2019 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance - #1

“Part of the power of Joe Pesci's performance in The Irishman derives from external factors. It's been 20 years since the Oscar-winning actor announced his retirement from full-time screen acting, with only brief film and TV appearances in the meantime. So his august visage throughout Martin Scorsese's latest crime epic is immediately startling, especially for those who have missed him since his '90s acting heyday.

“Even more jolting than his aged appearance, though, is how different his character in The Irishman is from the eruptive hotheads he memorably played for Scorsese in Goodfellas and Casino. Russell Bufalino is essentially a family man, albeit one with a wary and calculating streak who's willing to exercise tough love when he feels a member of his family is acting in an untoward manner. When Russell gets angry, he internalizes it, which makes the moments he threatens to erupt all the more unsettling in light of the fatherly demeanor he emanates elsewhere.

“Pesci isn't really in The Irishman all that much compared to his costars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, and Steven Zaillian's screenplay (adapted from Charles Brandt's narrative nonfiction book I Heard You Paint Houses) doesn't offer a whole lot about Bufalino's backstory. But though the film may be focused on Frank Sheeran (De Niro) and his ultimately wasted life, it's Pesci who, in his relatively limited screen time, provides the film's heart and soul. The Irishman finds Scorsese in world-weary, contemplative mode, and that sense of melancholic rumination is etched in every single gesture and line reading of Pesci's performance. Pesci exudes the aura of a man who's seen a lot of violence in his lifetime, absorbed it, made an uneasy peace with it, and perhaps is trying to be as good a man as he can be under the circumstances.

“That's what makes his final scenes in prison so devastating. While Sheeran remains mostly stoic and opaque even in his twilight years, Bufalino, debilitated by a recent stroke and one step closer to the grave, gives poignant voice to the regret he feels about the outcome of the Jimmy Hoffa situation (Sheeran having been forced to do the bidding of their bosses and take out his dear friend). It's fitting that the last time we see Bufalino is of him being wheeled into a church: He now only has only his god to answer to for his sins. Based on the more mundane way we leave Sheeran—alone in a nursing home room, staring into space—that kind of atonement is something not even Sheeran seems willing to face.” ~ Kenji Fujishima

Best Supporting Performance – The Finalists:

1. Joe Pesci - The Irishman [342.5/30]

2. Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood [314/29]

3. Florence Pugh - Little Women [259.5/26]

4. Al Pacino - The Irishman [237.5/22]

5. Willem Dafoe - The Lighthouse [203.5/19]

6. Jennifer Lopez - Hustlers [194/19]

7. Song Kang-ho - Parasite [173.5/18]

8. Laura Dern - Marriage Story [163/17]

9. Margot Robbie - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood [127/13]

10. Da’Vine Joy Randolph - Dolemite Is My Name [102/12]

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2019 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance - #2

[Warning: Major spoilers ahead]

“In Quentin Tarantino’s latest alt-history saga Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Brad Pitt, one of the most successful movie stars of the past 30 years, essentially plays a failure. As ‘60s stuntman Cliff Booth, his name is even worth less in the movie biz than his longtime stand-in/buddy Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), who’s been relegated to villain-of-the-week guest shots ever since his star-vehicle Western Bounty Law got cancelled and his brief movie career failed to make him shine. As Dalton tries to get back in Tinseltown’s good graces, Booth doesn’t even bother. Besides, ever since he got into it on a movie set with a cocky Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), Booth hasn’t exactly been welcome on Hollywood backlots. And there is that thing where people believe he allegedly killed his wife (a brief, bitchy Rebecca Gayheart) during a boat trip.

“When we first meet Booth, he’s serving as a driver/valet/lackey to Dalton, and it’s a role he’s not particularly complaining about. He’s mostly there to give Dalton the boost of confidence he occasionally needs. ‘Hey, you’re Rick Fucking Dalton, and don’t you forget it!’ he tells his pal after dropping him off to his latest gig. But while Dalton is off playing cowboys and Indians on some primetime oater, Booth stumbles upon some outlaw territory when he visits the Spahn Movie Ranch, after giving one of the Charles Manson-brainwashed minions (Margaret Qualley) who’ve infiltrated the place a lift. After making sure ranch owner and old mentor George Spahn (Bruce Dern) is OK amongst these shady youngins — Dakota Fanning is surprisingly menacing — he knocks the shit out of a crazy-ass fella who put a flat in one of his tires, immediately demanding that he replaces the tire before he goes.

