CDG Winners

The Costume Designers Guild wrapped up the industry-based awards last night on the final day of Oscar voting. They elected Hidden Figures in Period, Doctor Strange in Fantasy and La La Land in Contemporary.

Given that polls are now closed and that the guild is a smaller membership prone to idiosyncratic decisions now and then (remember W.E.... didn't think so), I don't think I'll be swayed from predicting Jackie for the Oscar, but it feels like a very pliable contest. Florence Foster Jenkins could surprise, and La La Land would make a satisfying winner on behalf of overlooked contemporary design efforts.

[UPDATED] Guilds Round-Up: CAS, VES, ASC, MUAHS, CDG

The BAFTA and PGA weren't the only industry groups that got a word in yesterday. Here's a summary of other artisan guilds and societies that have had their say in advance of Friday's Oscar deadline:

AMERICAN SOCIETY of CINEMATOGRAPHERS

Arrival -- Bradford Young
La La Land -- Linus Sandgren
Lion -- Greig Fraser
Moonlight -- James Laxton
Silence -- Rodrigo Prieto
That's a mighty fine-looking lineup, folks.
In fact, swap one of these out for The Light Between Oceans and you have my own personal ballot. As it stands, this could be a perfect match-up with Oscar's cinematography branch. To see Bradford Young and Greig Fraser nominated alongside eachother would certainly make happy many a cinephile who have itched to see them recognized for years. But I have a sneaky suspicion Robert Richardson could still figure in for Live By Night. He's pulled the very same trick sans guild nomination before.

CINEMA AUDIO SOCIETY

Sound Mixing -- Live Action Motion Picture

Doctor Strange
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Rogue One
Sully
I'm not sold on Doctor Strange as an Oscar nominee here (no MCU movie has been nominated in this category if you can believe it). As to what takes it over, I'm leaning towards Arrival, which is infinitely more deserving anyway, but quality of work is no guarantee with this branch. Are we all excited to see Kevin O'Connell (Hacksaw Ridge) lose his 21st Oscar to another musical on February 26th?
I know I am (*ties hangman's noose around neck*)

CDG honours Mad Max, Danish Girl, Beasts of No Nation

Best Costume Design is far and away the closest contest in this year's Academy Awards. A mere twelve days ago I was pontificating that Sandy Powell's stylistic abundance in Cinderella would just edge out her own subtle work in Carol, and now I have Jenny Beavan's iconic Mad Max: Fury Road designs (winner of the Costume Designers Guild Award for Fantasy) just leading the way ahead of Paco Delgado's opulent period wardrobe in The Danish Girl (winner for Period). Beasts of No Nation took the Contemporary prize, but of course was not Oscar nominated. Instead that slot went to the arguable Best Picture frontrunner The Revenant, for Jacqueline West's "trapper chic".

This feels like an honest-to-God five horse race, and thankfully, not one that I'm too personally invested in. If either Sandy or Jenny come out on top, great! Score one the best costumers of the year! And if they both lose, well, they've each won before so no loss. Paco and Jacqueline are terrific designers in their own right and either would make a welcome addition to the winners circle.

'Birdman' Closes Out Dominant Season with CDG Win

The last industry group to announce its winners in advance of Sunday night's Academy Awards was the Costume Designers Guild. They sprang for Oscar frontrunner Milena Canonero's stylized pre-war European threads from The Grand Budapest Hotel in period design, Colleen Atwood's theatrically informed fairytale garb from Into the Woods in fantasy design, and Albert Wolsky's character-serving vestments from Birdman in contemporary design (the movie's tenth and final guild victory of the season).

All three of these costumers are legends in their field, each having already been honoured by the CDG and won multiple Oscars before last night. And I honestly can't protest any of them winning again. Well done!

CDG Adds to Busy Day of Guild Announcements

The Costume Designers Guild have unveiled their 2014 nominees in three categories, so let's get right into it with the most Oscar-correlative category, Excellence in a Period Film:

Period Film
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Milena Canonero
The Imitation Game - Sammy Sheldon Differ
Inherent Vice - Mark Bridges
Selma - Ruth E. Carter
The Theory of Everything - Steven Noble

I can hear the groaning now, but I'll defend the nomination of Theory of Everything. I liked Noble's simple colour associations with the characters. For the win, however, I'd have a tough time deciding between Grand Budapest and Inherent Vice. The outfits in those two have so much personality!

