Was it the boy on the track team or the man with the tire iron?

Many critics noted Ann Savage’s performance as the daunting mother in Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg,” her first screen role since playing “Sister Harriet”  in “Fire With Fire” in 1986 (one wonders how she might have tackled the Meryl Streep part in “Doubt”). It was enough for her to garner the 13th spot in the Best Supporting category in the “indieWIRE” 2008 Critics Poll (she got my vote .) The incomporable noir actress who starred in the Edgar Ulmer classic “Detour” (1945) proved that she could still evoke terror and hilarity as the consummate, castrating imperatrix. She went out on a high note, indeed. She died on Christmas Day at the age of 87.