“Yeah, there’s no need for anyone to remind him that he’s Cliff Fucking Booth. He already knows.

“When you think about it, Booth is the sort of character Pitt is a master at playing. While Pitt has always been positioned as a confident, indestructible leading man (check out last year’s Ad Astra if you wanna see Pitt all stiff, emotionally constipated and drained of life — aka the complete opposite of who he is here), Pitt has always enjoyed doing roles that let audiences know there are a lot of kinks in his armor. He’s an ace at playing smart-asses who can kick your ass and maybe bang your girl afterwards. As Mike D’Angelo astutely put it in a 2005 Esquire piece, ‘...Hollywood still doesn’t understand that Pitt is a brilliant goofball prankster trapped in the body of a Greek god. As Achilles, he’s a magnificently sculpted statue, beautiful and boring. But turn him into a Waspy analogue to the young Elliott Gould—the shambling, apathetic buffoon—and he’d be funnier than Sandler and Ferrell combined.’

“And just like Gould used to do back in his heyday (particularly in Robert Altman movies), Pitt excels when he’s playing the cucumber-cool second fiddle to a dashing matinee idol: Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire, Robert Redford in Spy Game, George Clooney in the Ocean’s movies. Even when he did his star turn in Fight Club, literally playing co-star Edward Norton’s chiseled, clobbering id, Pitt was all madcap swagger, funny and seductive even when he was doing the most destructive shit.

“Of course, that can also describe Booth, a good ol’ boy who speeds through the streets of LA (man, between him and Matt Damon in Ford v Ferrari, 2019 was a great year for Ocean’s castmates driving recklessly on-screen), listening to KHJ-AM ‘Boss Radio’ (whose DJs included Harvey ‘Humble Harve’ Miller, who went to jail for killing his wife in 1971), just to get back to his trailer — conveniently located next to a drive-in — where his beloved pit bull Brandy is waiting for him. And, like most valiant cowboys, he has a strict moral code. He’s the type of dude who’ll politely decline a blow-job invite from a possibly underaged hippie girl, but isn’t above bashing the head of one of those flower children (albeit in an acid-laced cigarette-induced haze) when they barge into his friend’s home and threaten to kill him.

“As Dalton tells an interviewer at the top of the movie, Booth is there to help carry the load, which he does right up until he’s taken away in an ambulance, suffering injuries after he and Brandy viciously took down some killer hippies, unwittingly thwarting the notorious murder of next-door neighbor Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and her friends. (Dalton also did some damage, courtesy of the trusty flamethrower he still had from his WWII thriller The 14 Fists of McCluskey.) Ever the stuntman, Booth downplays his injuries and tells his pal to swing by the hospital tomorrow (‘Bring bagels!’ he tells him). Moments later, Dalton virtually gets a hero’s welcome as he’s invited into Tate’s home, ready to tell his neighbors about the crazy night he just had and possibly opening the door for work for both him and his good friend in the future. And this is all thanks to Booth, once again making his BFF look like one bad motherfucker.

“Certain people were upset that Pitt was constantly nominated for Best Supporting Actor awards (awards that he well-deservedly picked up one after the other) for his performance. But even though he shared top billing with DiCaprio, I wasn’t miffed about it. After all, he basically played a supporting actor — and, gotdammit, he was the best at it.” ~ Craig D. Lindsey

2019 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance - #3

Note: Florence Pugh also won this year’s Muriel Awards for Outstanding Cinematic Breakthrough and Outstanding Body of Work, given for not only her performance in Little Women but also in Midsommar and Fighting With My Family. The following essay touches on all three performances for this reason.

“After shooting Park-Chan Wook’s limited series Little Drummer Girl, Florence Pugh was planning on taking a break. After her breakout performance in Lady Macbeth she immediately went from shooting Fighting With My Family (though its release would be delayed), to Outlaw King, to King Lear, to The Little Drummer Girl, and was ready for some time off. But then her agent called with the script for Midsommar, which she felt was too great to turn down. Then, during pre-production for that, Pugh met with Greta Gerwig who immediately cast her as Amy in Little Women, even though the productions would overlap (Pugh missed out on rehearsals for Women). This marathon schedule resulted in Florence Pugh beginning 2019 as a well-respected - if little known - indie actress, to entering 2020 as an Oscar nominee. What makes Pugh’s 2019 feel especially revelatory is not just how different each role is externally (goth wrestler, trauma victim, March sister), but the spectrum of emotions each role demanded internally.

