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An epic film many years in the making, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis is simultaneously perfect and also tremendously flawed. There is something powerful at work when a filmmaker as talented as Coppola attempts something as avant-garde as Megalopolis; conversely, there is another equally powerful possibility that the entire endeavor could go completely off the rails and end up a convoluted and befuddling vanity project – which, at times, it unfortunately does.

The film is set in an alternate reality wherein the Roman Empire never ceased to exist and instead spread across the globe. This re-imagined modern America however, is not immune from strife, as factions within the government seek to either retain power or seize it for themselves. Amidst all of this, an artist name Cesar Catlina (Adam Driver) seeks to push society forward to what he envisions as a progressive utopia. The opposition however, which includes existing Mayor Franklyn...

Andy Garcia was much more of a gentleman with Bridget Fonda in “The Godfather Part III” than he was with Joe Mantegna.

Garcia said during “The Pete and Sebastian Show” that his co-star Fonda was “nervous” to be fully nude for a scene in the 1990 Francis Ford Coppola feature. Garcia instead suggested that she wear his coat, which is what we see on film.

“Bridget Fonda was extraordinary to work with, and that’s my coat she’s wearing,” Garcia recalled. “That’s my coat. And initially, you know, they wanted her to be, you know, naked. And she was very nervous. And I said, ‘No, no. She’s not gonna be naked, no. Come on.'”

Garcia continued, “I said to [costume designer] Milena Canonero, I said, ‘Milena, why doesn’t she just wear my leather coat. It’s on the bed, it’s on the floor. Let her come out in my coat.

Helena Bonham Carter's costume from A Room with a View, designed by Jenny Beavan and John Bright. Images courtesy Kerry Taylor Auctions

In Conversation with Kerry Taylor,

Director/Owner, Kerry Taylor Auctions

by Chad Kennerk

Last year, Bafta & Academy-award winning costumier and designer John Bright invited Kerry Taylor to visit the renowned Cosprop store in London to select costumes for a special charity auction in aid of The Bright Foundation. Cosprop has been owned and managed by Bright since its founding in 1965. The company is known for providing the entertainment industry with authentic, highly-detailed period costumes. Bright and fellow collaborator Jenny Beavan have been nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, winning for A Room with a View, for which they also received a Bafta award.

The 69 lots chosen in Lights, Camera, Auction - Live Cosprop Sale represent iconic roles, actors, and moments from the last 50 years of film history.

Since 92 films have won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, it stands to reason that there has been some overlap when it comes to their casts. Indeed, hundreds of actors have each appeared in at least two of those movies, with 31 having played credited roles in three or more. Scroll through our photo gallery to find out which 23 men and eight women have donned the most Oscar-winning outfits.

Costume designers were first honored at the 21st Academy Awards in 1949, when “Hamlet” and “Joan of Arc” were respectively chosen as the black-and-white and color films with the most impressive garments. After being temporarily combined from 1958-1959, those two categories permanently merged in 1968, the year that vibrant musical “Camelot” took the prize. Eight of said 31 performers (including half of the actresses) are on the roster thanks to their appearances in films shot in both styles.

Of the 51 movies included on this list,...

Since 92 films have won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, it stands to reason that there has been some overlap when it comes to their casts. Indeed, hundreds of actors have each appeared in at least two of those movies, with 31 having played credited roles in three or more. Scroll through our photo gallery to find out which 23 men and eight women have donned the most Oscar-winning outfits.

Costume designers were first honored at the 21st Academy Awards in 1949, when “Hamlet” and “Joan of Arc” were respectively chosen as the black-and-white and color films with the most impressive garments. After being temporarily combined from 1958-1959, those two categories permanently merged in 1968, the year that vibrant musical “Camelot” took the prize. Eight of said 31 performers (including half of the actresses) are on the roster thanks to their appearances in films shot in both styles.

Of the 51 movies included on this list,...

The Color Purple costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck will be honored with the Career Achievement Award at the 26th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards this year.

The award recognizes “an individual whose career in costume design has left an indelible mark on film and television.” Previous recipients include Ruth E. Carter, Deborah L. Scott, Michael Kaplan, Joanna Johnston, Jeffrey Kurland, Ellen Mirojnick, Sandy Powell, Marlene Stewart, Ruth Meyers, Ann Roth, Milena Canonero, Albert Wolsky, Colleen Atwood, and Theoni Aldredge, Sharen Davis, April Ferry, Aggie Rodgers, Judianna Makovsky and Eduardo Castro, among many others.

“Try not to allow someone’s negative thoughts or comments keep you from moving forward creatively. You can be nervous, but don’t be afraid to risk taking the first steps even if you can’t completely see the staircase!” says Jamison-Tanchuck.

Jamison-Tanchuck’s credits include Regina King’s triple-Oscar nominated One Night in Miami as well as...

On Dec. 20, 1990, Francis Ford Coppola unveiled The Godfather: Part III at its premiere at the Academy Theater in Beverly Hills. The film went on to gross $136 million globally and nab seven Oscar nominations at the 63rd Academy Awards. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

It’s business, and personal. A complex depiction of Michael Corleone’s dying-days attempt to cement the family in the “legitimate” business world and attain spiritual redemption, this third installment of the Corleone Family chronicle is a full-bodied, albeit somber dramatic orchestration.

However, legitimacy has its price — respectability exacts a grayness and a tempering of one’s style and substance — and this splendidly conceived, although often confusing saga, is itself vulnerable to the dramatic doldrums of Michael’s venture into “respectable” dominions.

The Godfather, Part III does not go to the mattresses, it goes to the boardroom, and mainstream viewers after being served up...

Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” is a nesting doll of a film—a television broadcast of a documentary about a play, assembled with the same precision and detail as Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The French Dispatch” among others. Thematically, the connective tissue between its layers of reality, like many of those earlier films, is the notion and processing of loss. But Anderson, who co-wrote the movie with longtime collaborator Roman Coppola, says one of his longtime leading men inspired him to assemble its pieces in the first place.

“The movie ends up being about grief, but it evolved into that,” Anderson tells Variety. “Roman Coppola and I started this one with the idea that we wanted to build something around a role for Jason Schwartzman.”

He and Schwartzman, one of Coppola’s cousins, have worked together since he cast the then-young actor as precocious,...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best Achievement in Costume Design Rachel McAdams as Barbara Simon, Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon, and Benny Safdie as Herb Simon in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Photo Credit: Dana Hawley

Weekly Commentary: More to come.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the...

If you want to win an Oscar for Best Costume Design, it’s best to pick a project for which you can create frilly dresses from a bygone era. Since its introduction at the 1948 Academy Awards, this category has favored period pictures, including the 2021 winner “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Voters love to reward the creative forces behind such films, especially those that are about the aristocracy including recent champs “Marie Antoinette” (2007), “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (2008), “The Duchess” (2009), “The Young Victoria” (2010), and “Anna Karenina” (2013). (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2023 Oscars Best Costume Design predictions.)

By the way, none of those films even competed for Best Picture. Indeed, only 20 of the most recent 73 Best Picture champs also won this award. Among these was “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2004). Fantasy films such as this often boast Oscar-winning costumes, including 2022 champ “Cruella,” 2019 winner “Black Panther” and its...

Universal City, California – Continuing its theatrical run, the charming comedy starring Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, and Tom Hanks, Focus Features’ Asteroid City is available tomorrow, July 11, 2023 to buy or rent at home on digital platforms nationwide from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Packed with humor, an eclectic cast of characters, and an extraordinary alien encounter, the film marks the return of seven-time Oscar® nominated writer and director Wes Anderson and his signature unique visual style.

A “delightfully profound desert charmer” (Indiewire) that “packs a punch with its ensemble cast” (Slash Film), Asteroid City showcases a star-studded, critically acclaimed supporting cast alongside Schwartzman, Johansson, and Hanks, including Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan and Jeff Goldblum.

A fictional American desert town, circa 1955. Junior Stargazers...

Photo: Focus Features Wes Anderson is still using many of his old tricks. His latest, the 1955 set Asteroid City, will feel familiar to anyone who has seen any of his previous movies. It has many eccentric characters who all speak in monotone and a few carry around a precious prop...

Photo: Focus Features

Wes Anderson is still using many of his old tricks. His latest, the 1955 set Asteroid City, will feel familiar to anyone who has seen any of his previous movies. It has many eccentric characters who all speak in monotone and a few carry around a precious prop...

The internet of 2023 has transformed Wes Anderson from director to design aesthetic through countless generative AI videos and an enduring TikTok trend mimicking his distinct visual style. To watch Anderson’s actual output in Asteroid City is to realize that boiling him down into snackable social media content cannot fully capture his magic. From the whimsical wonder and meticulous mise-en-scène, there’s no replacement for the real thing.

Asteroid City depicts a theater company staging a teleplay at a 1955 Junior Stargazer convention in the titular desert town. For Anderson, the premise is a springboard for crafting frames within frames, which he then proceeds to summarily collapse. The film upholds and undermines his signature all at once. Yet all these crisp compositions also need a committed cast of actors placed within them, delivering his droll dialogue with amusing affect. Most members of Anderson’s assembled troupe are playing actors who are also playing their characters,...

