The 2018 Hollmann Awards: Part Two

The rest of the 2018 Hollmann Awards! For full context, make sure to take a look at my Top Ten, the nominees, and the first half of the awards.

Best Adapted Screenplay

 Disobedience

Sebastián Lelio & Rebecca Lenkiewicz

adapted from the novel by Naomi Alderman

2. Little Forest; 3. Can You Ever Forgive Me?; 4. First Man; 5. The Wife

You hear the pitch about lesbians in an Orthodox Jewish community and you know - you just know - this is going to be a preaching-to-the-choir critique against religion's stamping out of individuality! And certainly that's true...for one character. For another character, religion and faith offers clarity, security, a community - going against its tenets goes against all of that. For still another, the two sides are difficult to reconcile, but she tries. Open to everything, understanding - and breathtakingly accurate in its lustful abandon.

In second, Little Forest's instructive, romantic journey across the past and present. In third, Can You Ever Forgive Me?'s empathy and sardonic humor. In fourth, First Man's elegy. In fifth, The Wife's gradual unraveling.

After the jump: Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Song, Best Picture, and more....

The 2018 Hollmann Awards: Part One

The first group of awards for the 2018 Hollmann Awards!

Best Original Screenplay

A Bread Factory

Patrick Wang 

2. First Reformed; 3. Tully; 4. Shoplifters; 5. The Spy Gone North

As funny in Part One's depiction of Janeane Garofalo's visiting director as it is poignant in Part Two's "love-long-lost" monologue delivered by Brian Murray, brilliant in its combination of the two in Part One's climactic council hearings and Part Two's final conversation between Tyne Daly and Elisabeth Henry. Wang has created a fully-realized community populated by a large ensemble of very specific characters - it feels real.

In second, First Reformed's balance of anguish and dark comedy. In third, Tully's
In fourth, Shoplifters' humor in the face of poverty. In fifth, The Spy Gone North's political machinations and genuine love of country.

Eight more, including my picks for Best Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Actress, after the jump...

The 2018 Hollmann Award Nominees

A terrific year for films, 2018 was. Not since 2011 have I had such a spread: 35 films in 18 categories! And it was tough to narrow down - all the way up to midnight last night, I still had six to eight finalists in several categories...

But here they are! The nominees for the 13th Annual Hollmann Awards:

Best Supporting Actress

Sakura Andô as Nobuyo Shibata
Shoplifters


Ingrid Caven as Miss Vendegast

Suspiria 

Sissy Spacek as Jewel
The Old Man & the Gun

Angela Winkler as Miss Tanner

Suspiria

Michelle Yeoh as Eleanor Young

Crazy Rich Asians

The remaining 17 categories after the jump....

Top Ten of 2018

With apologies to All is True, Bad Times at the El Royale, Black Panther, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, Good Manners, The Hate U Give, Hereditary, Leave No Trace, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Mary Poppins Returns, The Old Man & the Gun, The Other Side of the Wind, Paddington 2, Shirkers, Shoplifters, A Simple Favor, Swing Kids, and Zama, may I present....

My Top Ten of 2018....after the jump.

Lucky 13

A great many films to discuss....

Halloween

dir: David Gordon Green

scr: David Gordon Green & Danny McBride & Jeff Fradley

adapted from: characters created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill

seen: Cinerama Dome at ArcLight Hollywood

This Halloween fan was satisfied. In ignoring all but the first film in the series, the filmmakers both explore the trauma of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, both gutting and bad-ass), and how that trauma is dismissed, re-interpreted, or forgotten by the world's mythologizing of a serial killer and his crimes. As a fan of true crime podcasts and docs, it hit close to home.

Venom, First Man, A Star is Born, and more - after the jump...

Yes, Now: Early Oscar Predictions

Over at The Film Experience, Nathaniel Rogers has begun his annual April Foolish Oscar predictions, which means the race can finally begin again! Here's what I think may be nominated next February at the 91st Academy Awards, keeping in mind that none of these films have screened, no one knows anything, and I am spotty with my advance predictions.

Previous editions: 2017, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010

Best Picture

Backseat

If Beale Street Could Talk

First Man

Mary Poppins Returns

On the Basis of Sex

These first five are my "most likely". I know, I know: three biopics? In a post-Shape of Water world? What is this, 2005? But hear me out.

Adam McKay returns with his first film since The Big Short, finding political filmmaking to his liking with the Dick Cheney biopic Backseat. If it doesn't leave too bad a taste in people's mouths - it could go either way between "Boy, we thought we had it bad then" and "And that's why we're in this mess now" - this could be the frontrunner.

I also have the creative teams behind Moonlight and La La Land facing off once again with, respectively, If Beale Street Could Talk (an adaptation of a novel by James Baldwin) and First Man (an adaptation of a biography of Neal Armstrong). And let me say this,: if Backseat isn't the frontrunner, expect First Man to step in, as both a look back at a time you could be proud to be an American and an apology for La La Land not actually winning.

It'd be crazy not to have a woman-led film in the conversation, so expect Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On the Basis of Sex to hit big. And for my fifth slot, after some hemming and hawing, I went with another woman-led film...blockbuster crowdpleaser Mary Poppins Returns. Because right now, anything is possible!

As for the rest of the lineup, here's what I expect, in order of likelihood: