Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Your Winners! For the 2023 Hollmann Awards!

Here we are. You've seen my Top Ten (and if you haven't, why not?) and you've looked at all the nominees (because I won't repeat all of them here!). Now, the final word on 2023 - my winners for the best in last year's cinema. The 2023 Hollmann Awards. Beginning with music:

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Top Ten of 2023

With apologies to the almost-made-its - 12.12: The DayBottoms, Freud's Last SessionGodzilla Minus One, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, May DecemberNapoleon, RustinThanksgiving, and The Zone of Interest - I present, in alphabetical order, my Top Ten Films of 2023:

Sunday, January 14, 2024

The Year That Was: 2023

It's time to close the books on the film year of 2023.

I watched 115 films that saw some sort of US theatrical release in 2023, whether they played a week a Boston or two months at a single theater in LA catering to Korean cinema. Many of them are either available to stream or currently in cinemas. These are those films:

12.12: The Day
80 for Brady
Air
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt 
All of Us Strangers
American Fiction
American Symphony
Anatomy of a Fall
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.
Asteroid City
Barbie
Beau is Afraid
Big George Foreman
Blue Beetle
The Boogeyman
Book Club: The Next Chapter
Bottoms
The Boy and the Heron
The Burial
Chevalier
Cocaine Bear
The Color Purple
Concrete Utopia
El Conde
The Creator
Dicks: The Musical
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Elemental
Evil Dead Rise
Fast X
Ferrari
Flamin' Hot
Flora and Son
Freud's Last Session
Frybread Face and Me
Full River Red
Give Me Pity!
Godland
Godzilla Minus One
Golda
Gran Turismo
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Guy Ritchie's The Covenant
Haunted Mansion
A Haunting in Venice
Heart of Stone
Hidden Blade
His Only Son
The Holdovers
How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Infinity Pool
Insidious: The Red Door
The Iron Claw
It's a Wonderful Knife
Jesus Revolution
Joe Haladin: The Case of the Missing Sister
Joy Ride
The Killer
Killers of the Flower Moon
Knights of the Zodiac
Knock at the Cabin
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Leo
The Little Mermaid
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Lord of Misrule
Love Again
M3GAN
Maestro
Magic Mike's Last Dance
Master Gardener
May December
Maybe I Do
Migration
The Miracle Club
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One
The Mother
Moving On
Napoleon
No Hard Feelings
Noryang: Deadly Sea
NYAD
Oppenheimer
Pain Hustlers
Passages
Past Lives
The Persian Version
The Pigeon Tunnel
Polite Society
Poor Things
The Pope's Exorcist
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire
Renfield
Rustin
Saltburn
Saw X
Scream VI
Showing Up
Silver Dollar Road
Skinamarink
Slotherhouse
Society of the Snow
Somewhere in Queens
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Tetris
Thanksgiving
Theater Camp
A Thousand and One
Where the Devil Roams
Wonka
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah
The Zone of Interest

A week from today, I will present my Top Ten of the Year; the next day, my nominees for the 2023 Hollmann Awards. And if you follow my Twitter, throughout the week, I'm posting the shortlists for each category, a trickle at a time.

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Wednesday, November 22, 2023

The 1998 Retro Hollmann Awards Winners!

It has been difficult to actually sit down and write my personal winners for 1998. Familiarity is, I think, partly to blame: many of the past retrospectives have been treasure troves of discoveries, whereas 1998 was a year I actually experienced, so there were a lot of rewatches this time around. Shouldn't that make me more ready to write about films I've loved and enjoyed for years? Well, I guess it should, but knowing much of my readership has already heard me wax on about many of these films in real life or on social media, there's a feeling of redundancy. 

Still, winners I promised, and winners I shall deliver. To reacquaint yourself with all the parties involved: my Top Ten of the Year, and the full list of nominees

Now, on with the show...

Sunday, November 5, 2023

My Top Ten of 1998

I watched 75 films, whittled that down to a list of 21 favorites, came to a final 13, and now - with apologies to the three almost-made-its, The Last Days of DiscoPleasantville, and Spice World - I present my Top Ten Films of 1998: