2014 Muriel Awards Postmortem

"Well... that certainly was visual."

After two-plus weeks of awards leading to today's marathon Best Picture countdown, the Muriels have finally wrapped up for another year. As always, I'd like to thank all of our readers and followers, and particularly this year's voters:

Jason Alley
Danny Baldwin
Josh Bell
Andrew Bemis
Christianne Benedict
Scott Black
Danny Bowes
Sean Burns
Donald G. Carder
Kevin Cecil
Paul Clark
Dennis Cozzalio
Andrew Dignan
Kevin Dufresne
Philip Dyess-Nugent
Jim Emerson
Alex Engquist
James Frazier
Kenji Fujishima
Daniel Getahun
Luke Gorham
Jaime Grijalba
Russell Hainline
Glenn Heath Jr.
Darren Hughes
Daniel C. Johnson
Sam Juliano
Peter Labuza
Adam Lemke
Michael Lieberman
Craig Lindsey
Matt Lynch
Sam C. Mac
Jeff McMahon
Patrick Miller
Matt Noller
Mark Pfeiffer
Cole Roulain
Jason Shawhan
Melissa Starker
Catherine Stebbins
Andreas Stoehr
Vern
Scott von Doviak
Clayton Walter
Patrick Williamson
Bryce Wilson
George Wu

Of course, there's plenty still to be done. I'll be working on the Web site over the next month or two so that everyone can view the ballots (I'll work on 2013 as well, I promise). Then after that there's the Hall of Fame elections this summer, and the ongoing search for new voters for next year. If anybody knows of any good candidates to join us (particularly female ones) feel free to let me know.

But that's all in the future. For now, I'm fried, and I'm going to go crash. See you soon!

And the 2014 Golden Muriel Award for Best Picture goes to...

"The neck and neck Oscar contenders for Best Picture, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman and Richard Linklater’s Boyhood have both been heavily criticized for gimmickry - Birdman for its long, uninterrupted takes and Boyhood for being shot over the course of 12 years – but the criticism is extremely reductive to these very vital films. Both have individually driven techniques, not gimmicks, to how they approach storytelling, and both are crammed with visionary gusto. But while I was happy that Birdman took home the gold Oscar night, it’s Boyhood that will always resonate with me deeper, the way art that imitates (and nails) life, for me will always win over surrealism.

"Linklater’s premise of capturing the span of childhood to young adulthood, via filming a young actor (Ellar Coltrane) and his co-stars a little bit each year from 2002-2014 works wonderfully largely because it feels like you’re watching real life naturally unfold, albeit in scattered, sketchy fragments at times.

"It’s principally the journey of Coltrane’s Mason, but we got a lot of glimpses of what’s happening in the lives of his family members on the side – his mother (Patricia Arquette, who deservedly won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award), his flighty father (Ethan Hawke), and his sister (Lorelei Linklater, the director’s daughter).

"No titles tell us what year it is, or what age our protagonist is, but every scene has clues whether in the technology of the times, what Harry Potter book is being released, or whose names adorn campaign signs. We get so caught up in the flow, that suddenly we notice everybody is aging, and what would be throwaway, mundane moments in other films are elevated to great meaning. An original title for the film was 'Always Now,' which is telling in what the film’s ultimate theme in its treatise on time is: the ongoing desire to live as completely in the moment as possible.

"The website Screen Junkies echoed a lot of the film’s detractors with its installment of the Honest Trailers web series devoted to Boyhood, which stated: 'It’s a beautiful film, but honestly, if you took the same script and shot it over a few months it would suck.'

"This asinine argument irritates me greatly. The screenplay and the film, despite having acknowledged planned arcs, were developed year by year for well over a decade with the actors contributions to their roles affecting what was written and shot – an ongoing process that the result of which could never have been written and executed in the course of one year. And the film about which that the Screen Junkies speculate, shot over a few months, with what I presume would be different actors playing characters at different ages would indeed suck as it wouldn’t at all be a convincing approximation of real life.

"That’s the very point of what makes Boyhood so special, and why the ‘but if they had done it this other way, it wouldn’t be so great' stance is so stupid. On the other hand, the Honest Trailers’ line about Arquette’s character, set to the tune of what could be considered the film’s theme song, Family of the Year’s 'Hero': 'And there she goes, dating a string of drunk a-holes, should’ve saved a lot of trouble, by choosing her ex - he wasn’t that bad,' is pretty funny and actually accurate.

"Boyhood is, of course, Linklater’s most ambitious piece of work, but it wouldn’t have the emotional effect it has without the sincerity and heart given to its subjects on display. In the writer/director’s first film Slacker, he pieced together a single day in Austin, Texas through the scrambled random yet connected narratives of over a dozen different characters, in the Before series, he’s taking us through the ongoing relationship of a couple of star-crossed lovers who we catch up with every nine years, but with Boyhood, he makes his most profound statement yet. And it’s a simple one too – that everybody, young and old, is just winging it through time." ~ Daniel Cook Johnson

"The versatility and talent of Richard Linklater never ceases to amaze me. I’m sure that no one reading this needs to be reminded of his filmography, but I am continually astonished that the same filmmaker directed Slacker, Dazed and Confused, suburbia, the Before… trilogy, Tape, Waking Life, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, and Bernie (not to mention several others). There is an astounding amount of difference among those films, from filmmaking styles to genres to overall tones. Some through-lines do emerge, though.

"With a few exceptions, Linklater’s films tend to be about searching, inquisitive people trying to make sense out of the many mysteries of existence, and more than anything they like to talk about it. The aimless wanderers of Slacker, the philosophical stoners of Dazed, the angry dead-end teens of suburbia (when is that movie getting a DVD release, anyway?), Jesse and Celine from the Before… trilogy, Wiley Wiggins’s otherworldly companions from Waking Life, etc… they talk and talk, in dialogue that sounds both musically precise and loosely off-the-cuff, about everything under the sun (and beyond it), usually not professing to have all the answers but just wanting to ask questions and make one another think, in the process encouraging the audience to think as well.

"Obviously, one of Linklater’s most intense fascinations is with the passage of time, and how it changes and shapes us as human beings. I had thought that the two-decade-spanning Before… trilogy, and its ingenious exploration of how time affects a love affair, was probably his definitive statement on the subject, but then came Boyhood. To say that Boyhood is a great film is actually selling it short. It’s the rare movie that is actually, really not like any other ever made. I would argue that it re-shapes the medium of narrative film altogether, all the while never seeming even the slightest bit pompous or pretentious. It was simply a great idea, executed wonderfully, and no one else ever did it before.

"No, style and technological ingenuity alone would not be reason enough to proclaim it my favorite film of 2014. Boyhood, though, has it all. The performances are uniformly excellent, including Ellar Coltrane as Mason, who, especially in his earlier years, had a thrillingly genuine and unaffected screen presence. He was passed over for awards nominations and most critics’ praise in favor of established stars Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke (who are both outstanding), but the truth is that he’s just as good in perhaps the most demanding role of all. Additionally, Lorelai Linklater is a delight as the wry, sarcastic older sister (the awkward 'sex talk' scene in the bowling alley is one of my many favorite, stand-out moments). The screenplay is great (even aside from the monumental audaciousness of its central idea), and it’s got real, honest-to-goodness heart.

"What stands out to me the most, though, and gives the film its cumulative impact, are the most understated moments. When we notice that a character’s priorities have changed from when we knew them earlier. When we notice that the actors are physically changed by time, watching wrinkles appear and fashions change. The recognition that someone is gradually fundamentally changing who they once were ('You’re not turning into one of those ‘God people,’ are you Dad?') It begins to remind us of our own lives, and how no one is unchanged by time, not the people we know and certainly not ourselves (despite how much we might like to think so sometimes).

"It may not be 100% 'flawless,' (it has a few perhaps-unavoidable rough edges, all of which only serve to make the entire project that much more fascinating to me) but for a filmmaker and a cast to undertake the difficulties inherent in an idea this bold, adventurous, original, and difficult, and for it to wind up not just coherent but great, that’s real art. And in my book, it’s far and away the best film of 2014." ~ Jason Alley

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2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #2

Note: this piece is edited from a version originally posted at Cinema Enthusiast on May 2, 2014. Used by permission of the author.

