Mur13l Awards 2018: Best Supporting Performance Countdown - #3

“As of this writing, the Academy Awards is just a couple of days away and, in all likelihood, Mahershala Ali will win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of piano prodigy Dr. Don Shirley in Green Book (a.k.a. The Cute Racism Movie). Even though he did a decent job with that performance, it’s very telling how the Academy nominated Ali for playing a reserved, dignified, African-American man who always keeps a cool head even as he’s being driven through the most hella racist parts of the South, and didn’t bother to nominate Michael B. Jordan for his awesomely angry turn in Black Panther.

“As the central antagonist Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens, Jordan is Black rage personified. He doesn’t just want to take down the white people who have enslaved and oppressed his brothas and sistas. He also wants to put a hurtin’ on the Black people who killed his old man and left him an orphan so long ago, turning him into a merciless mercenary who comes to Wakanda to wipe out Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa and usurp the throne. What makes Killmonger a captivating, unsettling and --dare I say it -- sympathetic villain is not just how director Ryan Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole fleshed out the character, but also how Jordan embodies him.

“In virtually every shot, you can see the pain and anguish on his face. (To quote my friend and fellow film critic Sean Burns, Jordan hurts in this movie.) He doesn’t make Killmonger out to be just another, run-of-the-mill Marvel villain selfishly out to rule/destroy the gotdamn world. He’s a man who’s fed up with white supremacy (and the Black people who won’t do anything about it) and wants to launch a full-scale revolution so Black folk all over the world can finally have the upper hand. It’s not every day that the MCU gives us a heavy who inspired thinkpieces debating whether or not dude’s Evil Plan was actually all that evil. (Just Google ‘Killmonger Was Right’ and you’ll see all the pieces -- and T-shirt merchandise.)

“Unfortunately, Jordan won’t get the Oscar he so rightly deserves for this performance. I guess the Academy likes to give awards only to Negroes who don’t act like they wanna burn this whole muthafucka down.” ~ Craig D. Lindsey

Mur13l Awards 2018: Best Supporting Performance Countdown - #4

“The three women at the center of this year’s Oscar favorite, The Favourite, perfectly embody the war between id, ego and superego, fighting with internal struggles of power and sex, and external ones of societal expectations and war. Enter Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) poised atop supreme control of all conflict. Until she isn’t. Her vacillation between power and powerlessness- being in favor and out of favor-- is what makes Weisz’ performance so sickeningly irresistible.

“Weisz materializes fully formed into Lady Sarah dripping with desires encased within a tight corset, her fortress of want masked under billows of dress. She expresses a harsh, matter of factness: her words clipped and direct, her mannerisms precise and exacting. Until they are not. Unforgettably, the dance scene in The Favourite exhibits a masterful grasp of silent, physical comedy that should feel incongruent to character but instead subsumes into her rich existence. Much like Weisz’ appearance in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, she is able to hold the states of ridiculous and serious at once, a tightrope of facial expressions, tone and restraint mixed with a precise understanding of the material and her body and camera in space: a pure artful display of cinematic acting.

“Though the complex psychological sparring between the leads is what many have focused on, the entire film (and, perhaps, real life itself) acts as a battle royale of id, ego and superego: countries fighting for their version of power and ideals, decadence and style guised as need, sexual desires and expectations hiding in candlelit boudoirs and cold marriage beds. Amidst this overarching, engulfing fight of personal and universal, Lady Sarah remains grounded in her presence, expressing-- through a mere glance-- all of the vast continuum of right and wrong, love and hate, rich and poor. Weisz’s role as the anthropomorphization of the human psyche feels far more accomplished than any award category could ever express.” ~ Donna Kozloskie

Mur13l Awards 2018: Best Supporting Performance Countdown - #5

“Quick confession: a big part of why I want Richard E. Grant to win the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award is as a long-delayed lifetime achievement award for his exuberantly wasted performance in the classic Withnail and I. But the fact that Grant's debut performance and his first Oscar nomination both involve similar boozehounds doesn't reduce his achievement in Can You Ever Forgive Me? There, he plays Jack Hock, a rando in a Manhattan gay bar who quickly becomes Lee Israel's best, and only, friend. It's a juicy, hammy role, perfectly suited to about half of all British actors of a certain age, but Grant knows exactly when to go over the top and when to play it close to the vest, which points to allow Jack's neuroses and insecurities to poke through the carefully crafted demeanor of a man who is already playing an outsize version of himself.

