tenacious and highly skilled operative (John David Washington from BlacKkKlansman) as he attempts to avert Armageddon. A Russian oligarch (Sir Kenneth Branagh) is connected to a mystery that can only be solved by abandoning preconceived ideas about the linear flow of time.
Robert Pattinson and Sir Michael Caine co-star.
THE NEW MUTANTS (TBC) Released:
ONE year after Dark Phoenix failed to re-energise the X-Men franchise, director John Boone and co-writer Knate Lee journey inside the minds of five youngsters with extraordinary abilities in The New Mutants. Dr Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga) brings these gifted patients to a secret institution, claiming she can cure them. The volunteers are Danielle Moonstar aka Mirage (Blu Hunt), who harnesses other people’s fears to create illusions; Illyana Rasputin aka Magik (Anya TaylorJoy), younger sister of Colossus who amplify her psychic abilities to devastating effect; Rahne Sinclair aka Wolfsbane (Maisie Williams), who metamorphoses into a werewolf;
Sam Guthrie aka Cannonball (Charlie Heaton), who can project himself forward at jet speed, and Roberto da Costa aka Sunspot (Henry Zaga), who can channel solar energy.
As they share stories about when their powers manifested, they beginto doubt the sincerity of Dr Reyes’ actions.
WONDER WOMAN 1984 (12A) Released:
IN 2017, the first big screen outing for Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman became the highest grossing film of all time by a solo female director. Patty Jenkins returns to helm the eagerly anticipated sequel, working from a script she co-wrote with Dave Callaham and Geoff Johns, which relishes the dubious fashion choices and toe-tapping music of the 1980s.
At the end of the first film, Amazonian warrior Diana Prince embraced her destiny as Wonder Woman but lost her sweetheart, dashing American pilot Steve Trevor, in the climactic melee.
In the next chapter, Diana is reunited with Steve and seeks to make her mother Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) proud by using her strength to protect mankind.
She faces a new threat from media mogul Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and archaeologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), who is reborn as the super-powered Cheetah.
BLACK WIDOW (12A) Released:
THE cataclysmic events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame revealed the fate of many original members of the superhero dream team including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). For this stand-alone mission, director Cate Shortland concentrates on events directly after Captain America: Civil War. Natasha finds herself distanced from the rest of the Avengers and haunted by her past. She returns to her training ground, The Red Room run by Dreykov
(Ray Winstone), and reunites with surrogate father Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour) and fellow black widows Melina Vostakoff (Rachel Weisz) and Yelena Belova Florence Pugh). They agree to fight alongside Natasha to defeat dark forces that intend to bring her down.
NO TIME TO DIE (15) Released:
DANIEL CRAIG’S fifth and final mission as James Bond is set five years after the events of Spectre. No Time To Die begins with Bond (Craig) retired from active duty, trying to salve emotional wounds with the help of his psychiatrist lover, Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux).
Good friend Felix Leitner (Jeffrey Wright) ushers 007 back into the fold, reuniting the spy with M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw), Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and a feisty new 00 agent, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). They face a sadistic and terrifying adversary, Safin (Rami Malek), who knows how to exploit Bond’s most deeply rooted fears.
FREE GUY (TBC) Released:
DIRECTOR Shawn Levy’s highoctane comedy sees Ryan Reynolds as a bank teller, who discovers that he is part of a carefully controlled world and rebels against his makers. Guy (Reynolds) is a teller at Free
City Bank, which is regularly targetted by gun-toting criminals. During each hold up, Guy trades banter with security guard Buddy (Lil Rey Howery), unaware that he is a bit-part player in an open world video game created by Antoine (Taika Waititi) and a team of programmers. When Guy learns the truth thanks to code written by Milly (Jodie Comer), he agrees to take control of his destiny by battling the heavily armed players to restore peace to Free City.
DUNE (TBC)
FRANK HERBERT’S award-winning 1965 novel Dune proved the undoing of director David Lynch when he tried to adapt the beloved text for a 1984 film that failed to curry favour with audiences or critics. FrenchCanadian director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) will be hoping for a warmer response to his visually arresting opus.
Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) is offered an assignment to mine a precious mineral known as “the spice” on the desert planet of Arrakis. Leto is aware that he is almost certainly walking into a trap laid by his sworn enemy, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), but he accepts the brief regardless.
The Duke travels to his new home, which is protected by giant sandworms, accompanied by his concubine Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), son Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and members of the household including protectors Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) and Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa).