"The covert and beguiling Under the Skin rattled me to my core. The film is, first and foremost, image-centric storytelling, with roots in experimental cinema, that distances itself from mankind. Birth to death, human as alien, alien as human. Firmly divided into two parts, routine and the failing quest for basic human pleasures, with the key transitional scene being the Laura’s (nobody has any names, including Laura, but she’s billed as such so it’s just easier for me to follow suit) (Scarlett Johansson) encounter with a man with neurofibromatosis. Before that, she goes about her business, luring and leading men into an abstract and oily black digestive space. There’s no connection between her and her body, her victims, or feelings. But gradually the loneliness starts to sink in, and with it the isolation that humans may experience. She begins to seek out basic human pleasures like eating, sex, and companionship, inquisitive and nervous like a child. She knows she needs something, but is unsure how to go about it.

"When Under the Skin ended, I felt like I’d been scooped out from the inside. It’s one of the saddest and loneliest films I’ve ever seen. Scarlett Johansson is mainly a presence for the first half, removed and captivating. And then in the second half she is heartbreaking; confused, yearning and unfulfilled. The final minutes, in which she is pursued by a man in the musky never-ending forest, is so palpable; you can feel her fear. Predator to prey. The second she desires the human instinct she loses so much agency. She becomes vulnerable and susceptible, her lair further and further away, unable to reconcile that yearning. We sense the irreparable loss of that center, her time dwindling. My boyfriend found something peaceful about the one-with-the-snow ending, but I didn’t. I just can’t; it’s not in my nature.

"The formalism contributes to a new withdrawn perspective of ourselves, as something Other and incomprehensible. The thick Scottish accents further that distance, as does Mica Levi’s slinky and exotic high-pitched string score, and the sound design where much is compressed and blanketed over. Take for instance, as an example of said withdrawn perspective, the way Glazer shoots the scene on the beach, in which attempted rescue causes a chain reaction of familial death, a wailing abandoned baby as sole survivor. Laura, and thus we, take all of it in at once and for what it is (death) with unfeeling coldness. The discrepancy between what is happening, and how we see it, is very disturbing. And then Laura murders a man with a rock, and it’s the opposite of how murder is usually depicted in film. There is no close-up, no sound effect, and no clear view because Laura is crouching with her back to us. The impact of the scene is that there is no impact, and that lack of impact in turn translates to its own unique impact for the audience.

"The film does not pass judgment on Laura. As she observes us, we observe her, and ourselves through her. Another layer to this is gradually added when Laura begins to observe herself, in a successive set of mirror scenes as she considers her new form. This observation becomes out-of-body in the end. No mirror is needed in her last moments.

"Generally, I think more filmmakers and producers need to put their trust in the communicative power of the image (and in viewers), especially since it’s what the medium inherently is to begin with. Under the Skin hypnotically uses impressionistic imagery and Scarlett Johansson’s face as narrative (there is very little dialogue overall) for a final product about existential isolation and irreconcilable cognizance that I still haven’t been able to shake." ~ Catherine Stebbins

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #3

"Inherent Vice was pretty close to my favorite movie last year, but this is the first time I've tried to write about it. I walked out knowing it was so dense I'd regret trying to decode it without a second viewing. But the feeling of it stuck with me. It's hazy and meandering, unfolding mostly like a normal private detective mystery, but introducing so many characters and motivations that I eventually had to concede that I'd lost track of what the hell was going on. Fortunately that didn't seem to matter that much. 'What the hell is going on' might be beside the point.

"Our hippie P.I. protagonist Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) has an almost Looney Tunes­-esque rivalry with the closeted macho police detective Bigfoot Bjornsen (man­out­of­time Josh Brolin), but I'm not sure which one is Bugs Bunny and which is Elmer Fudd. Bigfoot harasses Doc not only by making weird phone calls, taking him in for questioning and kicking his door down, but by having a SAG card and haunting him through crappy local TV ads. Both actors fully inhabit these weird characters and find ways to deftly slide into physical comedy and broad goofiness. Phoenix elicitly tip­toes around a residencelike he's in a Scooby­Doo episode, rolls himself into a ball to avoid police brutality (but gets picked up like a piece of luggage), stares in comical horror for an entire long take of Brolin fellating a frozen banana.

"You could argue that Doc is a lazy person ­ he lives a laidback lifestyle with little regard for sideburn or foot maintenance ­ but his adventures are exhausting. He gets bludgeoned with a baseball bat, kidnapped, set up separately for murder and for heroin smuggling. Yet, unlike mine, his drug­addled brain is able to keep straight a tangle of mysteries involving missing persons, an insane asylum, a brothel, black militants, white supremacists, international drug smugglers, a cult, a dopehead dentist, a real estate developer (Eric Roberts!) and surely other factions that I'm forgetting.

"The only obvious cinematic comparison is The Big Lebowski, another witty, tangent­filled post­modern California noir story that affectionately parodies hippieculture through its alternately clever and slow­witted stoner kind­of­detective hero. But Paul Thomas Anderson steeps his in the bad vibes of early '70s period detail. Inherent Vice is deeply funny, but with a creepy fever dream undercurrent. You don't so much watch this movie as you ride it out. But in a good way." ~ Vern

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #4

"The Grand Budapest Hotel somewhat defies classification, beyond its resemblance to a layered Mendl’s confection, and is perhaps best exemplified by the hotel’s famed concierge, Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), a man of his own invention. Like M. Gustave, the film is impeccably presented, and perfumed heavily in an air of panache.

"The elegant fictional setting becomes the stage for a nostalgic return to a bygone era of civilized behavior -- in fact, an era that may have never existed. The marvelous script undermines Gustave’s meticulous style (with implied olfactory pleasures) and shows it to be a façade that allows him to pass among the rich and elderly, and prey upon them for tips, sexual trysts, and occasionally, priceless riches. You see, darling, for all the fineries and poetry M. Gustave enjoys, his vulgar tongue and questionable origin suggest that he can never rise above working class.

"However, for all his flaws, he is respectful and mutually respected among his well-dressed colleagues. In one of Grand Budapest’s most glorious sequences, a group of resourceful concierges dubbed The Society of the Crossed Keys, conduct an orchestrated telephone chain to pull strings and provide Gustave a swift (albeit third-class) escape from the law. Indeed, his kindness wins a devoted confidant in young protege Zero Moustafa (depicted in different life stages by Tony Revolori and F. Murray Abraham). Though only a lowly lobby boy,Zero quickly earns Gustave’s respect and eternal devotion, even during funeral art heists and mountaintop toboggan chases.

"Their continued friendship remains the heart of writer-director Wes Anderson’s picture, told through the adult Zero’s perspective. In different hands, Zero’s sad narrative about an old friend from better days may have been merely melancholic, but Anderson deftly sidesteps it with wit, lively set pieces, and whipsmart direction. Grand Budapest is a truly fun ride, as well as a compassionate one, crafted with invention and light, and wrapped in a precious pink box." ~ Patrick Williamson

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #5

"In many ways, Only Lovers Left Alive is the film to which Jim Jarmusch has been building for his entire career. Since he broke through with Stranger Than Paradise three decades ago, Jarmusch has trained his camera time and again on society's outsiders- inept pimps, down-and-out deejays, cab drivers of all stripes, accountants in the Old West, and self-styled samurai assassins. Here, he focuses on a pair of centuries-old vampires, social rejects out of necessity. Eve (the otherworldly Tilda Swinton) and Adam (Tom Hiddleston) still drink blood- albeit largely obtained through medical sources, an unethical but decidedly less murderous and certainly cleaner alternative to traditional means.

"But what to do in between meals? Like many Jarmusch heroes, they immerse themselves in culture, primarily the culture of the past- though to be fair, they're old enough that it still counts as their past. Eve partakes from a seemingly endless supply of books written in countless languages, caressing the pages softly as she reads each one in the flick of an eye, when she's not paying visits to her old-in-multiple-senses friend, Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (a memorably cadaverous John Hurt). Adam, by contrast, devotes most of his time to his career as a reclusive recording artist, laying down one fashionably funereal track after another in his makeshift studio. When he's not creating, he's amassing an enviable collection of vintage guitars or grooving on his collection of classic vinyl, or just driving around post-industrial Detroit.

