2016 Muriel Awards Best Picture Countdown: #14

[109.5 points / 11 votes]

“I enjoy comedies, dramas, love stories, musicals, documentaries, etc… as much as anyone else, but there are few things I treasure more than a perfect thriller. Green Room is a perfect thriller. A model of lean, economical, and suspenseful filmmaking, the film involves a down-on-their-luck touring punk rock band who find themselves in a fight-to-the-death battle with a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads after accidentally witnessing a murder following a gig at a remote, secluded punk rock club. That’s the whole story, and it’s more than enough to fill 90 brisk, galvanizing minutes.

“Evoking the spirit of classic ‘siege’ films like John Carpenter’s Assault On Precinct 13 (also a perfect thriller), Green Room sets up a claustrophobic, powder keg situation, populates it with compelling and complex characters, and lets the sparks (and bullets, and machetes, and box cutters) fly while the audience is left to clutch their armrests with anxiety. Making the tension even more gripping is the unexpected realism. Unlike most thriller/horror films, there are truly no moments when the audience is forced to think ‘why would he/she do that?’ or ‘that would never happen.’ Within the context of the storyline, the characters’ actions proceed with a brutal, desperate realism that feels practically instinctual.

“It’s filled with excellent performances, especially by Anton Yelchin (R.I.P.), Imogen Poots, Macon Blair, and Alia Shawkat, but the film’s casting coup de grâce is unquestionably a chilling Patrick Stewart as Darcy, the leader of the skinhead gang. The much-beloved Stewart clearly relishes playing such a baddie, and much of the film’s subtle, dark humor comes from his unexpected pragmatism. He may be a vicious, brutal, drug-dealing Neo-Nazi gang leader, but he won’t abide any fire hazards.” ~ Jason Alley

2016 Muriel Awards Addendum: Awesome But Ineligible

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to kick off our final day of Muriel Awards festivities. We’ll be counting down the best movies of 2016, posting one every half hour until 7:00, when the Golden Muriel is finally announced. But before we get started, here are a few notable films from the past year that didn’t meet our eligibility requirements.

“Beyonce's Lemonade is a staggering portrait of self-exorcism in the wake of a personal and continued national crisis. It's a film of blood, genealogy & legacy. Mrs. Knowles presents herself as the result of a fractured family tree where women wronged resurface like phoenix in her images as mythological figures, but the story of Beyoncé's Lemonade is one of humanity. She strips herself bare of any constructed image and is thus a funnel for her own reactionary emotional state and within comes sorrow, pride, guilt and eventually reconciliation and joy. But Beyoncé is not a minimalist artist & her filmic decision making, much like her musical expressions, are maximalist and resemble a megaton force. When Beyoncé makes a gesture she shifts culture, even when those actions & expressions are deeply internalized & carry the weight of an entire history of a blood soaked nation. Lemonade is intertwined in her own personal d.n.a. & the camera follows as she is this idea expressed to its fullest. An idea of black womanhood, family, feminism, femininity, maternity, and livelihood struggling against the currents of a nation which has traditionally cast these people aside. In Lemonade they walk on water.” ~ Willow Catelyn Maclay

“I’ve never offered my soul to any of the ancient hoary hosts, all my occult rituals were about expanding vision. But it’s a testament to the skill of Joel Potrykus that you can’t watch his films without finding empathy, and echoes of one’s own experiences on the business end of the global economy.

“The hopelessness of the modern era- the formlessness of the structures of power that seem to be running things. You do what you have with what you can. So you get why Sean (Ty Hickson, in an amazing performance) would decide to abandon society and head off to the woods, ‘talkin’ to the Devil like it ain’t nothing.’” Despite needing his meds so badly.

“Because money runs everything, what won’t you do for money? Get old school scientific, use the knowledge of the ancient alchemists and get yours. But also, because money runs everything, and nothing else matters, what’s the point of any of it? “It’s weird to call The Alchemist Cookbook, this serrated masterpiece of slow-motion demonic tragedy, this remarkable work of empathy and cosmic melancholy, existential. But it gets at the feeling of now expertly. The stress that eats all joy. The horrors consuming everything at arm’s reach. Even the frustration of trying to protect the innocent from the evil you can’t stop. This subtle, minimalist demonology is captivating; when something concrete does happen, it feels like the subconscious inserting itself into the text of the viewer’s mind, unmaking the certainties with which you gird yourself just to make it out into the world. And every step down the path of negating the self takes its payment. In flesh. In bone. In mind.” ~ Jason Shawhan

2016 Muriel Awards Addendum: Other Performances We Loved - The Women

“Every NBA All-Star Weekend, they hold a dunk contest. NBA players execute impossible dunks, feats of athleticism and strength that blow the mind. This year's contest was widely regarded as a disappointment. It wasn't that the dunks weren't challenging. It wasn't that the players didn't exhibit impressive athleticism and strength. It was... well, you could *feel them working hard.* The great dunkers in the history of basketball-- Michael Jordan, Vince Carter, Dominique Wilkins, etc.-- made their work seem effortless. You wouldn't feel their arms stretching, their body contorting, their attempts straining to seal their places in dunk history. They would simply float through the air, as graceful as any prima ballerina or Olympic gymnast. It's not impressive enough to do tremendous work. One must do the work while appearing to do no work at all.

