Almost There: Linda Fiorentino in "The Last Seduction"

by Cláudio Alves

Since last month, the Criterion Channel is offering a collection of neo-noirs, modern films from the 70s onwards that perpetuate the tradition of 1940s and 50s crime pictures. Freer to explore matters of sex and violence, these versions of film noir tend to be more visceral, updating old archetypes into vicious evocations of misanthropic cinema. For actressexuals, the evolution of the femme fatale is especially enticing. From Kathleen Turner's oversexed take on a Phyllis Dietrichson type in Body Heat to Nora Zehetner's mysterious high-schooler in Brick, this immortal character has gone through an infinite myriad of transfigurations. Maybe none of them caused as much hubbub during her awards season as Linda Fiorentino in John Dahl's The Last Seduction…

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The Best Costumes of 1998

by Cláudio Alves

It's time to say goodbye to 1998 and move on to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown year, 1986. However, before that, let's take a look at the Best Costume Design race that saw Sandy Powell receive her first double nomination, a face-off of Elizabethan fashions, two movies whose only nod was in this category, and a riff on midcentury sitcoms. The ceremony's host, Whoopi Goldberg, even modeled pieces from each nominee, opening the show in Queen Elizabeth I drag.

All in all, it's a rather conventional costume design lineup seeing as it's entirely composed of period work. However, some of these individual achievements deserve special attention for their playful glamour, radical visions of marginalized histories, and parodical referentiality. The nominees were:  

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That Shakespeare + Gods & Monsters conversation

We received word from readers that the Apple Podcast/iTunes service has suddenly gone glitchy with The Film Experience so we wanted to let you know that you can also listen on Stitcher or on Spotify if you haven't yet given the conversation a go. One more round of applause please for writer/director/showrunner Leslye Headland (Russian Doll, The Acolyte), actor Mitch Silpa (Bridesmaids, The Heat), DJ Rob Campion (Cooler Than Ecto), writer Jenelle Riley (Variety), and animator/illustrator Dashiell Silva. 

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Conversation Index (74 minutes)

00:01 - Introduction of the Smackdown Panel and the 1998 Nominees
04:00 - Primary Colors. What works (Kathy Bates) and what doesn't, and how it plays in today's much different political climate.
15:41 - A detour to the 2020 Oscar race and "Da Butt"
17:00 - Hilary and Jackie's odd structure, sadness porn, and tortured artists
28:30 - A detour to The English Patient (1996) and the Weinstein/Miramax industrial complex
34:45 - Shakespeare in Love "a rom-com for theater nerds". Why Judi Dench deserved the Oscar.
50:20 - The disastrous miscalculations of Little Voice, and Brenda Blethyn, hot off of Secrets & Lies
59:30 - Gods and Monsters, hampered by its budget, and maybe even its Oscar winning screenplay. Beautiful performances!
1:12:28 - Wrap-up / Goodbyes.

And in case you missed our 1998 "extras" we revisited Velvet Goldmine, High Art, Beloved, Central Station, The Prince of Egypt, A Bug's Life, The Truman Show, Hollywood's onslaught of blonde ingenues, and the pop culture hits that year. 

Smackdown '98: Kathy, Brenda, Dame Judi, Rachel, and Lynn

Welcome back to the Supporting Actress Smackdown. Each month we pick an Oscar vintage to explore through the lens of actressing at the edges. This episode takes us back to 1998. 

THE NOMINEES  A politically savvy lesbian, a bawdy working-class mother, a theater-loving Queen, a failed musician / devoted sister, and a homophobic immigrant housekeeper in Hollywood walk into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion...

For the 1998 film year, the Academy invited one new actress (Rachel Griffiths) to their Supporting club while offering a second nomination to four respected women of a certain age (Dame Judi Dench, Brenda Blethyn, Lynn Redgraves) only one of whom (Kathy Bates) had already won.

THE PANELISTS Here to talk about these performances and films are (in alpha order) DJ Rob Champion, Writer/Director Leslye Headland, Journalist and playwright Jenelle Riley, Actor/writer Mitch Silpa, Illustrator Dashiell Silva and, as ever, your host Nathaniel R. Let's begin...

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Fernanda Montenegro should have won!

by Cláudio Alves

Glenn Close was right. During her latest awards campaign, AMPAS' favorite also-ran recalled the 1998 Best Actress race, concluding that the rightful winner wasn't Gwyneth Paltrow but "that incredible actress that was in Central Station." While that year's Oscar champion gets a lot of undue vitriol –she's excellent in Shakespeare in Love – it's hard to disagree that the trophy rightfully belonged to the great Brazilian thespian Fernanda Montenegro. The only Portuguese-speaking performance to be recognized by the Academy, this star turn has a special place in my heart. So much so that I feared my love was a product of nostalgia goggles. A re-watch disabused such notions. Montenegro's nominated work remains a towering achievement…

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