by Nathaniel R
WICKED FOR GOOD
I cheered when Paul Tazewell won Best Costume Design and Nathan Crowley won Production Design for Wicked and yet I also felt a sense of dread. One of my great popculture fears in this franchise era is that the Oscars will one day lose their identity and become something akin to the Emmys with the same achievements winning again and again. Naturally then I'm excited to see new variations on the pinks and greens and golds and blacks of Wicked's color palette in Wicked For Good but also don't want to see it win back to back Oscars in the eye-candy categories, since it's essentially one long film, split into two. (It's the same reason I rolled my eyes that the Academy felt the need to nominate Stuart Craig and Stepheni McMillan for a full half of the Harry Potter franchise films even though their work was strong).
So what might oppose total Wicked dominance in the eye-candy categories come Oscar time? Specifically costume design...
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
There will surely be talented costume designers attempting to block a repeat win for Paul Tazewell. The most obvious threat might well be repeat winner Colleen Atwood for Kiss of the Spider Woman since the Academy worships her with 12 nominations and 4 wins across the past thirty years. On the other hand early reactions to this movie adaptation of the stage musical adaptation of the 1985 film adaptation of the famous novel (so many iterations!) don't feel passionate enough to warrant 'sure thing' feelings in any category. Nevertheless Atwood is tough to bet against given her history. She doesn't even need a film she's involved with to be to have Best Picture heat for her own momentum -- Fact: only ONE (gasp) of her 12 nominations came through a Best Picture nominee (Chicago -- she won and so did the film).
The other three living titans of this particular Oscar category, Sandy Powell (15 noms | 3 wins), Jenny Beavan (12 noms | 3 wins) and Milena Canonero (9 noms | 4 wins) feel less competitive this year for different reasons -- though we could be wrong -- so let's get into it.
Powell costumed Disney's latest version of Snow White but the film was widely disparaged so it's tough to imagine people wanting to return to it months from now. What's more surely many of the branch members will remember Colleen Atwood's wildly more inventive and exciting Oscar-nominated costumes for the last live action Snow White effort (Snow White and the Huntsman, 2012). That sentence was hard to type since I'm much of a Powell fan but it's really no contest when it comes to this fable.
Jenny Beavan is designing the British drama The Choral about teenage boys who will soon be conscripted into World War I, but we doubt it will be showy enough for consideration here, and Nicholas Hytner hasn't been an Oscar bait name as director since the early 1990s.
THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME
The final Oscar giant case in the mix is a more perplexing case but the fact is that the Academy's costume design branch is weirdly resistant to Canonero's often genius collaborations with Wes Anderson, the latest being The Phoenician Scheme... yes, she won for Grand Budapest Hotel, but it's the only time they've ever noticed them as a duo and it's not like she phoned it in on Asteroid City, The French Dispatch, The Darjeeling Limited, or The Life Aquatic.
So let's look elsewhere...
FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS
The Academy has been very very slowly warming up to comic book films but they've only really nominated four of them (both Black Panthers, and the less superheroish Dick Tracy and Joker) for Best Costume Design. But IF the soon to premiere Fantastic Four First Steps is a return to form for Marvel Studios (we can dream), might Alexandra Byrne have a shot given the movie's vaguely 60s alternate universe looks and her not unsizeable fanbase in the branch?
We haven't seen imagines yet from Chloe Zhao's Hamnet but we're breathlessly awaiting more costumes from Malgosia Turzanska who did such incredible things with The Green Knight a few years ago. The Polish designer feels like a future Oscar winner waiting to happen even though she's never quite broken through in a mainstream way. Her past credits also include Aint Them Bodies Saints, Hell or High Water, X, Pearl, the first season of Stranger Things, and the limited series Expats so she's got loads of range and style. She's got two pictures this year since she's also behind the costumes of the early 20th century railroad drama Train Dreams.
MOTHER MARY
I'm particularly curious about what Bina Daigeler might bring us in Mother Mary, which is about a musician and a fashion designer (Anne Hathaway and Hunter Schafer headline the David Lowery picture). The gifted German costume designer has only been recognized by the Academy once (for Disney's Mulan) but one nomination is starting to feel stingy. The problem is surely that her best work is often in contemporary pictures (which this branch avoids) but wow can she deliver stylish eye candy infused with character detail (Only Lovers Left Alive, Volver, Tár, All About My Mother, The Room Next Door).
Could SINNERS lead to a third win for Ruth E Carter in Best Costume Design?
Even if that movie offers the sartorial goods, chances are the Academy will be more drawn to period pieces so, finally, we think that Miyako Bellizzi (Marty Supreme) and Kate Hawley (Frankenstein) and two-time winner Ruth E Carter (Sinners) are fairly good bets still early, but time will tell.
Who are you rooting for and who do you think will be nominated?