“Cinema doesn't often follow dunk contest standards. Often the actor who *appears* to work the hardest is rewarded with the best accolades, reviews, and awards. Most actors strain when burdened with the task of delivering epic monologues, filling hefty roles, carrying emotionally draining films-- including many of the greatest actors who have ever lived. This strain is understandable. The complexity of emotions-- especially those contained within truly special scripts-- is a daunting task. You want to hit every beat, emphasize every word, push every emotion to the brink, in order to make the audience feel. There's no question that the actors who we often see nominated for Academy Awards are ‘doing tremendous work.’ We see just how hard they're working.

“Separate from the pack, however, is Viola Davis. Viola Davis is to cinema what Michael Jordan is to basketball. When she does tremendous work, she floats effortlessly across the screen. When you pair someone exceptional with the work of August Wilson in his play Fences, you get something magical. She must've known this would be a role that would qualify her for an Oscar (she won Best Actress at the Tonys for the same role), but you don't feel her straining for awards audiences. You don't feel her preening for glory. She simply serves the story.

“It'd be easy to talk about her big emotional scenes, her pained goodbyes, her snotty noses. I want to talk about the opening scenes, the scenes in which she plays a patient, loving, somewhat put-upon housewife. These scenes belong to her husband, played by her director Denzel Washington, but she's often present, keeping her husband's tall tales grounded, encouraging him to be the best man he can be, working to keep the family bound together. A lesser actress-- a.k.a. all of them-- would take her dialogue in these scenes and chew it to smithereens, trying to force her story into the forefront. Conversely, a lesser actress might also blend into the background, leaving us less aware of her situation, diminishing the impact of the eventual revelations that break her heart in the near future. Ms. Davis never steps on toes, yet she remains endlessly present. She is both the ultimate star and the ultimate team player.

“Mr. Wilson's script, faithfully executed by Mr. Washington, is an all-time great piece of storytelling in American history. You can't tell Troy Maxson's story without telling Rose's, and you can't have a titan of a performer like Mr. Washington portray Troy without a similarly titanic counterweight to balance the scale. Ms. Davis's performance moves mountains. It would be unfair to call her the Michael Jordan of the silver screen. We should start saying that Michael Jordan is the Viola Davis of basketball.” ~ Russell Hainline
 

“Annette Bening completely anchors 20th Century Women as Dorothea, the would-be matriarch of a makeshift family in 70's southern California (and a loose autobiographical version of director Mike Mills' own mother). Dorothea struggles with raising up a son, Jamie, to be a good man just as the socially agreed-upon definition of that is beginning to change, and her own sense of feminism is challenged by the young women in her son's life, for whom she can't help but both worry for and to some extent envy. Late in the picture she manages to both sum it all up and completely recode the film's perspective on her with nothing but her face and a single line. Jamie reads to her from a book on feminism with well-intentioned but still presumptuous feelings of sympathy, and as the text describes the way society ignores women of a certain age Bening's expression mutates effortlessly from a sliver of pride to a sliver of shame, and finally to a twinge of anger. ‘So,’ she says, ‘You think that's me.’” ~ Matt Lynch


“Isabelle Huppert wasn’t the only sixtysomething, foreign-film vixen who gave a ballsy, defiant star turn last year. Let’s give some love to that Brazilian goddess Sonia Braga for the performance she gave in Kleber Mendonca Filho’s mesmerizing Aquarius (which is ready to view on Netflix, by the way).

“Braga is Clara, an aging music writer enjoying her golden years in the same beachfront apartment she’s lived in for decades. All she wants to do is listen to her LPs, spend time with family and friends and relax. Unfortunately, a construction company wants to tear down her apartment complex (which she’s the only inhabitant) and would very much like her gone. But Clara, a breast-cancer survivor, is staying put and is ready to go to war if she needs to. “It’s a delight seeing Braga go head-to-head with these folks trying to flush her out, eventually discovering that this lady is as wily and stubborn as they are. When a drunken party descends into a filmed orgy above her apartment, does she call the police? Hell, no. She calls up a stud one of her friends recommended and gets her groove back for the evening. (Considering how several male characters, both young and old, fall for her flirtatious foxiness, she didn’t have to go far for the D!)

