Asghar Farhadi has built a career out of making breathtaking family dramas. With "About Elly," "A Separation," "The Past," and "The Salesman,” the Iranian-born writer-director cemented his name on the shortlist of modern-day world-class directors. I can count these rare and talented filmmakers in less than two hands. So it came as a major disappointment to dislike the 46-year-old director’s last film, the Spanish-language drama “Everybody Knows,” which I saw at Cannes 2018. It was a half-decent whodunnit affair, but we’ve come to expect much more from the Iranian-born director.

Pedro Almodóvar has had a fairly busy year, shooting a mysterious new project in the fall and even having the time to premiere a short movie titled “The Human Voice,” starring Tilda Swinton, at the Venice Film Festival this past September. Hell, he even spilled his thoughts during the pandemic, via the mighty force of the pen, for a weekly IndieWire column.

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) named their best films and performances of 2020 on Sunday. The awards were announced via the critics group’s Twitter account. The group is led by Claudia Puig as president, with more than 60 other journalists composing the voting body.

I’m sorry to say, I don’t for a second believe that 44th President of the United States Barack Obama actually saw a majority of the films on his “Favorite movies and TV Shows of 2020” list. Nope. Sorry. Why? Well, Barry has always been about appealing to the mainstream consensus of hipdom. That’s it, that’s all. And yet, there is nothing hip about Barack Obama’s tenure as President of the United States. It was all coordinated; from the mic drop to his “impromptu” acapella of “Amazing Grace.” It was always about the image more than the authenticity. Sorry to break it to you and I’m saying this as someone who has always leaned more left than right in the politico stratosphere.

The New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), one of the most important critics groups in the country, are currently announcing their 2020 winners. In 2019, Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” was voted best film of the year. See the full winners list below:

I’m not sure what all the debbie downers expected before watching Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman 1984,’ but, quite surprisingly, I thought it was kind of amusing in its own retro ’80s glammy-hammy business. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t much of a fan of the original 2017 film, my expectations were down in the dumps for this one, or maybe it’s just the acceptance that this isn’t anything more than a silly superhero B-movie set to premiere via streaming on Christmas Day. You can do a lot worse when it comes to this type of movie. Maybe I’m overselling it.

The Star Wars prequels ("Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones," and "Revenge of the Sith") don't exactly have the greatest reputation with movie fans, there is, of course, a subculture that absolutely adores them, including none other than James Cameron, but their reputation for being the weakest SW films is well known.

A single careless COVID moment can knock a film production out of action for weeks, it already happened on the set of numerous films including Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” and the Olivia Wilde-directed film “Don’t Worry Darling”, both of which are now back in production.

As we prepare for New York or Los Angeles film critics to announce their awards this week, their peers in Boston got a head start this afternoon.

This has been the strangest year, not just at the movies, but for life in general. With all that being said, and with the Oscars seemingly deciding to go on as planned on April 25th, 2021, we have a Best Picture race to talk about and it’s as unpredictable as you might imagine.