Muriel Awards: Best Film of the Decade (plus, sadness)
Before we begin, I should pass along some unfortunate news that was related to me by Muriel Awards founder and co-head Paul Clark. Muriel, as you probably know, is the name of his guinea pig, about whom he just wrote a lovely appreciation. Muriel has two friends, Charlotte and Victoria. Last night, Paul found Charlotte dead in her cage.
So, this year’s for you, Charlotte. You’ll be missed.
From left to right: Muriel, Victoria, Charlotte (R.I.P.)
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Now, here’s your first Muriel Awards winner:
Mulholland Drive [David Lynch, 2001] (209 pts/19 votes)
“Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not, but this recent decade of more numerous and instant forms of media than ever before also produced a wide number of pictures with characters lost in pretend, baffled by what was and wasn’t “real”. Mulholland Drive, David Lynch’s Hollywood Babylon horror-comedy, had the potential of being just a well-executed game of movie inside-baseball. It is that - MD has a number of disquieting, funny allusions to the old-school studio regime’s strangling and exploitation of new talent - but it’s also a more universal free-associative portrait of people heart-broken and lost, grappling with everyday tedium and banalities, with the occasionally overwhelming fear of losing everything hovering just above, usually out of sight, but always there. Naomi Watt’s heartbreaking performance, of someone desperate to be a someone she knows is just within her grasp, epitomizes why most of us watch movies, and twitter, and Facebook, and blog, and do whatever-else-is-just-around-the-corner. Lynch defined the decade before it hardly began.” - Chuck Bowen
Runners-up:
There Will Be Blood [Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007] (165/16)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [Michel Gondry, 2004] (118/11)
The New World [Terrence Malick, 2005] (94/8)
No Country for Old Men [Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007] (93/9)