“But Aquarius isn’t all about Braga’s character getting her fight on. It’s mostly a movie about a woman who continues to live life to the fullest, even when people feel she should be living in a retirement home. Clara may have some wrinkles, but she’s far from senile. There’s still some fire in that gal. She’s passionate in every sense of the word, mainly because she’s been through everything – cancer, losing a spouse, etc. – and she’s still here. While there are scenes which has her singing along to Queen’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ and Roberto Carlos’s ‘O Quintal Do Vizinho,’ it wouldn’t have been surprising if there was a scene of her grooving to P. Diddy and Mase’s ‘Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down.’

“Aquarius ultimately reminds us that Braga is still as sexy and vivacious as she was when she starred in such erotic, ’70s Brazilian flicks as Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands and Lady on the Bus. Excuse me for getting my male gaze on, but I can proudly say that, at 66 years of age, Sonia Braga can still get it!” ~ Craig D. Lindsey
 

“As I get older, something about the concept of simplicity is becoming more and more appealing to me. And as a more-or-less discriminating filmgoer it’s why I tend to warm to a more classical, long-take (or at least longer than 1.5 seconds) approach to filmmaking. Whether or not it actually results in thought, the strategy reads and feels like a more thoughtful process, seems to invite contemplation and, if we’re lucky, complexity. As viewers we’re given room to breathe, to absorb feeling as opposed to empty sensation.

“I thought about that later-in-life preference when I was watching Michelle Williams’ simple, eloquently restrained work in Manchester by the Sea. Without much pomp and circumstance, she’s given the brief opportunity to make an impression as a young woman mired in two distinctly different phases of motherhood—helpless exhaustion, during which her love for her children, and even for her sincere but unambitious husband (Casey Affleck), manages to register even when we sense that she’d probably rather just be left alone, and helpless grief. Both instances are characterized by immobility, physical (when we first see her, she’s sick in bed, fending off Affleck’s amorous advances with humor and slight impatience), and then emotional paralysis. In Williams’ signature scene, she’s unable to move away from or hold back a flood of sympathy for a husband responsible for a great tragedy whom she’d always regarded with some measure of righteous anger, and she’s further wrecked by his inability to accept her forgiveness. It’s a performance that feels molded from a sensibility which doesn’t fit in with the predominantly impatient modus operandi of much of modern film acting, and in context (as opposed to having been extracted for display on awards shows) it’s far more than a simple demonstration of how convincing she is when wracked with tears.

“Williams has never been an ostentatious actress—it’s why her turn as Marilyn Monroe was so surprising (and so surprisingly effective), and why she’s the perfect muse for a director like Kelly Reichardt, a filmmaker who crafts mood and character from the least histrionic of directorial attitudes. In Manchester by the Sea she demonstrates with perfectly calibrated understatement why less is often more. I always get the sense from watching Williams of leaning forward, not because I can’t hear or absorb what she’s transmitting, but because the invitation to the intimate is an irresistible element to what she does. And yet here she exhibits a trembling evanescence, as if leaning in too close would cause her to disassemble into thin air. Affleck’s haunted shell is the movie’s nexus, shuffling along the streets of the titular coastal town, permeated by awful memories. But it is Williams whose bittersweet presence shadows Affleck, and the life of Manchester by the Sea, a spirit reminder of happiness lost, stinging like the ephemeral and insistently bitter cold breeze on an otherwise beautiful day.” ~ Dennis Cozzalio

“Marion Cotillard is a modern luminary, but she may have never played a trickier role than in Robert Zemeckis' slippery and somewhat terrifying upheaval of metacinematic ontology, Allied. The first half of the film is relatively upfront about its performativity, as Cotillard and Brad Pitt banter about professionalism in their work as a phony couple of spies in Casablanca during WWII. Pitt's downbeat Max Vatan seems slightly flustered by Cotillard's Marianne Beauséjour's sheer skill in performance, knowing and able to act every beat of traditional, expected 40s bourgeois domesticity like the perfect simulacrum the film is. Initially in private Marianne seems relaxed, bossing Max about like an egomaniacal auteur would an actor. She stiffens for the mission out of a professionalism so deep seated it’s nearly a psychological complex. But easygoing remains her seemingly essential nature as she retires from her work to the support role of housewife, domestic bliss seeming to require an ephemeral recession from agency and influence. Obviously none of this is so simple, and it is accordingly enriched immensely by a late twist. This merely begins to describe what she has to tackle.

“The inherent artifice of performance is called to attention constantly by scenario and mise en scene but also by Cotillard’s actorly, ever-so slight precise quirk. What’s even more impressive is how she retains her emotionality not only on a surface reactive level, but that of every level of her character through this affectation. She’s probably the most naturalistic element of the film to be truthful. Her synthesis of movie star charm and genuine tenderness is both irresistible and trepidations. This film was the single most detailed meta work on the nature of cinema and it’s nearly all located in Cotillard’s character and performance. The post modernist interrogation of genre heritage, gender roles, cinematic artifice and true love are all on her shoulders. This is by far the most difficult role of the year, and a lesser actress simply couldn't have fulfilled it this completely, leaving the film to rely completely on a narrative kuleshov effect, but Cotillard deepens the pathos and intrigue in every layer in impossibly sustained fashion. This could be her greatest work.” ~ Molly Faust
 

“In 2016, two separate films about Christine Chubbuck appeared almost simultaneously: Antonio Campos’ Christine, and Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine. Greene’s film, a kind of documentary/fiction hybrid, suggests that trying to present Chubbuck’s life and on-air suicide as a conventional narrative would be exploitative and pointless… and ‘conventional narrative’ is exactly the tack that Campos’ film takes. How could Christine possibly justify itself?

