2011 Muriel Award: Best Web-Based Criticism

Today’s result makes me happy. And that’s all I’m going to say.

Third place:



Mubi/The Daily Mubi [50 points/8 votes]

Second place:



Slant Magazine [64/10]

And your winner...





The Man Who Viewed Too Much (Mike D'Angelo)

"The original is still the best. Mike D’Angelo more or less invented online criticism, having been reviewing and arguing about movies online since newsgroups were a thing and the Internet was just a phone with the word “Internet” written on it. Since then, D’Angelo has written for publications like Entertainment Weekly and Time Out New York, and he currently contributes to The AV Club, which narrowly beat him in this category last year. Through all that time, his website, The Man Who Viewed Too Much, has persisted in all its plain-text glory, providing inspiration and edification for countless cinephiles and wannabe critics.

When institutional film criticism started to die off in the mid-aughts, D’Angelo’s output sadly but understandably declined. He’s come roaring back over the past year, however, regularly posting capsule reviews of each movie he watches. These capsules, written in exchange for minimal PayPal donations, pack more insight and wit into 200 words than most critics can manage in 1000. And that’s not even mentioning “Scenic Routes,” his phenomenal monthly column for The AV Club, or his pioneering Twitter feed. (As with web criticism more widely, he can probably be single-handedly credited—or blamed, as the case may be—for the rise of “micro-criticism.”) All of this confirms why D’Angelo remains one of the most well-known and influential web critics—it’s his fucking writing, an unmistakable mix of argument, humor, and sarcasm that has gained him legions of fans and imitators. (Not to mention detractors; if he’s ever murdered, expect to find a copy of Children of Men next to the body.)

It’s probably impossible to overstate D’Angelo’s influence; if it weren’t for him, you probably wouldn’t even be reading this right now. I’m confident that many of the writers voting in this poll owe something of their styles to The Man Who Viewed Too Much, and even the Muriels themselves are somewhat indebted to D’Angelo’s Skandies awards. [Editor’s note: Admittedly more than somewhat.] It’s basically unavoidable; whatever you’re doing, the odds are good that D’Angelo did it first. He’s an institution, and we owe him the world.

And by “the world,” I mean a $2 PayPal transfer." - Matt Noller

See the full results.