It'll be hard for the Academy's designers branch to come up with a bad nominee for
Best Production Design this year, even if it doesn't match very closely with my own ballot (outlined after the cut). There's just so much good work out there.
HAIL,
CAESAR! (Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh, Dawn Swiderski)
Our own private tour of a 50s
studio back lot: Greek columns, opulent drawing rooms and aquatic
band stands all within walking distance of each other. Delights in
exposing the machinery behind the facades.
THE
HANDMAIDEN (Ryu Seong-Hee)
Like so many things in this
movie, the absorbing production design represents a sly blend of
styles and influences; Victorian decor and Asian architecture come
together in one sumptuous estate.
KUBO
AND THE TWO STRINGS (Nelson Lowry, Jesse Gregg, Trevor Dalmer)
As in all Laika efforts, the
miniature environments are astonishing not only for their minute
detail, but for their artful attention to narrative and theme,
conjuring a fantasy world that feels complete.
PASSENGERS
(Guy Hendrix Dyas, Gene Serdena)
The
sleek, ovoid futurism of The Starship Avalon
is far sexier than the aspired chemistry between J-Law and Pratt, and
certainly more unified in its conception than any other aspect of the
movie.
THE
WITCH (Craig Lathrop, Mary Kirkland, Andrea Kristof)
Builds a stark visual atmosphere
that's thoroughly suffocating despite its minimalism. The scratchy
wooden interiors are stifling; The withered, truly God-forsaken
landscape outside even more so.
Just missed:
La La Land (David
Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco, Austin Gorg)
Live By Night (Jess
Gonchor, Nancy Haigh, Christa Munro, Bradley Rubin)
Other considerations:
Allied (Gary
Freeman, Raffaella Giovennetti, Jason Knox-Johnston)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Doug
Chiang, Neil Lamont, Lee Sandales)
Silence (Dante
Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo, Wen-Ying Huang)
