FYC Best Supporting Actress Michelle Pfeiffer

Too early?

In all seriousness though, the only thing we know for certain about the 2012/13 Oscars is that Dark Shadows will be up for Costumes (Colleen Atwood) and Art Direction (Rick Heinrichs). The Burton Factory can usually bank on those honors. I'd also personally like to thank Ms. Atwood ahead of time for La Pfeiff's plunging neckline with fancy Medieval cross necklace. Love.

Sorry! As you were. Back to the 2011/2012 Oscars for 33 more days. Every Oscar chart is updated.

Great Costuming... According to Costume Designers

The Costume Design Guild has spoken! As with all guild awards... it's a combination of "Really?" and interesting "Oh, yeah!" choices.

Clothes Horse Royals in "W.E." via Arianne Phillips

PERIOD FILMS
Mark Bridges for The Artist
Michael O'Connor for Jane Eyre
Sharen Davis for The Help
Sandy Powell for Hugo
Arianne Phillips for W.E.

Good news: I have an interview coming up with Arianne Phillips, who is one of my heroes. And not just because she's worked with Madonna for 15 years or so.  
Notable Omissions: Anonymous, Captain America (unless they considered it a fantasy), My Week With Marilyn, A Dangerous Method, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Oscar transferrence? The costume designers within the Academy, a much smaller number than votes on the guild awards, tend to prefer period work to other types of work so you could theoretically see all of these nominees repeat at Oscar, though Phillips is certainly most vulnerable as her movie is probably the least seen of these. Still royalty porn goes a long way with Oscar voters and Andrea Riseborough looks like she's wearing the entire budget of the film.

FANTASY FILMS
Jany Temime for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Penny Rose for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Cindy Evans for Red Riding Hood
Alexandra Byrne for Thor
Sammy Sheldon for X-Men: First Class

Oscar transferrence? I'm guessing the best bet here is Alexandra Byrne for Thor.
Superheroes!: Interesting to see the fantasy category overtaken by superheroes (and yes I include Harry Potter there). I wonder if they categorized Captain America here or in "period"? Either way it didn't manage a nomination.
Strangest nods: Hasn't the Harry Potter cast been wearing essentially the sameish robes for the entire franchise? I have not seen Red Riding Hood so my apologies to Cindy Evans but I found that pink dress with red coat so painful to look at in tandem (even in the space of a 2 minute trailer!)  that my face lost a little of its color reading this nomination. Maybe every other costume in the movie is enticing?

CONTEMPORARY FILMS 
Leesa Evans and Christine Wada for Bridesmaids
Wendy Chuck for The Descendants 
Erin Benach for Drive
Trish Summerville for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Manon Rasmussen for Melancholia

Yay! We figured the scorpion jacket would get its due here but it's fun to see my double feature of bridal depression nominated. 
Oscar transferrence? Unfortunately that only happens for contemporary films when the entire movie is about the clothes (see The Devil Wears Prada).
Sigh. REALLY?: The contemporary category is where you often see guilds failing to live up to their duties as awards organization and just grab at whichever FYC screeners they're loving. No offense to Wendy Chuck who has done fun work on several contemporary pictures, not just Payne's movies, but apart from Clooney's hilarious run in inappropriate shoes the costumes aren't contributing a fifth as much to the success of The Descendants (consider it this year's Slumdog Millionaire with bizarre guild triumphs) as say the costumes of Young Adult, Beginners, Shame, Crazy Stupid Love, The Iron Lady (unless they considered that "period"), Martha Marcy May Marlene or The Skin I Live In are to their movies. The contemporary categories are almost always where you see the limits of guild imagination when it comes to defining "awards worthy". It's a fancy way of saying "WE LIKE THIS MOVIE A WHOLE LOT!"

How do you like these nominations and where would your votes go?

Curio: Costumes, Designed

Alexa here. As I've been on a bit of a clothes-buying binge the last few days (Pats and Eddy were a less-than-subliminal influence), I thought of John Woo for my curio post this week.  No, not that John Woo; this John is an illustrator living in Hong Kong with a bit of a thing for Star Wars and fashion.  John makes illustrations of film characters dressed in the likes of Junya Watanabe, Comme des Garcons, and Band of Outsiders.  There is a J. Peterman vibe to the illustrations that I find hilarious. (Sidenote: remember when J. Peterman had all those Titanic-inspired items? Yeah, I bought the necklace. My only excuse is I was much, much younger then.) Here are some samples; you can buy prints at John's etsy shop.

Click for more, including Edward Scissorhands and T-1000...

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BAFTA Long List Losses

I've said it before and I'm forced to say it again. I'm *so* glad that the American Academy does not publish a long list. i.e. the semi-finals. You see, It's so much more bearable / engaging when you can imagine that straight up great achievements or achievements you really responded to personally but you knew might have trouble rallying huge swaths of support were in 6th or 7th place or 10th place in voting. The way BAFTA does it, however, you are forced to understand that Oscar buzz is everything and Super Size Mediocrities will always triumph over critical darlings or more challenging Art.

Take the Best Picture categories for a prime example. Notice that Weekend for example, a very British and very acclaimed film is not one of their "outstanding" homegrown products (they might want to check the reviews again) and notice that auteurist films frequently called masterpieces by their fans (The Tree of Life and Melancholia) are also absent. Other films ignored because you have to have space for The Lukewarmly Reviewed Biopics About Lady Actresses and Lady Politicians are... no, no. It's too horrible to start listing them!

Best Film The Artist, The Descendants, Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Hugo, The Ides of March, The Iron Lady, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin 

Outstanding British Film Arthur Christmas, Attack the Block, Coriolanus, The Guard, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Iron Lady, Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Shame, Submarine, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tyrannosaur, War Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin 

BAFTA voters went crazy 4 My Week With Marilyn, longlisted many many times

Film Not in the English Language  Abel, As If I Am Not There, The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan, Calvet,  Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries), Incendies, Little White Lies, Pina, Post Mortem, Potiche, Le Quattro Volte, A Separation, The Skin I Live In, Tomboy and The Troll Hunter

More long list looniness with commentary after the jump...

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Jack the Giant Killer"

I was going to cover Dario Argento's Dracula but I just didn't have it in me. And besides, it wasn't really meant for public consumption... just interested distributors. If you'd like to bare your neck for the generally über sexy pair of new fangers Thomas Kretschmann and Asia Argento, you can read takes on that unfinished 3D effort over at Stale Popcorn and My New Plaid Pants. So let's look at another genre offering. 

Nicolas Hoult climbs beanstalks, kills giants.

Fairy tale reworkings are all the rage these days so let's look at Bryan Singer's Jack and the Beanstalk  um... Jack the Giant Killer instead. Did Jack and the Beanstalk sound too Veggie Tales or fairy tale quaint? One of the odd effects of not obsessing over movies while they're still in production like 95% of the movie blogs on the 'net is that I'm often totally taken by surprise when a trailer arrives because I've often forgotten that the upcoming movie even existed. Such was the case here so I had zero preconceived notions affecting reactions to the trailer.

YES NO MAYBE SO breakdown and trailer after the jump.

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