Okay, here we have the 6th Annual HCA Film Awards and the "HCA" stands for "Hollywood Critics Association", but I guess that the mention of Hollywood makes this a bit of a bigger event than the gigantic number of other critics' awards shows where basically every American federal state or biggest city in said federal state has its own critics group handing out awards each year. Actually, the ones in LA are among the most influential and the win there is more special than most others. Still, these ones here are not connected to the ones that carry Los Angeles in the name, even if some members are surely part of both associations. But now let us look at this event here and I will start with the worst aspects I guess: Honestly, this ceremony here was a disaster at times in terms of the execution. The lights were not really properly focused on the people standing on the stage the way they should have been. The microphones were also not always working the way they should and the lowest moment was perhaps when all of a sudden we hear the voice from the tape announcing the nominees in the documentary category when the one presenting the category just entered the stage. He still made a fairly decent joke about this chaos. Not sure what they were thinking there, the ones who were in charge of this ceremony. I mean this is all about the critics and these are (as the name states already) highly critical when evaluating new (and old) movies, so the one thing you would expect here at least is that the ceremony takes place without major technical issues. The opposite was the case then. On a positive note, it is a good thing that they showed the ceremony online and this is not a given for a critics ceremony by any means that you can watch the entire thing on Youtube as it is the case with this one here. But even there are issues because the first 45 minutes of the video are just a loading screen and do not include the ceremony yet. Very weak.
The actual ceremony then still runs for comfortably over two hours, two hours and fifteen minutes even, so it is not a short show by any means. The director is Daniel Weinreich and this is not the first edition of the HCA Film Awards that he has worked on and honestly, this does not make me curious about previous editions. Admittedly, the writer is probably as much to blame. That one would be Matthew Cole Weiss and according to imdb he has not worked on projects like this (or in general in the industry) for over a decade. Kinda telling. They are not doing themselves any favors this way. That much is true sadly. You can also see by the number in the title that what we have here is not exactly an awards show with a gigantic amount of tradition. Rather the opposite. Maybe if the quality stays the same as it was with this 2023 edition, then it would be better if they decide to discontinue. I mean I am a critic too and this is definitely on a level that I would not want to see represent myself. The host here was Tig Notaro. I am not really sure if she was just playing with the crowd or if she was really baffled that they did not give her a lot of applause and recognition. I am sure there would be a lot of discussion about this if it had happened at the Oscars, i.e. If people had actually seen the show. I would say that overall she was among the better aspects of the night, but not because she was good, let alone great, but rather because she was mediocre and almost everything else was poor. I saw Notaro in some pilot episode to a (I think short-lived) television series before and I find her routine and approach is pretty much always the same as she acts kinda lackluster on stage. She makes up a bit for this one-dimensional approach with her lines being solid and she is an okay writer, but also nobody where I am looking forward to when I hear that she will be on or hosting an event. So much for her.
The running gag of the night was basically the producer from the big American/Asian film that dominated the awards here. He accepted almost every single award the film won for those who actually won and these were surely really many awards. In the end, admittedly, he also finally got to accept an award for his own work as a producer in the biggest category of the evening. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" was the dominating movie that night. This was another disappointment in my book. I think it is an okay film at best, but I do not see the creativity that everybody is drooling over. On the contrary, the film seems too much all over the place at times. I still find it nice that Ke Huy Quan is getting so much recognition for his turn there and his win was the only one I can accept and surely it puts him again in the right track to winning the Oscar than after a surprising upset at the BAFTA Awards. His speech, however, did not appeal to me at all, perhaps because Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jenny Slate do not really seem likable to me. The "family" elaboration really seemed like something so generic that almost everybody would say about the film they worked on as long as they have success with it. Luckily, it is close to guaranteed now that Jamie Lee Curtis is not winning the Oscar for her portrayal in that movie then as she could not even win here. It seems to be between Bassett (also won here) and Condon, who both are much more deserving picks from my perspective. Bassett by the way also won something of a lifetime achievement award here and they gave out quite a few of these. Just look at Rian Johnson getting one too. Interesting how Joseph Gordon-Levitt was around to make the speech for Johnson. "Brick" is the obvious connection and I am curious if I dislike this film still as much as I did back then when I saw it the first (and only?) time so far.