"If nothing else, the way Jarmusch depicts Adam's adopted hometown makes it easily the best Motor City movie since RoboCop. The city Adam surveys on his nightly drives is little more than a hollowed-out husk of its former glory, but it has lost none of the shoot-from-the-hip industrial sensibility of the town that gave the world Motown and MC5, Eminem and Jack White (it's the Rust Belt-dwelling spiritual cousin to Jarmusch's Memphis-set Mystery Train). It's a nighttime city that belongs to the outcasts- in addition to Adam, we mostly see young rocker dudes who are seemingly unaware that the heyday of rock is behind them, along with a hepcat doctor played by Jeffrey Wright who gets the film's best line when he looks at Adam and mutters, "that cat's gotta be from Cleveland."

"Only Lovers Left Alive is full of pleasures both large and small, but those pleasures rarely dove with the traditional vampire-film formula. Adam and Eve aren't the suave throwbacks of the classic Dracula stories, nor the desperate characters of the vampire-junkie indie films of the mid-1990s, and they certainly wouldn't be caught dead at a Cullen family get-together. Jarmusch is less concerned with paying tribute to vampire legends of yore than he is in forging his own path with his material, and indeed, just when the film is about to provide the expected vampire-movie payoff, he rolls credits.

"While both the storytelling and the filmmaking on display in Only Lovers Left Alive are first-rate in a no-sweat sort of way, its true greatness lies in the way that, more than any film I've seen in years, it feels like a great hangout movie, creating a world and filling it with people I'd like to revisit again and again. To put it another way - I'd love to live in Only Lovers Left Alive, but for the sad fact that I'd eventually wind up on the menu." ~ Paul Clark

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #6

"I'm just going to assume people who have money bore the hell out of the Dardenne brothers.

"The Belgian siblings have based their whole careers making movies about people who struggle, internally and externally, often making questionable decisions in order to get by just one more day. The heroes and heroines of their films are usually systemically oppressed, male and female cogs in a consistently stuck machine where the only way they can move slightly is if they get themselves a little dirty. Much like Norm's wife Vera on Cheers, the upper class is nonexistent in Dardenne films, but their looming presence is always hinted at.

"Even when the Dardennes don't completely venture into dark and uneasy territory, like they do with their acclaimed latest, Two Days, One Night, the struggle is always real. Once again shot in their trademark, neo-realist style, Jean-Pierre and Luc follow around Sandra (Marion Cotillard, who got a well-deserved, Best Actress Oscar nomination for this) as she spends the titular amount of time trying to convince co-workers to be on her side as she fights to keep her solar-panel factory job. The fragile Sandra is hardly a fighter; a vague, offscreen accident led to a nervous breakdown she still has yet to fully recover from. Still, with her ever-supportive husband (Fabrizio Rongione, who didnât get a well-deserved, Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for this) pushing her to move forward, she keeps the crying jags to a minimum and sets out to corral supporters.

"The movie is a continuously riveting journey through the Belgian working class. As Sandra knocks on the doors of her various co-workers, we see some are more financially stable than others. Just like they've done in their previous films, the Dardennes never cast a judgmental eye on these folk. Even though they've been forced by superiors to consider kicking one of their own to the curb, they're still all in the same oppressed boat. Their jobs and livelihoods hang in the balance just as much as Sandra's, and she knows this.

"Even though this movie is set in an industrial town in Belgium, this movie speaks more to our stateside working class than any American film I've seen in years. I dare anyone who's had to scrape and scuffle to keep their nine-to-five not to sympathize with Sandra or any of the poor bastards who populate this flick. In its own weird way, this film, which definitely isn't as grimy or fatalistic as the Dardennes' previous work (cinematographer Alain Marcoen keeps everything sunny even though a dark, dismal cloud constantly hangs over this thing), is practically their most optimistic. Not to give anything away, the movie ends with Sandra having a reassuring phone call with her husband, virtually walking into the future with a strong smile on her face. I don't know how these bleak sons-a-bitches did it, but they made me happy for a character who I knew was going to be all right no matter what." ~ Craig D. Lindsey

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #7

"The Academy Awards' compass is so fucked at this point that even substantive period dramas can go unnoticed entirely, a reality Oscar pro Harvey Weinstein surely accounted for when he decided to damn James Gray's latest to limited distribution hell. This manoeuvre is a shame not because The Immigrant needed the ever diminishing distinction of awards' season recognition, but because it's a film that simply should've found a bigger audience; the kind that too commonly gets 'arthouse' foisted upon it because that's the only place it's allowed to play, but that bares closer resemblance to a classic Hollywood filmmaking that the oblivious Academy voters continue to insist doesn't exist anymore. In particular, Gray, whose grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Russia, draws from a studio era rich with filmmakers exerting European sensibilities onto a still-young nation's art form. His heroes are directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese not because his filmography broadly occupies the same genre and geographic territory as their breakthroughs but because cultural heritage informs their characters' experiences in a country that gradually tries to subsume them into its own identity.

"These themes have never been reflected more sharply in Gray’s own work than they are in The Immigrant, the director’s sumptuous mirror box of American hopes and disillusionments. Set in 1920s New York, it's the story of Ewa (Marion Cotillard), an unmarried Polish refugee of the Great War who's pulled out of line at Ellis Island after her sister shows symptoms of a possible lung disease. Another immigrant, Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), uses his influence to save Ewa from a fate of deportation, but the price is a series of painful compromises in pursuit of that ever-elusive American dream: to be happy. Also introduced is a suave magician (Jeremy Renner), who likewise courts Ewa, challenging the lies on offer of his cousin Bruno with his own promises of a better life. But Gray elevates the stuff of a standard love-triangle melodrama to something momentous: a rich tapestry of American iconography stripped of its majesty (Ewa plays Lady Liberty in Bruno's burlesque show) as characters begin to resemble less the weight of their own moral convictions and failings than those of an entire nation. Crucially, Gray is as much concerned with the intimate implications of this parable as he is the broad ones. More than anything, The Immigrant is about gestures of forgiveness, understanding and affirming individual self-worth—a stirring rebuke to America's tradition of human commodity. Harvey and Oscar never did deserve it." ~ Sam C. Mac

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #8

"How sad that Selma will likely be remembered for the emotional debates about its historical accuracy and its Oscar-worthiness, because above all else it is an inspiring portrait of courage under fire and the power of nonviolent protest, and a landmark achievement in the history of cinematic depictions of Martin Luther King, Jr. The decision by director Ava DuVernay and screenwriter Paul Webb to root the story in a distinct place and time (the course of about 6 months) is critical to its success. A conventional MLK biopic would have suffered under the weight of flashbacks, obligatory scenes to mark the years, too many characters and settings, and no identifiable soul.

"On the contrary, Selma immerses you in its environment and intimately reveals King’s personality and character by examining one of his crowning achievements. The film is a riveting lesson in rhetoric by a man whose legacy has been defined by his oratory, but it also illustrates King's effectiveness in communicating during smaller, quieter moments. And it underscores the brilliance of his strategy: building coalitions, leading by example, and most importantly, using the power of traditional media at a time when it was much more centralized and influential than it is today.

"DuVernay patiently allows the events in Selma to breathe, which both informs viewers unfamiliar with the movement’s history and also builds emotional momentum to a soaring climax. Like Paul Greengrass’ grittier Bloody Sunday, Selma’s narrow focus ironically reveals a much bigger picture about the zeitgeist of societal change in the 1960s. Like Gus van Sant’s Milk, Selma humanizes a heroic figure by exposing his conflicted thoughts, fears, and self-doubts. DuVernay occasionally sentimentalizes King's nature but doesn't canonize him as a flawless man. When I wrote a piece in 2008 spitballing potential casting choices for a MLK biopic, I never could have anticipated the revelation that is the British actor David Oyelowo, whose ability to balance King’s gentleness with his fiery passion and provocative wit is a sight to behold.

