Costume Designers Guild Hustling for 'Gatsby', '12 Years a Slave', 'Her'

Glenn here to share the Costume Designers Guild nominations that were just announced this morning (what? you think they pay attention to whether other award organisations are announcing the same day?) I think it's safe to say that the costume category is The Film Experience collective's favourite category outside of the actressing ones, and this year's category looks like it will be a fight to the death between the spectacle of The Great Gatsby, the refined flare of American Hustle, and the authenticity of 12 Years a Slave. All three showed up in today's guild nomination - the first "below the line" guild citations of the season - alongside titles like Blue Jasmine, Her and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Excellence in Period Film

• 12 Years a Slave, Patricia Norris
• American Hustle, Michael Wilkinson
• Dallas Buyers Club, Kurt & Bart
• The Great Gatsby, Catherine Martin
• Saving Mr. Banks, Daniel Orlandi

The aforementioned three plus Saving Mr. Banks were obvious selections (and Nathaniel was already predicting them for Oscar), but the low-key '80s Texas ranch duds and Rayon's striking color-blocked ensembles of Dallas Buyers Club feel like a surprise. Or, they would if Jean-Marc Vallee's film hadn't been charging through the precursors already, I guess. Sad to see the fleetingly eclectic and generation-spanning work of Ruth E. Carter in Lee Daniels' The Butler miss out. Whither Oprah's crocheted disco suit. Likewise the sumptuous work of William Chang on The Grandmaster, the divinely textured albeit little seen fashions of Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman, and (despite my loathing of the film) Julian Day's less-jokey '70s Rush attire including Chris Hemsworth's procession of fabulous, retro tees that I wish I owned and open-necked button-ups I wish I had the body to pull off.

Contemporary, fantasy, TV and Sandy Powell after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Emmy Predictions. Who Are You Rooting For This Weekend?

Giant all caps disclaimer coming at'cha: I AM NOT A TELEVISION PUNDIT. I have never claimed to know what I'm doing with predicting Emmys though occassionally I try. I watch way more TV than I did a decade ago mostly due to the invention of the DVR and also probably because TV got more cinematic and thus better. I am not a TV pundit but I like to watch and you know I like to opine. It's an action verb. 

Herewith my poorly informed predictions regarding Sunday nights award's. Plus a few comments and trivia notes.

DRAMA
The Nominees: Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, Homeland, House of Cards, and Mad Men
I'm Rooting For: Mad Men. Always. It's literally the only show I've ever watched as it aired that I'd hand the best series prize to for each and every one of its seasons (thus far). For example: I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer like life but I would've handed the top prize to a couple of different things and different times during its 7 year run.
Prediction: Given Emmy's prospensity/habit to repeat winners, you have to consider Homeland a threat for a second consecutive win even though you'd be hard pressed to find one person alive who thinks the second season measures up to the first. Downward sloping quality both true (Downton Abbey) and perceived (Mad Men isn't as "enjoyable" as it once was but it's still challenging meaty triumphant television) rules them out as well. Which leaves us with House of Cards and Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, the latter of which I think is winning the internet the Emmy for the first time.

comedy series and 8 acting categories after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Linking Time

Hollywood Will the ending of August Osage County screened at TIFF be the ending it has in theaters? The film might not be "locked" just yet
Pajiba on social media, celebrity, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Town & Country & BuzzFeed suddenly the internet noticed Clint's son Scott Eastwood (also an actor). I think he looks like a douchey fratboy but the internet don't care. The internet wants what it wants. Weirdly T&C claims he's channeling leading men of the sixties but the only movie star I'm seeing in the photos is a bit of Young Clint Eastwood... the nose mostly.

Awards Daily helps you keep track of the upcoming awards calendar
Sketchy Details yes! another Short Term 12 convert. We must grow and grow, the Short Term 12 fan club.
New York Post check out this Taiwanese movie theater and it's hand painted movie posters
Vulture the final season of Mad Men will be split in two. Mad Men until 2015!  Anything that makes it last longer is A OK by me but I've been reading nasty comments online about it. A lot of "that show has outstayed its welcome" comments (some by people who admit they don't watch it). Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things. If every show on tv was even a third as good as Mad Men at its weakest,  television would be an infinitely better place.
Variety in other Mad Men news, Oscar winner Robert Towne (Chinatown) has joined the writing table for the final season 

Must Reads with a Longer Running Time
New York Times Terrific insightful confessional by Lisa Schwarzbaum on Blue Jasmine, an old Lucille Ball television movie, modern women's picture and "fear of baglady-dom" 
IndieWire surveys critics on the best of TIFF 13. I love seeing survey results but it usually mightily depresses me since as insightful as critics can be I find that they're usually not very strong when it comes to judging acting. Even if Gravity grows on me (possible) I am 99.9% likely to maintain that the star performances are serviceable but ungreat and obviously so. And yet Sandra Bullock has a higher rank in Best Lead performance than Huppert, Gheorghiu, Streep, or Chastain? Absurd.
Peter Taggart very funny conversation about this year's forthcoming Emmy awards and who should win.

Linkables

Pajiba the highest grossing modern movie stars who've never made a sequel - interesting that there are so many!
The Wrap Chris McQuarrie to direct Mission: Impossible V. It'll be tough to follow Ghost Protocol so good luck
Art of the Title looks at neon Spring Breakers
Gold Standard Harry Hamlin on his Emmy nomination for Mad Men
Towleroad Spike Lee speaks about charges that he's homophobic based on his movies
Twitch Harvey Scissorhands is back! He wants 20 minutes cut from Snowpiercer. Hey, as long as they aren't Tilda Swinton's scenes... 

Salon takes Jay-Z to task for disrespecting Harry Belafonte and asks that hip hop's political sensibilities grow up a little
My New Plaid Pants Dominic Cooper posing for his life
i09 'Break the glass, Sam Rockwell, Break the glass!' He may be joining the new Poltergeist movie
Film Dr 10 shallow pleasures of 2 Guns
Cinema Blend on the generic-looking boxy head poster for Don Jon... undoubtedly a tough movie to sell... though I'm not sure I follow the assertion that the midwest can't relate to porn addictions. LOL. Speaking of the internet (and thus the world's) porn addictions...
Boy Culture have you seen this Ryan Gosling strip scene from The Place Beyond the Pines that's making the rounds? Gosling's disgust at being asked to strip in the clip is his rebuke to the internet pervily watching it!

TV Character Mashup Fantasies

Andrew was kind enough to poll Team Experience about their joy, bafflement, and dreams regarding last week's Emmy nominations but we saved one question for last since their was so much to read and parse already. We asked one final question of the team and we thought we'd share it with you here. Bonus points to the reader who comes up with the best spec script to make any of these fabulously impossible unions happen!

Which Emmy-nominated TV characters would you love to see paired up?!? 

The Dowager Countess was a constant presence in the answers...

mashup fun after the jump 

Click to read more ...