Wes Anderson has done it all: India by train, Rhode Island by foot, the Mediterranean by sub, France by bike, faux-Germany by hotel, apple-orchard America by fox, animated Japan by dog, motel Texas by friends, New York City by family. But––despite the feeling that this couldn’t possibly be true––he’s never told a story in western America. In setting he hasn’t gone further west than Houston. Until Asteroid City: Arizona desert by quarantine.

Anderson’s 11th feature opens by railroad. Knowing the story will soon be confined in an all-too-familiar state of lockdown, however, longtime Dp Robert Yeoman uses the arrival to the tiny fictional town to capture and set the terrain. We’re yanked at high speed through a flurry of landscape shots framed through every angle under the sun on the mustard-yellow train and set to the jittery “Last Train to San...

The films in contention for the 2023 Best Costume Design Oscar are “Babylon,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” Our current odds show “Elvis” (10/3) to be the frontrunner, followed in order by “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (37/10), “Babylon” (9/2), “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (9/2), and “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” (9/2).

Jenny Beavan’s nomination for “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is her 12th and could result in her fourth win, as she previously bagged trophies for “A Room with a View” (1987), “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2016), and “Cruella” (2022). She would be only the fifth costumer to achieve as many victories, after Edith Head, Irene Sharaff, Milena Canonero, and Colleen Atwood. Her other eight bids came for “The Bostonians” (1985), “Maurice” (1988), “Howards End” (1993), “The Remains of the Day” (1994), “Sense and Sensibility” (1996), “Anna and the King” (2000), “Gosford Park” (2002), and “The King’s Speech” (2011).

Catherine Martin (“Elvis”) is seeking...

Hugh Hudson, whose first feature directing effort Chariots of Fire won four Academy Awards including Best Picture, has died, according to a statement from his family obtained by the BBC. He was 86.

Hudson began his career making documentaries and television commercials, which he continued to do even after his big-screen breakthrough with Chariots of Fire. He worked alongside Alan Parker, Ridley Scott and Tony Scott for Ridley Scott Associates (Rsa). His first filmmaking job was as a second-unit director on Parker’s Midnight Express.

Vincent Canby wrote of Hudson’s Oscar-winning debut in 1981: “It’s to the credit of both Mr. Hudson and Mr. Welland [Colin Welland wrote the screenplay] that Chariots of Fire is simultaneously romantic and commonsensical, lyrical and comic. … It’s an exceptional film, about some exceptional people.”

Also deserving credit for the film’s lyricism was the late composer Vangelis, whom Puttnam had worked with...

Stanley Kubrick was, to put it mildly, an exacting filmmaker. He made it his business to know everything about every aspect of production, and leaned on his collaborators something fierce to deliver to his meticulous standards. Jack Nicholson put it best when he said, "Stanley's good on sound. Stanley's good on the color of the mike. Stanley's good about the merchant he bought the mike from. Stanley's good about the merchant's daughter who needs some dental work. Stanley's good."

While prepping his adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's picaresque "The Luck of Barry Lyndon," Kubrick immersed himself in the tale's 18th century period. It wasn't enough to evoke the look of the era; the filmmaker was determined to capture the precise look and feel and smell of that bygone age. To do so, he famously went so far as to acquire super-fast Zeiss camera lenses that were used during the...

Gucci’s Fall 2022 campaign gives cinephile a new meaning.

The fashion house’s new campaign sees iconic scenes from Stanley Kubrick films meticulously recreated to showcase Gucci’s “Exquisite” collection. The scenes — which draw Kubrick classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Eyes Wide Shut, and The Shining — are nearly exact recreations of the auteur’s work, save for the insertion of models wearing new Gucci pieces.

In campaign images and a roughly minute-and-a-half video spot, the pieces at once blend in with and cut through Kubric’s scenes.

Director Stanley Kubrick's 1975 feature "Barry Lyndon",  based on the 1844 novel "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" by author William Makepeace Thackeray, is now available newly restored on Blu-ray:

Considered Kubrick's masterpiece, "Barry Lyndon" recounts the (satirical) exploits of an insincere, 18th century, fortune-hunting Irish rogue.

Director Martin Scorsese has said that "Barry Lyndon" is his favorite Kubrick film.

Although we love certain parts of "2001: A Space Odyssey", "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket", next to Kubrick's Oscar-nominated "Dr. Strangelove" and "A Clockwork Orange", we concur with Scorsese, delighted by one-note actor Ryan O'Neal's performance, perfectly cast as a wooden innocent, determined to maintain his standing as a 'gentleman', while evolving into a devious scoundrel, in order to survive the era's useless wars, thievery and debauchery.