What else? The lead actor win went to Brendan Fraser and I guess he is also still in the Oscar race here. He badly needs the SAG win though to close the gap to Butler. Otherwise he would be a huge underdog come Oscar night and definitely also still behind Farrell, who is also getting a boost by his film being the one that also scored nominations all across the board in other categories, but I am drifting a bit away now, so I will just go on with some brainstorming now for the rest of the review: Notaro's joke on her resemblance to Tom Cruise was okay initially, but did not work for as long as she wanted it to. She went pretty hard on critics too when she talked about them crushing other people's dreams, so maybe this was one reason why not everybody in the room liked her, but still she was getting solid applause here and there. Another big winner this night was "RRR" and this maybe made up a bit for the film coming shorter at the Oscars than most people thought it would. Only one Academy Award nomination for a song, but there it has a real shot. It also won the song category here with the critics by the way. And scored three more wins. Fairly impressive. Actually, only three movies won more than one award here and number three would be the animated movie about Marcel and I have not seen this one (yet?), but I watched the short film that it is based on and I cannot say anything positive there. I did not like it and it's good to see another film (by Guillermo del Toro) dominating the awards season otherwise. Just one more example where the critics here really messed up. Jenny Slate is also tough to take and her voicing the main character is not helping things at all for me when it comes to this movie. Aside from that, they had a few categories here that you will not find on many other awards shows, such as voice acting (Slate won) or stunt ensemble or indie film where Marcel also won in a battle of both not too good and overrated films over "Aftersun".
I stated earlier that it would maybe not be a bad idea if this ceremony gets discontinued. One reason there is also that hardly any of the winners were present. This is always poor for awards shows, but what can you do? And wait what, did Taylor Swift really win the short film category here? Okay, enough is enough now. Did they want to attract viewers this way? I don't even. So no matter where you look here, which perspective you take, there was an incredible lot wrong with the outcome of this awards night. Makes me embarrassed to be a critic. I mean I am not from Hollywood, but no critic (also aside from film) should be represented like this. The HCA gives critics a bad name honestly and the only somewhat positive thing I can say here, even if it sounds shallow probably, is that at least most of the females that were part of this show, not all, were kinda stunning, also some of the HCA members, but also others that were there because they are part of the film industry in a non-critic position. The biggest name who was there? Maybe Fraser. Dakota Johnson I am not sure if she was around, but she already looked nice in the short clip from her nominated film. I did not know she had an indie movie out this year that received really good criticisms. Looks as if she is taking on a solid career route after 50 Shades. The for me most despicable moment was maybe when we had a big Black presenter use an Irish accent or use a word that the Irish love to say, especially Condon in her film. I would not want to imagine what it would have been like the other way around, if an Irish actress would have started talking like Blacks do. Her career probably would have been over that night, but the way it actually happened nobody reported on that. Discrimination is okay if it comes from the right group of people I assume. This is really it then. I could maybe mention another half dozen examples of all that was wrong with this show from a few nights ago, but I shall leave it at that now. You get the message anyway and this event gets the lowest rating possible from my side. I highly recommend you to stay far, far away from this chaos. What a joke and not a good one.
The actual ceremony then still runs for comfortably over two hours, two hours and fifteen minutes even, so it is not a short show by any means. The director is Daniel Weinreich and this is not the first edition of the HCA Film Awards that he has worked on and honestly, this does not make me curious about previous editions. Admittedly, the writer is probably as much to blame. That one would be Matthew Cole Weiss and according to imdb he has not worked on projects like this (or in general in the industry) for over a decade. Kinda telling. They are not doing themselves any favors this way. That much is true sadly. You can also see by the number in the title that what we have here is not exactly an awards show with a gigantic amount of tradition. Rather the opposite. Maybe if the quality stays the same as it was with this 2023 edition, then it would be better if they decide to discontinue. I mean I am a critic too and this is definitely on a level that I would not want to see represent myself. The host here was Tig Notaro. I am not really sure if she was just playing with the crowd or if she was really baffled that they did not give her a lot of applause and recognition. I am sure there would be a lot of discussion about this if it had happened at the Oscars, i.e. If people had actually seen the show. I would say that overall she was among the better aspects of the night, but not because she was good, let alone great, but rather because she was mediocre and almost everything else was poor. I saw Notaro in some pilot episode to a (I think short-lived) television series before and I find her routine and approach is pretty much always the same as she acts kinda lackluster on stage. She makes up a bit for this one-dimensional approach with her lines being solid and she is an okay writer, but also nobody where I am looking forward to when I hear that she will be on or hosting an event. So much for her.
