7 Days 'til Oscar: Costume Design

Each year at the Oscar ceremony I hope against hope that they'll ditch one of the numerous superfluous montages celebrating something or other throughout history and just do a runway show of the year's best costumes. On rare occasions we've seen a living tableau before the winner was announced and at least once, a Whoopi ceremony, the host actually incorporated costume design into the gig.

Imagine Seth MacFarlane coming out as Fantine in a shredded Les Miz gown or Queen Ravenna's raven collar dress. Sorry, no! I apologize deeply for putting those images in your head. Let's just say that I feel reasonably certain there will at least be a stovepipe hat during the ceremony in honor of Lincoln.

OSCAR NOMINEES
• Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
• Joanna Johnston, Lincoln
• Eiko Ishioka, Mirror Mirror
• Paco Delgado, Les Misérables
• Colleen Atwood, Snow White and the Hunstman

will win: Anna Karenina, it's not quite traditional "royalty porn", their favorite thing in this category, but the Russian aristocracy is close enough.
should win: Anna Karenina, Durran continues to just amaze in film after film.
weird trivia: The Oscars love Colleen Atwood but she only ever wins when she's pitted against their other all-time favorite Sandy Powell
possible spoiler: if Oscar voters are feeling daring and/or sentimental you could see a posthumous win for the great Ishioka whose costumes always function as their own setpieces they're such scene stealers

OSCAR VISUAL CHARTS
My Own Ballot & Semi-Finalists with shout-outs to all the Oscar nominees (great lineup. well done AMPAS) as well as Sharen Davis, Kasia Walicka-Maimone, Caroline Eselin, Julie Weiss, Mark Bridges, and Manon Rasmussen

I think this begs a reader poll...

poll by twiigs.com

Dear AMPAS... Love, Team Experience

With the final Oscar voting commencing today -- can we still say "ballots going out" when this season has been so dramatically electronic? -- I asked Team Experience to write very brief notes to Oscar voters.

I'll start us off...

❝Dear AMPAS, Two Words: Emmanuelle Riva. Respect your elders and wish her a happy 86th birthday on February 24th (your 85th!). In your 85 years you've had plenty of impossible dreamgirls like Lawrence, rapidly ascending versatile stars like Jessica, and resilient fierce mamas like Naomi. But you've never given the prize to anyone like Emmanuelle. Do your own Best Actress legacy proud by switching it up and proving you're still free thinkers in your 80s! 
Yours always, for better & worse, Nathaniel❞

pleas for The Master, Zero Dark Thirty, Moonrise Kingdom and more after the jump...

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Review: "Mirror Mirror"

This review was originally published in my column at Towleroad.

Once upon a time there lived a director with big canvas visual ideas. He would stretch them across just about any surface and start painting. Serial killer craziness (The Cell), muscle queen mythology (The Immortals), and uncategorizable period fantasy (The Fall) were all fair game. Any topic would do including a comic spin on Snow White because why the hell not? 

His name was Tarsem Singh or Tarsem or Tarsem Singh Dwandwar or Tarsem Dwandwar Singh because he could never settle on a signature. He would halfheartedly skim screenplays until inspiration struck. Once the spell was cast, he'd toss the script into the fire, chug absinthe, and speed dial Eiko Ishioka. He'd sketch until the last of the words had turned to ash and only his drawings remained*. The end. 

*not his real process.

Whether you live happily ever after from watching his movies depends on what you go to the movies for. [Continue]

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Eiko Ishioka (1939-2012)

Deneuve with Ishioka on Oscar night 1993The cinema lost one of its few truly unique visionaries this week. We've paid homage before and multiple times. 73 year old costume giant Eiko Ishioka, who didn't work in the cinema frequently enough for our tastes succumbed to cancer on Thursday.

We first fell in love with her work via Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and it was hardly an idiosyncratic crush. Millions were instant converts and she won the Oscar for her spectacular creations, from inside out red musculature armor to dazzling perverse lizard-like bridal wear for vampire brides. Just stunning stuff.

I'd be very disappointed/surprised if some goth girl somewhere hasn't tried to copy Sadie Frost's indelible vampire bride look for her wedding night.

Sadie Frost in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Best single costume of the 1990s? Maybe.

In the past decade Ishioka wowed again through Tarsem Singh's filmography (The Cell, The Fall, and Immortals)

Bjork, Grace and a few more film pics after the jump...

Kellan Lutz filming a scene from Immortals (2011)

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Mirror Mirror"

We've never really imagined visually acclaimed director Tarsem Singh as the Evil Queen type but the release of the trailer to his next flick Mirror Mirror (included at the bottom of this post) so quickly on the heels of Rupert Sanders Snow White and the Huntsmen trailer (previously discussed) changes that immediately. Suddenly it's remarkably easy -- nay required! -- to imagine Tarsem all fussy, bejewelled and panicky with sweat in front of his own magic mirror when it declares Snow White and the Hunstman the fairest of all new Snow White projects. That's admittedly a small 50/50 type achievement, but still... 

Breathe deeply and put The Fall on loop in your home theater, Tarsem! Movie magic is temperamental even for the most skilled visual magicians.

But it's time for our Yes, No, Maybe So breakdown. As we do in this series, let's start positive...

YES...

• As in The Social Network, Armie Hammer seems more than perfectly cast as upper crust... in this case upper upper crust as in the royal family, as in Prince Charming.
• Birch trees are pretty and there seem to be a lot of them in this movie.
• Lily C... Ju... the se... the cos...vi... oh fuck it, let's move on. 

NO...

"Snap!" to quote Thor on Nurse Jacket. 'We don't say that anymore."

• Julia Roberts used to be so great at comedy. But it might just be true that if you rest, you rust.
• That "I believe I believe I believe in love" musical number is strangely off putting. Was it the smug way Snow White already thinks she's the fairest of them all with her dance move? Was it the Bollywood influence without really committing to Bollywood?
• Why does the whole thing look lower budget than even the cheeztacular Once Upon a Time on television?
• Why does the sound drop out for each Julia Roberts moment like an awkward silent laugh track?
• Being banished to the woods isn't very scary when the woods look like the soundstage adjacent to the soundstage you were just banished from.
• Why is Nathan Lane in this?
• Why did they release a trailer when the images aren't color corrected and they didn't even fix the green screen backdrop in the "you're not as pathetic as I thought" scene?
• Why is the dialogue so anachronistically modern?
• Why is Julia shouting all of her lines. Wouldn't the highlighting and underlining of 50% of each sentence be enough for a line delivery?
• "Snow White? Snow Who? Snow Way" 
• I think instead of Seven Dwarves they've given us Seven Jar Jar Binkses. *shudder*
• No, Julia... I don't think there's a happy ending coming your way here.
• "Say Hello to My Little Friend" ... seriously? SERIOUSLY?!? What is this Shrek only without animation and with hoarier lame pop culture jokes? 

MAYBE SO...

• If you're going to risk being laughed at, by all means wear swan dresses! Really go for it. Should your swan be pooping out your leading lady instead of casually draped around her a la Björk? WHY NOT!? Go for it Eiko Ishioka! Your cuckoo bravery is inspiring. We love you. 
• The Fall is awesome and maybe it looked like shit at some point during production? 

The atrocity in full is embedded below... Are you a No, No or Maybe No? Sound off in the comments.