Beauty Break: Costume Design (Personal Ballot & Oscar Shortlist)

We're about to wrap up the "traditional" portion of the Film Bitch Awards which are essentially Nathaniel's Oscar ballot were he to have one in every category. (There will be more awards each day until we're finished -- before the Oscars, mind you! -- but they're the fun "extras")

Oscar's costume branch and I were fairly sympatico on our shortlists this year differing by only two pictures. Yet citing only 7 pictures (all featured after the jump) feels stingy. Costume heavy period pictures like Macbeth, Crimson Peak, The Assassin and Brooklyn definitely had their moments. Two contemporary pictures worth noting for their clever work were Youth and Chi-Raq. And then there are the pictures that have one costume so special it's what you always think of later on when you're picturing the movie: that lime green slit-to-there dress in M:I - Rogue Nation, the perfect action hero simplicity of Chris Pratt's functional but very tight outfits in Jurassic World, the barely visible sight of Jennifer Jason Leigh under huge furry everything in The Hateful Eight, that stylish pilot jacket in Star Wars: The Force Awakens that traded hands and so on...

In short, if you don't love costumes -- get outta here! Let's celebrate the five Oscar nominees plus two Nathaniel nominated in his own awards after the jump. Crazy gorgeous photos ahead...

OSCAR'S COSTUME DESIGN NOMINEES

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Costume Designer's Guild Nods: Sandy Powell x 2. And More...

It's Guild Week. The week when many artists get their hopes up for nominations since the guilds have so many categories for their particular craft unlike Oscar's mere 5 for the altogether. But since we love costumes, the more the merrier. Congratulations to the nominees who we'll discuss after the jump...

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"Carol" Week: Carol's Style

Manuel here, continuing our Carol week festivities.

Carol Aird always looks like she’s stepped right out of a fashion spread. Or rather, she wouldn’t look out of place if she were to walk into one. She’s always so impeccably dressed, courtesy of course, of one Ms Sandy Powell.

“Category is: Femme Butch Realness”

I was half-joking when I wrote that note down as I finished Haynes’s film back in NYFF but the more I savored the concept, the more apt it became as a description of Mrs Aird...

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On the Set with Nicole and Naomi

Murtada with a bit of news about BFFs Nic and Naomi.

Remember when Nicole Kidman worked with John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) in Rabbit Hole (2010)? Of course you do. It was the last time she put her considerable talent in a movie that completely worked. Yes Oscar noticed but more importantly she won the Film Bitch best actress award.

They're working together again right now. The movie is called How to Talk to Girls at Parties and is about an alien who visits Earth, landing in the London suburb of Croydon during 1970s punk era. And what has excited us most about this picture of Kidman is the costume, of course. Nicole looks like a character from Velvet Goldmine! It's not a coincidence. The costumes are by Haynes favorite Sandy Powell and this marks the first time ever she’s designed for Kidman. Can you believe it?

Also starring are Elle Fanning - obviously an actressexual since she’s just finished working with The Bening - Ruth Wilson, the wonderful Joanna Scanlan and last year Tony’s winner for best actor Alex Sharp in the lead role.

Meanwhile Nicole’s best friend is working with her baby daddy (her term not ours, we assume jokingly) Liev Schreiber on his passion project The Bleeder. This is a biopic of boxer Chuck Wepner who is the real life  inspiration behind Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa. Apparently Schreiber has been trying to get this story to the screen for years, so naturally he enlisted his Oscar nominated partner. 

Watts is playing Wepner’s wife, Linda. Let’s hope it is more than the usual stock female part in sports movies. The director is Philippe Falaradeau (Monsieur Lazhar, The Big Lie) and the cast includes Elisabeth Moss and Ron Perlman. Schreiber has been hiding his hair in recent public appearances --- we suspect an altered hairline. Just google Chuck Wepner and you’ll know why.

Don't you wish Watts & Kidman were working together?  Let's fantasy cast them in the comments!

Why Isn't 'Cinderella' an Oscar Contender?

Glenn here.

You will no doubt have read – or least seen the headlines – that people are saying that Ridley Scott’s The Martian should be taken very, very seriously as a Best Picture contender. I’ve even seen people claiming it could win, which seems awfully bullish given its hastily rising status in Oscar circles is due almost entirely to the film’s overwhelming success at the box office in the face of a glut of underperforming Oscar players like Steve Jobs. But amid this new wind of blockbuster excitement and the snickers at (contractually obligated) Oscar campaigns for other big-budget, uber-successful movies, there’s one film that has so far gone under the radar in the conversation and ought to be taken far more seriously than it likely will be.

Yes, I mean Cinderella... more after the jump

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