“Pretty easily, actually, because Greene’s premise is flawed, but that’s an essay for later. But here’s the thing: without Rebecca Hall, it’s likely that Christine would be just as flawed.

“Hall’s Christine Chubbuck would immediately stand out, even if the film were somehow about some other character. With her pale skin, large eyes, and reed-like form, accentuated by her long, straight black hair, one could mistake her, visually, for a Shelley Duvall-esque character. This impression is immediately undermined when we hear her voice: surprisingly deep, yet also nasal, with a Midwestern flatness. This impression is then torched when we see her tone-deaf aggressiveness that manifests itself even when she’s being friendly.

“These choices are informed by the real-life Christine Chubbuck; Hall makes her own choices that deepen the characterization, and make Christine seem both odd and at-odds with her world. In her voice, she places an undercurrent of judgment in every syllable, while putting tension in her mouth and chin, which comes across as defense mechanism, an overt signaling of ‘toughness.’ She often keeps her eyes low and piercing, as if literally trying to see into the people she’s talking to. For this film’s Christine, who wants to be successful enough to interrogate the president on TV, the world is one big news interview.

“Hall’s work here is flawless, and it needs to be, as the script’s conception of Christine is a difficult needle to thread. The real Christine Chubbuck’s death was shocking and tragic, and we can never really know why, precisely, she did it. So it would’ve been simple to present the film’s Christine as a victim: of her boss’s thirst for blood-drenched ratings, of her handsome co-worker’s cruel charms, of her own body rebelling against her.

“Christine doesn’t do this. From the very first, Christine is clear that, whatever obstacles get in her way, Christine is the author of her own troubles, and her own fate.

“Is that cruel? Perhaps, but this is the license fiction grants us. Christine could never be about Christine Chubbuck; it always had to be about something else. And that something else is about the dangers of living in one’s head.

“Hall’s Christine lives in her head; not in a fantasy world-type way, but in an intellectualized way. She has a rigid conceptualization of how the world works, and there’s no place for chaos or messiness. (‘What’s with this zoning obsession of yours?’ asks her boss, unknowingly hitting the nail on the head.) She can’t let anyone in, because that would be chaos and messiness. But because her head is a closed fortress, she becomes self-centered and never sees the world from another perspective. (‘Why don’t you manage your expecations? Adjust your thinking?’ asks a helpful group therapy member. ‘I don’t understand the question,’ is Christine’s only reply.)

“So we’re hit with a tsunami of ironies. She never expresses any interest in the emotional well-being of anyone else (‘I’m a person, too, Chris,’ pleads her mom) while nearly every character is expressing interest in hers. She constantly looks for subtext in her dealings with others, never realizing that everyone else is saying exactly what they’re thinking. She can never share in other people’s victories, whether it’s George’s new job or her mom’s new boyfriend, only see them as part of a zero-sum game. The biggest irony is when she shows her boss her big idea, a kind of *ahem* documentary-fiction hybrid, exploring what seems to be, to her, a revolutionary idea: “What would it be like to be someone else?”

“So when Christine contrives a meeting with station owner Bob, the God of this world, in order to figure out what she needs to do to fit in, she learns that God has no plan. (‘I just try not to overthink these things, you know?’ he says to a dumbfounded Christine.) It’s only then that she decides to retaliate with her own meticulously-planned chaos.

“And this is where Hall’s importance truly shows itself. Because the person I just described is, on paper, just awful. But Christine isn’t awful. Hall shows us the roiling emotions underneath, shows us her passion, shows us her intellect. Without betraying the banged-up core of the character, she threads the needle. We care about this woman. We identify with her. Because Hall never for a moment fails to do the one thing that her Christine couldn’t: let us in.” [Editor’s note: effin’ A, man.] ~ Kent M. Beeson

2016 Muriel Awards: Best Lead Performance (Female)

Forgive me for editorializing here, but I'd just like to say how happy I am with today's winner. She's been one of my favorite actresses for a long time, and has been a mainstay of my ballots most years we've been doing the Muriels. I'm extremely happy the other Muriels voters have fallen for her in a big way this year.

