The Muriels are Upon Us

Back in September, I got the following email:

"Hey there. My name is Steve Carlson, and I (along with Paul Clark) run The Muriel Awards. We're always looking for new voters to add to our rolls, and we thought you might be a good fit. Would you be interested in participating?"

The Muriels are a kind of online critics' poll with voters who are a mix of amateur and professional movie people. I've been aware of them for a while, mainly because of Dennis Cozzallio over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule (surely one of the best names for a blog, ever) and Jim Emerson, who in addition to editing Roger Ebert's blog, writes about film on his own Scanners blog. Participation is by invitation only, so the invite kind of knocked me for a loop, but in a good way. I turned into Sally Field at the Oscars for a couple of minutes. "You like me! You really really like me!"

Anyway, I turned in my ballot a couple of weeks ago and the results are starting to issue on the Muriels blog. Today's first posting awards the Muriel for Best Supporting Actor of 2011. The rest of the categories will trickle out over the next couple of days. The results are interesting, a good deal more interesting than the slate of Oscar nominees.

I'll post the entirety of my own Muriel's ballot when the full results are available. For the record, this is who I voted for in the Best Supporting Actor category:

1. Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
2. Alan Rickman, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2
3. Alan Tudyk, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
4. Christopher Waltz, Carnage
5. John Hawkes, Martha Marcy May Marlene

The Muriel's winner is Albert Brooks for Drive, which I haven't had the chance to see yet, though I finally have the disc in my hands.

I voted for Choi Min-sik, who placed ninth, though I put him in the lead actor category. You never can tell how this sort of thing will shake out when it comes to categories.