"Artistic decisions about U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's support of the voting rights movement, among other details, have led to questions about Selma’s historical accuracy. As disappointing as the accusations are considering the countless terrible historical dramas that have been offered by much more high-profile directors (not coincidentally all white men), it’s perhaps expected considering the politicization of pretty much everything in 2015, fueled in large part by a polarized national and social media. Either way, the specific charges miss the bigger picture: DuVernay deserves as much artistic license as a director of any other historical drama, including other high-profile Oscar nominees The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Foxcatcher, and American Sniper. Why should Selma be held to a different standard?

"In any case, the film’s strongest scenes are those around which there is no controversy, such as the “Bloody Sunday” first march attempt - one of the most arresting scenes in any film this year. Dashed with unnerving sounds and images that evoke the black experience in America from slavery to Ferguson, and held in rhythm by a pounding gospel hymn, it is a stunning composition. In this scene, and in almost every frame of Selma, the gorgeous cinematography of Bradford Young also adds a crackling vibrancy. DuVernay’s artistry is no less impressive in Selma’s more introspective scenes, again aided by Webb's thoughtful screenplay and an extraordinarily talented cast.

"Barely two generations removed from the film’s events, DuVernay has revived the spirit of a national hero whose message and methods still deeply resonate on issues as diverse as same-sex marriage, police-community relations, minimum wage, and even, still, basic voting rights. In thrilling artistic fashion, and with thoughtful regard for its place in history, Selma reminds us that the philosophy of King’s movement is timeless, even if the man himself is not here to carry it out." ~ Daniel Getahun

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #9

Note: this piece is edited from a version originally posted at The Film Stage on May 21, 2014. Used by permission of the author.

"A symphonic release. The violins swirl up the chords. The text tells us, 'When imagination has failed, one must take refuge in reality.' So must we. But what has come of reality? The world of nature, but what about the manufacturing of war? Cinema: the images were the murderer of ideas in the 20th century. A reclamation of reality is in order. A reclamation of freedom.

"Jean Arthur stares out at Cary Grant. She takes a chance on the unknown. So must we.

"Yes, this is Godard. This is Late Godard. Beyond Late Godard. Histoire(s) investigated the past. Socialisme: the present. And now: the future. It is Cinema 3.0 — 3D.0. We’ve passed the movement-image, the time-image, and into the image-image: the Frankenstein of the 21st century.

"The film is called Adieu au langage. Goodbye to Language. Why language? The goodbye is to cinematic language. The idea of cinema as a translator, as communication. Instead, the images are removed from their language. They are reality. 3D reality. A book; a table; a tree; a phone. They pop — the colors bleed into saturation. The new cinema. Representation disappears. The iPhone cinema. Arnheim and Bazin stood at polar opposites. Godard has found a way to wield them together. Total cinema as pure reality — the wind in the trees, but nothing to limit them as simply the staging of reality. Not a manifestation of reality. Reality as reality." ~ Peter Labuza

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #10

"Movie critics spend a lot of time bitching about huge, special-effects-heavy spectacles that showcase the latest technological advances in filmmaking without engaging the viewers’ brains and hearts. The complaint itself has become a cliché, but most critics would probably be happy to have fewer occasions to rely on it. In terms of the resources the director had at hand and what she was able to make out of them, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook is the anti-Jupiter Ascending. Kent’s little, low-budget horror movie is actually about something, and it carries a wallop that leaves your nerves and imagination shaken for days afterward.

"It’s a misuse of one talented filmmaker to use her achievement as a cudgel on another, but it’s a comparison worth stating: the Wachowskis, who have made good movies in the past and may do so again, created the shell of a richly layered fantasy world and made it move onscreen, but they failed in the deceptively simple-looking task of making the audience care about the fate of an endangered young woman and her love for a dashing hunk. Kent, working with whatevermoney and materials she could get her hands on over the course of years of planning, draws viewers into the sympathetically imagined mindset of a woman slipping into madness, whose terror is that she knows she’s capable of killing her child.

"Kent set a daunting task for herself by putting a potential Susan Smith at the center of her movie, and she used everything she had to get to the bulls-eye: the editing, camerawork, music, and performances (including the child-actor performance of the year) all work together to create a total experience that belies the fact that, for much of the film, all you have to watch are two people trapped inside a house together. And Kent made it at the right time in her development: if you look at Monster, the 2005 short film that served as the blueprint for the feature, you can see how far she’d come before embarking on her debut feature. The DIY spirit lives." ~ Philip Dyess-Nugent

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #11

"The distressing creep of stasis has permeated large scale, genre filmmaking. A level of gutless, 'corporate-think' that requires slim works to be carved up and stretched out into endless, climax-delaying installments. A fear of finality that will negate the sacrifice of a beloved character with a post-credit cookie or a TV show spin-off. No such fear exists in Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer which begins with the last remnants of humanity clinging to a joyless existence and only becomes more apocalyptic as it goes.

"Liberated from expectations of mainstream success (the film was famously held hostage by its distributor which feared that it wouldn’t be 'understood by audiences in Iowa and Oklahoma') Snowpiercer obliterates the safety of the status quo roughly ever eight minutes. Like the train on which the film is set, the film hurtles itself forward--moving from squalor to opulence and from darkness into light--destroying everything in its wake. Snowpiercer boldly reinvents itself every time it moves from one compartment to the next (the metal doors that frequently give way even recreate the effect of a curtain parting, as though the film were resetting and starting anew), demonstrating genuine pride in each new reveal. Reveling in the craft of its showmanship and the confidence of its storytelling.

"This is a vision unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time, a world that is both fantastic and tactile. Ondrej Nekvasil’s geographically nebulous but ingenious production design surrounds the film’s eclectic cast with sights as wondrous as they are unnerving. Calling attention to their own absurdity as the last vestiges of civilized society and creature comforts. Juxtaposing, in just one of many examples, an industrial sweatshop with the last sushi bar on Earth, conveniently encased within an aquarium. The film lays its 'Swiftian' allegory on a little thick but it recognizes the indignity in having your nose pressed up against the glass, forcing you to acknowledge your 'betters' on the other side (if nothing else, the film ensures we’ll have a handy reference for the first class section of the airplane for years to come).

"But if the film’s aesthetics are the sizzle then the steak (not that I’d trust anything food-related here) is the assurance with which Bong allows Snowpiercer to unfold. Lock picking is a runner throughout the film, which is apt as it often feels like a series of tumblers are clicking into place. The film disguises its devastating twists with seemingly incongruous digressions (a procession of grizzled amputees, a bloody axe battle pausing so its combatants can wish each other 'happy New Year,' a school car full of 10-year-olds breaking into an especially morbid sing-along) that only gain resonance in hindsight. There’s an admirable level of patience to the way the film withholds its grand design, teasing out clues that have been methodically dropped along the way. Bong would seemingly be out of his comfort zone here, corralling an enormous, technically demanding international production. Yet he more than meets the challenge, confirming his status as a master in any genre.

"There will be no sequel to Snowpiercer. The film doesn’t care how many Oscars winners are in its cast or how many blockbusters its leading man has been in. Everyone here is in service of the film’s ruthless economy. This is a film on a collision course with the only possible conclusion that material this bleak and singular could have. It doesn’t step timidly or leave anything reserved in the tank. It doesn’t take the easy way out and it never stands still." ~ Andrew Dignan

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #14

"Blue Ruin was my favorite film of the year and I'll tell you why – it's a perfect antidote. I am goddamn sick and tired of revenge being easy and automatic. I'm tired of slick thrillers populated with nothing but tough guys that only say cool shit. It's boring. Boooooring. Those movies are written by and for guys who spend a lot of time making muscles in their bathroom mirrors. I'm glad Liam Neeson is working, but Blue Ruin and I are here to tell you that that's not how the deal goes down.