Third place:

Sonia Braga - Aquarius [110 points / 17 votes]

Second place:

2016 Muriel Awards Addendum: Other Performance We Loved - The Men

“The Coen Brothers have always had a talent for crafting memorable idiots - think of the bellowing palooka Clarence ‘Drop’ Johnson in Miller's Crossing, the sweetly dim Delmar in O Brother, Where Art Thou? or the hopeless himbo Chad in Burn After Reading. At first glance, singing-cowboy star Hobie Doyle appears to be cut from similar cloth: The first mention of him has Josh Brolin, as beleaguered studio exec/fixer Eddie Mannix, expressing incredulity at the studio head's desire to cast him as the lead in a drawing-room drama directed by the genteel Laurence Laurentz (an amusingly supercilious Ralph Fiennes), exclaiming, ‘He barely knows how to talk.’ Indeed, the comic high point of the film is Hobie's first attempt at fitting his particular talents into the unfamiliar genre terrain, culminating in a hilarious, percussive back and forth with Laurentz regarding the pronunciation of the phrase, ‘Would that it were so simple.’

“It isn't that simple, and neither is Hobie. The clever screenplay has a couple surprises in store regarding the truth of Hobie, but they wouldn't come off nearly as effectively without the delightful performance by Alden Ehrenreich. Even at his ostensible dumbest, Ehrenreich spins it so it comes off as apologetic confusion (e.g. the mix-up between ‘Laurence’ and ‘Laurentz’) or a farmhand's directness (e.g. boiling down Laurentz's flowery description of the emotional gamesmanship of the scene with, ‘So she's sweet on me.’) Above all, there's an eagerness to please, as in the assurance that he can get the mirthless chuckle right on a second go, combined with a self-aware discomfort that this is not where he belongs. He's a dust actor and he knows it. Ehrenreich's first attempt at the scene is a marvel: walking with a wide gait typical of actors who spend most of their time on horses, gazing at spotlights much hotter than he's accustomed to, easing himself unsteadily into a fancy settee while the stiff starched collar and ill-fitting tuxedo in which he's clad appear ready to burst off him.

“Once he's removed from that specific area, though, that's where things get... complicated. In the scene where Mannix informs Hobie about the kidnapping of blue-chip star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney, reveling in another chance to go goofy for the Coens), Ehrenreich lets the guilelessness and eagerness fall away with nothing more than a slight shake of the head and a pursing of the lips. When he speaks again, with a suggestion to examine the extras present on the set of Baird's latest epic, it's with the calm intelligence and confident tone of someone who's been waiting their entire life for this opportunity to prove themselves useful. A later plot thread involves Hobie going on a studio-mandated date with Carmen Miranda-esque starlet Carlotta Valdez (Veronica Osorio) and his effortless comfort in being a man on the town and impressing a pretty girl with rope tricks adapted to a strand of spaghetti is evident in Ehrenreich's easy smile and aw-shucks humility. Yet when the date ends up dovetailing back into the kidnapping plotline, he spins from loose to tense on a dime, only to spin it right back into jovial when confronted by twin gossip columnists played by Tilda Swinton (‘I mentioned the name of my picture. I think we're supposed to do that.’). Hobie may not be costume-drama material, but he's a better actor than he lets on.

“It's interesting to note that while the majority of the cast, as effective as they are, are mostly playing caricatures, Hobie is ultimately a fully realized character, and Ehrenreich makes the most of his meaty role. Within his limited screentime, Ehrenreich gets to play dumb, smart, silly, subtle, determined, charming, cheerful, humble and sharp-eyed. He runs through a rainbow of emotions without getting overly expressive and, in doing so, steals the film away from the ringer-loaded cast surrounding him. It's a great, economical performance and a deserved breakthrough for Ehrenreich. Bring on Young Han Solo.” ~ Steve Carlson

“The most obnoxious of the ‘anonymous’ Oscar voters profiled in The Hollywood Reporter claimed that ‘Denzel Washington talked too much’ in Fences. But August Wilson’s dialogue is exactly the point: Troy Maxson is a man for whom words provide a sense of comfort, control and power. Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, the sixth in his acclaimed ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, is awash in words, mountains of dialogue that are easily scaled by one of the cinema’s great talkers. Washington tailors these words to his familiar ‘Denzel’-isms, infusing them with a menace coated with his signature charm. Troy Maxson is not a nice man, yet Washington allows us to see why a sensible woman like Viola Davis’ Rose could not only fall for him but cling to him for over 18 years.

 

“Like Death of a Salesman’s Willy Loman, Troy Maxson is a man whose best days are behind him. Unlike Loman, Maxson’s best days were still tempered by the casual racism he’s been subjected to since birth. This unfortunate detail manifests itself in a bitterness that, while clearly understandable, is ultimately destructive. Washington signals this racial exhaustion not just verbally; he wears it on his person in every frame. He tries to hide it with a confident swagger, but the cracks are always visible. His best scene, where he stares directly into the camera to taunt the Grim Reaper, is the ultimate fusion of the verbal and the physical halves of this spectacular performance.

