costume pictures – Page 3 – Late to the Theater

The Britishiest Brits that Ever Britished: North and South

Like your standard costume drama, they go back and forth for approximately 800 years before they get together. By the end of the show he’s financially ruined despite all his hard work, and the experience has broken many of his tightly-held conceptions about life. And this is symbolized in him appearing in public with his shirt undone, which shouldn’t be that big a deal and yet it is, because Armitage releases some weapons-grade smolder.

Hats! Cravats! Emotional turmoil! Heaving bosoms!

Miniseries time!

I am going through a breakup, and so what better time to obsessively fixate on an unattainable ideal? And who better than Richard Armitage, who is SO HOT right now! YAY!!! *takes another shot*

Armitage first showed up on my radar when he appeared as Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit. I hadn’t heard of him, and looked for more of his work, preferably the smutty kind.

My friend, another Armitage fan, recommended the show to me. I gave it a try a while ago but couldn’t quite get into it. A snail with a twisted ankle could outstrip it when it comes to pacing.

The story is actually fascinating: Margaret Hale is a young woman from the South of England who moves with her family to the North. Her father is a rector who has lost his faith, and so chose to move to the North and be a teacher, which will cause his family to live “in reduced circumstances,” which is British Dramatic Speak for “no longer wealthy.” Margaret, while scouting for a new house to rent, overhears some men gossiping about her father’s recent social descent and speculating that it might have been due to something scandalous. She demands to be taken to their boss, Mr. Thornton the factory owner (Armitage) who has taken it upon himself to help the family find a house.

She meets our luscious hero just when he is in the midst of lurid exhortations, which sounds sexy but really means “beating the shit out of a factory worker.” It transpires Thornton has lost his temper because the worker was smoking in the middle of a COTTON MILL, which is only slightly less flammable than a Chinese firework marinated in lamp oil, and he has seen the result of gruesome factory fires before. He considers his position as the factory owner as a kind of steward of his employees, even if he begrudges them their salaries.

There are some interesting moments where worlds collide; Thornton, a member of the emergent bourgeoisie, carries a chip on his shoulder about having been born poor, as does his Mother, although his sister is delighted at having “gone up” in the world. Hale has a bad moment where she is engulfed in a crowd of rough working class folks, who jeer and frighten her before she is rescued by Nicholas Higgins, played by Brendan Coyle (who is best known as Mr. Bates from Downtown Abbey). The working class have power, they aren’t afraid to pick on an unattended upperclass lady and both of them know it. Ever after there little moments of socioeconomic overlap, sometimes overt and sometimes very subtle, but still there.

It began to dawn on me somewhere in the second episode that this was how the show was going to be. There would be no rogering or nudity, and since I didn’t know how long the show was I was very concerned that I would spend 25 hours of my life for the privilege of watching someone loosen their cravat. Luckily the show was only 4 episodes, and I was having fun with it, so I watched the rest.

And MAN.

This butters my crumpets. Oh yeah. — Tenderness! WOOO TOUCH HER HAIR!!!

Margaret is a likeable enough character, but I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t really moved by her plight, possibly because she didn’t launch herself crotch-first at Thornton upon his first appearance like any sensible person would. She puts him off and insists she doesn’t like him, even when he approaches her with an offer of marriage.

Trends come and go. Currently we are stuck in a “actors and actresses barely wear clothes” cycle. I’m not advocating we all wrap ourselves up in layers and layers of shamecloth, but there’s something to be said for a less is more approach, sometimes. It’s nice to have to use your imagination now and then.

When it’s done right, with the right performers and good direction, an undone button can butter more crumpet than a pile of porn mags. But maybe it’s just me.

North and South is available on Instant Watch. If you already watch a lot of these types of shows you might enjoy it, and the history is very interesting. Watch the first episode and see what you think!

*finishes off the bottle, goes to sleep in the empty bathtub*

Science Fashion Post: The 5th Element

The late nineties saw a small explosion in movies with an overabundance of CG, pretty much because a lot of scripts were being greenlighted purely on their reliance on effects (Wild Wild West, I am definitely looking at you). Although the 5th Element does its share of leaning on effects and spectacle, Luc Besson had the sense to keep them mostly in the background and focus on practical effects and foreground activity. Filling out the cast with recognizable faces from the fashion world du jour helps as well, and their outfits and makeup would have inspired me to new heights with Barbie modifications had I seen the movie as a child.

Has Gary Oldman had hair this weird since? Probably not. — Coming at you, in FANTASTIVISION!

There will never be another summer like the one in which the 5th Element came out.