"How it goes down is clumsy. How it goes down is poorly thought out. How it goes down is always bad. For everyone. Jeremy Saulnier's second feature gets all of this sickeningly right. Macon Blair is wonderfully sympathetic as Dwight, a young man adrift since the murder of his parents. His grief drives him to commit an act of vengeance that is as fatal as it is inept. Mistake piles upon mistake and, as these things often do, it all takes on its own hideous momentum. It's grim and blackly comic and, as weird as it is to say about a film in which multiple families are destroyed, downright refreshing in its honesty. That is where it is head and shoulders above your run-of-the-mill revenge thriller. It tells you the truth all the way down the line. Traumatized drifters don't make great assassins. There are no winners here. There is nothing glamorous about the swath of damage left in Dwight's fumbling wake, but that doesn't keep you from feeling for him, even rooting for him. That's a testament to Blair's performance. There's not a false or wasted note in it. The film is an economical marvel - no fat, all lean - and it is a thing of dark beauty.

"Don't let those other movies fool you. You never get even. The scales are never balanced. The keys are in the car." ~ Cole Roulain

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #15

"Writer-director Alex Ross Perry’s scabrous portrait of authorial assholery in these waning days of literary-world relevance playfully re-arranges component parts from Philip Roth’s The Ghost Writer, with Jason Schwartzman starring as an up-and-coming novelist compulsively trashing his personal relationships in the name of ascetic artistic ideals that are probably just a more pretentious form of selfishness. Structured like a novel, with a wonderfully knowing third-person narration read by Eric Bogosian, Listen Up Philip is a cutting tour-de-force of cringe comedy headlined by Schwartzman’s most dyspeptic performance yet.

"Jonathan Pryce plays an even bigger blowhard, co-starring as a once-great author fading into irrelevance and loneliness. He takes this kindred, sour spirit under his wing and offers a grim glimpse of Schwartzman’s future. Departing for chapters at a time from our self-obsessed protagonist and his disdainful mentor, Perry sees a larger world beyond their cloistered, narcissistic prattle. There’s an achingly beautiful performance from Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss as the photographer girlfriend left behind, and strong work from Krysten Ritter as Pryce’s neglected daughter. Listen Up Philip finds melancholy in misanthropy, and by the time the credits roll, the funniest movie I saw all year has also become one of the saddest." ~ Sean Burns

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #18

"Ida is a novitiate - a nun in training - and has spent the majority of her life within the convent where she was raised as an orphan. She is innocent of wordly affairs, ideally suited for the life-long committment she is about to make. Before that can happen, however, she is given the task of visiting Wanda - her aunt, and last living relative - to learn the truth about her past, and a secret that could have significant ramifications for her future. What follows is a road trip-cum-metaphor, wherein the past proves ever present, and the soul of a nation wrestles with an identity laced with guilt.

"Upon their first meeting, the two women are shown to be a study in contrasts, each representing one side of an existential divide. Ida is the avatar of the spiritual; devoted to her faith and a belief in a divine and loving grace. Wanda, a former judge, is the embodiment of the secular; a former idealist who faith in a system of just governance has been ground down by years of harsh realities.

"In the early stages of their journey, it is Wanda that controls the agenda, pursuing the past through a series of aggressive 'interrogations' of subjects reluctant to open old wounds, or re-experience the discomfort of guilt. In between stops, she drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and needles Ida over her impending 'sacrifice' to a set of vows that would hide her from the world, rather than demand she pick a side and play the game. Ida bears most of this in silence, allowing Wanda to vent her frustrations like a psychologist patiently waiting for the truth to emerge. And, before too long, we, too, begin to realize that underneath Wanda's aggression and near-masochistic hedonism, lies a deep and ragged psychic wound.

"It is here that the power dynamic begins to shift. Ida becomes increasingly curious about the world she has entered, and begins to insert herself more directly into her surroundings. As the revelations pile up, Wanda's once indomitable will begins to fracture and wane, and it is Ida's spiritual solidity that steps in to gently guide them both to their final destination.

"But the story doesn't end there. The past is always with us, you see - history is, after all, a collection of moments we experience forever. For Wanda and Ida, history has given each exactly the thing they needed most. For Wanda, the truth is a final chapter; closure to a lifetime of pain and regret. For Ida, it is an empty page; an invitation to embrace a gift given in a moment of mercy and shame. The only question remaining: 'Will she accept?'" ~ Donald G. Carder

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #20

"Elements of the surreal are part of the fabric of Christopher Nolan's visionary space epic Interstellar, but there is an aching reality that always keeps it grounded, offering up an intricate narrative that is often emotionally overwhelming. Easy comparisons to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity have been asserted and encored in reviews and reflections and certainly in persuasive terms. The latter acknowledges the irrefutable facts of science, while the former is operatic in scope and vision -both which are explored vigorously in Interstellar, but what distinguishes Nolan's film further is how it examines the meaning of life and survival plans when life on Earth is no longer tenable. With these themes, the film recalls both Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Darren Aonofsky's The Fountain.

"An overpopulated Earth is subject to an increase in atmospheric nitrogen that has fueled dust storms that block the sun, and crop obliteration, two conditions that force a test pilot who lives near a corn belt farm, which he harvests; a seemingly supernatural force brings him to a underground secret location manned by NASA, where plans have been formulated to transport people into outer space, while an alternate or concurrent plan involves colonizing a future world by way of cryogenic embryos. The former plan is complicated by obstacles, mainly the matter of gravity. The test pilot, Cooper (Matthrw McConaughey) leads a small crew on a spacecraft set to investigate a wormhole near the planet Saturn that may have been given to humankind as a refuge to ward off extinction. It is assumed that aliens of exceeding intelligence have made such an escape possible.

"The relationship between the widower Cooper and his daughter Murph can be seen as the film's emotional center, helping to humanize the film's more technical though vital concerns like the theory of relativity and the probably existence of extraterrestrial life. The daughter, devastated by her father's need to leave her, receives messages from apparitions that her father should stay. Grown up, the daughter is played by a superlative Jessica Chastain, whose most unforgettable moments are registered when she is seemingly alone. But the chemistry between McConaughey and Anne Hathaway (who accompanies him on his space mission) is extraordinary. The lilting, often pulsating score by Hans Zimmer helps Nolan achieve an emotional epiphany, though technically the film is nothing less than spectacular. Multiple viewings will help to dig even deeper solving some of the more cryptic elements, but in the end it is that rare film that leaves you staggered and shaken, realizing the capabilities of the cinema. Interstellar is a masterpiece, and one of the new millennium's truly magisterial works." ~ Sam Juliano

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #26

"There is something quite interesting about the fact that so many critics have dissed and even downright hated something as interesting as Birdman. I do think that it’s one of the best movies of the year, but I also don’t think that it’s a movie that deserves or even needs any kind of defense. I feel like the lonely dude in the desert that yells (or tweets): 'Birdman was kinda great, does anyone else think so?', even while the crowd of new internet cinephiles proclaims that this movie is lame, or worse. In an odd turn of events, I’ve found myself in the side of Mike D’Angelo, who actually despises the “shot in one take” style of certain films, being an advocate for editing as the epitome everything that cinema truly is. So, there must be something here demands attention, because sometimes it’s way too easy for us to point at this movie and call it 'wrong' or 'gimmicky' or to view it superficially. As much as it annoys some people, I think we need to go deeper to understand the true values of Iñarritu's latest.

"Critics have name-called this film because it’s a satire, a scathing portrayal of everything that is put onscreen, and even the audience that is watching the film. It is, in a way, basic. In the sense that satire always targets those who are up in the scale, so does this film: actors, directors, writers, critics… all people that have some kind of power when compared to the rest of the world. Take the scene where an interestingly dressed character yells, 'this is what the public wants,' to the audience while surrounded by explosions and soldiers. Why don't the people who are sick of superhero blockbusters find some kind of relief or even support in this movie? Here they have their best weapon, not the dumbification of the common people, but actual acknowledgment of the power that the audience has in the movie landscape of today. After all, it is their say, their money, their wanting of seeing the superhero spectacle, that has fueled the industry and made them this always-constant-updating machine of announcements, directors, stars, franchises and crossovers that one must be some kind of wizard to take anything into account and somewhat find any reasoning behind planning movies well into 2019. It is our fault that we have this coming, and dares to tell us: we are the ones to blame.

