If you were to have told me a year ago what 2020 would hit us with, I would’ve laughed in your face. Of course, if it were the case that you had accurately predicted 2020 I would be on the phone with you right now badgering you with
What is 2021 going to be like and
save our souls, but that’s besides the point. However, if you were to have told me a month ago that Netflix was releasing a spoof documentary called “Death to 2020” (a fact I was not aware of back then, incidentally), I would’ve laughed and said “Cool, I might watch that.” And I’d be pretty glad I did.
This year has been so full of awful surprises that it almost seems possible the clocks will turn back a year at the stroke of midnight tonight. And Netflix’s new mockumentary “Death to 2020 is here to chronicle and let the air out of all the extremes of terror and misery we had to endure in that span.
The streamer’s bitingly funny, hastily assembled and slightly deranged comedic retrospective lampoons the worst year ever, in chronological order, courtesy of an all-star cast that has emerged from shutdown to pummel each of the past 12 months like a piñata.
“The history books covering this period will have to be written in crayon. by a dog” proclaims stuffy, pompous “professor of history” Tennyson Foss (Hugh Grant). An authority on all matters of the past, he haughtily provides context on everything from pandemics to police brutality and insists that White Walkers and Ewoks are real.
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Here’s more from TheWrap:
Of course, those big-name actors aren’t playing themselves, but rather versions of people who have become the “stars” of 2020: Jackson as Dash Bracket – Reporter, New Yorkerly News; Grant as Tennyson Foss – Professor of History; Nanjiani as Bark Multiverse – CEO, Shreekr; Ullman as Queen Elizabeth II – Monarch and Figurehead; Kayo as Pyrex Flask – Scientist; Kudrow as Jeanetta Grace Susan – Non-Official Spokesperson; Morgan as Gemma Nerrick – Average Citizen; Jones as Dr. Maggie Gravel – Behavioral Psychologist; Milioti as Kathy Flowers – Soccer Mom; and Keery as Duke Goolies – Gig Economy Millennial.
Watch the trailer above.
“
Death to 2020 features fictional characters discussing real events in a bombastic mockumentary, but quite a bit sillier than that makes it sound,” said Brooker in a statement.
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Charlie Brooker on Death to 2020, and the Year that Changed Him: “I Pivoted to a Strange Sort of Optimism”
“Every year I seemed to be saying this was the worst year ever. Then along came 2020, which puts all of that into sharp relief
By Laura Martin 22/12/2020
Well, that was an. eventful year, wasn’t it? As 2020 prepares to crawl back into the hellscape it arose from, it’s only natural that we’ll want to sit back and take a minute to process all of gestures around this.