My Winners: The 2025 Hollmann Awards, Part Three

Our third and final day of the 2025 Hollmann Awards. You've seen the Longlists, the Top Ten, the Nominees, and Parts One and Two of the winners - now, let's wrap this year up!

Best Cinematography

5. 28 Years Later

Anthony Dod Mantle

4. The Testament of Ann Lee

William Rexer

3. Realm of Satan

Gerald Kerkletz

2. Resurrection

Jingsong Dong

1. Grand Tour

Gui Liang / Sayombhu Mukdeeprom / Rui Poças

The final awards after the jump...

Loving "Love", Liking "Letters"

I AM LOVE

The week before I saw I Am Love, I wrote an essay for one of my lit classes linking the Erotic with Nature, noting the "mutual conversation" between the bees and the flowers in Their Eyes Were Watching God as the purest form of sexuality. Lo and behold, here comes I Am Love with a sex scene shot in closeups, intercut with, you guessed it, bees and bugs among the flowers, the leaves blowing in the wind, nature and sex together to create a perfect harmony, a pure eroticism. Contrast this pure outdoor tryst between Tilda Swinton and Edoardo Gabbriellini with the scenes of her at home, in her perfect dresses, everything perfectly arranged, the servants arranging the dish- and silverware carefully, all of it perfectly structured and sterile. We see Swinton and her husband together only once, in bed, barely touching, with their bed sheets still somehow perfectly smooth.

Taken altogether, this is a beautiful film about Swinton's character's liberation, yet we are never told that she needs this liberation. It's in the costumes, the Production Design, the cinematography, the performances. Vocalizing it is unnecessary. Instead, let us watch the family dynamics at play, the conflict between Traditional and Modern, the Oedipal undertones, the experience of sexual liberation for mother and daughter. And the food! Oh my God, this is Food Porn for anyone interested in such things! The prawns, the creme brulee, the Russian soup favored by Flavio Parenti's character! Everything looks so sinfully delicious, almost life-affirming! You can't blame Swinton's matriarch for having an affair with Gabbriellini's chef. So what if he's her son's friend? Passion knows no boundaries.

Look at that composition. Maid and mistress.

The attention to detail is just as evident in the characterizations by director Luca Guadagnino and his ensemble. There's Swinton's epiphany, of course, and Gabbriellini's earthy sexuality, and Parenti's naivete. But we also have the youthful independence of Alba Rohrwacher's daughter, the subtle snobbery and watchfulness of Marisa Berenson's grandmother, the bluntness and benevolence of Gabriele Ferzetti's grandfather, the loyalty and ruthlessness of Pippo Delbono's patriarch. Most especially, there's Maria Paiato's Eva, head housekeeper and the closest thing Swinton has to a friend. Like Viola Davis in Far from Heaven and Frances E. Williams in The Reckless Moment, Paiato crafts a loyal and intelligent woman who becomes a confidante, not through confession, but through observation. There is a beautiful moment where Parenti comes home in tears, but cannot find Swinton; instead, he breaks down in Paiato's arms, and the look on her face...well, I'll have more to say about Paiato later.

Everything comes to a head with a grand finale set to music by minimalist composer John Adams. Indeed, the film's entire score is made from John Adams music, but the music in the finale brings everything to an uplifting, arousing finish. Only one other film can equal I Am Love in its instrumental finale, but that's for another day. The point is, the way in which Guadagnino brings all the elements together in one final, pulse-pounding sequence only confirms what one already suspects: I Am Love is a symphony, an opera, a masterwork. No joke, no exaggeration, I've had about a month to think it over and everything. I Am Love has It.


LETTERS TO JULIET

Surprisingly well-done! Amanda Seyfried is an American vacationing in Italy with her inattentive fiance (Gael Garcia Bernal). While there, she helps an elderly Englishwoman (Vanessa Redgrave) find the love of her life from 50 years ago, much to the consternation of her uppity grandson (Christopher Egan). Redgrave is magnetic as always, still beautiful, her eyes alternately registering eagerness and uncertainty. Seyfried is fine, though she sometimes overplays the Ignored Fiancee bit, so that you just want to walk up to her and say, "Hey. You're in an Italian vineyard. Stop. Sulking." How Bernal's character misses the pouts and crossed arms probably informs why he's not right for her, though he's not a bad guy. Like Burlesque, the movie actually lets you root for one guy without hating the other! Seyfried and Egan also kind of overplay the initial frustrations with each other -- their rudeness is less Meet Cute and more Awkward Family Dinner That Everyone Tries to Avoid. Ooh, but when the sparks fly between them, it's adorable! An enjoyable little film.