"Much has been made of the film's supposed lambasting of critics and glorification of actors. But look again - it’s not a love letter to the art of acting, because the acting that it shows in the context of the play is godawful. And they sell it as great acting for the Oscars because it’s in the moments that they’re not in front of the big audience that the performer show off their true chops. While obviously not as masterful as something like Opening Night, one of my favorite movies of all time, it is less self congratulatory by managing to be less scathing. The Cassavetes film ends up being a love letter to performing and female performers, to the joy of living in the theater, and the magic of acting. Iñarritu almost makes a condemnation of the performance, how that action can destroy us, can make us turn and twist and make us the worst person alive, how it can turn our families upside down, how it can destroy your mind, not because it’s the hardest and most important job in the world, no, but because it’s a job that requires for your own soul to be torn apart from what you truly want. Birdman does this by way of glorifying the figure of the ex-superhero, while the self-hating Gena Rowlands ends up with a happier ending (of sorts), in which she finally manages to break her strings.

"It’s been said before in some other places, but I think I need to say it, since it connects so much to my own experience with culture. Birdman feels completely connected with Latin American narrative of the 20th century: Márquez, Carpentier, Borges, Cortázar, and many other exponents of magical realism. These short stories and novels are filled with characters that without any reason start flying, or short stories in which the people reading a book inside the story start to realize that they are in the book themselves. There are direct references at times, like when a sunbathing Edward Norton is seen reading Borges’s short stories. Not many directors could’ve made a movie like Birdman, not because of Iñarritu's virtuosity or even how good of a filmmaker he is (or isn't- the jury is still out for me). Instead, his outsider perspective of show business is the only way that could’ve made it possible for anyone to make this movie the way that it’s made, full of bitterness and spite towards 'the way things are done here.' I won’t call it brave, or even necessary. But damn, if people can’t see the points that I’m making, I don’t know what’s wrong with me." ~ Jaime Grijalba

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #27

"For those who were perhaps getting worried that Frederick Wiseman was mellowing with his recent “dance” documentaries— La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, Boxing Gym, Crazy Horse— his 2013 film At Berkeley represented a return to the probing institutional examinations that made his name. In that light, then, his latest film, National Gallery, could be seen as a synthesis of the two major threads of his long and distinguished filmmaking career: By choosing the famous London art museum as his subject this time around, he is not only once again putting an institution under his cinema vérité microscope, but also recalling his more recent fascination with, broadly speaking, artistic creation.

"Art appreciation is certainly one thing on Wiseman’s mind in National Gallery: This film abounds in scenes of both patrons reacting to works of art they see at the museum and guides offering historical and aesthetic context for tour groups. But there is a more mundane concern behind the scenes: not only trying to achieve its cultural mission on a tight budget, but simply trying to define what that mission is. In one scene, for instance, museum director Nicholas Penny and another authority figure civilly butt heads over whether the museum needs to be doing more to appeal to the wider public, with Penny arguing for maintaining its lofty curatorial standards, suggesting a never-ending tug-of-war between artistic idealism and economic practicality.

"National Gallery is hardly pessimistic about such matters; Wiseman, as always, prefers fair-minded observation over easy point-making. The most surprising thing about this film, though, lies in how it gradually adds up to something more uplifting: Though Wiseman recognizes the difficulty of keeping it relevant for the public, he ultimately deems it as a mission worth maintaining. Only a filmmaker as attentive as Wiseman would think to focus at length on art restorers hard at work attempting to refurbish masterpieces to their original brilliance, turning such scenes into quietly hypnotic arias. But Wiseman saves his most astonishing coup for his final scene: an interpretive dance sequence in one area of the museum that suggests a communion of sorts—one art form conversing with another. Suddenly, National Gallery vaults from the thoughtfully observant to the lyrically poetic. When is the last time one could say that for a Frederick Wiseman documentary?" ~ Kenji Fujishima

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #28

"The monosyllabic surname of a title and one-sheet featuring Tom Hardy behind the wheel of a BMW suggest an action thriller— I entered the theater ready to learn how Locke, Ivan Locke takes his martini— but this is actually a film devoid of espionage, terrorism, and even good guys and bad guys. The crisis at the center of Locke, which stars only Hardy and remains inside of the BMW for all but the first minute of its running time, is far more complex than that of a globetrotting spy movie in that the blame rests entirely on its protagonist’s shoulders. This isn’t a film about plot; it’s a film about self-inflicted anguish.

"Locke joins last year’s A Hijacking as a superlative examination of how 21st Century men attempt to exercise control over situations in which they are compromised. Who would have guessed that Hardy’s Bluetooth-beamed confession of the impending birth of an extramarital child on the eve of a career-making industrial cement pour could make for the tensest thriller of 2014? But that’s what we have here, albeit not a thriller in the conventional sense, but rather one that mines Hardy’s subtle transformations in affect to ride the viewer’s nerves as it interrogates contemporary masculinity. Writer/director Steven Knight lets Hardy take the reigns, but the ideas bubbling underneath the surface are just as integral as the lead performance." ~ Danny Baldwin

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #32

"My first impression of Calvary (2014, directed by John Michael McDonagh) was that it was deadpan religious noir. It's a film that attempts to reconcile the mission of the Catholic church with the wickedness done by that church's ministers. It falls into the category of noir because it's a crime film of sorts, one particularly concerned with a fall from grace. Its concern with states of grace is more (little 'c') catholic than is normally the purview of noir, but its fall from grace is an equally dark descent. The punch, when it comes, lands with a brutalizing force even to a mocking unbeliever like me.

"My second impression was that it was the cinematic equivalent of Hieronymus Bosch's 'Christ Carrying the Cross,' which has a central figure carrying the weight of the world through a crowd of leering grotesques. Bosch's painting has always had multiple interpretations, depending on the worldview of the critic. Is it deeply spiritual? Is it an irreligious mockery? I tend to think it's the former. Calvary provides a similar dichotomy, but it's more clearly an expression of spirituality. It's an argument for the necessity of the church in an increasingly secular and sinful world, and an indictment of the Catholic Church's utter failure in the face of its own mission.

"There's a scene in the third act of Calvary that neatly summarizes the burden that Father James bears throughout the movie. He's walking on a back road and he comes across a little girl who is heading to the beach. He strikes up a conversation with the girl until her father's car comes screeching to a halt. He gets out and pulls his daughter into the car while giving Father James a deeply horrified look. Father James looks stricken by his regard. Such is the reputation of the Catholic priesthood in this day and age. Indeed, most of his parishioners mock him openly, and not just scabrous atheist Dr. Harte. The atheist and former Catholic in me has some sympathy for the scorn these people feel. I mean, let's face it, the Church has a LOT to answer for, and not just the pedophile priests who inspired the little girl's father to regard Father James with deep suspicion. For a 'good' priest, one who actually cares about his vocation and the disposition of his flock, one who does his job as best he can, it's almost too much to bear.

"It's not for nothing that this film is titled "Calvary." It's a passion play of sorts. Father James is a Christ figure, and each of the days the film counts down act as a stand in for the stations of the cross. The film heaps suffering on Father James until he meets his fate down on the beach. More, the film has twelve important supporting characters, representing disciples who abandon Father James as Christ. The film is more subtle than that, though. James's relationship with his daughter is nuanced, as is his relationship with the wife of the man who is killed. These are instances where the virtues of forgiveness--spiritual or secular, it makes no difference--are lovingly detailed. Beyond that: in his f'nal confrontation with the man who has vowed to kill him, he's asked, "And when you read about what your fellow priests did to all those poor children down all those years, did you cry then?' he says 'no.' He has no legitimate answer. He's the embodiment of the Church's crimes in this instance and in some ways, he deserves the bullet.

"This film is nothing, if not conflicted. The juxtaposition of this scene with the montage that follows suggests ambiguous interpretations. The images are provocative: The money-worshiping nihilist, the adulterer and her lover, the violent Buddhist barkeeper, the asshole atheist, the fallen priest reading The God Delusion, these represent a world adrift without The Church. These are the mocking grotesques of Bosch's painting. The last images in the sequence subvert this interpretation: the grieving wife taking comfort from God, the daughter granting some kind of forgiveness (maybe) to her father's murderer. When I first watched the film, the meaning of the last images didn't register. I just saw the grotesques. John Michael McDonagh, the film's director, has mentioned that Calvary is influenced by the films of Robert Bresson, but it can't quite bring itself around to the same level of spiritual misanthropy, perhaps because it's organized around a character the likes of which was an anathema to Bresson.

