Quentin Tarantino has directed films that feature some of the most iconic costumes of the last twenty years, e.g. Reservoir Dogs’ black suits (Betsy Heimann), Mia Wallace’s trouser suit (Heimann), the Kill Bill tracksuit (Kumiko Ogawa, Catherine Marie Thomas). Yet no Tarantino movie has ever won or even been nominated for a Costume Design Oscar; a travesty that may boil down to his stories often being contemporary, not period. World War II set Inglourious Basterds (Anna B. Sheppard) was an exception, but again, amazingly, not even a nomination.
Django Unchained, costumed by Sharen Davis, might just buck this trend. It is period so immediately stands in good stead. Secondly, judging by the trailers released so far, the palette is primary colourful, fun and rich with detail; one thing the Academy does not tend to appreciate is subtle. Davis is already a highly regarded costume designer, currently riding high after her work on Looper,...
Django Unchained, costumed by Sharen Davis, might just buck this trend. It is period so immediately stands in good stead. Secondly, judging by the trailers released so far, the palette is primary colourful, fun and rich with detail; one thing the Academy does not tend to appreciate is subtle. Davis is already a highly regarded costume designer, currently riding high after her work on Looper,...
- 10/23/2012
- by Chris Laverty
- Clothes on Film
For the first time in Japanese cinema history, an American-made film is being remade and released in Japan with award-winning director Lee Sang-il’s Japanese-language motion picture Yurusarezarumono, inspired by the Oscar-winning classic Unforgiven, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Released in the U.S. in 1992, Unforgiven was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1993 and won four, including Best Picture. The announcement was made today by Richard Fox, Executive Vice President, International, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and William J. Ireton, President & Representative Director, Warner Entertainment Japan Inc.
Inspired by the Eastwood classic, writer/director Lee Sang-il (the Japan Academy Prize-winning film Villain, Hula Girls) shifts the setting to Japan in retelling the epic, adapting the Unforgiven screenplay by David Webb Peoples. The film stars an ensemble including some of Japan’s most acclaimed actors, led by Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima, The Last Samurai) as Jubei Kamata, reinterpreting the role...
Inspired by the Eastwood classic, writer/director Lee Sang-il (the Japan Academy Prize-winning film Villain, Hula Girls) shifts the setting to Japan in retelling the epic, adapting the Unforgiven screenplay by David Webb Peoples. The film stars an ensemble including some of Japan’s most acclaimed actors, led by Ken Watanabe (Letters from Iwo Jima, The Last Samurai) as Jubei Kamata, reinterpreting the role...
- 8/20/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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Costume designer Catherine Marie Thomas proves that Sandra Bullock’s character in The Proposal (2009, directed by Anne Fletcher) does not need a closet full of clothes to make her mark. Here Catherine Marie Thomas discusses exclusively with Jill Burgess for Clothes on Film just why the film is so special to her.
Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is a big shot New York book editor, making life hell for her assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds). One morning Margaret is informed by her bosses that she has lost her visa status and will be deported to her native Canada. When Andrew appears to whisk her away from the meeting, Margaret announces to her bosses that she and Andrew are engaged to be married, which until now they have chosen to keep a secret.
Costume designer Catherine Marie Thomas proves that Sandra Bullock’s character in The Proposal (2009, directed by Anne Fletcher) does not need a closet full of clothes to make her mark. Here Catherine Marie Thomas discusses exclusively with Jill Burgess for Clothes on Film just why the film is so special to her.
Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is a big shot New York book editor, making life hell for her assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds). One morning Margaret is informed by her bosses that she has lost her visa status and will be deported to her native Canada. When Andrew appears to whisk her away from the meeting, Margaret announces to her bosses that she and Andrew are engaged to be married, which until now they have chosen to keep a secret.
- 2/24/2012
- by Contributor
- Clothes on Film
Opens
Friday, Oct. 10
Blood is the dominant leitmotif of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill -- Vol. 1". It oozes, drips, flows, gushes, splatters and geysers in lush crimson to oily black. Scalps, limbs and heads are freely removed from characters' bodies. Since the movie essentially takes place in an Asian action-movie world, we're not to take offense at this torrent of blood and dismembered bodies. In each "chapter," art design, costumes and music are lovingly crafted to pay to homage various "grindhouse" B-movie genres. There is an aesthetic -- a movie-geek obeisance, if you will -- behind every moment of violence. Nevertheless, "Kill Bill" may be a case of overkill.
