THE GOLDEN MURIEL: 2012 FILM OF THE YEAR

Russell Hainline on Holy Motors, the Golden Muriel winner for 2012 Film of the Year:

"Holy Motors, Leos Carax’s sprawling surrealist journey, is the type of film that you're likely to lament never being able to see again for the first time. It’s a movie about movies, attempting to reveal something about both the art of storytelling and the struggle between the old-school film aficionados and the digital age. It contains scenes of uproarious comedy and immense sadness, running the gamut of emotions during its two-hour run time. Most notable of all, it features the bravest leading male performance in years -- Denis Lavant plays eleven credited roles and is asked to portray acts of weirdness that would send most actors running for the hills, all while maintaining a sense of deeply affecting melancholy."

The entirety of Hainline's piece can be accessed at the Muriel Awards blog, Our Science is Too Tight. 

There have been years when I've shrugged my shoulders at the big winner and thought to myself, "Oh, well.." And I thought that might happen again this year. But I'm extremely pleased to see the results of this year's voting for the big award, and I couldn't second my colleagues with any more enthusiasm. That enthusiasm can only be surpassed by my honor at being able to take part in this balloting, which I look forward to every year. Paul, Steve, thanks for having me, and for facilitating my being part of such a fine company of writers.

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2012 MURIELS FILM OF THE YEAR COUNTDOWN: #7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2...

#7  (Jamie Grijalba)



#6 (Kevin Cecil)



#5 (Steve Carlson)



#4 (Jason Alley)



#3 (Michael Lieberman)

#2 (Kenji Fujishima)



And your 2012 Muriels Film of the Year is...

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2012 MURIELS FILM OF THE YEAR COUNTDOWN: #8 -- STEVEN SPIELBERG'S LINCOLN

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln ranks as the #8 choice for the Muriel Awards in the Best Picture category, after having placed a little bit higher on my own ballot, at #3. My thoughts on the power of this compelling movie are now live at the official Muriels site, Our Science is Too Tight.

Lincoln is, of course, an epic story of moral unrest, political machinations and the weary death rattles of civil war, conjured without the conventions of an epic palette -- the expansive consciousness of David Lean made to serve a confined template of dimly-lit quarters and crowded congressional chambers in which Altman would have thrived. (Both Altman and Spielberg have always shared a fondness for the cacophony of crowds and overlapping conversation.) What Lincoln is not is, in the strictest sense, a biopic. Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Spielberg restricts his perspective to the last months of Lincoln’s life, with the beleaguered president embroiled in struggles to corral and manipulate myriad conflicting, belligerent, slippery, conniving and stubborn personalities -- in his cabinet, in Congress, and even in his own family -- on the way toward pushing through the 13th amendment to the Constitution: the abolition of slavery... 

Perhaps it’s a coincidence that both Munich and the ostensibly more conventionally-mounted Lincoln were written by playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America, Homebody/Kabul); if so, it’s a happy one. Both movies deal with the necessity of moral and political compromise, both feature a nimble sensitivity toward dialectical debate in its fulfillment and its inadequacies, and both screenplays seem to have inspired Spielberg to work outside his own comfort zone and reach for something tangible in the material that might elevate each movie out of the realm of the well-meaning museum piece.

You can read the essay in its entirety by clicking here.

The posts for the rest of the pack are coming in right now, with the Muriels winner for Best Picture scheduled to be unveiled in just a few hours. We're almost there.

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2012 MURIELS FILM OF THE YEAR COUNTDOWN: #14, #13, #12, #10, #9

#14 (Philip Tatler IV)

#13 (Adam Lemke)

#12 (Peter Labuza)

#10 (Donald Carder)

#9 (James Frazier)

More on the way... Stay tuned.

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2012 MURIELS FILM OF THE YEAR COUNTDOWN: #52, #43, #33 (tie), #25, #23, #21, #20, #18, #16 (tie)

#52 (Steve Carlson)

#43 (Christianne Benedict)

#33 (tie) (Brian Whitefield)

#25 (Scott Von Doviak)

#23 (Cole Roulain)

#21 (Jason Shawham)

#20 (Paul Clark)

#18 (Phil Dyess-Nugent)

#16 (tie) (Danny Baldwin)

#16 (tie) (Sam C. Mac)

Stay tuned...