“Troy Maxson wanted a career in baseball, aka ‘America’s Pastime.’ But, as Fences reveals, it was not to be for a variety of insurmountable reasons. All Troy is left with are the tall tales he spins every Friday night, and the short temper that cuts down his son’s dreams as viciously as fate butchered his. In the end, the only thing Troy Maxson can call his own are his words. Glorious words, authored by a master and superbly interpreted by Denzel Washington, one of the cinema’s great talkers.” ~ Odie Henderson

“From his breakout performance in Girls to his biggest international exposure in 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, much of Adam Driver’s career has been defined by a melding of peculiarity and menace, always simmering just beneath the surface. There’s an intensity to his performances, accentuated by the sharpness of his physical presence, angular and lean yet usually carried with an imposing air. It’s a startling and welcome one-eighty, then, to see Driver as a modest bus driver cum poet in Paterson, an everyman living a life of contented repetitions in his namesake town in New Jersey, his physical distinctness here instead serving to highlight his relative anonymity in the world.

“The strength of Driver’s largely restrained performance lies in his reactive approach to his co-stars and Jim Jarmusch’s script; his sweet dedication to and support of his wife Laura in all of her eccentric affinities, his combative relationship with their English Bulldog, Marvin, and his interactions with the colorful locals all coax out various affecting layers of his deceptively complex and soulful character. His poetic recitations hint slowly reveal a man experiencing the world, a world Jarmusch has flourished with surreal touches and comical iterations of small city life, with a humble profundity. This is perhaps the first time that Driver has been a passive rather than forceful presence on screen, and it proves a deeply moving and compelling modulation, culminating with a final sequence that cuts through his calibrated contentedness to something rawer and ultimately more painfully and beautifully human.” ~ Luke Gorham

"There's no living actor whose screen presence is as at ease as Jeff Bridges, even when the character is in unease. His gravelly voice and couldn't-care-less posture imbue him with a laconic aura that, incredibly, allows him to wear characters as different as Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski and Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton like gloves. In a year where actors as great as Michael Shannon and John Hawkes knocked it out of the park playing hard-boiled detectives, Bridges stands above the rest in Hell or High Water.

"Teetering on the edge of unwanted retirement and venting his frustrations in the form of humorously racist jabs at his patient partner, Marcus is a pro haunted by existential dread. He wouldn't admit it, but the specter of retirement after a career that did no visible good terrifies him, and he futilely pursues relief in the form of one last, ultimately impenetrable case.

"As an actor, Bridges personifies restraint, playing it low and slow, cranking the heat in flashes. If acting is reacting, he's the best thespian of his generation. Whether he's playing a burnt out hippie, a villainous CEO, or a grizzled lawman, when he speaks, you have to listen. It's that gravity that, in the film's explosively restrained final scene, makes a what could be a musing into a deadly promise." ~ James Frazier

“Tom Bennett’s performance as Sir James Martin was the perfect blend of well-intended oafishness. With a poorly repressed twitch and a gleam of dullness in his eyes, Bennett was the perfect dunce, the unwilling fool in the sophisticated Love & Friendship. Rather than marrying idiocy with cruelty, Bennett’s performance harkens back to the happy fool. He never stops grinning even in the face of ridicule or rejection, though his eyes often betray a deeply felt confusion when things don’t quite go his way.

“The fool has gotten something of a bad rap in recent years. Idiocy married with cruelty is a lethal combination and an oft frightening prospect, but Sir James Martin is not lacking. In spite of being lovelorn, he lives a comfortable if the not empty existence and seems utterly unable to look inward.

“Any lesser actor could easily create an improbable caricature but Bennett lends Sir James an unexpected heart. Even those around him, frustrated by his complete inability to follow a basic conversation or remember how many commandments there are, can’t help feeling guilty for disliking him. Improbably, Bennett manages to bring a certain amount of pathos to the role by suggesting that Sir James may be aware he might be the butt of the joke. His social and intellectual failures mean that he is always catching up to conversations and rarely contributing anything of worth - and every once in awhile, you get the sense he is very much aware of it.

“There is a purity in Sir James that is easy to reject and even easier to pity. In a film of incredible talents at the height of their game, Tom Bennett manages to steal the show. This is no small feat, especially as I imagine most audiences (like myself) were unfamiliar with his acting before this turn. In a year of great acting and compelling performances, for my money, Tom Bennett may have stolen the show.” ~ Justine Smith

And finally, a shout-out to a talented youngster who we lost far too soon…

“I'll tell you how I knew Anton Yelchin was the real deal: I bought it when I saw the Minor Threat t-shirt.

“When you spend the majority of your youth, time, and money chasing after your next thrill via ‘zines and mail order record catalogs (that's how we did it back in the old days), punk rock likely means a lot to you. I know it did to me. Every scene, in big cities and smaller towns, had its own distinct style and ethos. If you were a fan of New York hardcore, whether you favor Madball or Shelter tells me your age. If you were a proponent of Boston hardcore, you probably got into more fights than anyone else. If you had more on your mind than the average jock-in-punk's-clothing, chances are you gravitated where I did – Washington D.C.