"What keeps Calvary grounded as a human (humane?) drama is the central performance by Brendan Gleeson. While many of the film's other characters are sometimes straw men for the film's broader thematic concerns, Gleeson's Father James is fully realized thanks to the force of Gleeson's personality and his keen attention to details. He gives Father James both an inward gaze and an ingratiating engagement with the world at large. It's a remarkable turn for an actor who is often used as a physical presence more than as a complicated human being (more Mad-Eyed Mooney than Martin Cahill). Father James is a complicated man, one who is aware of the both the role of The Church and it's fading position in the world. There's a weary resignation to the way he goes about his duties in the last week of his life, but a deep concern for his fellow man and a deep self-hatred towards his own limitations. More, Gleeson brings to the role a movie-star charisma that I didn't even know he had." ~ Christianne Benedict

2014 Muriel Awards: Best Picture Countdown - #65

"The most common report about American Sniper I’ve heard from friends and acquaintances concerns stillness. Not specifically that of Chris Kyle, the eponymous sniper, or technique or those of the filmmakers. The stillness I was told about concerned the audience members after the last images have given way to the credits.

“'It was as silent a tomb,' one person said to me of the packed theater as the movie ended. 'People just sat and cried,' reported another, reluctantly admitting they were among those who shed tears. I can’t blame them, as by the time this stunning film is over and real images of Kyle’s actual funeral have finished, it feels as if one has buried an old friend.

"That familiarity is the key to the enormous power of director Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, an instant classic that has made the late Kyle a household name. As portrayed by Bradley Cooper, he’s recognizable as one of the rarest breed of men, possessed of boundless bravery and a single-minded pursuit of defending righteous ideals. The Kyle of Cooper, Eastwood, and screenwriter Jason Hall isn’t complicated, but layered. Here we get to know an imperfect man whose facility with a rifle and character puts him on a course with greatness and tragedy, even though he put himself in the position to experience both, he sought neither.

"Beginning with Kyle’s Texas upbringing, where his father taught him to hunt deer, worship God, and protect what he cares about with any necessary force. He grows up to become an elite Navy SEAL, which sees him deployed Iraq when America’s war there is in full swing. From there, the story shifts between a compelling, somewhat fictionalized war story, and his infrequent respite from the slaughter of the Iraq’s worst days. By the time he’s finished, he will have 160 confirmed kills, the most for any American sniper in history, and will simply be known as 'the Legend' by soldiers in awe of his prowess with scoped weaponry.

"The Republican Eastwood holds dovish politics when it comes to foreign engagements, but American Sniper is entirely free of ideological hectoring. Instead, it resonates as a morally crystalline examination of one of this century’s great warriors, arguing that men such as Kyle are needed to make horrible decisions and shed blood by the gallon. In that way, American Sniper is shrewdly inclusive, allowing for people of widely varying ideologies to unite in sympathy for this bear of a man who embodies the values we hope for in our servicemen.

"There’s no want for blistering action, the kind that undoubtedly drew in many of the film’s gargantuan audience, and Eastwood constructs his myriad battle scenes with clarity, eschewing the nearly ubiquitous shaky cam work for composed shots and clear editing that make the fights exciting for us, confusing for the participants, and terrified for both.

"But, unexpectedly, the stateside moments supply dramatic tension equal to those in Iraq. Through them we get to know Taya (Sienna Miller), Kyle’s faithful wife who waits at home, frightened by death counts plastered on TV and phone calls that end with thunderous gunfire. It’s made clear that Taya, like countless other spouses and family members, is an ancillary participant in the conflict, safe from physical violence but stricken with anxiety, fear, and the ever-present possibility of loss. Cooper and Miller’s easy chemistry sparks and lights into an enduring emotional flame, their relationship rendered with moving intimacy and tenderness, imbuing Kyle’s life with purpose beyond his love of country and commitment to service.

"When Kyle returns home, Taya can sense him slipping away, the disconnect between war’s inferno and the mundane concerns of civilian life draining his mental vitality. Not since The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946 has an American film so poignantly explored the way war’s horrors can taint and possibly destroy even its strongest survivors. Its empathy is vast, even as Eastwood and company take no pity on the 'savages' who Kyle slays with unmatched efficiency.

"With this, Cooper cements his status as one of his generation’s preeminent actors, if not the. Also producing, he manages a disappearing act as Kyle, adding 40 lbs of mass and affecting an impeccable Texan accent, balancing understatement even as he conveys laser-focused ferocity.

"Whether he’s charming his future wife, consulting with disabled veterans, or putting a .338 slug through the body of an al-Qaeda fighter at 2100 yards, a false moment is nowhere to be found, a trace of the actor not in sight. When forced to make difficult calls, or having a tearful call with his wife, his eyes flicker with the weight of anguish shouldered by a capable. Cooper turns Kyle into a screen figure you just know, as if you could reach out and shake his hand.

"At 84-years-old, Eastwood has directed one of the best films of his career. His films as a director have been uneven, ranging from phenomenal (Unforgiven) to unremarkable (Invictus). Here, his he has a film that doesn’t feel like it was made by a young man, but by a wise one, sensitive to the turmoil of the human spirit, confident in the warm light of goodness, saddened by the evil that blots the soul. The final moments are of such impact that stillness may be the only reaction that makes sense other than tears." ~ James Frazier

2014 Muriel Awards: Late Greats

Note: We'll be beginning the Best Picture countdown at 9 AM, but before we get started on that, I'd like to take some time to allow our voters to pay tribute to two recently-departed performers who received at least one Muriel vote this year. The performers' acting careers could hardly be more different- one is a Muriel-winning actor who was widely considered one of the shining talents of his generation, while the other was a first-time plucked not just from obscurity but also from poverty to give one indelible performance before he passed away. Either way, we're deeply sad that they're both gone, but consider ourselves privileged that we still have their performances to treasure.

 

"A Most Wanted Man sports the last important performance of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s career, and it’s also my choice for the best male performance of the year. I’msure most of us are sad due to the passing of this wonderful actor, but at the same timeI must clarify that I genuinely think that his is the best performance from a male actor that I saw last year.

"Hoffman plays Gunther, the chief of a parallel spy organization in Germany that handles with possible terrorist threats. We feel his experience, the weight of years of doing his job in the proper manner. In this film Hoffman is constantly being harassed by powerful people into finding a solution to the problem in which the film bases its plot, and we see him calmly dismissing it, addressing it, doing whatever is needed so he can do his job, the thing that he knows he has to do.

"It is in that tension that Hoffman finds the strength to give us a troubled character thatwe see, almost at times too literally, bottled up in his feelings. We don’t get to know much about Gunther, at least not from him or those around him, but we can feel it in his face, his shoulders, the constant tired posture when walking or sitting down.

"The moment that sells the performance and marks this as one of the most powerful and underrated performances of the year is the ending. We can’t understand the character and the performance of Hoffman without this ending, we can’t have the eternal contraction of this character without the final explosion. His final 'FUCK.'

"Hoffman, in that way, was a master in terms of how his characters always seemed to bottle up feelings, they seem normal, until they start breaking apart. His character in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007), when the older brother after slowly building up, finally explodes in a burst of violence, bloodshed and creative cursing thatmakes up for, maybe, one of the most jarring performances of his career and specially hurting seen in the light of his demise.

"His work with Paul Thomas Anderson is something to be marveled at, he follows a similar pattern of withheld emotions and sudden bursts of violence and explosive insults that feel somewhat akin to the quiet character that they try to show to the outside. It is evident that beneath the goodness or good ‘public relations’ of his characters in Punch Drunk Love (2003) and The Master (2012) (winner of Best Supporting Actor in the Muriels that year) are a façade of something much more sinister, more evil and strong.

"Much more stronger than the fragile characters in the other two P.T. Anderson films, but that still follow the same kind of performance, the same contraction and release, as present in the ‘I’m an idiot’ scene in Boogie Nights (1997) and the breaking down of Phil Parma in what is maybe my personal favorite performance in Magnolia (1999), where the weak and at the same time personally involved nurse finds a way to fight his own demons, his own problems with his self, his family and his personal history, through the pains and failures of those around him.