It was 1997. I had just graduated from high school, and was working at Cross County 8 in West Palm Beach. Cross County has since been torn down, but when it was still standing (briefly, it was the only thing in that mall still standing, as the rest of the mall had been torn down) it was known to be one of the most ghetto theaters in which to see a movie. Most of my friends wouldn’t come see me, even if I promised to get them in for free, mostly because the police were at that theater every weekend and some weeknights, too. My manager was doing (I suspect, no proof of course) mountains of coke as well as a concessionist, and I know the latter to be true because she shwoed me the fancy nighty he bought her. Maybe in another universe platonic friends give each other gifts intended to be worn over their naughty bits, but not in the universe in which Cross County 8 existed.

Used condoms on the floor, rats in the concession, most of the staff stoned, and a homeless Vietnam vet who would pay his 2.75 admission and watch movies all day. The cokefiend manager would give him a drink and a bag of popcorn and let him be, and at the end of every day he would hobble out on his crutches. One leg ended below the knee in a gnarled stump, and his pants sometimes slid down until you could see his junk, but otherwise he was a perfect gentleman.

The rest of the mall was mostly derelict; there was a gift shop of some kind, and an abandoned marionette theater, but otherwise all the storefronts were vacant. The whole thing looked like a level in Silent Hill, and it would not have shocked me to have run across an anthropomorphic vagina wandering around, stalking the hallways on chicken legs that end in giant steel claws.

I've beaten Silent Hill 3. I don't know how, but I did it. — "I'm sorry sir, but I can promise that our evening ticket prices are not within my control. Yes, 5.75 for evening IS outrageous." God, that was a long time ago.

It was such a shitty theater that we didn’t even get big new movies; we got a lot of second runs, some film festival stuff, and a lot of detritus, but otherwise the big expensive action pictures went to the theater down the road, that had a decent sound system. Which is where I took some friends to see The 5th Element on opening weekend.

If you haven’t seen the movie, imagine something along the lines of a bigass fashion show/music video in space, with monsters and laser beams and beautiful people running around doing things. There’s not a lot of coherence to it, storywise, which isn’t much of a drawback. I know almost NO ONE who watches the movie for the climactic scene at the end, when Leeloo must summon the will to care about the human race in order to save the universe; we watch it for the costumes, the effects, the music (especially the music) and for a batshit loony performance from Gary Oldman, and a brilliant comedic turn by Ian Holm.

The Hair — This is where I make the official and obligatory mention of his hair. Yes. Yes, it is ridiculous.

Seriously. You just don’t think of him being that funny, but Iam Holm is wonderful as the priest Vito Cornelius, who recognizes Leeloo as the savior of humankind and fumbles his way into helping her.

Another underappreciated performance is Bruce Willis as the standard action foil; his working-class hero amusement at the ridiculous situations in which he finds himself carry the movie for me now, but at the time I remember thinking he just seemed like a smartass. Now I realize he was just having as much fun as a straight man in an orange rubber vest can while pretending to fly a bulbous space taxicab. The story is so overwritten there’s even a sub-subplot in which his mother calls and complains to him about what an ungrateful child he is. No idea why that was necessary, but it was fun.

I did find myself wondering though, in terms of cinematic spectrum, does Bruce Willis consider The 5th Element to be his Zardoz?

Drink it in ladies. And if you spill it, well, the hair will soak it up! That's what it's there for! — You're welcome. And now, like The Ring, in order to unsee it you must inflict it on others.

I certainly hope not.

Like many other excellent sci-fi films with an abundance of effects and a cast of actors eager to make their last payment on houses and cars, The Fifth Element does not begin with a giant stone head flying through the air spouting gibberish and vomiting assault rifles. Or brutal rapes.

I guess I’m just picky and weird about that.

The non-formulaic but familiar story has enough twists to keep things interesting, and honestly the plot is such a goofy mess in places it doesn’t really matter.

The late nineties saw a small explosion in movies with an overabundance of CG, pretty much because a lot of scripts were being greenlighted purely on their reliance on effects (Wild Wild West, I am definitely looking at you). Although the 5th Element does its share of leaning on effects and spectacle, Luc Besson had the sense to keep them mostly in the background and focus on practical effects and foreground activity. Filling out the cast with recognizable faces from the fashion world du jour helps as well, and their outfits and makeup would have inspired me to new heights with Barbie modifications had I seen the movie as a child.

But the shining moment of the movie, which will always be what I associate with it and the scene that I watch over and over again, is the Diva Plavalaguna’s performance.

Check it, y’all.

Makes me want to get up and DANCE.

When I am by myself and listening to it, I do my best to sing along, but, well, you can imagine how that sounds: a cat and a drum machine in a blender.