“Grant is also savvy enough to know his function, not just within a scene, but within the film itself, highlighting the dissolute life that Lee Israel finds herself in, seemingly washed up and middle-aged, with few options in life beyond liquor and crime. Grant and Melissa McCarthy have the terrific chemistry that often comes from actors who are usually comedians given the freedom to stretch their legs; Grant has the scummier role, but finds the right balance between sympathetic and obnoxious, funny and sad, even in scenes that lean toward the mawkish (looking at you, last-minute-reminder-of-''90s-AIDS-horrors segment). Grant is a lovely actor and I couldn't be happier that he's finally seeing some of the recognition that he's long deserved.” ~ Jeff McMahon

Mur13l Awards 2018: 50th Anniversary Award

“Half a century later, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey hasn't lost its power to inspire awe. It's still a divisive movie, but it can't reasonably be dismissed. Special effects have evolved - particularly in the depiction of space vehicles - without making 2001's look silly. The pacing of entertainment has sped up, only making its long, meditative scenes feel even more hypnotic.

“It has a reputation as a cold and distanced movie. Its human characters aren't much more emotive than its A.I. antagonist, and Kubrick seems to put us in a God's-eye perspective, stepping far back enough to see a continuum from primitive apes to mankind's discovery of a space vortex. Yet it's joyful in its use of image and sound, turning a space walk or the movements of celestial bodies into ballet.

“Everything about it feels enormous, demanding the biggest screen available. A single edit spans millions of years, suggesting a story about the entire history of the human race, or at least a topic as broad as ‘man's use of tools.’ Yet it ends intimately, with one man alone inside the vastness of space, of time, of his mind. Maybe. I'm not sure. Luckily you don't have to be able to follow 2001 to feel it deeply. There doesn't seem to be a shelf date on the potency of pure cinema.” ~ Vern

This year’s “nominees:”

2001: A Space Odyssey

Faces

Night of the Living Dead

Once Upon a Time in the West

Rosemary’s Baby

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Mur13l Awards 2018: Best Youth Performance

“When we first meet Kayla Day, the introverted protagonist of Eighth Grade, she directly faces the camera, serving up advice to middle school peers she hopes are viewing her self-improvement vlog. Kayla stumbles and rambles nervously, filling her sentences with ‘uhms’ and jumping gracelessly from point to point. Director/writer Bo Burnham instantly shows us that his middle graders will not speak the way kids often do in other coming of age movies or TV shows. He resists making his youthful characters sound like witty pop culture-spewing mini-screenwriters. Kayla must sound like a real honest to goodness eighth grader who has a lot on her mind, but lacks the confidence to say things with commanding authority. And this approach works thanks in great part to the casting of the captivating and very real Elsie Fisher as Kayla.

“Just look at how Fisher plays the vlog scenes. Nothing she does feels forced. She somehow makes the stilted monologues sound improvised and fresh.

“After Kayla signs off with her signature, awkward ‘Gucci,’ we see her In Real Life, living with her lonely single parent dad (the terrific, underrated Josh Hamilton) and trying to connect with the other students in school. Fisher makes every glance and attempt to fit in with her schoolmates painfully raw and yet relatable. Fisher's Kayla reminds all of us about our needy Eighth Grade selves. Watch her attempts to join in conversations with the more popular kids. Fisher's timing is absolutely expert in those moments. She also gives a great physical performance: slouched shoulders, that defeated walk, those averted eyes. Fisher helps the viewer experience everything Kayla feels--mostly frustration, social anxiety, fear, getting lost while surfing the web while hoping for likes, clicks, and shares (the way most people do on social media--eighth grade or not).

“Yet Fisher also proves she has great comic timing throughout. Her stink-eyed annoyance when her dad keeps interrupting her endless screen-time with his dad jokes. The way she flips with delight when a high school girl calls her and asks if she wants to hang out. Her nervous enjoyment of a dorky date with the equally awkward Gabe (Jake Ryan from Moonrise Kingdom), laughing over Rick and Morty while munching on fries--one of my favorite scenes from any 2018 film, There's a scene towards the end that truly shows how special Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher's work in it are. It's eighth grade graduation and Kayla decides to tell someone off. At first we think it will be the boy she had a crush on but turned out to be creepy (hopefully guys will watch this movie and learn lessons about how not to behave). No, she storms up to the mean spoiled popular girl who treated her badly and tells her off. Burnham does not give her a brilliantly penned speech filled with verbal wit. No, Kayla still rambles, avoiding eye contact...but with a greater sense of confidence nonetheless. After Kayla finishes, she walks back to her spot in line, a smile on her face. Nailed it!