Will win: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Should win: The Grand Budapest Hotel or Inherent Vice

Two more categories after the cut.

Gravity and 12 Years a Slave take final guild honours

The last two guilds to hand out hardware this season (the Cinema Audio Society and the Costume Designers Guild) did so last night, making winners out of leading Best Picture contenders Gravity and 12 Years a Slave.

Costume Designers Guild weighs in

The busy day of precursor announcements soldiers on with the Costume Designers Guild. In years past, the costume designers and production designers within the Academy were all lumped into one branch that determined nominees for both categories. This year, however, they have finally split into two distinct branches, so its possible that the respective guild opinions are more predictive of the eventual Oscar nominees. Or perhaps not. we'll just have to wait and see.

Nominees in all three feature film categories (and my corresponding thoughts) after the cut.

Best Costume Design, Period
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

I've been holding off on predicting Saving Mr. Banks in this category. The costumes just seemed so... bland to me. But after scoring with BAFTA this morning and now with the guild, it seems to be in the thick of it. Obviously, Catherine Martin remains the one to beat, both here and for the Oscar, and I can hardly argue with that. I was hoping that maybe, just maybe, we might see Mary Zophres score here for Inside Llewyn Davis. It was the last chance for the excellently dressed film to get some recognition in that respect, but I guess I'm banging the drum alone this year.

Best Costume Design, Contemporary
Blue Jasmine, Suzy Benzinger
Her, Casey Storm
Nebraska, Wendy Chuck
Philomena, Consolata Boyle
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Sarah Edwards

It's a delight to see Blue Jasmine and Her score here (although for the latter, you could even make a case for a Fantasy categorization, although this feels more appropriate), but I can't quite wrap my head around the Inclusion of Nebraska or Philomena. I might have preferred Sandy Powell's work from the Wolf of Wall Street to find a home here.

Best Costume Design, Fantasy
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Ann Maskrey, Richard Taylor, Bob Buck
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Trish Summerville
Oz the Great and Powerful, Gary Jones & Michael Kutsche

I've expressed my bewilderment in the past as to why the CDG doesn't honour five nominees in this category? There were more than three fantasy films in 2013, and some had better costumes than these three. What about Man of Steel or Pacific Rim?

CDG last guild to announce winners

The Costume Designers Guild have crowned the best designed costumes of the year in three categories.

In the Period Film category, Jacqueline Durran further embosses herself as the Oscar favourite for her lavish Russian couture in Anna Karenina. Affection for the late Eiko Ishioka brought her a final guild honour in the Fantasy Film category for her off-the-wall designs in Mirror Mirror (might she be a spoiler possibility at the Oscars?). Jany Temime concluded Skyfall's impressive guild run with a win in the Contemporary category for her stylish spy-thriller threads.

Costume Designer Guild nominees

The CDG as nominated all five of the films up for the Oscar, along with 10 others across their three feature film categories.

Excellence in Period Film

Anna Karenina – Jacqueline Durran

Argo – Jacqueline West

Les Misérables – Paco Delgado

Lincoln – Joanna Johnston

Moonrise Kingdom – Kasia Walicka-Maimone

Thrilled to see Moonrise Kingdom and Argo turn up here. I knew their subtle threads wouldn't catch the Academy's eye, but if they were going to get recognized anywhere, it would be with the guild. Good on you, CDG! But I wonder which of the three Oscar nominees in this bunch will win here? Probably Anna Karenina, but could be Les Mis or Lincoln just as easily.

CDG opts for W.E., Potter, Dragon Tattoo

Certainly didn't see this coming. The Costume Designers Guild bestowed their prize for Excellence in Period Film to Madonna's reviled W.E., only half of which is period, and the only Oscar nominee I haven't been considering as a viable winner. Figures. Well, congrats to Arianne Philips. Having been unable and unwilling to see the film, I can honestly say I have no comment.

Meanwhile, my hunch that Harry Potter would receive guild approval panned out, while the dark hued modern threads of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo took home the Contemporary award.