A friend in high school who was an opera singer declared it one of the greatest things she’d ever heard, and I wish I wish I WISH there was a whole album of this. I mean I have the 5th element soundtrack, but I need MOAR than just one song. Anyone have any suggestions, please post them below. I’ve got a lot of Die Form, but it’s just not the same–Inva Mulla Tchaka’s voice is so joyful, the notes and tones don’t just resonate, they soar. I love the joyfulness the song brings, especially when contrasted to the morose excerpt from Lucia Di Lammermoor that precedes it.

And it provides a suitable brain-rinse to the mildly disturbing image up above. I mean it’s not horrifying, Connery’s a good-looking dude; but to me that picture is the equivalent of seeing a good friend reduced to selling off all their possessions in order to make rent.

The 5th Element is available on Instant Watch, and there is no better way to spend an evening, I promise.

Back from the Future Entry: Dorian Gray (2009)

In all, I think this adaptation was definitely watchable–as I mentioned, the costumes are great, the supporting cast perfect and Barnes does a marvelous job commanding every frame he’s in, but overall it doesn’t feel terribly imaginative–as a horror film it is far too light, as a thriller it has no suspense, and it’s very dark and violent for a costume drama.

Ben Barnes as Dorian Gray — YES HAVE SOME

If you haven’t heard of the most recent adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s best known work, then it’s probably because you aren’t spending your spare time stalking hot British men like Ben Barnes.

Having said that, yes, there is more to the movie than Barnes’s well-dressed hotness.

He gets naked, too.

The Portrait of Dorian Gray is one of those plum stories that I think most actors hope to be a part of–which is a double-edged sword, because only the young, hot actors can hope to even read for the part. And forget poor guys like Ray Winstone–unless there’s a special production aimed only at bears, it’s kind of a restrictive choice.

You need an actor who isn’t just hot, but beautiful. Someone who is both handsome and timeless, who you could imagine springing from a painting by Waterhouse or Caravaggio.

You need someone young. Someone who is on the edge of that perfect balance of beauty and maturity, whose face isn’t yet marred by the mileage of age.

You need someone who is both innocent and cruel.

This last is crucial – many actors excel at doing one or the other, but not both. Especially depending on how the production handles the character of Dorian, who himself is more of a blank canvas than a fleshed-out character: a Dorian who is too cruel is too clearcut a villain, when at least part of the story paints him as victim, too.

I wish Dorian Gray had been a more energetic entry to the canon of adaptations; the costumes and sets are beautiful, and the cast of seasoned veterans (and newcomer Barnes) play the story well, but overall the movie feels a little restricted; as if they hadnt’ quite dared to take more risks than those of the story. Colin Firth as the world-weary, wicked Henry Wotten is perfect, and Ben Chaplin as Basil Hallward is another bit of inspired casting.

They've airbrushed his eyes blue, when his eyes are black in real life! — Can you spot what's wrong with this picture?

Of course the whole of the movie is Barnes’s performance as Gray–a young man whose childhood was marred by abuse and tragedy, and who has only just come to London after inheriting his Grandfather’s estate upon the old man’s death.

Immediately he is taken in and groomed by Wotten to be a high society type, and begins down a road of guilt and excess that would have put Iggy Pop and most of the Rolling Stones to shame.

The eponymous portrait, painted by Basil and unwittingly cursed by Wotten, bears the marks of this life of excess, depicting both the physical damage of so much sadistic partying, and the mental damage of Gray’s cruelty.

What’s interesting is that the filmmakers made a massive mistake in interpreting Gray’s motivations, here– they assumed that because he bears no indications of his life of excess on his body, he is ‘free of consequence.’ He’s described in their making-of featurette as a kind of proto-American Psycho, a sociopath in the making.

Barnes, however, doesn’t really play Gray that way. He plays him more as someone who doesn’t realize his impact on others, rather than someone who doesn’t care about them. He’s young and naive, and as he becomes more and more evil certainly more selfish and sadistic, but it never seems as if he’s intentionally setting out to ruin other people’s lives. In a more capable filmmaker’s hands, he might have recalled John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons, the definitive object when it comes to depicting Rolling Whoremongery, but he comes off as more like a very young version of same, and then later creates his own character as an arch, jaded libertine with the face of an angel. Towards the end of the film he’s very much aware of the ruinous effect he’s had on others, and even attempts to steer people away from himself to preserve them.

Sighhhhhhhh. . . — Seriously, how could they just change his eyes like that? They're so striking!

I can’t help imagining what this might have been in the hands of Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) or even Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge), or maybe someone like Danny Boyle; there’s a lot of gay subtext that was barely touched on, and my overall impression of the film was that it was very dimly-lit and nobody had too good a time.

Which, you know, the whole point was to make his languid life of pleasure look COOL.