Drawing inspiration from "the landscapes of Watteau and Gainsborough," Kubrick and cinematographer John Alcott also relied on the meticulous art direction of Ken Adam and Roy Walker,...

Opposition to the Academy’s plan to award eight Oscars prior to the live telecast continues to grow, with more than 350 new names — including more than a dozen Oscar-winning editors, cinematographers and production designers — added to the petition sent last week to Academy president David Rubin urging a reversal of the plan.

Among the industry professionals signing are Oscar-winning cinematographers John Seale (“The English Patient”), John Toll (“Braveheart”) and Dean Semler (“Dances With Wolves”), and Oscar-winning editors Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch (“Star Wars”), Mikkel Neilsen (“The Sound of Metal”), Pietro Scalia (“JFK”) and Zach Staenberg (“The Matrix”).

Oscar-winning production designers Hannah Beachler (“Black Panther”), Barbara Ling (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Adam Stockhausen (“Grand Budapest Hotel”) and David and Sandy Wasco (“La La Land”) also signed on.

Cinematography will be presented during the live show, but editing and production design are among the eight awards to be presented during the 4 p.

The Ee BAFTA Film Awards took place on March 13 just a few months ahead of the television awards ceremony, which will be held later this year. On Feb. 3, the nominees for each film category were announced, including the highly anticipated rising star award, which previously saw "Top Boy" star Michael Ward take the win back in 2020 and "Rocks" star Bukky Bakray win in 2021. Now in its 17th year, the rising star award is the only one voted for by the British public and was won by Lashana Lynch.

The night's big winners were "Dune," with a total of five wins, followed by "The Power of the Dog," "Coda," and "West Side Story," each winning two awards.

Check out the full list of this year's winners ahead.

Ee Rising Star Award

Winner: Lashana Lynch

Ariana DeBose

Harris Dickinson

Millicent Simmonds

Kodi Smit-McPhee

Best Film

Winner: "The Power of the Dog"

"Belfast...

Dune leads the way with 11 nominations, followed by The Power Of The Dog on eight and Belfast on six.

The 2022 Bafta Film Awards show is taking place today (March 13) from London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The show started at 17:00 UK time, finishing at approximately 19:30, and will be broadcast with a time delay on BBC One starting at 19:00, finishing at 21:00. Rebel Wilson is hosting for the first time.

The ceremony returns as a full physical event, following last year’s edition which was mostly virtual.

Screen will be posting all the winners on this page as they...

Some of Hollywood’s top filmmakers and former Oscar winners are calling on the Academy to rethink its decision to pre-record eight categories ahead of the March 27 telecast.

James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, John Williams, Kathleen Kennedy, and more than six dozen others signed an open letter addressed to Academy President David Rubin slamming the decision to record the wins for best documentary short, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, production design, animated short, live-action short, and sound outside of the live Dolby Theatre ceremony.

The letter explained that such a decision would “demean” those categories and “relegate [them] to the status of second-class citizens,” as shared with Variety. Though the eight categories taking place prior to the 5 p.m. start time will be integrated into the broadcast, these artists are pushing the Academy to reverse its decision and present all 23 Oscar categories live.

“To diminish any of those individual...

Some of Hollywood’s most high-profile filmmakers, including director James Cameron, producers Kathleen Kennedy and Lili Fini Zanuck and composer John Williams have joined the growing chorus of voices asking the Academy to reverse course and present all 23 Oscars on the live March 27 telecast.

In a letter sent today to Academy President David Rubin and obtained by Variety, more than six dozen film professionals, including multiple Academy Award winners, contend that the plan to present eight awards during the pre-telecast hour will “demean” these crafts and “relegate [them] to the status of second-class citizens.”

The eight are original score, film editing, production design, makeup and hairstyling, sound, documentary short, live-action short and animated short. The Academy continues to insist that the nominees in those categories will be announced, and the winner’s acceptance speech aired, in edited form and aired as part of the three-hour ABC show.

That’s not good enough for these artists.

Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars and Emmys ceremonies from film awards editor Clayton Davis. Following history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar and Emmy predictions are updated regularly with the current year's list of contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. The eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and is subject to change.

To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Oscars Collective

Visit each category, per the individual awards show from The Oscars Hub

Revisit the prediction archive of the 2021 season The Archive

Link to television awards is atTHE Emmys Hub

2022 Oscars Predictions:

Best Costume Design

Updated: Feb 7, 2022

Awards Prediction Commentary: BAFTA selected “Cruella” (Walt Disney Pictures), “Cyrano” (MGM...