The running gag of the night was basically the producer from the big American/Asian film that dominated the awards here. He accepted almost every single award the film won for those who actually won and these were surely really many awards. In the end, admittedly, he also finally got to accept an award for his own work as a producer in the biggest category of the evening. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" was the dominating movie that night. This was another disappointment in my book. I think it is an okay film at best, but I do not see the creativity that everybody is drooling over. On the contrary, the film seems too much all over the place at times. I still find it nice that Ke Huy Quan is getting so much recognition for his turn there and his win was the only one I can accept and surely it puts him again in the right track to winning the Oscar than after a surprising upset at the BAFTA Awards. His speech, however, did not appeal to me at all, perhaps because Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jenny Slate do not really seem likable to me. The "family" elaboration really seemed like something so generic that almost everybody would say about the film they worked on as long as they have success with it. Luckily, it is close to guaranteed now that Jamie Lee Curtis is not winning the Oscar for her portrayal in that movie then as she could not even win here. It seems to be between Bassett (also won here) and Condon, who both are much more deserving picks from my perspective. Bassett by the way also won something of a lifetime achievement award here and they gave out quite a few of these. Just look at Rian Johnson getting one too. Interesting how Joseph Gordon-Levitt was around to make the speech for Johnson. "Brick" is the obvious connection and I am curious if I dislike this film still as much as I did back then when I saw it the first (and only?) time so far.
What else? The lead actor win went to Brendan Fraser and I guess he is also still in the Oscar race here. He badly needs the SAG win though to close the gap to Butler. Otherwise he would be a huge underdog come Oscar night and definitely also still behind Farrell, who is also getting a boost by his film being the one that also scored nominations all across the board in other categories, but I am drifting a bit away now, so I will just go on with some brainstorming now for the rest of the review: Notaro's joke on her resemblance to Tom Cruise was okay initially, but did not work for as long as she wanted it to. She went pretty hard on critics too when she talked about them crushing other people's dreams, so maybe this was one reason why not everybody in the room liked her, but still she was getting solid applause here and there. Another big winner this night was "RRR" and this maybe made up a bit for the film coming shorter at the Oscars than most people thought it would. Only one Academy Award nomination for a song, but there it has a real shot. It also won the song category here with the critics by the way. And scored three more wins. Fairly impressive. Actually, only three movies won more than one award here and number three would be the animated movie about Marcel and I have not seen this one (yet?), but I watched the short film that it is based on and I cannot say anything positive there. I did not like it and it's good to see another film (by Guillermo del Toro) dominating the awards season otherwise. Just one more example where the critics here really messed up. Jenny Slate is also tough to take and her voicing the main character is not helping things at all for me when it comes to this movie. Aside from that, they had a few categories here that you will not find on many other awards shows, such as voice acting (Slate won) or stunt ensemble or indie film where Marcel also won in a battle of both not too good and overrated films over "Aftersun".
I stated earlier that it would maybe not be a bad idea if this ceremony gets discontinued. One reason there is also that hardly any of the winners were present. This is always poor for awards shows, but what can you do? And wait what, did Taylor Swift really win the short film category here? Okay, enough is enough now. Did they want to attract viewers this way? I don't even. So no matter where you look here, which perspective you take, there was an incredible lot wrong with the outcome of this awards night. Makes me embarrassed to be a critic. I mean I am not from Hollywood, but no critic (also aside from film) should be represented like this. The HCA gives critics a bad name honestly and the only somewhat positive thing I can say here, even if it sounds shallow probably, is that at least most of the females that were part of this show, not all, were kinda stunning, also some of the HCA members, but also others that were there because they are part of the film industry in a non-critic position. The biggest name who was there? Maybe Fraser. Dakota Johnson I am not sure if she was around, but she already looked nice in the short clip from her nominated film. I did not know she had an indie movie out this year that received really good criticisms. Looks as if she is taking on a solid career route after 50 Shades. The for me most despicable moment was maybe when we had a big Black presenter use an Irish accent or use a word that the Irish love to say, especially Condon in her film. I would not want to imagine what it would have been like the other way around, if an Irish actress would have started talking like Blacks do. Her career probably would have been over that night, but the way it actually happened nobody reported on that. Discrimination is okay if it comes from the right group of people I assume. This is really it then. I could maybe mention another half dozen examples of all that was wrong with this show from a few nights ago, but I shall leave it at that now. You get the message anyway and this event gets the lowest rating possible from my side. I highly recommend you to stay far, far away from this chaos. What a joke and not a good one.