2017 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance, 3rd Place

Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project [313 points / 31 votes]

"I’m not gonna say if we were drinking or not, but my friend Evan Crean who co-hosts the terrific Spoilerpiece Theatre Podcast recently explained to me his theory as to why Willem Dafoe should win Best Supporting Actor for The Florida Project. 'Nobody worked harder than Dafoe all year,' Evan enthused, 'Every scene, this guy was busting his ass! He moved broken ice machines into crummy elevators, he threw bedbug-infested mattresses into dumpsters, he re-painted the whole side of that fucking building pink! Willem *worked* for this role!'

"Manual labor aside, Sean Baker’s remarkable melodrama gave Dafoe maybe the trickiest job in movies last year because it was up to our longtime screen veteran to anchor a cast of wildly gifted and totally green first-time actors, rolling with their improvisations and imperfections in order to ground the movie in identifiable truths, at times almost lassoing scenes into shape by his sheer force of will. Like his character tending to a wayward flock in a ramshackle welfare motel, Dafoe provides structure and sanity to The Florida Project. It’s impossible to imagine the movie without him.

"Of course he’s been a marvel for more than three decades, playing Satan in Wild Billy Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. and Jesus in Oliver Stone’s Platoon, then Jesus again in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Satan’s idiot cousin in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. Dafoe’s wild eyes and high-set cheekbones have always given him an extra-worldly aura (my little sister was terrified of him when we were kids and used to beg me to change the channel whenever he was on TV) so maybe Baker’s biggest triumph was to cast him as a regular, decent fella.

"Dafoe is the flummoxed Mr. Wilson to the motel’s roving pack of Dennis The Menaces, but he’s also the movie’s moral compass. Here’s a guy who knows he can’t solve all the problems of the world but he sure does love these little kids who are a massive pain in his ass. Watch how slowly Dafoe builds in the show-stopping sequence during which he spots a pedophile and pulls him away from the children. He babbles and vamps, luring the creeper far enough away to bring the smack down without these kids seeing him do so, trying desperately to preserve whatever’s left of their innocence for just one more day." ~ Sean M. Burns

2017 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance, 4th Place

Tiffany Haddish - Girls Trip [196 points / 18 votes]

"A couple of months ago, I attended a celebratory, end-of-the-year dinner my local film critics’ group was having. All through the evening, they were debating and going back-and-forth on what were their favorite films and performances and which ones will most likely be nominated for Oscars. When one critic (not me) asked, 'Do you think Tiffany Haddish will be nominated for Best Supporting Actress?' everyone at the table – and this was a table with about 20 people – fell silent. Well, everyone except this one dude, who just uttered, 'Come on?' It took everything in me not to throw my keys at that guy’s forehead. But since I was the only black guy at this table (the only people of color in this group is me and an African-American lady), I kept myself in check so I didn’t scare these white people into thinking they should’ve never let this negro into their clique. Not to mention I just ate a bunch of free pizza on their dime, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

But instead of 'Come on?' the real question that should be asked is 'Why not?' Why shouldn’t Tiffany Haddish be nominated for her balls-to-the-wall performance in the box-office smash Girls Trip? As the consistently ratchet party girl Dina, she is the cinematic embodiment of every woman’s crazy homegirl. She’s the wild-child BFF who has no qualms flashing her breasts at a concert, showing up with questionable drugs/alcohol for a girls’ night out or teaching you some nasty-ass tricks of the trade in order to satisfy your man. (I must admit Haddish’s most infamous scene in the movie is a recreation of this equally-infamous viral video.) But she is a gal who’s also loyal and supportive of her friends, as well as a ride-or-die chick who is literally ready to cut any guy or girl who does any of them dirty.

"Since Girls Trip made a killing in theaters ($115 domestic and $140 worldwide, proving once and for all that PEOPLE OF ALL SHADES WILL SEE GOOD MOVIES WITH BLACK WOMEN IN IT!), thinkpieces began popping up about how Haddish’s hilarious, heartfelt turn is awards-worthy and that a Best Supporting Actress nonimation was imminent. After all, Melissa McCarthy was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her breakthrough, tour-de-force performance in Bridesmaids back in 2012. You would think a nod for Haddish would be in the bag, especially after the New York Film Critics Circle gave her its Best Supporting Actress award. (She also gave an uproarious, inspiring, 18-minute speech that was the talk of the ceremony.) But, unfortunately, when she announced the nominees (sometimes incorrectly) for this year’s Oscars last month, she was not listed in the Best Supporting Actress category.

"It would be easy to say this was a racist move on the part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences -- except the Best Supporting Actress category includes not one, but two African-American actresses (Mary J. Blige for Mudbound and Octavia Spencer for The Shape of Water) this year. I can only assume this is the Academy once again turning up its nose at comedy – and comics like Haddish who bring their shtick to the big screen. For some reason, the Oscars still think that people who give bravura, comedic turns in movies aren’t worthy of receiving their statuettes. (Remember, even though she was nominated, McCarthy didn’t win the Oscar.) And when the Academy does give an Oscar to someone for being funny, like Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, people continue to believe it was a mistake.

