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.

One Category at a Time: Costume Design

The design categories have me at a loss this year. Best Production Design and Costume Design (the latter the subject of today's shaky analysis) both feature the two craft giants going at it for the distinction of most Oscars, but I have a tough time envisioning them as winners. The Academy likes its costumes pretty and plentiful. So lets start with a look at the prettiest and most plentiful of the lot:

My Award Nominations: Costume Design

Spanning from a post-apocalyptic future to as far back as "once upon a time", this year's best movie fashions defined their characters to a tee, whether going for sartorial subtext or eye-catching iconography. The category is Costume Design, and my five best dressed films are:

Review - Cinderella

Traditionalists can be forgiven for continually scoffing at Walt Disney Pictures for their current habit of repurposing their most beloved animated classics into money-sponging live-action productions. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland have already fallen victim to the artistically dubious Mirror Mirror, Maleficent and Tim Burton's unspeakable 2010 eyesore, with plans afoot for everything from Beauty and the Beast to Dumbo to Winnie the Pooh.
This year's episode of 'remake musical chairs' is none other than Cinderella.

Purists' initial reaction may be to cringe and look away, but with the right tone in the right directorial hands (in this case, the aptly theatrical Kenneth Branagh), who's to say that these relics can't be improved, even if only mildly?

While Walt's 1950 hit about the woebegone dreamer with the glass slippers may be remembered as a classic, it's sometimes misremembered as 'good' classic.
Truth is, it simply does not hold up to modern scrutiny, proving to be more Tom & Jerry cartoon than cinematic achievement, and only peripherally about its titular maiden. If any of Disney's dusty animated properties was due for a refurbishing,
it was this one.

Early Oscar Predictions: Design Categories

With the script finished and the project green-lighted, the next stage is setting the stage, as all the elements that will comprise the onscreen world of the movie need to be designed and built in pre-production. The Academy's production design, costume design, and makeup/hairstyling branches have traditionally favoured achievements in these fields that evoke period settings or more imaginative fantasy worlds. Movies that manage to straddle both of those design realms must always be considered formidable.

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?

One Category at a Time: Costume Design

I'm still smarting from last year's disappointing win for Alice in Wonderland, but it should serve as a valuable lesson that flashiness trumps the film's likability in this category every time. There are varying degrees of both factors in this year's race, but first, a moment of silence for the costumes of Captain America and The Help, unfortunate snubees at the hands of frillier period extravagance...

... okay, now on to the nominees.

My Award nominations: Costume Design

It's that time of year again. Time to think back on the dozens of films seen in 2011 and decide upon the best of the best in all the usual categories. As always, I'll be announcing my nominees for the my awards one day at a time, leading up to the 23rd (the eve of the Oscar nominations) when my winners will be announced.

Today's category is Costume Design:

Albert Nobbs (Pierre-Yves Gayraud):
Subtle period details flesh out the Upstairs/Downstairs fashions of 19th century Ireland. The cuts of Close's and MacTeer's outfits are important if we're to believe they could be passed off as men.

The Artist (Mark Bridges):
The glitz and glamour of old Hollywood translates very well to black and white on account of Bridges' stylish suits and flapper attire. I love the progression of Berenice Bejo's look as she rises to stardom.

Captain America (Anna B. Sheppard):
A credible meld of period authenticity and fantasy stylings; the convincing evolution of Cap's costume, Red Skull's angular trench coat, and the Hydra uniforms all stand out.

The Help (Sharen Davis):
Splashy and colourful when they need to be, but toned back when appropriate. Emma Stone's earthy colours fit her character much better than would the hot pinks and yellows donned by Jackson's priveleged socialites.

Hugo (Sandy Powell):
A suitable dash of Parisian flare adorn the clothes of the train station's inhabitants. Hugo's outgrown clothing and Isabelle's jaunty beret are perfectly specific for their characters.