Chloe Sucks, Avoid It

I haven't written a proper review of Chloe because it's too goddamn boring and middle-of-the-road to do so. Hot sex scenes, fine Julianne Moore performance, Liam Neeson's eyes express everything. There you go. That's all you're getting. I saw it months ago, but time is not the issue here. It's desperately dull, darlings, desperately dull.

Can You See Jennifer's Body Hanging Over Me?

So...Jennifer's Body is actually really, really great.

It took me long enough to see it, I know, but there were several factors involved. Some friends of mine needed to be available first. It had to be a night where I had free time. And it had to be in October, because Halloween and all that.

Maybe that's why it performed so dismally at the box office. Horror movies without established cult followings should just stick with October. Hell, it was hard enough for a horror movie with an established following to make it in August -- though that was probably because it was a sequel to a shitty movie. Why studios decide to release horror films in September and November releases is just perplexing. This is why crap like the Saw franchise does so well -- it's the only horror movie out at the proper time. Also, people like me go to see it.

Jennifer's Body should have been an early or mid-October release. Hell, maybe even a Halloween one. Because it deserves an audience.

The film follows Needy (Amanda Seyfried), a nerdy high schooler whose best friend is resident babe Jennifer (Megan Fox). Things go awry after an up-and-coming indie band, a fire, and a waning moon all come together one fateful night -- and Jennifer soon starts cannibalizing local boys. Like, hardcore. I'm talking disembowelment, blood-slurping, guts-everywhere cannibalizing. And always with their pants down.

And in the midst of all the carnage, we get a pretty smart screenplay penned by Oscar Winner (and Hollmann Award Nominee) Diablo Cody. Yeah, there are occasional lines that take one back to the "Honest to Blog" days of Juno, but for some reason, they come out more believably here than in that better-received film. I think it's because most of these lines come from Jennifer, making me think that perhaps the problem with the dialogue in Juno was that the characters were too smart, not shallow enough, to make bizarre pop cultural references disguised as smart snark. Whereas with a superficial beauty queen like Jennifer, we can see how these phrases sound smart and sassy in her head, and when delivered with confidence, actually come out effectively.

Boy, I hope that last paragraph was clear. I'm trying to convey two things. First, Cody's screenplay is intelligent, well-crafted, and shows a growing maturity in her writing. Second, Megan Fox pulls off Diablo dialogue so naturally that I was almost convinced that she was a pretty good actress. I'm not a fan of hers traditionally, but damn if she didn't nail most of her scenes here. And some people are going to say, "Well, yeah, she was playing a hot bitch, not much of a stretch," to which I would say, "Neither is George Clooney playing a suave Cary Grant-type, and he has an Oscar." God forgive me, I'm going to side with the Fox Fans on this one.

I mean, she's no Amanda Seyfried or anything. That girl just amazes me each time I see her. She dons glasses and bad hair this time around, movie-speak for smart and plain. It's in her body language and line delivery, though, that we see the quiet, protective Needy. Not to be confused with the insecure, needy Needy, because she comes off as more confident and assured than her name suggests. Sure, she changes her plans to hang with Jennifer, but she is her best friend, and most of us are susceptible to BFF pleading. Seyfried, Cody and director Karyn Kusama craft a far more complicated character than we traditionally see in high school horror films, one that is refreshingly intelligent, kick-ass, and protective -- and not in the "movie-speak" way, but in a believable, three-dimensional way.

One of the more daring aspects of this film is its treatment of the quasi-sexual friendship between hormonal teenagers that is so familiar to the high school scene. I know a lot of girls who "experimented" in high school, and perhaps one of the cleverest aspects of Jennifer's Body is its exploration of these feelings. We see it start in a flashback of Needy and Jennifer as children, when even then, Jennifer is the dominant female, with Needy ready to please her. I mean, with that, it's just the dressing of a wound, but when they're teenagers, there are weird feelings and moments, and...

OK, yes, there is a same-sex snog between the lead actresses that is intense and sexy. But more than that, there is a scene where they're at a concert, and Jennifer holds Needy's hand. And the look on Needy's face when she turns to Jennifer is just so full of love, and not entirely friendshippy love. Then when she realizes Jennifer's just reacting to the hotness of the lead singer (a deliciously funny Adam Brody), the disappointment on Needy's face -- this is one of those great moments, those scenes that keep people coming back to a movie time and time again.

There is so much going on. The fad of public grieving could not have come at a better time than the year Michael Jackson died. The fine line between frendsies and backstabbers is neatly and realistically illustrated. To top it all off, there's an original song that's actually pretty good, called "Through the Trees". Yeah, I already have the soundtrack. Because it rocks.

I know this movie won't work for everyone, but it was magic for me. Give it a shot; you may be surprised.