"Yes, Tiffany Haddish getting an Oscar nomination for her go-for-broke work in Girls Trip was a nice thought. But, sadly, that’s all it was. Thankfully, Haddish has been making a lot of major moves lately, from hosting Saturday Night Live to signing a first-look deal with HBO. So, it looks like she’ll be shining brightly without the help of that bald-headed, piece of gold – thank you very much!" ~ Craig D. Lindsey

2017 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance, 5th Place

As you can see, we’ve consolidated the supporting actor and supporting actress categories into one single award this year. We’ve done the same with (SPOILER) the lead acting categories. The reasoning behind the change comes down to the question of how much different acting is for a female as compared to a male. And while I’m sure there are different nuances, in the end I didn’t think there was enough of a difference to justify keeping two separate categories. What do you think?

Counting down from #5…

Michael Stuhlbarg - Call Me By Your Name [161 points / 16 votes]

“Michael Stuhlbarg’s performance in Call Me By Your Name represents something rare in cinema and life: common decency. It was especially rare when directed towards queer teenagers in the early 1980s. Actually, I actively dislike Call Me By Your Name; it strikes me as a “gay film” made for heterosexuals, even though I like André Aciman’s source novel quite a bit. In its avoidance of explicit sex and gay identity, it shows how high the price of entry to the mainstream for LGBT people and their art remains. And it received a degree of attention and wide distribution that far better films about gay men released in 2017, like God’s Own Country, Beach Rats, Nobody’s Watching and BPM (Beats Per Minute), could have used. But the monologue delivered by Stuhlbarg as Elio’s father Samuel is one of last year’s genuinely sublime moments in cinema. Few parents would be capable of offering their sons such a thoughtful and measured account of the ups and downs of love, and how this is likely to affect them over the course of their entire life.

“Samuel does not explicitly tell Elio ‘I know you’re gay and that’s totally OK with me.’ Stuhlbarg’s performance conveys a modest hesitation and reticence in addressing his son’s sexuality, which seems natural given the period and the fact that Elio slept with his own assistant. But over the course of the monologue, Samuel works towards acceptance. Stuhlbarg does a terrific job of conveying this. 2017 was a big year for the actor; he also had supporting roles in The Post and The Shape of Water. He only appears in The Post for a few minutes, as the New York Times’ executive editor A. M. Rosenthal. His performance as a Russian spy in The Shape of Water is more substantial. Call Me By Your Name’s trio of male actors with major roles, he out-performs Armie Hammer, although not Timothee Chalamet, by a mile. The emotional force of Call Me By Your Name, which comes across much stronger in Aciman’s first-person narrative, relies mostly on Stuhlbarg’s big scene and the closing images of Chalamet as the credits roll. Whatever problems I have with the rest of the film, those scenes deliver, and Stuhlbarg is a major part of the reason why.” ~ Steve Erickson

2017 Muriel Awards: Best Supporting Performance - Retrospective Poll

After I hit upon the idea of removing the gender distinction in the lead and supporting performance awards, I took a second and wondered who might have won in previous years had we not split the categories up into male and female? So I sent out a special ballot to this year's voters to choose who they preferred from our winners going back to 2006. Below I've listed the results from the supporting categories, and I'll do the same for the leads next weekend. Enjoy!

2006:
Adriana Barraza, Babel - 12 votes
*Mark Wahlberg, The Departed - 17 votes

2007:
*Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men - 20 votes
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There - 11 votes

2008:
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married - 9 votes
*Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight - 24 points

2009:
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air - 3 votes
*Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds - 31 votes

2010:
Greta Gerwig, Greenberg - 12 votes
*John Hawkes, Winter's Bone - 20 votes

2011:
*Albert Brooks, Drive - 17 votes
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids - 15 votes
(Note: This race was the biggest surprise to me - not because of who won, but because of how close it was. Back in the day. McCarthy's win was pretty controversial among some of our voters, who were hoping for a more serious, actor-ly turn to win - say, Charlotte Gainsbourg in Melancholia or one of a handful of turns from Jessica Chastain from that year.)

2012:
Amy Adams, The Master - 2 votes
*Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master - 31 votes

2013:
*James Franco, Spring Breakers - 16 votes
Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave - 15 votes

2014:
*Patricia Arquette, Boyhood - 25 votes
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash - 9 votes

2015:
Sylvester Stallone, Creed - 10 votes
*Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria - 20 votes

2016:
*Mahershala Ali, Moonlight - 20 votes
Lily Gladstone, Certain Women - 11 votes

2017 Muriel Awards: Best Youth Performance

I’ve been toying with this category for a few years, having first formulated the idea when doing some stage acting alongside child performers. In my experience, there’s often something different about acting as a child compared to acting as an adult. Whereas many adult performers put a lot of thought into their character’s psychology and mindset, for children (particularly younger kids) the approach tends to be less studied, more natural, sort of a game of pretend. Plus they almost invariably have their lines memorized before the adults do, which is sort of sickening the first time you notice it happen.

