For the next three days, I present my winners for the 2025 Hollmann Awards, finally putting a button on last year.
Beginning with:
Best Original Song
5. Sinners - "Pale, Pale Moon"
music and lyrics by Brittany Howard and Ludwig Göransson
4. Highest 2 Lowest - "Highest 2 Lowest"
music and lyrics by Aiyana-Lee Anderson and Daciana-Nicole Anderson
3. KPop Demon Hunters - "Golden"
music and lyrics by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick
2. Freakier Friday - "Baby"
music and lyrics by Sarah Aarons
1. Highest 2 Lowest - "Trunks"
music and lyrics by Rakim "A$AP Rocky" Myers
Best Actor, Best Director, and more, after the jump...
Best Actor
Wagner Moura as Armando Solimões, alias Marcelo Alves / Fernando Solimões
The Secret Agent
2. Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme; 3. Hugh Jackman in Song Sung Blue; 4. Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon; 5. Denzel Washington in Highest 2 Lowest
My year went from wanting Washington to win to being unable to choose between him and Hawke to thinking Chalamet really did give the performance of the year to finally seeing The Secret Agent and being bowled over, knocked out by Wagner Moura - I then saw Song Sung Blue and knew Jackman would fill out my personal ballot, but Moura was, is, undeniable (apologies to Sinners' Michael B. Jordan and Resurrection's Jackson Yee for not finding room for y'all). Each of these men plays a variation of self-confidence bordering on self-sabotage. With Moura, I was struck by how his coiled rage ("I would kill him with a hammer") and grief inform almost every aspect of his performance, even (especially?) the tender moments with his son, even within the levity and camaraderie among Dona Sebastiana's household. Even in those flashbacks with the villain Ghirotti, there's controlled anger in his blunt dismissiveness, his refusal to "play ball." But a man can only be pushed so far... His last scene is such a contrast, the gentility of a new generation...with minimal makeup and subtle performance, a transformation!
Best Director
Mona Fastvold
The Testament of Ann Lee
2. Kleber Mendonça Filho for The Secret Agent; 3. Nia Dacosta for Hedda; 4. Ryan Coogler for Sinners; 5. Sarah Friedland for Familiar Touch
Fastvold gives epic scope to one life, committing to this unusual musical pageant conceit with more confidence and trust than probably any movie musical filmmaker in the last 19 years. She knows when it's time to get close and intimate, as with the prison soliloquy that is "Hunger and Thirst", and she knows when it is time to see full bodies coming together, not in chaos, but in a wild sort of harmony - dance that echoes how wild yet in sync nature itself is. She balances a tone that manages to be reverent, ecstatic, skeptical, triumphant, curious (especially the "Beautiful Treasures" finale). She finds those moments of humor (Mary's narration, sometimes, can be quite amusing in her descriptions of others) and those scenes of horror (the climactic Shattuck raid). There are new ideas to explore with each scene, each line, full of ideas but never in danger of getting from her. Fastvold is in control. She has mounted the Great American Religious Epic.
Best Editing
The Testament of Ann Lee
Sofía Subercaseaux
2. The Secret Agent; 3. Familiar Touch; 4. Eephus; 5. Blue Moon
Two sequences come to mind. One is the entirety of the shipboard drama: the Shakers crossing the Atlantic on a rough ship, coming into conflict with the crew over their incessant worship (and condescending prayers for the sailors' own deliverance from ignorance), winning them over with their pluck, Shaking through rain, snow, and sunshine on the decks, all while a forbidden romance begins to spark between two congregants. The passage of time, the building of tension, Ann Lee's growing strength as a leader, all laid out perfectly. The other is the first "Beautiful Treasures" sequence, a scene I come back to often: the cuts between Ann Lee attempting to shake with fellow worshippers but isolated, and the harrowing loss of her children through disease and stillbirth: it's handled well, every new trauma setting off a violent spasm of "dance", culminating in a quiet, melancholy self-committal.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Of all the categories thus far, this was the one I had most trouble deciding. What Caught Stealing does to Austin Butler's body, how The Testament of Ann Lee ages and mangles its ensemble, the new variations of infected in 28 Years Later, are all worthy of celebration. But the character work in Frankenstein - Jacob Elordi's monster, Oscar Isaac's increasing shagginess (with bonus frost!), Christoph Waltz's sickly scalp, Mia Goth's dual roles - and in Resurrection - Jackson Yee's Orlok-esque Deliriant, his pretty noir twink, his mopheaded monk, his scruffy conman, his bleached-blond punk, Li Gengxi's fangs - had me split. Do I award operatic risks or subtle hair and makeup work? Here I go, the winner is:
Frankenstein
Jordan Samuel, makeup department head
Mike Hill, prosthetic makeup effects head
Steve Newburn, prosthetics effects supervisor
Megan Many, prosthetics supervisor & key prosthetics makeup artist
Cliona Furey, hair designer
2. Resurrection; 3. Caught Stealing; 4. 28 Years Later; 5. The Testament of Ann Lee
Best Visual Effects
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Joe Letteri / senior visual effects supervisor
Richard Baneham, visual effects supervisor
Eric Saindon / Daniel Barrett, Wētā senior supervisors
2. Resurrection; 3. TRON: Ares; 4. Superman; 5. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
Much love to the other nominees, but I just can't imagine anything ever topping the immersiveness of these movies. What they do not just with environments but with the performances (digital makeup!) and even wardrobe and props, impresses me anew with each entry. You can't tell me Payakan isn't real!
Tomorrow, the winners for Best Supporting Actress, the Screenplay categories, and more!
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