Ellen Mirojnick: From "Fatal Attraction" to "Oppenheimer"

by Cláudio Alves

There is little heroic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, whether in real life or on the big screen. Yet, in Christopher Nolan's latest, the commonplace act of getting dressed for the day is treated with the gravitas of a superhero movie's "suit up" scene. If nothing else, the moment highlights Ellen Mirojnick's work, another feather in the costume designer's cap. As with every one of the picture's elements, each choice is carefully deliberated, a negotiation of intimacy and immediacy that tries to transmit a first-person take on the period film. Two-piece tan suits rhyme with sky blue shirts, echoing the Los Alamos landscape, while a turquoise-inset silver belt buckle and porkpie-crowned cowboy-rimmed hat wink at Western iconography. It's a uniform as much as a costume, the men's "mythic look" as described by Mirojnick, who kept hats out of the other character's looks to make her protagonist stand out. 

This could be a lucky year for Mirojnick, awards-wise. Oppenheimer just might result in the designer's first Oscar nomination. Considering her vast career, it's hard to believe she's yet to be honored by the Academy…

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Emmy Category Analysis: Period Costumes

by Cláudio Alves

Where is The Gilded Age with its cornucopia of tacky bustle gowns, a good portion of which are copied from fashion plates, museum pieces, and period portraits? Where are Gentleman Jack's precise visions of Romantic dress, queer aesthetics seen through a 19th-century lens? Where are the comedic stylizations of Our Flag Means Death or Julia's purviews of a television icon of days gone by? Where's the love for Schmigadoon!'s cavalcade of hot men in tight pants or Pachinko's cultural delineations rendered in a rainbow of beautiful textiles? 

Though the period category for the 2022 Emmys is the most solid of the three costume lineups (we previously discussed contemporary and fantasy fashions), many inspired period possibilities were ignored in favor of repeat contenders and curious flops...

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Links: Death Scenes, Star Salaries, and Filmmaker Arrests

Today's Must Read
• Slate examines the "50 Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time". For a piece on death it's surprisingly fun and life-affirming. But the best reason to read it is that, unlike 95% of "all time" lists unline, it's genuinely far reaching stretching across all storytelling mediums and time periods. At this point it's a miracle to see an "all time" list that acknowledges that the world existed before the 1990s! Obviously spoilers abound though...

Movie and tv salaries at the moment, Jafar Panahi's prison sentence, Amanda Seyfried's Wicked audition, Bollywood anxiety and more after the jump ...

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Links

• GQ UK Simu Liu interview and why he auditioned for Greta Gerwig's Barbie
• AV Club Pixar has announced a new original for next summer. It's called Elemental and about a water and fire elemental discovering what they have in common
• Vanity Fair Bridgerton Season 3 will diverge from the book order and follow Penelope & Colin

More after the jump including the Billboard Music Award Winners, sad news about Adele Haenel, new projects for David Cronenberg, and a tribute to Jonathan Bailey...

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I'll Link to That: Pedro, Liza, 'The Northman', and Anthony Bridgerton

• The Guardian ranks Liza Minnelli's 20 best films. You can quibble with the order but there's so much good stuff in here; very happy to see the wildly underrated Lucky Lady make it all the way to #7
• IndieWire looks at the first take reactions to The Northman (which are wildly positive as first take reactions tend to be) 
• AfterEllen here's something a bit unexpected. Pioneering lesbian rockstar Melissa Etheridge has released a graphic novel AND announced a week-long event in Mexico called Etheridge Island which is aimed where she and Ani DiFranco and other artists will perform

Upcoming music biopics, You Won't Be Alone, Killing Eve, Bridgerton, Pedro Almodóvar, Mad God, and more after the jump ...

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