Category: Best Costumes

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The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)

This musical follows the life of Molly Brown, a Colorado socialite best known for her assistance during the evacuation of the Titanic. Debbie Reynolds plays the spunky title character. In the first scenes, she comes across as an over-the-top, goofy, backwoods yokel, similar to Betty Hutton’s hammy portrayal in Annie Get Gun. Luckily the story quickly moves on for the character and presents her steely, determination to getting what she wants out of life. The gorgeous costumes and Reynolds’s energetic portrayal are the best parts of the films. The writing and the music on the other hand leave a bit to be desired. The big event is only given a few minutes toward the end, with Molly’s bravery presented as a quick montage of her rallying her lifeboat-mates. There are more scenes of the character on the ship in 1997’s Titanic than in this one.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; Best Sound; Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment

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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

In a war-torn city, a theatre troupe’s performance of the life and adventures of Baron Munchausen is interrupted by the man himself. The disruption causes the actors’ contract to be cancelled and the Baron insists on saving the city. This film was a notorious flop, which is a shame because it offers a fun adventure flick. I really enjoyed John Neville’s portrayal of the baron. It cannot live up to the wonder of Zeman’s The Fabulous Baron Munchausen and has some surprising adult tones mixed in an otherwise family friendly story, but it’s visually fanciful with twists and turns through the various adventures that conveys a great message in its circular telling.   Fantasy

Oscar Nominations: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; Best Effects, Visual Effects; Best Makeup

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Funny Lady (1975)

In this sequel to Funny Girl, Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice’s career continues to thrive while she has moved on, somewhat, from con artist Omar Sharif and finds new love in theatrical producer James Caan. I know Funny Girl is an iconic Streisand work, but it had failed to impress me and this does so even less. It’s like a rehash of the earlier work, but everything’s worse. The theatrical scenes are much weaker here as is the relationship and (lack of) chemistry with Caan. The film is both too long and drawn out while quickly jumping through the events in the relationship. It seems like Fanny Brice deserves better than to have her life told mainly from the view of her relationships.   Musical

Oscar Nominations: Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; Best Sound; Best Music, Original Song; Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation

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Affair in Trinidad (1952)

After her husband is murdered on the island of Trinidad, Rita Hayworth is asked by the investigators to exploit his alleged murderer’s attraction to her to gather information about a Nazi conspiracy he is likely the ringleader of. Complicating matters, her husband’s brother Glenn Ford arrives on the island after receiving a letter the brother sent on the day he died. The plot meanders quite a bit, especially with a forced relationship between Hayworth and Ford. Ford is a bit of a stick in the mud and their chemistry is lacking, but Hayworth is radiant as always.

Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design, Black-and-White

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The Bostonians (1984)

Suffragette Vanessa Redgrave and Southern lawyer Christopher Reeve vie for the attentions and affections of Madeleine Potter the allegedly charismatic daughter of a faith healer. Aside from being rather slow, the biggest problem with the film is that there is nothing enthralling about Potter’s character and her only trait seems to be the inability to make decisions on her own. It makes one wonder why either of the other main characters gives a wit as to what she does with her life. Reeve is thoroughly dislikable a misogynist who just wants to marry Potter and get her barefoot and pregnant for all her livelong days. Redgrave is ethereal, but she seems mostly motivated to further her cause even if while she shows actual love for Potter.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role; Best Costume Design

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The Affair of the Necklace (2001)

After watching Marie Antoinette, I was more familiar with the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. This is another retelling of that story, but from the perspective of Hilary Swank’s Jeanne of Valois-Saint-Rémy, a prominent participant in the scandal. For such a tale of intrigue, this film is quite dull. Joely Richardson makes a decent Marie Antoinette and Christopher Walken is amusingly campy as the occultist Count Cagliostro, but Swank is poorly cast in her role. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a period piece or just an inability to encompass the various qualities necessary of the character, but she doesn’t bring an ounce of believability to the role.

Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design

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2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

I am admittedly not a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey nor Stanley Kubrick, so my expectations here weren’t very high. As a sequel to that film, this takes place nine years later with a joint Soviet-US mission to investigate HAL’s malfunction despite tensions being extremely high between the two countries back on earth. It’s not as visually impressive nor grand in scope as 2001. In fact, it’s pretty standard science fiction fare with a more explicit narrative that makes clear some of the events from the earlier film. For all that, I found it much more entertaining than the Kubrick’s alleged masterpiece. .  SciFi

Oscar Nominations: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; Best Sound; Best Effects, Visual Effects; Best Makeup

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Nine (2009)

8 1/2 isn’t my favorite Fellini and this musical version does nothing to improve that rating. Haunted by the ghosts of women from his past and present, director Daniel Day-Lewis is suffering from writers block over the filming of his latest movie. This touches on the general notes of the original film, but doesn’t develop the themes much at all. Day-Lewis isn’t bad in the role, but he lacks the Italian charm of Mastroianni. Instead of expanding on the ideas of the film, the musical numbers just distract. Compared to the narrative scenes, they are all overly produced and feel interchangeable over the course of the film.  Musical

Oscar Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role; Best Achievement in Costume Design; Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song; Best Achievement in Art Direction

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Dune (2021)

In this adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel, Duke Oscar Issac and Lady Rebecca Ferguson travel with their special son Timothée Chalamet to a far away desert planet to learn about spice production. There’s quite a bit of political intrigue going on behind the scenes and Timothée has a bunch of dreams about Zendaya. Even with its bleak desert setting, it’s an incredibly gorgeous film with extremely high production values and some good world building, but it’s obvious that it was made as a set up for a sequel or two as the story is almost all setup with no conclusion.   Best Picture Nomination  SciFi

Oscar Wins: Best Sound; Best Achievement in Visual Effects; Best Achievement in Production Design; Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score); Best Achievement in Film Editing; Best Achievement in Cinematography

Oscar Nominations: Best Achievement in Production Design; Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score); Best Motion Picture of the Year; Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling; Best Achievement in Costume Design; Best Adapted Screenplay

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Inherent Vice (2014)

I’ve been occasionally surprised into liking some of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, but this is not one of them. A middling Anderson work, it’s a convoluted hippie detective noir told from the perspective of Joaquin Phoenix’s perpetually stoned out detective. Initially asked by his ex-girlfriend to intercede in the abduction of her current lover, he is further embroiled in a conspiracy of sorts when he is hired out on two other cases. It seems to all comes clean in the end, at least for Phoenix and the cases he was hired to solve, but it’s not entirely clear as his perspective is definitely unreliable and I’m not even sure some of the characters weren’t figments of his imagination.  Noir

Oscar Nominations: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay; Best Achievement in Costume Design

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