So where does this leave admirers of Tarantino's previous takes on pulp cinema? Dare we say wait until February? "Kill Bill", of course, is a three-hour-plus movie, which the writer-director and Miramax decided to release in two parts (or "Volumes"). "Vol. 2" opens Feb. 20. This may represent clever marketing as "Vol. 1" is one of the year's most eagerly anticipated films, certain to enjoy major boxoffice response. But how does one review a film at Intermission?
The movie feels incomplete, even though Tarantino has crafted an OK three-act structure with a climatic 20-minute samurai sword battle that will have an audience pining not for more but actually welcoming a four-month break. (Is that good?) Yet, one suspects that halving a movie meant to be seen in a single sitting has upset its stylistic balance. When the two volumes get joined in a DVD version, we may detect a strategy not immediately apparent in "Vol. 1".
The Bride, aka Black Mamba (Uma Thurman), awakens from a four-year coma, following the massacre in a lonely Texas outpost, with a metal plate in her head and vengeance in her heart. Only part of her back story becomes clear in "Vol. 1". She formerly belonged to an elite squad of assassins, each one code-named for a deadly snake.
The team leader is Bill -- barely seen in "Vol. 1" and played by "Kung Fu"'s David Carradine -- who is the father of her unborn child at the time he shoots her. The first movie details her lethal elimination of Vernita Green, aka Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), hiding from her past as a Pasadena housewife, and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), the Chinese-Japanese-American head of the Tokyo underworld. Ahead lies the (presumed) demise of Elle Driver/California Mountain Snake (Daryl Hannah), Budd/Sidewinder (Michael Madsen) and, of course, Bill.
Thurman is quite wonderful, if one wants a humorless, strong-willed gymnast for a heroine. For that matter, Tarantino insists that his actors strip all emotions from their playbooks. A child watches her mother die without a change in expression. A sheriff (Michael Parks) regards a pile of bodies with professional detachment. A gang leader watches her gang get wiped out with complete serenity.
Emotions aren't all that's missing in "Kill Bill", at least at Intermission. Unlike Tarantino's postmodern classic "Pulp Fiction", this movie lacks humor, subtext, unpredictability and the rich dialogue that made that film so memorable. Instead of rethinking genre movies, here he is a slave to them.
Make no mistake: The film is hugely watchable. Robert Richardson's cinematography, both in color and black and white, is fluid, brilliantly lit and dazzling to behold. Sally Menke's editing moves us swiftly through the chapters, while costumes and sets are eye-catching delights. A terrific anime sequence makes a striking and original way to give us O-Ren Ishii's back story. And the fight choreography is jaw-droppingly kinetic.
Is "Kill Bill" a homage to great Asian action movies? Yes. Is Tarantino trying to outdo his cherished masters (on a budget that dwarfs their films)? Of course. Is there any other point of any of this? Let's see "Vol. 2".
KILL BILL VOL. 1
Miramax Films
A Band Apart
Credits:
Writer-director: Quentin Tarantino
Producer: Lawrence Bender
Executive producers: Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, Erica Steinberg
Director of photography: Robert Richardson
Production designers: Yohei Tanada, David Wasco
Martial arts adviser: Yuen Wo-Ping
Music: RZA
Fight choreographer: Sonny Chiba
Anime sequence: Production I.G
Costume designers: Kumiko Ogawa, Catherine Marie Thomas
Editor: Sally Menke
Cast:
The Bride/Black Mamba: Uma Thurman
O-Ren Ishii/Cottonmouth: Lucy Liu
Elle Driver/California Mountain Snake: Daryl Hannah
Vernita Green/Copperhead: Vivica A. Fox
Sheriff: Michael Parks
Hattori Hanzo: Sonny Chiba
Go Go Yubari: Chiaki Kuriyama
Sophie Fatale: Julie Dreyfus
Johnny Mo: Gordon Liu
Budd/Sidewinder: Michael Madsen
Running time -- 112 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Friday, Oct. 10
Blood is the dominant leitmotif of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill -- Vol. 1". It oozes, drips, flows, gushes, splatters and geysers in lush crimson to oily black. Scalps, limbs and heads are freely removed from characters' bodies. Since the movie essentially takes place in an Asian action-movie world, we're not to take offense at this torrent of blood and dismembered bodies. In each "chapter," art design, costumes and music are lovingly crafted to pay to homage various "grindhouse" B-movie genres. There is an aesthetic -- a movie-geek obeisance, if you will -- behind every moment of violence. Nevertheless, "Kill Bill" may be a case of overkill.