Just missed:
J. Edgar, Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse

Review - Hugo

A lonely orphan who winds the clocks from within the walls of a Parisian train station attempts to decipher the mystery of a mechanical man in Hugo, Martin Scorsese's courageous foray into 3D family entertainment.

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), for that is his name, used to love fixing things with his clockmaker father before his untimely death. A rusty old automaton designed to write on paper is all he has to member his dad, and repairing the robot has become a project on which the boy has become dependent. He often pilfers parts from a sad old toymaker, Papa George (Ben Kingsley), who seems somehow connected to the machine, but reluctant to divulge. Hugo finds an ally in the toymaker's goddaughter (Chloe Moretz), an avid reader who yearns for adventure beyond her leather-bound tomes. Together, they attempt to discover the secret concealed within the automaton's intricate clockwork and seek a window into Papa George's past.

One Category at a Time: Best Costume Design

This is always a depressing category for me. Five years running the winner here has been a terrible movie. That may not bother me so much if I ever thought the costumes were deserving, but the Academy's "more is more" philosophy often clashes violently with my own tastes. But I remain hopeful we might see a film of quality (or at least quality costumes) reclaim the throne this year.

Sandy Powell will be looking for her tenth career nomination via Martin Scorsese's Hugo Cabret, set in lavish 1930s Paris. Powell is a versatile designer who excels no matter the film's period or genre, and she is certainly respected by the costume branch.

Michael O'Connor won this category a couple of year's ago for The Duchess, and could be back for another British corset-fest in the form of Jane Eyre. But has it been released too early? It may well be forgotten by year's end, but you can always count on the costume branch to throw a bone to forgotten movies (I Am Love for instance).

Jacqueline West, last nominated a couple of years ago for Benjamin Button, has two solid opportunities this year in The Tree of Life and Water for Elephants. In spite of its spring release, I'm guessing she stands a better shot with the latter, which allows her to combine the sparkly glitz of the circus with the dusty drabness of Depression era America.

David Cronenberg's sister, Denise, has been designing the costumes for all his movies since The Fly in 1986. She has her most awards-friendly project to date with A Dangerous Method, Cronenberg's period piece about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. If the film catches on with the Academy, I wouldn't be surprised to see its design elements earn some love.

Sharen Davis is no stranger to styles of the 1960s, having earned Oscar nominations for Ray and Dreamgirls. She'll be outfitting the many women of The Help, set in 1960s Mississippi, with period-appropriate and class-defining threads. Again, if the movie tickles the Academy's fancy, I'd say she has a decent shot at nomination number three.

Predicted five:
A Dangerous Method
The Help
Hugo Cabret
Jane Eyre
Water for Elephants

Also consider: Albert Nobbs, The Conspirator, My Week with Marilyn, Sherlock Holmes 2, The Tree of Life, Wuthering Heights.

One Category at a Time: Costume Design

It's said that the Academy in general votes for the craft categories in one of two ways: either it votes for the "Most" instead of the "Best", or it votes for the movie it likes the best.

If they're voting for the "Most", then I say Alice in Wonderland will win for Colleen Atwood's colourful (see: glaring, clashy) fantasy threads, since there's no decadent 18th Century royalty porn for them to vote for.

If they're voting for whatever they like the most, then it's obviously going to The King's Speech. Add to that the fact that, while not exactly like the royalty porn of the last four years, the film is technically about European monarchy, and thus can keep this category's streak alive. I'm venturing that Jenny Beavan will celebrate her first win in 23 years.

You could apply the same logic of a win for "Most" Costume Design to The Tempest and Sandy Powell's interesting costumes, but that movie is despised to an extent that makes even Alice in Wonderland look good.

I Am Love is contemporary, so it's out, and no Western has ever won, so that should nix True Grit as well. That's not to undersell Antonella Cannarozzi and Mary Zophres' terrific work. Both of them, especially Zophres, did awesome jobs at using clothes to accentuate character, and it'd be swell to see one of them win, but keep dreaming.

Will win: The King's Speech
Runner-up: Alice in Wonderland

Should win: True Grit
Should have been nominated: Get Low