Anyway… Third place:

Dafne Keen - Logan [47 points / 11 votes]

Second place:

Millicent Simmonds - Wonderstruck [63 points / 14 votes]

And the winner is…

Brooklynn Prince - The Florida Project [126 points / 30 votes]

“Many great performances given by young children rely on heavy editing and stylization, fashioning a Kuleshovian facade out of their unpredictable, inexhaustible energy. This is not the case with The Florida Project's approach to Brooklynn Prince, whose energy is not only still the key to the character, and the film itself, but absolutely special in its own right. Sean Baker's interest in social structures and their effect on the people under them is here offered a challenge by a person for whom, up until a heartbreaking ending, their harmful effects have yet to fully be internalized in Prince's Moonee. The film chronicles Moonee's carefree summer in the extreme poverty dealt with by the mother and surrogate father who raise her, similarly brilliant newcomer Bria Vinaite and always brilliant Willem Dafoe. One may expect this magic to require the undeveloped perspective of a child to replicate itself in cinematic approach, but Baker and Carlos Reygadas DP Alexis Zabe work foremost in flat, static, medium length medium shots, using score only once during the fantasy end sequence. Prince riffs and rambles her way through these realist setups with supreme confidence, the camera hanging back to catalog the poverty which she has no shame of yet, only knowing the free spirit encouraged by a mother so young herself.

“Prince isn't merely playing herself either. Much more vulgar than she is in interviews, she also pushes back on authority without a hint of a fuck given, something that feels coaxed out by Baker, though credit must be given to her for embodying that rebelliousness so thoroughly. This quality could only be so keen in childhood, and in many ways the film calls on Prince to be the face of this universal early psychology before it's shed, even as this energy begins to intersect within her with her uniquely working class qualities that are thrown into sharper relief as the story continues along its tragic trajectory. In many ways, Prince must represent childhood itself, which is a common thing asked of childhood performances, but rarely is it ever placed in context, and executed, with consideration to what Nurture presages for the individual. This is some irresistible work drawn by Prince from pure acting instinct.” ~ Molly Faust

Click here for complete results.

2017 Muriel Awards: 50th Anniversary Award

Our first award this year is the 50th Anniversary Award, given to our favorite film that premiered internationally during the year 1967 (based on IMDb date). We also celebrate 25th and 10th Anniversary Awards, but the 50th Anniversary Award is notable because the award-winning film will also be our first inductee into the Muriels Hall of Fame, which is voted upon by active Muriels voters in the summer. So… that’s exciting.

Third place (tied): 

Belle de Jour (dir. Luis Buñuel) [108 points / 17 votes]…

… and Point Blank (dir. John Boorman) [108 points / 17 votes]

Second place:

Bonnie and Clyde (dir. Arthur Penn) [115 points / 19 votes]

And the winner is…

Play Time (dir. Jacques Tati) [129 points / 19 votes]

“Like Red Desert or 2001, Jacques Tati's Play Time is a highly skeptical view of the high modernity of the 1960s, the computerized, capitalistic grey rationalism overtaking all aspects of life. But whereas Kubrick and Antonioni's visions are austere and dour, Tati's is light and whimsical, essentially human and reachably optimistic in ways that other filmmakers could never manage. While Kubrick, Antonioni, Bergman and Godard saw the era as an ennui-laden morass of commercialism and despair, Tati was wise enough to know that those miserable monochrome rooms were still ultimately a trend, that the basic messiness of humanity would emerge triumphant - although what might lay next would remain a mystery.

“The centerpiece of the film, the opening night at a restaurant that turns into a chaotic free-for-all, is a masterpiece of organized chaos and visual comedy. This 49-minute sequence stands as one of the highest achievements in cinema all by itself, a string of mini-narratives and gags that slowly build on each other into a roaring crescendo of vitality - of human life unconstrainable by the bounds of the rather tacky restaurant itself, which begins to crumble mere hours after it opens.

“In the category of ‘super-expensive personal visions that basically ruined a director's career,’ Play Time is hard to beat, leading Tati into debt for the rest of his life. And yet, what a glorious folly, a quiet, delicate symphony about the absurdity of everyday urban life that rewards patient observance and attention to tiny details, from the smirk of a waiter to the buzz of a neon light.” ~ Jeff McMahon

Click here for complete results.

2017 Muriel Awards: An Introduction

Well, folks – the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. The Muriel Awards are here!

Before we begin unveiling the winners, I would like to preface this year’s awards by announcing that you’ll notice a few changes around here. The biggest one is that we’ve tried to streamline the Muriels announcements somewhat. In the past, we’ve announced one award per day, causing the awards to last nearly three weeks. It recently occurred to me that by dragging it out like this, the interest might flag somewhere between the initial award and the countdown to Best Film. So this year, I’ve made an executive decision to make multiple announcements on most of the days, which will reduce the overall time of the awards, and hopefully better sustain the interest and energy of the awards. I will announce the first two awards this evening at 7 PM and 9 PM (U.S. Eastern Time), with the final day of Muriels being next Sunday, the 25th, which will be devoted to the countdown to the Best Film award as usual.

There also been a handful of category changes this year, one with one brand new award (to be unveiled tonight) and other categories that have been tweaked a bit. We’ll discuss those when the time comes.

And now, on with the show…