AHFW’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #4 ‘The 40-Year-Old Version’

4. “The Forty-Year-Old Version” – A star is born!  Radha Blank writes, directs, produces, and plays the lead in a charming underdog tale of a middle-aged woman trying to jumpstart her playwriting career.  Blank pens memorable supporting players – including a group of sincere but unpolished high school students, her best friend who moonlights as her agent, and a younger love interest – who mark her journey to possible nirvana.  Still, Broadway-Eden is a ways off, as Radha grapples with the uncomfortable comforts of New York City, her professional shortcomings,…

AHFW’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #5 ‘David Byrne’s American Utopia’

5. “David Byrne’s American Utopia” – With a minimalist stage design of hundreds of slender, elegant metal chains hanging from the rafters, 68-years-young David Byrne and 11 talented musicians/singers perform a film version of their successful show at New York City’s Hudson Theatre.  Spike Lee’s clever camerawork captures Byrne and his harmonious compadres – who all don matching gray suits – as they strut, tap, and twirl barefoot to lively, bouncy tracks and ballads from the lead artist’s new album and some absolute classics from yesterdecade, including this critic’s favorite…

AHFW’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #6 ‘The Father’

6. “The Father” – Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) and his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) live together in a spacious, comfortable London flat, but she breaks some life-changing news to her dad.  She’s moving to Paris, and – because of Anthony’s dementia – he has to pick up his life and relocate to a nursing home.  Plenty of movies capture this unenviable topic, but director/co-writer Florian Zeller looks at the crisis from Anthony’s perspective, his world, which clouds our judgment about on-screen realities.  These two masterclass actors traverse through Zeller’s disconcerting puzzle…