“Shot in 2017, Fighting With My Family had its premiere at the 2019 Sundance in January and was released in mid-February. Florence Pugh plays WWE wrestler Paige in this rags-to-riches sports biopic produced by The Rock and directed by his Tooth Fairy co-star, Stephen Merchant. In the film Pugh expresses the emotional beats of outshining her mentor/brother in the ring, nails the comedic dialog of Office co-creator Merchant’s script, and conveys the physicality of Paige’s wrestling prowess. The best scenes are those between Paige, as she’s training for the WWE, and her brother, who is both jealous of her success and annoyed at her self-doubt. Pugh herself comes from a family of performers; her older brother started acting before her and helped her navigate the industry when she was beginning. So there does seem to be a slim bit of mirror between Paige’s life and Pugh’s, which may have informed her characterization. It’s the most modest in terms of ambition and success, but with it Pugh shows she can be a mainstream audience surrogate in a Studio film. She simultaneously grounds the film and elevates it.

“On Pugh’s delightful Instagram account, she comes across as a confident, playful young woman who enjoys taking care of her cactus and life in general. This effervescent persona is a stark contrast to her punishing performance in Ari Aster’s Soap-Operatic Wicker Man riff, Midsommar. We first see Pugh’s face on the verge of tears in a glassy eyed close-up, and the film ends on another close up of her with a triumphant smile. Between the two images, she must cope with the trauma of losing her family, and the burden of carrying the emotional labor in a dead-shark relationship. Pugh keeps Dani on the precipice of stability for the entire film. In her relationship she choreographs an awkward dance, calling out bad behavior (you forget my birthday) then instantly taking on blame (it’s my fault, I didn’t remind you) because she feels that she would be completely untethered without the sliver of support he provides. Aster’s script requires that you not only understand why Dani remains in the relationship, but why she ultimately chooses a violent cult over it. Pugh keeps the audience on her side throughout the journey.

“Following Midsommar, Pugh closed out 2019 with Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. In previous adaptations (and the novel itself I’m told), Amy is easy to dislike. Jo is the heroine you root for; Amy is the bratty little girl. She who burns Jo’s writing. She ends up with Laurie, who is obviously meant for Jo. Gerwig’s version is more empathetic to Amy, and lifts her up to an almost co-lead status. While Pugh’s raspy voice (a side-effect of a tracheal condition she had as a child) can make it hard to accept her as a 13 year old, her childish cadence and looser physicality help provide enough distance between the adolescent and the young adult Amys. Pugh is also tasked with giving the film’s statement of purpose. Meryl Streep wanted Gerwig to remind audiences of why someone like Amy would seek to marry for financial gain. Pugh imparts Amy’s somewhat didactic speech with a deeply felt passion that turns what could be a thesis statement into a moment of strength. When she gives the speech, Laurie stops seeing her as a frivolous child. Unlike other versions, he doesn’t seem to fall for Amy because he can’t have Jo, but because Amy herself has grown into an intelligent, strong woman.

“Evolving into a person whose individual strength helps strengthen her relationships within a chosen family is a connecting theme through Florence Pugh’s otherwise disparate 2019 roles. Following her MCU debut in this Spring’s Black Widow, Pugh is taking her first real break since Lady Macbeth’s release in 2016. When Pugh decides to return, it will be interesting to see which family chooses next.” ~ Kevin Cecil

Outstanding Cinematic Breakthrough – The Finalists:

1. Florence Pugh (actor - Little Women, Midsommar, Fighting With My Family) [119/17]

2. Julia Fox (actor - Uncut Gems) [62/11]

3. Mati Diop (director – Atlantics) [54/9]

4. Lulu Wang (director - The Farewell) [38/6]

5. Olivia Wilde (director - Booksmart) [32/6]

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Outstanding Body of Work – The Finalists:

1. Florence Pugh (actor - Little Women, Midsommar, Fighting With My Family) [180/25]

2. Brad Pitt (actor - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ad Astra; producer - The Last Black Man in San Francisco) [128/20]

3. Adam Driver (actor - Marriage Story, The Report, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Dead Don’t Die) [113/18]

4. Laura Dern (actor - Marriage Story, Little Women, Cold Pursuit) [71/12]

5. Robert Pattinson (actor - The Lighthouse, High Life, The King) [61/11]

6. Claire Mathon (cinematographer - Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Atlantics) [61/10]

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2019 Muriel Awards: 10th Anniversary Award (Best Film of 2009)

“Equally versed in theoretical physics and the mechanics of spiritual divorce, A Serious Man dazzles on so many levels that easy superlatives just don’t come. Bleaker than No Country for Old Men, funnier than The Big Lebowski or Hail, Caesar!, and ultimately more profound than Barton Fink, A Serious Man is everything that the Coens do well, done at their best. The intervening years have only seen it grow in estimation.

“Professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg, in one of the finest performances of the twenty-first century) is a man in a state of crisis. His wife wants a divorce so she can marry another, he’s on a collision course with his University’s tenure committee, his closeted savant brother has taken up what seems like a permanent residence on the family couch, the next door neighbors are encroaching on his property even as the new freedoms approach with arms outstretched, his stoner son seems dangerously unready for his bar mitzvah, and the Columbia record club won’t stop calling.

“Larry Gopnik is a man put upon, and answers are unforthcoming from both human and divine. The voice of the heavens belongs to Grace Slick, though, and there are mysteries we all must accept, both in this life and the life to come. An enduring masterpiece of theological and sociological unease.” ~ Jason Shawhan

Muriel’s Top 10 Films of 2009:

1. A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen) [157/23]

2. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino) [149/21]

3. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson) [100/17]

4. Up (Pete Docter) [70/12]

5. Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos) [50/8]

6. In the Loop (Armando Iannucci) [39/7]

7. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke) [34/5]

8. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze) [26/4]

9 (tie). Moon (Duncan Jones) [25/4]

9 (tie). Mother (Bong Joon-ho) [25/4]

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2019 Muriel Awards: 25th Anniversary Award (Best Film of 1994)

“No film better represents the transition point of American cinema in the mid-90s than Pulp Fiction. It was the movie that made Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bob and Harvey Weinstein into household names; cemented the status of the Weinsteins’ Miramax Films as one of Hollywood’s hippest distributors; spawned a million cheap knock-offs, imitators, parodies. It seemed to represent the giddy joy of cinephilia itself, a dream movie served up by a guy who claimed to have spent his youth binging on every VHS tape he could get his hands on and who now seemed determined to break every rule in the Hollywood playbook from the opening credits sequence (in which, with the sudden twist of a radio dial, Dick Dale’s surf-rock ‘Miserlou’ gets replaced by Kool and the Gang’s funkalicious ‘Jungle Boogie’) on. To those of us who came of age watching Pulp Fiction, everything about it seemed exciting and nothing about it seemed predictable. Its gangsters were poetic and nerdy. Its plot was shaggy and digressive. Its tone was light when you expected it to be heavy and funny when you expected it to be suspenseful. If there is any ‘message’ to be found in Pulp Fiction, it’s this: stay on your toes.

“Buzz around the movie had been building from the time of its premiere at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or. When it opened in the U.S. that October Janet Maslin declared it ‘a work of such depth, wit, and blazing originality that it places [Tarantino] in the front ranks of American filmmakers.’ Even those who were more mixed on the film, like The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane, couldn’t deny that it was an ‘intriguing spectacle,’ a piece of narrative innovation on par with the work of Godard or Antonioni. Almost overnight it became a cult hit, the movie with the quirky title and that catchy surf-guitar riff that played under its TV spots.

“By the time of the 1995 Academy Awards, a symbolic battle over the soul of American cinema had been waged. Hip, profane, ironic, ultraviolent Pulp Fiction would go head-to-head with Forrest Gump, the sincere, good-old-fashioned Hollywood feel-good movie, albeit newly updated with state-of-the-art technical wizardry. Although Forrest Gump took most of the top prizes that night it was clear that the future of movies belonged to Tarantino and all that he represented. By 1996 (informally dubbed ‘the year of the independent film’) the North American marketplace would be flooded with ‘indies’—many great, some terrible, all of them posing challenges to the conventional wisdom that had governed Hollywood since the 1970s and the rise of the blockbuster.”

