If there’s one truism that’s served me well in my time with the Muriels, it’s the idea that one must adapt to survive. In order to keep the Muriels fresh, one must keep an eye on what’s working and get rid of what isn’t. After our first year, we decided to add some extra categories (body of work, music, and the anniversary awards) and consolidate the two breakthrough categories into one. But the 2008/2009 Muriels were the first time we chose to eliminate a category because we felt like the voters weren’t crazy about it. The category? Best DVD Release. This isn’t to say our voters didn’t watch DVDs – in fact, a number of them saw many if not most of their movies new and old in the comfort of their homes. However, after two years, it was fairly clear to us that there was very little consensus in the category, largely because there were so many DVDs being released every year and so many means by which to gauge how good they were. How to decide? Best to do away with it altogether, so we did, and replaced it with the category that eventually came to be called “Best Web-Based Criticism” before itself fading out in 2011.
Another adaptation we made in 2008 was that both Steve and I joined the social media age. Following the example of Mike D’Angelo, we both got Twitter accounts and quickly fell into a rapidly expanding circle of online movie nerds. I quickly realized that this would be a great way to connect with potential new voters, and I began inviting one new Twitter friend after another (I’m not exaggerating- I recall one afternoon when I probably sent out a dozen invites in rapid succession). In addition, we encouraged existing voters to suggest possible invitees to us, and a number of them obliged. All told, as a result of our rather, well, AGGRESSIVE invitation push, voting numbers rose from 20 in 2007 to 37 in 2008.
As for the awards themselves, I was beginning to despair that after two years we still hadn’t forged our own path taste-wise, and in the case of both the 2006 and 2007 Best Picture winners, we were content to simply rubber-stamp the Academy Awards’ selections. Granted, The Departed and No Country For Old Men were both great choices both for the Oscars and the Muriels, but I still wanted to know if we could do our own thing rather than simply following the crowd. As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. Granted, 2008 was a historically weak year for the Oscars Best Picture category, both in terms of nominees and eventual winner (ugh) Slumdog Millionaire. Nonetheless, it was a nice surprise that we settled not only on a film that wasn’t pre-approved by the A.M.P.A.S., but actually had received few if any Best Picture awards of note – Pixar’s animated android odyssey WALL*E. Likewise, there were no Oscar nominees in our top 10 films of the year, falling well below more eccentric choices as Rachel Getting Married, A Christmas Tale, Synecdoche, New York, and Burn After Reading (STILL the Coens’ most underappreciated movie, darn it).
Then, once we’d announced all the Muriels for 2008, we dropped one last announcement – I decided to step down, at least temporarily, as the Muriels major domo, continuing on in a behind-the-scenes role while leaving most of the big responsibilities and decisions to Steve. My reason, as I announced at the time, was because I had decided to go back to school (to take courses in business and accounting, to be specific), which would require a time commitment that wouldn’t permit me to devote the attention to the Muriels that I believed they deserved. I’m still thankful that Steve was able to pick up the slack for me while I was getting edumacated, and once I finished taking the courses I needed (in 2013 – oof), I was more than happy to take back the reins, just in time for Steve to pursue a number of non-Muriels commitments of his own. A venture like this is only as good as the people who are willing to commit their time to make it work, and I’m grateful to everyone who has contributed to the Muriels in some way or other through the years.
Coming tomorrow: the Muriels finally get some attention from… well, not Hollywood, but from various showbiz types from all over the world. Fun times!
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