CDG preview

The last guild to sound off this season is the Costume Designers Guild, which announces its winners tonight. It won't have any influence on the Oscar race because final ballots are due to the Academy today, but we can still have fun guessing what the costume designers will want to reward.

Excellence in Period Film contains four of the Oscar-nominated costumers, the odd one out being Sharen Davis' swell threads from The Help which fell pray to the grabby ruffles and frills of Anonymous with the Academy's costume branch. I'll guess that Hugo, my Oscar alternate, will rule the day, but a win for The Artist (which won the BAFTA a little more than a week ago) would be perfectly understandable and deserved.

I'm still miffed that Excellence in Fantasy Film found room for Thor and X-Men but not the year-best costumes of Captain America. At any rate, I'm guessing it'll end up being Harry Potter, simply on account of it being the best reviewed nominee of the five, and as a final tip of the hat to the series. With all the Oscar attention it gets in Art Direction, people forget that Jany Temime has indeed done outstanding work on the entire franchise as well.

Excellence in Contemporary Film usually serves only as an excuse for the guild to recognize a Best Picture contender, which leads me to believe they'll spring for The Descendants here, even if it should be Drive by a country mile.

CDG nominees

The Costumer Designers Guild has spoken:

Excellence in Period Film:
The Artist (Mark Bridges)
Jane Eyre (Michael O'Connor)
The Help (Sharen Davis)
Hugo (Sandy Powell)
W.E. (Arianne Phillips)

This is very close to what I imagine the Oscar lineup will look like. W.E. might be replaced by another period piece like Tinker Tailor or My Week with Marilyn, either of which would make a handsome nominee.

Excellence in Fantasy Film:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Jany Temime)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Penny Rose)
Red Riding Hood (Cindy Evans)
Thor (Alexandra Byrne)
X-Men: First Class (Sammy Sheldon)

As gratifying as it is to see two of the summer's comic book movies finally get some guild recognition (X-Men is a particularly pleasing choice), I'm appalled that they couldn't extend the same courtesy to Anna B. Sheppard's designs for Captain America, which are among the very best of the year. And in its place... Red Riding Hood? "All the better to gag on, my dear."

Excellence in Contemporary Film:
Bridesmaids (Leesa Evans & Christine Wada)
The Descendants (Wendy Chuck)
Drive (Erin Benach)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Trish Summerville)
Melancholia (Manon Rasmussen)

Drive easily bests all comers in this category, and not just for that now-iconic suede scorpion jacket.

CDG winners

Contemporary: Black Swan
Fantasy: The King's Speech
Period: Alice in Wonderland

As expected. The King's Speech and Alice are neck-in-neck for the Oscar. Same with Art Direction. I don't know what to do!

At least the Oscar-snubbed Amy Westcott got some recognition for her outstanding costumes in Black Swan.

Costume Designers Guild nominees!

EXCELLENCE IN CONTEMPORARY FILM
Black Swan – Amy Westcott
Burlesque – Michael Kaplan
Inception – Jeffrey Kurland
The Social Network – Jacqueline West
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – Ellen Mirojnick

EXCELLENCE IN PERIOD FILM
The Fighter – Mark Bridges
The King’s Speech – Jenny Beavan
True Grit – Mary Zophres

EXCELLENCE IN FANTASY FILM
Alice in Wonderland – Colleen Atwood
The Tempest – Sandy Powell
TRON: Legacy – Michael Wilkinson & Christine Bieselin Clark

I'm most chagrined to see Julie Weiss' wonderful costuming of Get Low completely ignored. If it couldn't score here, maybe I should let it go from my predictions. But that begs the question: Why only three nominees for period? Did they really not consider entries like Get Low and The Wolfman (among the year's best imo) good enough to bump the nominee count up to five?

Anyway, it looks like Alice in Wonderland, The King's Speech, The Tempest, and True Grit are leading the way, but who to put in that fifth Oscar slot? Might we finally have the first contemporary costume nominee since The Devil Wears Prada? If so, I'm cheering for Black Swan all the way!

Meanwhile, that Fantasy category is a sad state of affairs. Not only are the three nominees pretty lowsy movies (which is beside the point, anyway), but I didn't even find the costumes in them that good. Jany Temime's work in this year's Harry Potter is much more deserving if you ask me.