Continuing our Oscar Volley series at The Film Experience. Cláudio Alves and Glenn Dunks discuss Best Costume Design

Cláudio Alves: This is my favorite Oscar race! I studied Costume Design in college and still design for theater. However, that doesn't necessarily correlate to my appreciation of the Oscar category. That admiration stems instead from this branch's propensity for lone nominees, the recognition of films with little to no hope of breaking into other races. Sometimes, that lonely contender even wins, though it's been over a decade since that last happened – 2006's Marie Antoinette with costumes by Milena Canonero.

Truthfully, I could envision that occurring this year with Cruella. Beyond that Disney fashion show, one wonders if there'll be any surprise single-category nominees. Honestly, I'm having trouble coming up with a potential candidate unless it's Cyrano or House of Gucci drastically underperforms. What about you, Glenn?...

The nominations for the Costume Designers Guild Awards will be released on Wednesday, recognizing the achievements of the artisans that created some of the most memorable outfits and clothing designs of the year. Following the 10-month eligibility window, the community of over 1,200 members separates the film categories into three groups — contemporary, period and sci-fi/fantasy.

The distinctions between contemporary and period tend to get blurred, especially with modern subjects like Princess Diana in “Spencer” and Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard” among the selections. However, per the CDG rules, “any entry with at least 51% of all costumes existing in a historical era greater than 25 years [on or before December 31, 1995] from the current entry year will be considered a period entry.”

That puts Jacqueline Durran (“Spencer”) and Sharen Davis (“King Richard”) into the period film field, where it’s indisputably the most competitive. Three of the five nominees from CDG typically translate to an...

In April 2019, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences board of governors decided to change the name of the foreign-language-film category, saying it was “outdated within the global film community.” So they renamed it “international film.” It’s better, but still not precise: All films are international, whether they’re in English or not. This year’s Academy Awards race provides many reminders of that fact.

Several 2021 Oscar contenders seem like all-American films, such as “West Side Story,” though the cinematographer is Janusz Kaminski, from Poland; “Nightmare Alley” boasts Dp Dan Laustsen (Denmark), editor Cam McLauchlin and production designer Tamara Deverell (both Canada), not to mention director Guillermo del Toro (Mexico) and stars Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette (both from Australia).

“Coda,” the great funny/poignant comedy about a U.S. family, includes producer Philippe Rousselet (France) and Dp Paula Huidobro (Mexico City), in addition to stars Emilia Jones (the U.

If you want to win an Oscar for Best Costume Design, it’s best to pick a project for which you can create frilly dresses from a bygone era. Since its introduction at the 1948 Academy Awards, this category has favored period pictures, including last year’s winner “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Voters love to reward the creative forces behind such films, especially those that are about the aristocracy including recent champs “Marie Antoinette” (2007), “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (2008), “The Duchess” (2009), “The Young Victoria” (2010), and “Anna Karenina” (2013). (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2022 Oscars predictions for Best Costume Design.)

By the way, none of those films even competed for Best Picture. Indeed, only 20 of the most recent 72 Best Picture champs also won this award. Among these was “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2004). Fantasy films such as this often boast Oscar-winning costumes, including 2019 winner “Black Panther,” and recent...

by Cláudio Alves

In 1986, at the 58th Academy Awards, Best Costume Design was the fourth category to be presented. The honor befell on Audrey Hepburn, who received a standing ovation upon her appearance. The shortlisted artists made up a prestigious lineup that included Oscar winners from years past, like Albert Wolsky and Milena Canonero. Considering Out of Africa's dominance over the night, one might have supposed its period fashions had the win in the bag. However, the Academy's long love affair with Japanese costuming bore fruit for a second time. Akira Kurosawa's last great epic, Ran, won its first and only Oscar, a merited recognition of Emi Wada's efforts. The designer had spent three years creating the thousands of pieces required by the bellicose narrative, using historically accurate techniques and custom textiles to produce a painterly masterpiece of color, motion, and striking silhouettes.

As we remember Wada's much-deserved triumph,...

Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” is an opulent and lush film that is still delighting eyes 15 years later. And a large part of the glamour comes from Milena Canonero’s Oscar-winning costumes. In a new oral history published via Vogue, Canonero, director Sofia Coppola, and the rest of the cast and crew discussed everything including the costume design.