“I'm sorry if this means nothing to you. Maybe you're not a music fan, maybe punk is just a lot of noise to you, maybe you came along just a little too late and missed it when it was at its zenith. There's just no better way for me to explain the great things about Anton Yelchin without tying it to this. DC hardcore was different the way he was different. The scene in DC was fiercely independent and devoted to pragmatic self-sufficiency. Where other scenes would burn themselves out with youthful abandon, the kids in DC thought longterm. Dischord Records, the label started in 1980 by Ian MacKaye to document the scene (including his band, Minor Threat) is still running almost forty years later, putting music in people's hands at a reasonable price and on their own terms. These bands raged mightily onstage, but showed an uncommon sensitivity. They were genuine, community-minded, and thoughtful.

“That's why I don't think it was an accident that Pat, Yelchin's character in Green Room, wore that t-shirt. It suits the young man. Everything I have heard colleagues say about him and everything I have seen him do onscreen suggests that he embodied these traits as well. Story after story from his contemporaries detail a guy who was a generous acting partner and truly good person. He worked hard, took chances, and dealt with people squarely. It took Green Room, though, for me to see all of that.

“Maybe it was because it was speaking my language, but all of these things in him seemed to coalesce around this story. This subject matter threw all of that into stark relief for me, chiefly the uncommon sensitivity. He was the one you could count on. He was the person that the other members would think about years later and realize that they were better people for having known him when they were kids in a band together. He was the guy in this band that was going to go on to greater things. You could tell all of this from the things going on behind Anton Yelchin's eyes. It's a terrible circumstance that I have to write this as a posthumous tribute rather than with sincere anticipation of what he is going to do next, just when we were beginning to see what he was capable of. It breaks my heart. I pay him the highest compliment an aging punk can pay anyone: I believed him.” ~ Cole Roulain

2016 Muriel Awards Addendum: The Curious Case of Casey Affleck

It's hard to argue with the assertion that, in the USA at least, Casey Affleck's turn as Lee in Manchester By The Sea was quite possibly the most celebrated performance of the year. No doubt Affleck could fill a wing of his home with awards he's won, from the Oscars and Golden Globes to the Skandies and, as we announced yesterday, the Muriels. Yet there is a vocal minority that isn't happy about the praise for Affleck. Much of their grumbling stems from allegations that were made against him when he was making I'm Still Here, his somewhat forgotten mockumentary in which then-brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix went full Borat as a dissolute actor-turned-wannabe-rapper.

Affleck's recent accolades, and the vocal protests against them, have begged a question - what sort of ethical obligation, if any, do people have when honoring an artist's work to factor in his less-than-positive behavior outside of that work? To address that question, I've enlisted Muriel voters Andrew Bemis and Kevin Cecil, neither of whom voted for Affleck this year for some reason or other.

Take it away, gents!

Andrew: Though I didn't include Casey Affleck on my Best Actor ballot, I must admit that it wasn't because of the allegations of sexual assault against him by a crew member who worked on his film I'm Still Here. I remember hearing about the charges at the time, but I thought about them only fleetingly during Manchester by the Sea, and they weren't a distraction from his performance. It's a very good performance and film; honestly, I just preferred the five performances I chose - those would be Denzel, Adam Driver in Paterson, Ryan Gosling in The Nice Guys, Michael Shannon in Midnight Special and Mark Rylance in The BFG - and knew that Affleck would get plenty of support from other Muriels voters.

So no, knowing that Casey Affleck is possibly a creep didn't factor into my decision; at the same time, I don't care to be in the position of defending him or playing devil's advocate for artists who harass or abuse women. There are other instances when I find it hard to separate the art from the artist - I still haven't seen Hacksaw Ridge, for instance - and I don't know if I can justify why I can get past some artists' bad behavior but not others without contradicting myself. I don't fault anyone for drawing the line differently than I do, and I'm less interested in defending Affleck than hopefully getting at the heart of how we make these judgments for ourselves. But first, I'd like to hear what you think.

Kevin: Thanks Andrew. I have to admit that had I not been paying attention to the controversy surrounding Casey Affleck, I probably would have voted for him. I've been interested in him as a performer since his small part in Good Will Hunting and especially in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The intense internal conflict he provides every scene in Manchester by the Sea was technically impressive and deeply moving. However, I was also deeply moved by voices from people like Constance Wu, who argues that awards exist to honor art, and art exists to honor humanity. Wu suggests that awarding Affleck, no matter how good the performance, reinforces "the industry's gross and often hidden mistreatment of women." So, while I voted for Manchester in a number of other categories, I left Affleck off my ballot.