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2012 MURIELS: MORE OTHER STUFF WE LIKE Pts. 2 & 3: ACTRESSES, ENSEMBLES, SCORES, SCREENPLAYS & HOW THE CAMERA EYE SEES IT

Okay, folks, the Saturday before this Sunday (known here in the global village as Oscar Day) means that the Muriels are getting ready to ramp up for a day-long party leading up to the big reveal of the best movie(s) of 2012, as chosen by the august panel of Muriel Awards voters. But before the winners begin trickling in, two more clean-up categories.

First up, four essays on actresses who didn't get enough vote support to make the top three-- Hedwig Van Driel on Michelle Williams in Take This Waltz, Matthew Lotti on Ann Dowd in Compliance, Kenji Fujishima on Anne Marsen in Girl Walk // All Day, Steve Carlson on Juno Temple in Killer Joe, and Yours Truly taking the stand for my annual off-the-wall pick, Katy Perry as Katy Perry and "Katy Perry" in Katy Perry: Part of Me. Here's a teaser:

“I don’t think anyone can ever be too cartoony!” the singer gleefully exclaims while putting herself together for the first performance of her first worldwide tour. It’s a moment that makes you want to stand up and salute, a sentiment that distills Perry’s perfectly calibrated self-awareness and places her mix of shiny, candy-colored pop extravagance and (unthreatening) Vargas-girl sexuality well within the tradition of beloved animated icons Sweet Polly Purebred and Jessica Rabbit, both of whose appeal Perry seems to aspire towards. The movie pays only lip service to the greater weight of crafting such an image, but even if KP: POM is meticulously manipulated to present exactly the picture Katy Perry wants disseminated, it’s still a fascinating appraisal of what such a heightened level of pinup performance art might still mean to the audience. I don’t recall ever seeing a movie about a pop singer whose artifice is so up front which is then also so relatively unafraid of presenting the star at her most vulnerable, whether she’s crawling out of bed after a exhausting leg of the tour or laying immobile on a massage table, crippled with grief over her crumbling marriage.

You can read the rest, if you care to, as well as all the other essays (and I highly recommend that you read these) by checking out Other Stuff We Like Pt. 2 (Actresses) at the Muriels blog, Our Science Is Too Tight. 



Also up this morning, Other Stuff We Like Pt. 3 (Miscellany), in which five of the Muriels' finest-- Simon Abrams, Luke Gorham, Jason Alley, Daniel Cook Johnson and Andrew Bemis-- wax ecstatic about Joseph Kahn and Mark Palermo's screenplay for Detention (seen above), Jon Brion's score for Paranorman, the brilliant ensemble gathered for Seven Psychopaths, Claudio Miranda's miraculous cinematography for Life of Pi,  and the hallucinogenic breakthrough of Panos Cosmatos with Beyond the Black Rainbow. 

Andrew Bemis says of the movie, "At its best, Beyond the Black Rainbow recalls the work of Jodorowsky in its ability to follow through with its own hallucinatory logic. Like an acid trip, it’s filled with moments of clarity and insight that are extremely difficult to verbalize to others without sounding ridiculous." 

I have seen neither Beyond the Black Rainbow nor Detention yet, but if I want to get ready for tomorrow's Muriels marathon, maybe getting strung out on a midnight double feature of these two would be just the ticket.

Next, Muriel gives up the gold for Best Picture, including a piece written by me on what I'm assuming will be one of the also-rans. Stay tuned!

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THE 2012 MURIELS: BEST DIRECTOR

Behold, three folks who got support in the Muriels vote for Best Director of 2012 but did not place in the top five...

 

And I bet the top five doesn't look exactly like you'd guess it would either. (I was pleasantly surprised.) Click on through for the Muriels assessment of the best directing achievements of the year, including an excellent essay by Jim Emerson on the winner. Then click on through to gawk at the entirety of the vote.

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