"Everyone has their favorite Hoffman performance, and I’m not someone to just ruin others experiences, to taint the view of the rest of those who most surely loved his work and also loved the man, as we grew under the always shining moments of his talent. I’m not the one to tell you which performances are great and which are the onesthat deserved more love, anyone can write that, and I’m not going to be the one to judge and preserve a memory (my memory) of such a tremendous actor in front of you.

"My opinion doesn’t matter, not in the (even now still hurtful) wake of the demise of one of the greatest actors of his generation, but the memories that he, a friend as I like to call those who make me feel more than anyone else, left in me. I’m just going to put my favorite moment of his career down here, and I wish you could all write and share your best/favorite bits. It doesn’t have to be his still wonderful Oscar winning performance for Capote (2005), or anything that remotely deserves any kind of praise, it has to be what you’ll remember. And here’s what I want to remember today:


~ Jaime Grijalba

 

“The performance of a lifetime….”

"An expression often used by agents and/or studio execs to drum up some Oscar buzz. It’s also a prime example of the type of cliché ridden and lazy copy that’s churned out by many mass media outlets dabbling in film culture on a regular basis. In fact 'performance of a lifetime,' is one of those expressions that is rarely (and I stress rarely) used in an instance where it’s ever anything more than a bunch of verbose fluff.

"Consider now, Gary “G-Daawg” Poulter as Wade in David Gordon Green’s welcome return to dramatic form, Joe. Is there really any other suitable description we could apply to such a performance? Poulter was an actual homeless man discovered by Green and his team during a hunt for colorful local street folk. Green often gravitates to non-professionals for his supporting cast as they add truth to his naturalistic approach to filmmaking. With Poulter however, Green found something more than a cameo player, and within minutes of seeing the test footage, he knew he had found one of the leads for his film.

"Green worked closely with Poulter, who in addition to his homeless status, struggled with severe alcoholism and its debilitating health effects. The level of commitment required from him in the role of lead villain, as an abusive cretin of a father, was a gamble the film’s budget simply couldn’t afford to see come up short. The gamble paid off and the effect of the production on Poulter’s mental health was something of a cathartic experience for the man.

"Poulter’s blood and tears are on that screen. One can imagine he did a lot of soul searching and personal reflection with his very honest portrayal of Wade. A first time actor, with only a single screen credit to his name, Poulter steals scene after scene from the Academy Award winning Nicolas Cage. His was easily the best performance in in the film. It was the performance of a lifetime… literally, a performance both drawing from his life and cruelly mirroring it.

"Sadly, shortly after shooting Gary Poulter was found dead by local police, the apparent victim of drowning following an alcoholic seizure. He never saw the finished film, nor heard that he had already landed a subsequent role. He was still living on the street. He was 53 years old." ~ Adam Lemke

2014 Muriels Also-Rans, Part 3: The Orphans

In which a handful of Muriels voters go to the mat for 2014 performances they loved even when no other voters recognized them.

"Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner is one of the sanest, most honest movies ever made about an artistic genius, because it’s not interested in either mindlessly venerating its hero or wagging its finger at him for his failings. J. M. W. Turner does things no one else can do, and the bargain he makes with the world is that, in exchange for the body of work that he intends to 'bequeath to the nation,' he will take on no responsibilities that might distract him from his mission or drain too much from the well of emotion that he uses to fuel work. So he interacts with other people just as much as he needs to in order to satisfy hisneeds. If those he interacts with demand a little more, he will not hear of it. If you don’t like it, there’s the door. Good luck finding someone else who can paint like this and give you enough hugs on your schedule.

"As Hannah, Turner’s longtime housekeeper, Dorothy Atkinson is the most devoted and worst treated of all thepeople in Turner’s life. You can imagine that there was a time, decades ago, when you could have called them lovers; by now, they’ve settled so deeply into their defined roles as great man and quiet hireling that Turner uses her as he might a favorite piece of furniture. She’s there when he needs her, and the idea that she might need, let alone deserve, anything from him isn’t supposed to occur to anyone. Most people would be content to see her as pitiable and nothing more, a pure victim.

"Atkinson won’t have that. There’s a slyness tucked inside her docile appearance, and at one point, she unsheathes just enough of it to remind her employer that it’s there: her smiling remark that she might as well stop making the bed that they used to share, since he never sleeps init anymore, is more cutting than the frothing rages directed at Turner by his ex-lover Sarah (Ruth Sheen), who happens to be Hannah’s aunt. Having the great man’s number may be the only consolation she has in life, but armed with that, this invisible woman manages to keep her dignity, up until her last scene, when she learns that, rather than embarking on one more fling, Mr.Turner has found the woman he’s going to die beside. The most extraordinary grace note of Atkinson’s extraordinary performance is that even the total collapse of Hannah’s last shard of a hope for earthly happiness is dignified." ~ Philip Dyess-Nugent

"The situation the film presents is a series of warnings upon warnings, an art installation comprised almost exclusively of red flags. But as we expect from the impetuousness of youth, the chance to break a good story overrides those very real internal klaxons which again and again say do not embark down this particular path. The isolated compound where our plucky camera crew finds themselves is a space of unease and the unspoken, building to a near fever pitch. And then we meet Father.


"What Gene Jones does with this part, this role that could easily be cobbled together like a mockingbird's repertoire from countless newsreels, media footage, and previous films, is a rather tremendous achievement. It's a remarkably reactive turn, capable of spanning one-on-one good ol' boy masculine sincerity, beatific pride in accomplishment, the humanizing subtlety of a well-placed innuendo, and then later, as the narrative traps begin to spring left and right, the perfect dead smile of the patriarchy, then the pious certainties of a figurehead held in the grasp of an organization now beyond his control, and even the petulant impulsiveness of a spoiled child determined to take his metaphorical ball and take it on home.

"Jones finds all these points on the continuum of this archetype that we've seen done and done and done to death, but he makes it organic and inviting, finding a way to refract back at whomever Father is interacting with whatever they need at the time (and also what we as the audience need, which is often at odds with the image being aimed for). But there was simply no other scene in 2014 that had the electrifying power of Sam Turner's interview with Father in front of the entire gathered population of Eden Parish. I don't envy what it must have been like for A.J. Bowen (one of our genuinely great contemporary actors) to have to go up against Jones in this scene, because you can see this avuncular man feeding off the adoration of everyone in the pavilion as he annihilates every one of Turner's questions and parries. It's a magnificent visual depiction of vampirism, and a testament to Jones' rigorous and unsettling charisma." ~ Jason Shawhan

"The role of the ruthless Russian crime lord—a staple of Cold War-era action films which has been making a comeback as of late—wouldn’t seem to lend itself to a particularly unique interpretation. There are so many functionary steps to the waltz that can’t be omitted (purring vague threats, sucker-punching underlings, flaring your nostrils as you dispatch kill squads) that you can forgive many an actor for simply throwing on a broad Slavic accent and an expensive suit on their way to collecting a check. All of which makes Michael Nyqvist’s performance in John Wick such a wonderful surprise. Permanently residing somewhere between muted exasperation and barely concealed annoyance, Nyqvist’s Viggo Tarasov reacts to wall-to-wall death the way anyone else might acknowledge a tardy service call from the cable company or a new dent in their car’s bumper: with forehead firmly planted in the palm of their hand.

"Tasked with delivering most of the film’s exposition, rattling off the titular character’s C.V. as the ultimate badass, Nyqvist gives a truly complimentary performance, imposing onto the film’s leading man (the physically gifted but emotionally limited Keanu Reeves) a hushed reverence and abject terror that no amount of sucking chest wounds or broken bones can hope to match. Whether it’s recounting a killing spree perpetrated with a pencil or softly singing a macabre nursery rhyme whilst staring into a crackling fireplace (let it not be said that the performance isn’t ripe with knowing humor) the Swedish actor puts on a master class of understatement and weary resignation. As the film keeps spiraling outwards, unveiling elaborate secret societies and reveling in stylistically heightened violence, Nyqvist remains the stoic rock at its center." ~ Andrew Dignan