Battle lines are drawn between clans and blood seeps into the sand.
EVEN if you’re not going away this summer, you can always escape with a good book, whether it’s a love story, a nail-biting thriller or a page-turning drama. Lose yourself in this pick of 12, none of which you’ll want to put down...
THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett (Dialogue Books, £14.99)
THIS highly acclaimed novel begins in a small town in the Deep South, home of identical twins Stella and Desiree who left as teenagers in 1954 for New Orleans, where their lives diverge.
Ten years later, Desiree has returned with a young daughter, while Stella has been passing as white and her new family knows nothing of her past. It’s in these new worlds they’ve built for themselves, that their daughters, Kennedy and Jude, must grow up and navigate their mothers’ silences.
QUEEN BEE by Jane Fallon (Penguin, £8.99)
SHARP and hilarious, as are virtually all of Fallon’s novels, this yarn sees hard-working cleaner Laura move to a posh North London neighbourhood following her divorce, where she encounters the rich, rude and arrogant Stella, Queen Bee of
The Close.
But when Laura unearths a secret about Stella’s husband, Al, the unlikely pair join forces.
A perfect beach read.
ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE by Mike Gayle (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99)
THIS funny and life-affirming inter-generational story of loneliness, friendship and hope, is seen through the moving life story of Hubert Bird, an elderly man of the Windrush-generation. In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, the widower paints a picture of the perfect retirement, but in reality he sees no-one and is racked with loneliness, until he receives news that forces him to make his real life resemble his fake one.
It is timely in its key themes of social isolation and loneliness – in both the young and old – and the importance of community, as we all emerge from a lockdown which has seen loneliness levels soar.
FIND THEM DEAD by Peter James (Pan Macmillan, £20)
THE hugely popular Brighton policeman DS Roy Grace has once again hit the top of the bestseller list with a tale in which the detective, seconded to the Met, confronts the wave of drug gang violence sweeping the capital. Concurrently, Sussex Police is closing in on a Brighton-based drug gang mastermind who faces trial –
THE writer and broadcaster’s first foray into fiction focuses on the eponymous heroine who doesn’t want children, but when her three best friends’ lives begin to move towards marriage and motherhood, she wonders if she’s made the right decisions.
Moving between their 20s and the present-day, when they hit their early 30s, the women’s lives take different paths and the difficulties they face will strike a chord with many. Yet, despite all their disagreements, there’s warmth and empathy amid the rippling friendships.
THE HUNGOVER GAMES by Sophie Heawood (Jonathan Cape, £14.99)
HEAWOOD was working as a celebrity journalist in Los Angeles, living the footloose, freelance life, when she discovered she was pregnant, despite babies being the last thing on her agenda. She shares her story with huge wit and sharp observation, as she comes to terms with the prospect of
IF YOU want a lighthearted read based on a 30-something woman whose dreams of getting married are dashed by her unreliable boyfriend, only to find herself on the set of The Shelf, a new reality show, this will have you chuckling on your sun lounger. Along with five other women, our heroine Amy must compete in a series of tasks in the hope of becoming ‘The Keeper’.
It’s been described as Love Island meets Bridget Jones, with a relatable story and a group of highly engaging female characters.
THE WEEKEND by Charlotte Wood (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99)
SET over three hot days in a house overlooking the ocean, this novel looks at friendship and betrayal among three women in their 70s, who have come
THIS terrific debut novel from Irish writer Dolan – who has been compared with Normal People author Sally Rooney – is a modern love triangle set in Hong Kong, told from the perspective of Ava, newly arrived from Dublin to teach English to rich kids.
She meets Julian – a ludicrously wealthy banker – and they start a semi-relationship. When he moves back to London for work, lawyer Edith enters her life and Ava finds herself falling for her – but how will things pan out when Julian returns?
ONE YEAR OF UGLY by Caroline Mackenzie (The Borough Press, £12.99)
THIS acerbic, hilarious debut from freelance translator Mackenzie who lives in Trinidad, sees Yola and her family settling in Trinidad after escaping socialist Venezuela. But when her beloved aunt dies, Yola discovers she was seriously in
THRILLER writer Billingham is on top form with his 20th book, a prequel to his terrific debut Sleepyhead, taking us back to 1996, at the beginning of DS Tom Thorne’s story.
He is haunted by the moment he ignored his instinct about a suspect, and the horrific crime that followed. So when seven-year-old Kieron Coyne goes missing while playing in the woods, Thorne vows he will not make the same mistake again.