“The significance of Pulp Fiction wasn’t just a matter of Hollywood versus indie or sincerity versus irony. It was also a matter of old versus young. Precocious, motor-mouthed, pop-culture-obsessed, Tarantino inaugurated the figure of the fanboy-as-artist and (whether for better or worse) helped push geek culture from the margins of the entertainment industry to its center. A child of the video age, his cinematic influences where eclectic and cosmopolitan: yakuza movies, Blaxploitation, spaghetti westerns, Brian de Palma, film noir. He spoke, somehow, for all of us for whom the local video store and late-night cable TV served as our film school. So we got drunk on Pulp Fiction’s stylish panache, its sly humor, the surreal gut-punch of its violence, the way that it could speed up or slow down at will, all of its twists and shifts masterfully orchestrated by this kid who, though barely out of his twenties, had the command of a Spielberg or a Hitchcock. We were still too young to get Tarantino’s references to films like Bande à Part. But we understood, instinctively, what Pulp Fiction meant—namely, that movies didn’t have to follow the rules that every other movie seemed to be playing by. They could change the radio station right in the middle of a song.” ~ Ian Scott Todd

Muriel’s Top 10 Films of 1994:

1. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino) [191/26]

2. Ed Wood (Tim Burton) [164/26]

3. Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai) [120/19]

4. Satantango (Bela Tarr) [86/13]

5. Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski) [83/13]

6. Hoop Dreams (Steve James) [55/8]

7. Exotica (Atom Egoyan) [48/9]

8. Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-wai) [46/8]

9. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson) [43/7]

10. The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen) [34/6]

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2019 Muriel Awards: 50th Anniversary Award (Best Film of 1969)

“Westerns, a staple since the early days of cinema, were still important in 1969. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was the year’s highest grossing movie. True Grit won John Wayne an Oscar. But the world was changing rapidly, and many filmmakers were eager to move beyond simple games of cowboys and Indians, approaching the time-honored tradition with new approaches and perspectives. One notable example: Sam Peckinpah with The Wild Bunch.

“Maybe egged on by the envelope-pushing violence of Bonnie and Clyde, the stylish reinvention of the genre in Italy, disgust with the war in Vietnam, hunger to overcome recent professional failures, or some combination of those things, he made a film that was revisionist in both form and content. It was technically groundbreaking, experimenting with new lenses, filming speeds, editing techniques and even gun sounds. But since Peckinpah chose not to sanitize the gore and death of the west, many were too revolted by the bloody, high casualty shootouts to celebrate his masterful craftsmanship.

“Which was, of course, the point. The film unmasks Hollywood cliches of heroism with its regretful gunman protagonist and a tone that frequently shifts from thrilling to melancholic. Starting with the opening scene, where children gleefully feed a live scorpion to a mob of ants, Peckinpah takes aim at the brutality of humankind. Innocent bystanders, including a tuba player from the South Texas Temperance Union parade, are shot dead in the streets, caught in a greedy war between a railroad company and our team of outlaw protagonists. There are always children nearby, playing guns, riding alongside a general, smiling at the bandits’ jokes about whores, or being breastfed beneath a bandolier.

“It’s a portrait of human ugliness that hits you in the gut. Yet its band of reprobate anti-heroes manages to find some manner of honor in this world when they agree to risk it all for a friend they left behind. Somehow Peckinpah was able to cut open the western, pull out its guts, and still make a classic of the form.” ~ Vern

Muriel’s Top 10 Films of 1969:

1. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah) [167/26]

2. Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville) [110/16]

3. Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger) [87/13]

4. Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper) [75/13]

5. My Night at Maud’s (Éric Rohmer) [68/10]

6. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill) [57/10]

7. Kes (Ken Loach) [50/8]

8. Z (Costa-Gavras) [39/7]

9. Women in Love (Ken Russell) [33/5]

10. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack) [32/6]

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2019 Muriel Awards: An Introduction

Hi everybody! Welcome to the 14th annual edition of the Muriel Awards!

Before we get started with the festivities, I just wanted to announce that we've made a few changes to the announcements this year. The biggest one is that we've decided not to spread out the awards over a week or so like we have in previous years. For all the fun of a gradual roll-out, it can be difficult to sustain interest over a long period of time, so instead we'll be announcing everything between tonight and Monday. Here's how the schedule looks at this point:
Tonight - Anniversary Awards
Tomorrow (Friday) - Best Supporting Performances, plus a few others
Saturday - Best Lead Performances, plus some others
Sunday - Best Picture Countdown, along with the remaining awards that haven't yet been given

And finally, on Monday, we'll be posting the results of our poll of the best films of the 2010s, along with a few other goodies.

Additionally, we've also made the decision to decrease the number of written essays for the winners. You'll be seeing a handful of pieces penned by our awesome writers each day, but not necessarily for every award. Hope that's not a problem for anyone.

See you back here at 7 PM tonight for the announcement of our first award this year!