Rip-roaring Rakish Entry: Plunkett and Macleane

The whole movie is a hoot–Carlyle is perfectly cast as a highwayman with a heart of gold with his soulful eyes and quick fists, and Miller as a debtor-turned-bandit with aspirations of nobility provides a compelling narrative. Alan Cumming appears as foppiest of the fops Lord Rochester, whose libertine attitude is only matched by the fantabulousness of his giant hats. This WAS the era of the Antoinette wig, after all, and giant wigs are ubiquitous. No little boats in them, though.

Are we having fun yet? — Yes. Yes You ARE having fun yet.

I’m a sucker for a good period piece–and when that period piece combines a contemporary music score, action, comedy, and a stellar cast including Robert Carlyle, Liv Tyler, Alan Cumming and Michael Gambon, I’d be sure I was hallucinating if I wasn’t already drunk.

I’ve been a Carlyle fan since ‘The Full Monty,’ and I’ve seen a large body of his work, both mainstream (Goldeneye, Trainspotting) and off the beaten path (Go, Now; that one about the dancing academy whose name I have forgotten–I missed the one about talking dragons though). Carlyle plays Plunkett, a former-apothecary turned highwayman with an opportunistic eye and a pragmatist’s spirit; though he is excellent at robbing the wealthy English of the 1740’s setting, he sees his crime career as a means to an end: he wants to get enough money to leave England and move to America where he can make a new life for himself. His talents for chemistry are a nice flourish for his character, giving an otherwise violent and calculating man some depth.

MacLeane (Jonny Lee Miller) is a dapper former gentleman with a penchant for fancy vests and an absolute curse when it comes to games of chance–we meet him in the famous debtor’s prison and his crappy fortunes at cards and games don’t change much.With his connections, he is able to get into fancy dress parties (marvel at the hats! OH THE HATS!) and find out who is carrying obscene amounts of largesse, and when.

Liv Tyler, who I’d always thought was capable of more than the pretty-girl roles she wound up with, plays the Lady Rebecca, ward of the Chief Justice and a romantic interest for Maclean, although she herself is more interested in the Gentleman Highwayman, as he comes to be known.

Somewhere, Prince is Envious — All it needs is a little boat. You know what I'm talking about.

I have to admit, I love costume dramas with modernist spins on them. After all, any reproduction of history will be refracted through the modern filmmakers subjective viewpoint–why fight it? I find techno soundtracks or postmodern sounding quips less anachronistic to the film and more acknowledging of the inherently subjective nature of filmmaking. Within reason, it’s supposed to be entertainment, after all.

Though Plunkett and Maclean might have been intended as a historical drama, I found it to work well as an action film. Carlyle’s presence, and the presence of explosions and character actor Tommy Flanagan, with his renowned ‘Glasgow Smile’ facial scars, ups the butch level quite a bit.

Tommy Flanagan! — I can't be the only person who wants to see this man in a lead role. Perhaps a romantic comedy involving British gangsters.

I absolutely adore Flanagan, who’s been seen in films like Braveheart, Gladiator, Sin City, and others. Apparently the scars are from a mugging that nearly killed him–yet his friend Carlyle encouraged him to try acting anyway. Although relegated to various tough guy roles, I hold out hope he’ll be randomly cast as a kindergarten teacher or florist some day, assuming he’s cool with that. I just hate to imagine that the only scripts he gets are tough guy roles and he yearns to play the Queen’s gardener or something. You just never know with people.

Those kinds of scars–think of the character Kakihara from Ichi the Killer or The Joker–are known as a ‘Glasgow Smile.’ The victim’s mouth is cut open at the corners, then he’s kicked in the stomach so that the scars tear wide and are difficult to stitch shut, leaving the infamous ‘smile.’ Never underestimate some people’s drive to ruin another person’s life–you will always be disappointed.

Anyhoodle, Plunkett and Maclean is a grand old time. I remember seeing it when it came out in 1999 on home video and for some reason being disappointed–I remember it as ‘everyone dies’ for some reason. Even though it’s kind of spoilery to say so, the good guys do win, and the bad guys are punished in the version I saw last night. I have come up with a rule–if a movie’s over a decade old, spoilers are much less of a concern unless the movie has a major twist or something. I don’t think it makes anyone throw up their hands in disgust to know a film they are watching entirely for fun doesn’t end badly–but there I go underestimating people again.

Robert Carlyle is Not Interested in Dancing. At All. — Another movie where people get really, really dirty. But it's cool. It was the 18th century in Europe.

For an added bonus, keep an eye out for cameos early on by David Walliams and Matt Lucas of Little Britain fame! Actually, I think they were extras as this point, but now that they are famous they made ‘cameos.’ I am hip to the lingo, yes?