Before embarking on the costumes themselves Canonero discussed how Coppola brought her a box of Ladurée macarons. The delightful macarons weren’t just a gift for the project they were about to embark on, but were meant to inspire the color palette for the film. Coppola explained that she meant a long time at the Costume Institute at the Met to look at dresses from Marie Antoinette’s historical period, taking note of how vibrant they were in comparison to the more muted paintings.

Because Coppola had already spent so much of her life in Paris,...

by Nathaniel R

"Cyrano" with Peter Dinklage was a hit Off Broadway. Will this musical version transfer well to the screen?

By now you've gotten a sense from the predictions for most of the craft categories which films we think Oscar voters might be fond of come January when they're voting on nominations. Now let's talk more in depth about two of our favourite races to keep eagle eyes on each year: Costumes and Cinematography.

Best Costume Design

Of Oscar's four favourite living costume designers --  Sandy Powell (15 nominations and 3 wins), Colleen Atwood (12/4), Jenny Beavan (10/2), Milena Canonero (9/4), and Jenny Beavan (10/2) -- only Colleen Atwood is sitting out this cinematic year...

Long in the making and highly anticipated, Wes Anderson’s latest film opened in competition in Cannes. If you were wondering what kept him so long, Anderson could be excused for his tardiness due to the incredible intricacy of every shot of his film. Unfortunately, The French Dispatch is not entirely worth the wait and while it is full to the hilt with stuff – so much stuff! – it sorely lacks any real substance.

The troupe of actors is a rogues’ gallery of Anderson stalwarts, with the likes of Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson putting in an appearance. These are just a handful of the stars gracing this intricate constellation, yet almost all of them are asked to do very little: when you have actors of the calibre of Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz or Edward Norton, it would be nice to give them something to actually do.

The new film by the director of The Viceroys tells the story of Nobel medicine prize winner Mario Capecchi. An Italian-American co-production by Jean Vigo Italia and Rhino Films. Yesterday, 24 August, in Alto Adige, shooting started on Resilient, the new film by Roberto Faenza about the story of Italian geneticist Mario Capecchi. Produced by Elda Ferri and Milena Canonero for Jean Vigo Italia with Rai Cinema, and by Rex Glensy for the American production company Rhino Films, with the support of Idm Film Fund, the 19th film by the director of According to Pereira and The Viceroys is about the life and childhood of Mario Capecchi, Nobel medicine prize winner born in Italy from an American mother, poet and political activist, arrested by fascists in 1941 and later imprisoned in a German concentration camp. It is with this arrest when he was 5 years old that Mario’s life quickly...

by Cláudio Alves

Since we're celebrating 1981 this week, let's shine a spotlight on the Best Costume Design champion of that Oscar year. The filmmaker in question is one of the best currently working on her field. Milena Canonero's vast filmography includes repeated collaborations with many great auteurs like Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola, Wes Anderson, and Stanley Kubrick just to name a few. With nine nominations and four Academy Awards to her name, she's not only talented but also one of AMPAS' favorite craftswomen, having earned recognition for a variety of projects that range from strict historical recreation to lunatic explosions of avant-garde style.

Her work in Hugh Hudson's Best Picture-winning Chariots of Fire is on the more conventional end of this is one artist whose Oscar history aptly reflects her range, mastery, and good taste. In fact, not one of her nominations is undeserved and her victories are very nearly as unimpeachable.

Sandy Powell has garnered more Oscar nominations for best costume design — 15 — than any other living designer. She has won three times. And if she claims her fourth Oscar for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman with co-designer Christopher Peterson, the British designer will tie Milena Canonero and Colleen Atwood for the most wins by a living costume designer.

Powell is renowned for dressing casts of thousands on films like Disney's Cinderella and Mary Poppins Returns, plus seven movies with Scorsese, including The Irishman. (Costume budgets on studio films can range from $1.2 million to $3.5 million.) But Powell ...

Sandy Powell has garnered more Oscar nominations for best costume design — 15 — than any other living designer. She has won three times. And if she claims her fourth Oscar for Martin Scorsese's The Irishman with co-designer Christopher Peterson, the British designer will tie Milena Canonero and Colleen Atwood for the most wins by a living costume designer.

Powell is renowned for dressing casts of thousands on films like Disney's Cinderella and Mary Poppins Returns, plus seven movies with Scorsese, including The Irishman. (Costume budgets on studio films can range from $1.2 million to $3.5 million.) But Powell ...

The bond between American and Italian costumers has been a strong and long-lasting one that has contributed to some of the best-looking movies ever made, says acclaimed Italian costume designer Carlo Poggioli. “We are the country that has won the most Oscars, both for set design and costumes, after the Americans,” says Poggioli, head of Italy’s costume and production designers guild. “The Italian flag stands high.”