So where does this leave admirers of Tarantino's previous takes on pulp cinema? Dare we say wait until February? "Kill Bill", of course, is a three-hour-plus movie, which the writer-director and Miramax decided to release in two parts (or "Volumes"). "Vol. 2" opens Feb. 20. This may represent clever marketing as "Vol. 1" is one of the year's most eagerly anticipated films, certain to enjoy major boxoffice response. But how does one review a film at Intermission?
The movie feels incomplete, even though Tarantino has crafted an OK three-act structure with a climatic 20-minute samurai sword battle that will have an audience pining not for more but actually welcoming a four-month break. (Is that good?) Yet, one suspects that halving a movie meant to be seen in a single sitting has upset its stylistic balance. When the two volumes get joined in a DVD version, we may detect a strategy not immediately apparent in "Vol. 1".
The Bride, aka Black Mamba (Uma Thurman), awakens from a four-year coma, following the massacre in a lonely Texas outpost, with a metal plate in her head and vengeance in her heart. Only part of her back story becomes clear in "Vol. 1". She formerly belonged to an elite squad of assassins, each one code-named for a deadly snake.
The team leader is Bill -- barely seen in "Vol. 1" and played by "Kung Fu"'s David Carradine -- who is the father of her unborn child at the time he shoots her. The first movie details her lethal elimination of Vernita Green, aka Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), hiding from her past as a Pasadena housewife, and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), the Chinese-Japanese-American head of the Tokyo underworld. Ahead lies the (presumed) demise of Elle Driver/California Mountain Snake (Daryl Hannah), Budd/Sidewinder (Michael Madsen) and, of course, Bill.
Thurman is quite wonderful, if one wants a humorless, strong-willed gymnast for a heroine. For that matter, Tarantino insists that his actors strip all emotions from their playbooks. A child watches her mother die without a change in expression. A sheriff (Michael Parks) regards a pile of bodies with professional detachment. A gang leader watches her gang get wiped out with complete serenity.
Emotions aren't all that's missing in "Kill Bill", at least at Intermission. Unlike Tarantino's postmodern classic "Pulp Fiction", this movie lacks humor, subtext, unpredictability and the rich dialogue that made that film so memorable. Instead of rethinking genre movies, here he is a slave to them.
Make no mistake: The film is hugely watchable. Robert Richardson's cinematography, both in color and black and white, is fluid, brilliantly lit and dazzling to behold. Sally Menke's editing moves us swiftly through the chapters, while costumes and sets are eye-catching delights. A terrific anime sequence makes a striking and original way to give us O-Ren Ishii's back story. And the fight choreography is jaw-droppingly kinetic.
Is "Kill Bill" a homage to great Asian action movies? Yes. Is Tarantino trying to outdo his cherished masters (on a budget that dwarfs their films)? Of course. Is there any other point of any of this? Let's see "Vol. 2".
KILL BILL VOL. 1
Miramax Films
A Band Apart
Credits:
Writer-director: Quentin Tarantino
Producer: Lawrence Bender
Executive producers: Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, Erica Steinberg
Director of photography: Robert Richardson
Production designers: Yohei Tanada, David Wasco
Martial arts adviser: Yuen Wo-Ping
Music: RZA
Fight choreographer: Sonny Chiba
Anime sequence: Production I.G
Costume designers: Kumiko Ogawa, Catherine Marie Thomas
Editor: Sally Menke
Cast:
The Bride/Black Mamba: Uma Thurman
O-Ren Ishii/Cottonmouth: Lucy Liu
Elle Driver/California Mountain Snake: Daryl Hannah
Vernita Green/Copperhead: Vivica A. Fox
Sheriff: Michael Parks
Hattori Hanzo: Sonny Chiba
Go Go Yubari: Chiaki Kuriyama
Sophie Fatale: Julie Dreyfus
Johnny Mo: Gordon Liu
Budd/Sidewinder: Michael Madsen
Running time -- 112 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 10/23/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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