Beauty Break: Costume Design (Personal Ballot & Oscar Shortlist)

We're about to wrap up the "traditional" portion of the Film Bitch Awards which are essentially Nathaniel's Oscar ballot were he to have one in every category. (There will be more awards each day until we're finished -- before the Oscars, mind you! -- but they're the fun "extras")

Oscar's costume branch and I were fairly sympatico on our shortlists this year differing by only two pictures. Yet citing only 7 pictures (all featured after the jump) feels stingy. Costume heavy period pictures like Macbeth, Crimson Peak, The Assassin and Brooklyn definitely had their moments. Two contemporary pictures worth noting for their clever work were Youth and Chi-Raq. And then there are the pictures that have one costume so special it's what you always think of later on when you're picturing the movie: that lime green slit-to-there dress in M:I - Rogue Nation, the perfect action hero simplicity of Chris Pratt's functional but very tight outfits in Jurassic World, the barely visible sight of Jennifer Jason Leigh under huge furry everything in The Hateful Eight, that stylish pilot jacket in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that traded hands and so on...

In short, if you don't love costumes -- get outta here! Let's celebrate the five Oscar nominees plus two Nathaniel nominated in his own awards after the jump. Crazy gorgeous photos ahead...

OSCAR'S COSTUME DESIGN NOMINEES

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Interview: Lucinda Coxon's 11 Years With "The Danish Girl"

One of this season's most talked about movies, The Danish Girl, set tongues wagging long before anyone had seen a single frame. Years before in fact. It wasn't just the subject matter, though the subject matter would have been enough. The Danish Girl tells the true story of married painters Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) and Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) who struggle to come to grips with Einar's true identity, Lili Elbe. Lili was one of the first trans women to ever undergo gender confirmation surgery which was then an experimental series of surgery. It's a difficult subject to dramatize, and a difficult subject to talk about particularly given how quickly the verbiage and discourse has changed across the decades. People didn't know how to talk about it in 1930 when the story was a very current sensation in Denmark and Germany and do people really know how to talk about it now? A quick perusal of any trans story around the internet will tell you the answer is still no. 

It's always a particular challenge for heavily buzzed pictures to get out into the marketplace and form their own identity outside of everyone's pre-screening perceptions of them. Oscar winner Tom Hooper's (The King's Speech) latest is definitely no exception. Even the casting, which wouldn't have been all that controversial even a handful of years ago other than in a rubber-necking kind of "Oscar bait" way, has been the subject of spirited debates along the lines of "shouldn't a trans actor be playing the part?" But films take a long time to make. Who could have known the happy development in the past few years in regards to trans visibility in Transparent, Tangerine, Orange is the New Black. 

The Danish Girl's complicated gestation period is where I began when i sat down with the woman who'd been with the project the longest, its screenwriter Lucinda Coxon. Our interview is after the jump... 

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Menagerie '15: Best Animals in the Movies

Personality Assessment. Go...

• Do you feel guilty (like me) about missing White God, Hungary's acclaimed drama about a pack of wild dogs?

• Were you puzzled when Susan Cooper was embarrassed by her crazy cat lady disguise in Spy?

• Would you put on a bee suit to hang with Mr Holmes? 

• Would you adopt Paddington after he defiled your toothbrushes? 

If you answered yes to any of those questions you might be an animal person or a crazy cat lady like your host Nathaniel. This list (updated from a halfwaymark celebration) is for you!

TOP 15 ANIMALS FROM 2015 MOVIES
after the jump...

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Podcast: The Danish Girl, Youth, Macbeth, Chi-Raq

Nathaniel, Nick, Katey, and Joe all return for the latest episode of the podcast in which we discuss four new films that definitely bear their auteur's signature for better and worse. Listen in and continue the conversation in the comments. The more the merrier.

42 minutes 
00:01 NBR & NYFCC debrief
05:40 The Danish Girl
16:28 Macbeth's feeling of inevitability...or is it monotony?
22:56 Paolo Sorrentino's Youth, a bit of The Great Beauty and a lot of Jane Fonda
33:00 Spike Lee's new urgent joint Chi-Raq
39:45 Joe's new job & Nick's sudden activity

Further Reading for Context:
Nick's Danish Girl tweet
Nathaniel's Category Fraud Screed
Decider
Nick's "Favorites" Countdown
NBR & NYFCC

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. 

Youth, Danish Girl, Macbeth

Interview: Charming Eddie Strikes Again!

Remember that magical trip to London last month that I raved about? The agenda was actually interviews with The Danish Girl team and a few of those are coming up.

Director Tom Hooper's latest Oscar hopeful, about the unconventional marriage of artists Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) and Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe (Eddie Redmayne) opens in select cities today with a nationwide release in the near future. First up is the leading lady himself, Eddie Redmayne, who headlines as Lili, one of the first trans women to undergo sex reassignment surgery in the early 20th Century. Eddie Redmayne could well be up for the Best Actor Oscar again

I spoke to Eddie for Towleroad about gender fluidity, his tireless press rounds these past two years, and my two favorite scenes in the movie. Here's a snippet that I know TFE's awards fanatics will especially enjoy.

Your past few roles have been transformations -- The Theory of Everything to Jupiter Ascending to The Danish Girl -- so would you like to play a normal bloke at this point?

[Laughs] I am dreaming of one day just wearing a pair of jeans and a t shirt...

So you’ve already won a Tony and an Oscar…

Wow… Say it again! 

So are you going to record an album? Are you heading for the EGOT?

I’m recording an album tomorrow! [Laughs] Absolutely not. NO! I think Les Miz was quite enough for everyone. No, no, no aspirations for that.

Read the full interview at Towleroad