Sandy Powell ❤️ plaid

Powell on the set of "The Irishman"by Cláudio Alves

Some auteurists would have you believe that only directors among filmmakers have a distinctive style, a visual language transversal to all their projects. People like Sandy Powell, one of AMPAS' favorite costume designers, defy this logic. Her films share an aesthetic ethos and her taste is ever-present. Notice, for instance, how Powell has a penchant for saturated contrasting colors and bold patterns, often filling the frame with a cacophony of clashing prints. Her approach is so characteristic, in part, because busy textiles aren't something that normally works on camera.

Too much visual information can often distract the audience, dispersing the focus instead of guiding the eye with careful purpose. Powell, however, is capable of making it all work and her films are always bursting at the seams with complicated motifs, be it moiré silks or paisley wools, sequined brocades or floral cotton. Most of all, Powell loves plaid...

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Sandy Powell as an auteur and the splendor of 2002

by Cláudio Alves

Auteur theory may be important, but it has clear limitations. Cinema is an intrinsically collaborative art form and the creation of the cinematic object often involves the work of numerous artists brought together by a common creative mission. To point at one of those minds as the singular visionary of a film is, in part, to erase the authorship of the others. Over the years, scholars, critics, and casual cinephiles have argued for the auteur description to be expanded beyond directors, often signaling actors and writers as good candidates for that same validation. I'd argue that all sorts of contributors to the construction of cinema can be seen as artists who bring their authorial voice to their filmography.

For example, costume designers like Sandy Powell may putatively work for their director's grand vision. However, if you look at their filmography, you see recurrent obsessions and mechanisms, repeated themes, and the development of a personal aesthetic that transcends the limits of directorial intent. Since we're celebrating the year of 2002 because of the impending Supporting Actress Smackdown, I invite you all to consider Powell's authorship as we explore her fabulous designs in Gangs of New York and Far from Heaven…

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Amelia, Nixon, Byrne, Wonder Woman, and the Original "Death of Superman"

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1802 Alexandre Dumas is born. He dies just before cinematic technology begins to blossom so he couldn't have known that his novels like The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers series, and Queen Margot will all be adapted multiple times in a new artform.
1821 Gang leader William Poole, "Bill the Butcher" is born. Daniel Day-Lewis taps his fictional glass eye 181 years later on the big screen...

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Beauty vs. Beast: Ben v Jennifer

Generally speaking The Film Experience is not deeply invested in any celebrity relationship offscreen w/ a couple of notable exceptions. The larger media, quite to the contrary, doesn't obsess over acting but over famous actors. With Jason on vacation, it is left to me Nathaniel, to exorcize our annoyance over the media's ubiquitous obsession with the long breaking-up of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner (they've been divorced for nine months and somehow they're still showing up in every news feed daily). Ben & Jen are two of our most seemingly normal and thus dullest celebrities offscreen, so we're not sure why people care.

But since people do, let's use them for today's Beauty vs Beast and be done with them as a unit since they themselves are already done with them!

 Speak now. Make your case in the comments or forever hold your peace.

PREVIOUSLY
We asked for a rematch between Bill the Butcher (Daniel) and Amsterdam Vallon (Leo) via those Gangs of New York. It was a landslide for glass eyed Bill, who buried Amsterdam with 91% of the vote.  The prevailing sentiment was that it would be so. Squasher and BVR agreed: 

This isn't a fair fight.

Please. It's not even a contest.

Beauty vs Beast: Irish Gangs Be Slashin'

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- I don't know if its my walk to work in Lower Manhattan every day or what but you'd be surprised (really, because literally nobody says this) at how often Martin Scorsese's 2002 film Gangs of New York comes to my mind. I mean clearly the nieghborhoods look a little bit different but whenever I look off towards the river I think to myself, "Self, a boat could totally shoot a cannon at you right now." So thanks for that, Gangs of New York. One more New York stress I don't need!

Anyway this morning we're thinking green thanks to the approaching St. Patrick's Day holiday, and I figured it was time to turn that anxiety into action -- it's the angry Irish laddy versus the Original New York Nativist Nightmare (pre-dating Donald Trump by a couple centuries)...

PREVIOUSLY It was a real battle of man against machine with last week's Ex Machina edition, but in the end our lady of the whirring silver midsection Ava slinked away with just about 53% if your vote. Said catbaskets:

"Team anti-rape avenger every time. (As opposed to team rapist creator). We shall not get lost in Isaac's dreamy pecs."