That bond will be celebrated with a master class series of panels set for Oct. 31, Nov. 13 and Dec. 5 at the City University of New York, in which Piera Detassis, president of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards — the country’s equivalent of the Oscars — will lead a discussion among Italian designers Poggioli and Milena Canonero (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”) and Americans Ann Roth (“The English Patient”) and Donna Zakowska (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”).

When she started prepping the HBO miniseries “John Adams,” Zakowska...

Francis Ford Coppola, Brett Morgen, actress Ali MacGraw and many more are mourning the Monday death of Robert Evans, the legendary film producer and Paramount Pictures chief in the ’60s and ’70s.

Coppola honored Evans for his contributions to “The Godfather” films when he was at Paramount and for his help as an independent producer on Coppola’s “The Cotton Club” from 1984.

“I remember Bob Evans’ charm, good looks, enthusiasm, style, and sense of humor. He had strong instincts as evidenced by the long list of great films in his career,” Coppola said in a statement to TheWrap. “When I worked with Bob, some of his helpful ideas included suggesting John Marley as Woltz and Sterling Hayden as the Police Captain, and his ultimate realization that ‘The Godfather’ could be 2 hours and 45 minutes in length; also, making a movie out of ‘The Cotton Club’ — casting Richard Gere and Gregory Hines,...

Francis Ford Coppola remembered his sometime-patron, collaborator and frenemy Robert Evans as a producer with “strong instincts” in an emotional tribute. Evans, the legendary producer and former head of Paramount Pictures, died on Saturday night at the age of 89. He played a crucial role in the creation of such film classics as “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown” and “Marathon Man.”

At Paramount, he plucked Coppola, then a rising young filmmaker, from semi-obscurity and tasked him with bringing Mario Puzo’s bestseller “The Godfather” to the screen. The two clashed frequently, but they created a beloved film that was also a box office success and Oscar winner. When they collaborated again on 1984’s “The Cotton Club,” it was not as star-crossed. That film was mired in lawsuits, budget over-runs, and competing creative visions. It became an infamous bomb that hurt both men’s careers. On Monday, however, Coppola chose to accentuate the positive aspects of their alliances.

Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club” was thought of as an expensive flop after it was released in 1984. Coppola has said that producers forced him to cut footage of Gregory Hines, who was meant to be a male co-lead with Richard Gere, to focus more on the love story between Gere and Diane Lane, and the result felt lifeless and cold.

But Coppola has restored the Hines footage for this new version, which has been dubbed “The Cotton Club Encore,” and it might also be called “The Cotton Club Transformed,” because this cut makes a film that felt like a failure into one of Coppola’s very best pictures. This movie is a feast with all the trimmings, and then some.

Coppola has a history of revisiting his films and putting out different cuts of them, as in his “Apocalypse Now Redux” and his longer version of “The Outsiders,...

Sandy Powell‘s greatest enemy is herself. For the third time in her career, the three-time Oscar-winning costume designer has received two nominations in the same year, for “The Favourite” and “Mary Poppins Returns.”

Powell first competed against herself 20 years ago for “Shakespeare in Love” and “Velvet Goldmine,” winning for the former. Three years ago, she nabbed double bids for her sartorial work in “Carol” and “Cinderella,” losing to Jenny Beavan for “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Since the academy eliminated the separate black-and-white and color costume design categories 51 years ago, no one has earned more double bids than Powell.

This year, the prolific designer is up against Mary Zophres (“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”), Ruth E. Carter (“Black Panther”) and Alexandra Byrne (“Mary Queen of Scots”). In our super early winner predictions, Powell is tipped to triumph for her creations in “The Favourite.”

See Top 20 Oscar snubs of actors and...

Edith Head, the reigning costume designer in ’50s Hollywood who died in 1981 and is the inspiration for “Incredibles 2’s” clothier to the superheroes, Edna Mode, has an Oscar record that will likely stand the test of time: 35 nominations and eight wins, including for Audrey Hepburn‘s dreamy outfits in 1953’s “Roman Holiday.”

But this year, British stylist Sandy Powell has two chances to become the third living costume designer with the most Oscar wins with four. She is up for both the royal romp “The Favourite” and for the natty ’30s-era stylings of the musical comedy “Mary Poppins Returns.” The frequent collaborator with Martin Scorsese currently has three Academy Awards for her work on 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” 2004’s “The Aviator” and 2009’s “The Young Victoria.” If she wins another, she would match Milena Canonero and Colleen Atwood‘s record of a quartet of trophies.