“In Eighth Grade, Elsie Fisher brings many dimensions and nuance to the role of Kayla Day. At the end when she faces the camera and gives her future self advice for a school project, we see her radiating pride, and know that the lessons she has learned are ones of self-worth and self-preservation (and rediscovered love for her father, who is just as emotionally needy and lost as Kayla). Fisher glows at the end. And we need to see her like this after such a roller coaster ride of emotion and discomfort. Elsie Fisher gives an outstanding performance with seemingly effortless ease; her performance easily joining the list of great performances given by a young film talent.” ~ Brian Wilson

This year’s “nominees:”

Elsie Fisher - Eighth Grade

Kairi Jô - Shoplifters

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie - Leave No Trace

Miyu Sasaki - Shoplifters

Milly Shapiro - Hereditary

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Mur13l Awards 2018: Best Music

“Though If Beale Street Could Talk tackles painful, not to mention painfully topical, subjects, what stays in the memory about Barry Jenkins's adaptation of James Baldwin's 1974 novel is its overwhelming romanticism. This is a movie that burns with righteous anger at the way historical, societal, and institutional racism has perverted the African-American experience in the United States, and yet Jenkins refuses to let indignation drown out the love story at its center between Fonny (Stephan James) and Tish (KiKi Layne). At many points, Jenkins's film plays as an ecstatic paean to their undimmed love, one that undergoes a major test when Fonny is sent to prison for a sexual assault he didn't commit.

“Nicholas Britell's score is crucial to the film's emotionally wide-ranging affect, with swooning cellos and jazzy trumpets alternating with subtly foreboding electronic drones and quietly doom-laden percussion. As entrancing as it is to hear Britell's music in context, however, it's even more illuminating to hear it in isolation, where one can appreciate the depth of the composer's imagination. Under Britell's pen, chord progressions express tender tentativeness, and the spareness of many of his themes stand in contrast to the cello-led explosion of romantic fervor when Fonny and Trish finally consummate their love for each other. It's all tremblingly gorgeous themes and ceaselessly inventive variations, which is appropriate for Jenkins's vision of the world as expressed in If Beale Street Could Talk: one in which some things heartbreakingly stay the same, but also one in which people find ways, however small, to keep a semblance of hope alive amidst the darkness.” ~ Kenji Fujishima
 

This year’s “nominees:”

First Man (Justin Hurwitz)

If Beale Street Could Talk (Nicholas Britell)

Mandy (Jóhann Jóhansson et al)

Suspiria (Thom Yorke)

You Were Never Really Here (Jonny Greenwood)

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Mur13l Awards 2018: Best Documentary (preceded by a short intro)

Greetings, everyone! Welcome to 13th edition of the Muriel Awards, or as I’ve taken to calling them this year, the Mur13ls! Hope that doesn’t get old.

I won’t bore you with too much of an introduction this year. If you’ve followed us in the past, you know what you’re dealing with already. If you’re new to the gig, we hope you enjoy our fun, handcrafted, and slightly eccentric take on the movie poll thingamajig.

This year’s announcements will be pretty similar to last year’s, except that with all of the winners’ announcements, I will also be posting a list of “nominees” in most of the categories, consisting of the top 5 finishers. Of course, I’ll also be linking to the full results for those who want to take a deep dive into Muriel/Mur13l knowledge.

Anyway, winners will be announced over the next ten days, so watch this space. And now, let’s kick this year’s announcements off with one of our newest awards…

“Even if Bing Liu’s debut feature Minding the Gap had just been a lyrical, plotless film about skateboarding, it still would have been one of the standout documentaries of 2018. It started out that way, with Liu filming his friends (including close friends Zack Mulligan and Kiere Johnson) skating around their depressed home town of Rockford, Illinois, in long, languid shots that capture the camaraderie and physicality of skateboarding. The movie itself mirrors Liu’s journey from skate-video hobbyist to serious filmmaker, as he allows himself to delve more deeply into the issues that he, Zack and Kiere face in their troubled adolescence and early adulthood. It’s only because he builds up such trust, goodwill and understanding with his subjects first, though, that the movie has such an impact when it tackles the more serious material.

“Even as Liu confronts the abuse that all three subjects (himself included) suffered growing up, and the ways that that abuse has carried on into the next generation, he never loses sight of the excitement and beauty of skateboarding as an outlet for the three men (and others) to escape their problems and recapture some youthful innocence and enthusiasm. That through line, along with the genuine personal relationships among the three men, allows Liu to touch on issues of race, class and gender without ever coming across as heavy-handed or preachy. The movie is a detailed portrait of three specific people that confidently speaks to wider concerns without ever sidelining its subjects. By the end, the audience is as emotionally invested in the subjects as Liu is, tracking their heartbreak, joy and anger along with their graceful, elegantly shot skateboarding.” ~ Josh Bell

This year’s “nominees:”

Bisbee ‘17

Hale County This Morning, This Evening

Minding the Gap

Shirkers

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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