In Contention

Tag: Chloe Sevigny

  • EDINBURGH: ‘Au Revoir, Taipei,’ ‘Barry Munday,’ ‘brilliantlove’

    Arriving at a festival at the halfway mark is a little like turning up late to a party where the food has been eaten and the guests you know are already starting to leave – the night may not be over, but you’re going to have to work your way into it.

    So it was when my train pulled into Edinburgh yesterday afternoon: the comparative glamour of last week’s UK premieres for “The Illusionist” and “Toy Story 3” are old news, the press contingent has already thinned out and one is left to badger those who remain for hot screening tips. Admittedly, I hadn’t really done my homework beforehand: for the first time, I turned up at a festival having only glancingly browsed through the programme.

    Not that that’s too much of a disability at Edinburgh, a festival so thick with new names from the indie sector that most screenings can be seen a lucky dip of sorts: five films in, I’ve only scored once. (With a film is delightful as the first reviewed after the cut, however, once is quite enough.)

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  • The Great Performances: 1999

    Terence Stamp in The Limey1999 was a strange year.  And it’s hard to believe a full decade has slipped past since.  There were some great award-winning performances, to be sure, but there seemed to be just as many not nominated that certainly should have been.

    Ten years later, I remain stunned that Reese Witherspoon was not nominated for her brilliant work in “Election” as a pathologically ambitious, grasping social climber student doing anything it takes to head up the student council in Alexander Payne’s astute and black comedy.

    Witherspoon won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Actress, besting eventual Oscar, LAFCA and NYFCC champ Hilary Swank in “Boys Don’t Cry.” What made Witherspoon’s work so incredible was that we all must have known a Tracy Flick during our high school days, and the actress created such an accurate depiction.

    Swank was a most deserving winner for her superb performance, winning over nominees, Annette Bening in “American Beauty,” Janet McTeer in “Tumbleweeds,” Julianne Moore in “The End of the Affiar” and Meryl Streep in “Music of the Heart” (perhaps the perennial Oscar favorite’s least accomplished nominated performance).

    Bening’s performance was brilliant, she won the Screen Actors Guild award for it, and though there seemed to be a swell of support for her as Oscar night approached, there was no denying Swank for her career-altering work.

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