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Edith Head, the reigning costume designer in ’50s Hollywood who died in 1981 and is the inspiration for “Incredibles 2’s” clothier to the superheroes, Edna Mode, has an Oscar record that will likely stand the test of time: 35 nominations and eight wins, including for Audrey Hepburn‘s dreamy outfits in 1953’s “Roman Holiday.”

But this year, British stylist Sandy Powell looks to have two chances to become the third living costume designer with the most Oscar wins with four as she is expected to compete for both for the royal pomp romp “The Favourite” and for the natty ’30s-era stylings of the musical comedy “Mary Poppins Returns.” The frequent collaborator with Martin Scorsese currently has three Academy Awards, for 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” 2004’s “The Aviator” and 2009’s “The Young Victoria.” If she wins another, she would match Milena Canonero and Colleen Atwood‘s record of a quartet of trophies.

by Nathaniel R

Paddington 2's great costumes were snubbed by BAFTA last year and the Cdg this year. But Lindy Hemming won the Oscar for Topsy Turvy (1999) without either of those nominations so there's still hope.The Costume Design Guild was founded in 1953 with an initial group of 30 members. Today they have an international membership of 700 . They've been giving out awards since 1999 but the categories weren't fully as they are know (period/costume/fantasy) until 2005.

Though their tastes do align with Oscar it's difficult to wholly prognosticate from their awards since the Oscar nominees are generally a mix of their Period and Fantasy nominees with an extra title thrown in (plus every once in a while the costume branch within the Academy will surprise with a contemporary nominee). Much more frequently Oscar will just add one film that wasn't honored at all by the Cdg! They do it nearly all...

Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal announced Diane as the winner of the Best Us Narrative Feature of the Tribeca Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Hitchcock/Truffaut director Kent Jones's first feature Diane, executive produced by Martin Scorsese, with Mary Kay Place in the title role, took home three Tribeca Film Festival Awards, including Best Cinematography by Wyatt Garfield. The film has a terrific supporting cast including Jake Lacy, Joyce Van Patten, Andrea Martin, Deirdre O'Connell, Estelle Parsons, Barbara Andres, Phyllis Somerville, and Charles Weldon.

At The Roxy, Kent talked with me about his costume designer Carisa Kelly, Richard Bruno's work for Raging Bull, and the fact that costume design is just as much what Wendy Chuck does for Tom McCarthy's Spotlight and Alexander Payne's films as what Milena Canonero did for Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Kent spoke about the difference between growing up in...

Cinephiles are probably going to want to break out their wallets for this one. Stanley Kubrick’s former assistant and longtime friend Emilio D’Alessandr is holding an auction at the end of the month (via The Playlist) in which dozens of Kubrick-related memorabilia will be sold off to the public.

The Italian auction website Aste Bolaffi has the official listing for the event, which includes items like the jacket Jack Nicholson wore as Jack Torrance in “The Shining.” The jacket was chosen by Academy Award-winning costume designer Milena Canonero based on a suggestion from Nicholson himself. The designer made several copies of the jacket for the film’s shoot. The listing says the jacket being auctioned off was worn by the actor throughout the production.

“The Shining” fans may want to save their money for what is probably the most lucrative item being sold: A rare cut of the...

“The Beauty Of Irony”

By Raymond Benson

Leave it to The Criterion Collection to present a jaw-dropping, eye-popping Blu-ray release of Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 masterpiece that many critics have called one of the most beautiful films ever made. While the picture received many accolades upon its initial release, including Oscar nominations for Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay—and wins for Cinematography, Production Design, Costumes, and Adapted Score—it was again one those Kubrick films that was controversial and misunderstood at first. It was not a financial success in the U.S., and yet today it’s considered one of the auteur’s greatest works.

After such titles as Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and A Clockwork Orange, it may have seemed to be an odd choice for Kubrick to make a picture such as Barry Lyndon. One must look back to the period between 2001 and Clockwork to understand it. Kubrick...

Luca Guadagnino: "But what I prefer for myself is to be invisible. To really try to - which is probably the greatest of the artifices - to reconstruct something that is not anymore." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name (Chiamami Con Il Tuo Nome), screenplay by James Ivory, based on the novel by André Aciman, shot by cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Guadagnino's upcoming Suspiria), stars Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet with Michael Stuhlbarg, Esther Garrel, and Amira Casar. At the press conference, moderated by New York Film Festival selection committee member Dennis Lim, the director, when I asked him about the work of costume designer Giulia Piersanti, gave a very detailed response.

Luca Guadagnino referenced the work of Milena Canonero on Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, Maurice Pialat's A nos amours, and...