Muriel Award: Best Web-Based Criticism

This one, in my opinion, has been a long time coming, and well-deserved. Without further ado:

Third place:



Slant Magazine [52 points / 8 votes]

Second place:



The Man Who Viewed Too Much (Mike D'Angelo) [54/9]

And your winner....






The AV Club [87/12]

"One of the perils of being an institution is that it’s all too easy for people to underestimate you. Ever since its founding back in the nineties, the A.V. Club has applied parent company The Onion’s trademark irreverence and applied it to their coverage of popular culture. But delve beneath the clever and snarky tone and you’ll find some of the Web’s most consistently solid criticism.

Of course, one must begin with the weekly reviews, which more often than not achieve the optimal balance between insight and conciseness that is the hallmark of A.V. Club editor Keith Phipps, who maintains an assured editorial hand without sacrificing the unique voices of his half-dozen regular film writers. But most of the real treasures can be found in their longer features, which manfully grapple with films new and old, good and bad, immortal and forgotten, whether deservedly or undeservedly so. Nathan Rabin’s bi-weekly column My Year of Flops is the best-known of the lot, developing a substantial following even before Rabin parlayed its popularity into a print edition. But no less vital is film editor Scott Tobias’ regular feature The New Cult Canon, in which Tobias takes his cue from Danny Peary’s Cult Movies book series from the 1980s and explores films that have more recently developed a cult- or deserve to. Both Rabin and Tobias have even taken their acts on the road, introducing screening of select flops and cult movies in cities all over America, including Scott’s memorable presentation of Miami Blues here in Columbus.

Then there are the interviews, which for my money are some of the best on the Web. The online format allows the A.V. Club a certain loosey-goosey rambunctiousness in their interviews, and this allows interviewees to open up in a way they wouldn’t in more old-school venues. Where else could you find Danny Trejo discuss in detail how he dressed down a fellow extra for disrespecting an elderly actor on one of his first acting jobs, or Bronson Pinchot- yes, Balki from "Perfect Strangers"- skirt the edge of libel by discussing the aggressive homophobia of the young Tom Cruise? It’s this relaxed vibe that pervades all of the film writing at the Onion, and what makes it so compulsively readable is the way the writers couple that vibe with some serious cinephile chops, which allows them to discuss even the artiest works without it feeling like an egghead lecture. Oh, and the A.V. Club gave me my first exposure to Dogtooth, which turned out to be my favorite film of 2010. If nothing else, they’ve got my eternal respect for that. Good job buds." - Paul Clark

See the full results.