Another reason I chose not to consider Affleck for contention is how he seems to have deliberately avoided any effort to address and atone for his actions. I was vaguely aware of the charges before this year, but knew little of the details and even less of Affleck's dismissal of them. Nate Parker was driven by the media to make a number of apologies for his behavior; perhaps because he was more of a creative force behind Birth of a Nation, perhaps because the allegations against him led to his victim's suicide, perhaps because he doesn't have the protection of a beloved big brother, perhaps because he doesn't have white skin, but most likely the combination of these factors. Parker's apologies seemed alternately insincere, forced or self-centered, but at least he had to atone for his actions (even if it was too little, too late). Affleck seems to be skating by with no real push for contrition from the industry. I think forgiveness is hard but important; only it makes it even harder to forgive without an apology. Which kind of leaves me with a similar question to the one you ended with: what can we forgive, and what does someone have to do to earn that forgiveness?

Andrew: I'm glad you brought up the Constance Wu piece - I can't argue with her reasoning at all, and I don't fault you or anyone for feeling that awarding Affleck's performance would be a way of shrugging off Hollywood's mistreatment of women. And with that - and I think you'll agree - we've said about all that two men have to say of interest on this subject, at least from a moral/ethical perspective. As far as your question about forgiveness goes, I don't know if it's that I "forgive" Affleck or anyone who has been accused of abuse. For me, I think it comes down to a question of whether I can accept them in the role they're playing, or if the baggage they bring to the screen makes this impossible.

I decided to re-watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford the other night; it's one of my favorite movies, and I was moved, as always, by Affleck's performance. And it occurred to me that part of the reason the allegations against him haven't distracted me from his onscreen work is that he tends to play fundamentally broken people. Robert Ford is a very endearing and sympathetic creep, but a creep nonetheless. Lee, his character in Manchester by the Sea, is a loner who can't forgive himself for a terrible mistake and there's more than one scene in the film where his presence makes other characters uncomfortable. Even when he plays a hero, like in Gone Baby Gone, he's a hero with a shady background. Because I'm being asked to watch a guy who might have some serious character flaws play the same, it doesn't make me want to hang out with the guy, but I can accept him as the characters he plays. If he was cast as a charmingly eccentric lead in an indie romcom or something, I'd probably take a hard pass.

I wonder if this isn't also a factor in the different reactions to Affleck and Nate Parker. Not that race isn't a factor, of course, but Parker was also playing an iconic African-American figure in a hagiography that he also wrote and directed, and he was being positioned as a new major voice among black filmmakers. The charges against Parker and the news that the woman involved committed suicide completely sours that narrative. Whereas with Affleck, I'm being asked to respect a possibly deeply flawed person can inhabit the roles of deeply flawed characters; it's not better, but there's less cognitive dissonance for me. But like I said, on a moral/ethical level, I completely understand why a lot of people don't want Affleck to win an Oscar, and I prefer Denzel anyway.

Kevin: I'm writing this post Oscars, so Affleck has won. Though it seemed like he would have preferred Denzel as well. I'm sure at this point he's aware that the more attention he gets, the more attention this story gets (just google his name - it's almost all that comes up). Because of this pressure he spoke on the accusations to The Boston Globe for the first time, to my knowledge, since Award season began. He said abuse is bad, but that both parties are still legally bound from speaking about the incident. There was still no apology for Magdalena Gorka, Amanda White or other victims of sexual harassment and abuse.

I'm in total agreement with what you said about Casey's screen persona often reflecting conflicted and complicated creeps, and how that may set him to different standards than someone like Nate Parker, who we were asked to see as a hero. The problem with giving Affleck an Oscar, and closing the circle on why I didn't vote for him here, is that awards make him a hero. Someone to look up to. Which may also affect how we perceive his onscreen persona moving forward, creating a cognitive dissonance.

A few days after the ceremony, one of my friends asked if she should see Manchester by the Sea, I said "It's a stunning film, one of the most emotionally rich movies of the year. If you can put aside your feelings for Casey Affleck I think it's absolutely worth a watch." She thought for a moment, and said "As a victim of sexual assault, I don't think I can do that."

2016 Muriel Awards: Best Lead Performance (Male)

I don’t tend to say much about individual Muriel voters, since I figure there’s plenty going on with the Muriels already. But may I be the first to say how glad I am that the writer of today’s piece, Steve Carlson, was able to come back this year? Steve was my partner in Murielhood at the beginning, and he even took over the proceedings for a few years while I had some other business to attend to in my personal life. However, Steve’s life has gotten rather busier over the last couple of years, and he’s only been able to participate in a limited capacity, if at all. So I was excited when he informed me that he was going to be voting in all categories for the ’16 Muriels, since guys like Steve were a big reason I started the Muriels in the first place – so that regular movie lovers on the Internet who didn’t necessarily have paid critic jobs or a big group of followers could have their own awards too. Anyway, welcome back, man.

Third place:

Denzel Washington - Fences [126 points / 19 votes]

Second place: