Category: Best Costumes

Posted on | No Comments |

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable are three single models who rent a high class apartment in order to each snare a rich bachelor. The plan both succeeds and backfires beyond their wildest dreams. The film is shown in glorious Cinemascope which offers beautiful extended views of their swanky pad and other sets. It’s certainly a bit of cute, fluffy business, but the leads are all appealing in their roles. My only complaint is the dirty way the film handles William Powell. His character introduces the gals to his fellow oil barons, but in the end though he’s the most attractive, he’s considered ‘too old’ to actually win any of them in the end.

Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design, Color

Posted on | No Comments |

Little Women (1994)

Yet another retelling of the story, this version is completely adequate and standard in almost all ways. Even though I’ve never read the story, I do find I have a general idea of what I consider a good portrayal for each woman. Here we have Trini Alvarado, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst as Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy respectively. A lot of these renditions make the birth order seem confusing as the Jo character overwhelms Meg as the oldest, and that is the case here. Beth is given short shrift and easy to forget she even exists, though Danes seems an odd choice of casting so that’s not the worst thing to have happened. It’s a bit interesting that Amy is a young girl at the beginning and later becomes an adult Samantha Mathis. I wouldn’t have thought that a transition between the two actresses would make sense, but it mostly works though Mathis isn’t quite as outgoing in her portrayal.

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role; Best Costume Design; Best Music, Original Score

Posted on | No Comments |

Jane Eyre (2011)

Another retelling of the classic tale, this version features Mia Wasikowska in the title role and Michael Fassbender as love interest Edward Rochester. The layout of the story is of course very similar to the 1943 version but a longer runtime allows the story to breathe a bit more. I found the jumping between time lines at the beginning of this film to be a bit disorienting, but it got better as it settled into a linear telling. I found both of the leads’ portrayals to be superior to the aforementioned version. The period costume and setting details are beautiful and perhaps the best part of the film.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Posted on | No Comments |

The Age of Innocence (1993)

In upper-class 1870s New York, Daniel Day-Lewis is engaged to marry Winona Ryder when her attractive cousin, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, comes to town after her own marriage falls apart. Daniel sees in the newcomer an appealing break from the constrains of society. He believes he’s cleverer and smarter than those around him, but he is no match for high society and their prescribed ways. It’s an appealing period piece with lavish sets and costuming. The story and the acting within is compelling. Though I found the romantic chemistry a bit lacking, it held my interest to mild twist of an ending.

Oscar Win: Best Costume Design

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Supporting Role; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration; Best Music, Original Score

Posted on | No Comments |

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Grappling with what to write about this, I recognize that I probably don’t understand the great majority of what the film is trying to say. Marcello Mastroianni is a journalist who is always searching for the next thing: the next big story, the next woman who excites him, the next thing that’ll bring him the best that life has to offer. Told in episodes that proceed over the course of some portion of time, he ages and progresses on this journey, using the males in his life as inspiration and caution. Every day with potential leads to an exciting, electric night that turns into the grey reality of morning. I love watching Mastroianni move, there’s a cool European smoothness, but also a bit of self-deprecation in the way he hunches his shoulders as if he’s hoping these things will just come to him. Anita Ekberg’s fountain scene is iconic for so many reasons, she exuberates with those best parts of life, fully engrossing in everything life has to offer.

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

Oscar Nominations: Best Director; Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White

Posted on | No Comments |

Cleopatra (1963)

It’s no surprise that this brought on the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Everything about it is overblown: the sets, the cast, the costumes, the run-time, everything. With two parts split between Cleopatra’s relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, the story just goes on and on. Edited down to an hour or two shorter and it might have held my attention better. Elizabeth Taylor is truly a beautiful woman, but she was terribly miscast in the role of Cleopatra. She lacks gravitas, cunningness, and sexiness. There’s at least the feeling of building an alliance between Taylor and Rex Harrison’s Caesar; the relationship between Richard Burton’s Mark Antony is lackluster. There must have been some love flames between them in production, but they are not seen on screen. Obviously there was no expense sparred in the visuals. Cleopatra’s arrival in Rome is a live-action version of Aladdin’s Prince Ali scene. Despite that money spent in costumes (there is one ridiculous scene where without hesitation Taylor changes between three different outfits and Burton between two), many of Taylor’s look like the same exact style just in an array of candy colors. But I did love the sets. They are lavish and beautiful, truly sights to behold. There are so many little details to be seen: wigs, clothing racks, and umpteen baths. It’s also great to see the various cast in smaller roles: Hume Cronyn, Roddy McDowell, Martin Landau and even Carroll O’Connor as a Senator.  Best Picture Nomination

Oscar Wins: Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; Best Effects, Special Visual Effects

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Actor in a Leading Role; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Score – Substantially Original

Posted on | No Comments |

I Am Love (2009)

For such a beautifully shot film, it didn’t leave me feeling much warmth. Tilda Swinton looks out of place as the preppy-looking Russian-born matriarch of a wealthy Italian family. The entire family is stuck in their prescribed roles. That is until love manages to snap at least a couple of them out of the ennui. For Tilda, that’s having an affair with her son’s friend, a chef. The last acts particularly veer on the melodramatic in eye-rolling ways, but throughout it is still a beautiful film from the settings to the costumes to the food.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Posted on | No Comments |

Maverick (1994)

Ah, the 1990s when Mel Gibson charmed us all. Gibson is Maverick, a gambler trying to get to a winner-takes-all poker tournament. For good reason, I kept imagining James Garner doing a much better job in the role, though it’s still nice to see him in the movie. Jodie Foster is decent in her role, though there’s a continued unfunny gag regarding her being a klutz. It’s a cute film, but too long and meandering for what it is. The ending doesn’t make any logical sense with regards to the rest of the film, which is sad because it would have been a fun ending to a better written film.  Western

Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design

Posted on | No Comments |

The Invisible Woman (2013)

Felicity Jones, playing a teenaged young woman, is coerced into becoming the not-too-secret mistress of Ralph Fiennes in this story revolving around one chapter in the life of Charles Dickens. It’s a slow but beautiful looking period film detailing a fairly boring story. The one bright point aside from the visuals was Fiennes’s portrayal of Dickens at a point in his career where he was almost a rock star of the era.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Posted on | No Comments |

The Slender Thread (1965)

I hadn’t realized before beginning this that it was set in Seattle, so I really loved the 1960s aerial scan across the city at the beginning of this film. Inspired by actual events, Sidney Poitier is an inexperienced student working for the new crisis clinic hotline when he receives a call from a woman, played by Anne Bancroft, who has taken a lethal dose of pills. He must do what he can to keep her on the line, trying to gather clues to figure out where she currently is. Over the course of the call, the viewer is given the story of how she found herself in her current situation. Telly Savalas plays Poitier’s supervisor at the clinic while Ed Asner is a detective trying to find her on the outside. It’s a compelling story, told in an interesting way, using flashbacks to illustrate the woman’s plight and drawing back to the present to portray the race against the clock mystery that must be solved in order to save her life.

Oscar Nominations: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; Best Costume Design, Black-and-White

Scroll to Top