Miami Vice: Jamie Foxx’s Brown Silk Suit as Tubbs

Jamie Foxx in Miami Vice (2006)

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Jamie Foxx as Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs, Miami-Dade PD detective

Miami, Summer 2005

Film: Miami Vice
Release Date: July 28, 2006
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Design: Michael Kaplan & Janty Yates
Jamie Foxx’s Costumer: Yaa Boaa Aning

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Michael Mann’s frequently memed update of Miami Vice was widely released 20 years ago today on July 28, 2006, reintroducing cooler-than-ice detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs as Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, respectively.

As portrayed by EGOT hopeful Philip Michael Thomas, Tubbs may have lived within Crockett’s [five o’clock] shadow in the series, but the 2006 movie gives the character more room to breathe with Jamie Foxx—fresh off his Oscar win for Ray—in the role. In fact, it was reportedly Foxx who suggested the idea of a Miami Vice film to Mann, who had executive-produced the 1980s TV series.

Despite his increased degree of characterization, the 2006 film still leaves some questions about Tubbs’ character unanswered; for example, how does he feel about mojitos? Is he fiendish or ambivalent? Continue reading →

James Stewart’s Western Gear as The Man from Laramie

James Stewart in The Man from Laramie (1955)

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James Stewart as Will Lockhart, freight hauler and former cavalry officer

New Mexico, Late 1870s

Film: The Man from Laramie
Release Date: September 20, 1955
Director: Anthony Mann

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Since 2008, the National Day of the Cowboy has been observed on the fourth Saturday in July to recognize the spirit of the pioneering men and women who helped establish the American West. James Stewart’s homespun persona naturally lent itself to Western cinema as the actor’s prolific Western filmography includes Destry Rides Again (1939), Winchester ’73 (1950), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and John Wayne’s swan song The Shootist (1976). Among these, Stewart recalled that his favorite Western was his eighth and final collaboration with director Anthony Mann: The Man from Laramie. Continue reading →

Sam Elliott’s Aloha Shirt in Lifeguard

Sam Elliott in Lifeguard (1976)

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Sam Elliott as Rick Carlson, charismatic 32-year-old beach lifeguard

Southern California, Summer 1975

Film: Lifeguard
Release Date: July 23, 1976
Director: Daniel Petrie
Wardrobe Credit: Margo Baxley

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Before his magnificent mustache and gravely voice made him a mainstay of Westerns, Sam Elliott’s breakthrough performance was in the romantic drama Lifeguard, released fifty years ago today on July 23, 1976.

In the half-century since its release, Lifeguard continues to polarize audiences as some praise it as a thoughtful character stufy of American masculinity in crisis while others disregard it as a vapid endorsement of statutory rape. While my own response falls somewhere in between, I do agree with even the film’s detractors that Sam Elliott’s undeniable charisma can’t help but to shine through even the more problematic elements of Ron Koslow’s screenplay. As the filmmakers cycled through potential leads like Beau Bridges and Adam Roarke, Elliott was considered after director Dan Petrie and his wife Dorothea noticed the actor’s masculine yet mustache-less performance opposite Roarke in the 1972 eco-horror film Frogs.

A former lifeguard himself, Elliott stars as a career lifeguard Rick Carlson working the beaches of Los Angeles County, where his easy-go-lucky barefoot life picking up chicks is washed into an identity crisis after he receives an invitation to his 15-year high school reunion while also countering his father (George D. Wallace) constantly criticizing his vocation: “You know what’s crazy? I still wonder what you’re gonna be when you grow up!” Although swayed by the promise of more “acceptable” success selling Porsches in the Valley, Rick ultimately decides to continue his sun-baked career as a professional lifeguard, having honed his abilities to the point where the only drowning allowed on his beach is drowning in tail. Continue reading →

Robin Williams’ Black-on-White Floral Silk D&G Shirt in The Birdcage

Robin Williams in The Birdcage (1996)

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Robin Williams as Armand Goldman, South Beach nightclub manager

Miami Beach, Winter 1996

Film: The Birdcage
Release Date: March 8, 1996
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Ann Roth

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

I’m honored to share my birthday with Robin Williams, who was born 75 years ago today on July 21, 1951. One of my favorite of the late comedian’s movies is The Birdcage, crafted by the iconic married team of director Mike Nichols and writer Elaine May as an adaptation of the French play and subsequent film La Cage aux Folles.

Williams stars as Armand Goldman, owner of the titular Birdcage, a South Beach drag club starring his more flamboyant partner Albert (Nathan Lane). When Armand’s son Val (Dan Futterman) reveals he’s marrying the daughter of the ultraconservative Virginia senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman) who insists on meeting his future in-laws, Armand and Val conceive a plan to host the senator’s family by luring Albert away from the couple’s ostentatious apartment—allowing time for Armand to renovate himself and his home to support Val’s untruth that his father is actually Armand Coleman: a heterosexual cultural attaché to Greece… “whatever the hell that is.” Continue reading →

The Four Seasons: Alan Alda’s Sky-Blue Summer Shirt and White Trousers

Alan Alda in The Four Seasons (1981)

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Alan Alda as Jack Burroughs, married lawyer

Saint Thomas, Summer 1980

Film: The Four Seasons
Release Date: May 22, 1981
Director: Alan Alda
Costume Designer: Jane Greenwood

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Six months ago, I observed Alan Alda’s 90th birthday with my first post of his seasonal wardrobe in The Four Seasons, his 1981 comedy following four pairs of couples vacationing together throughout a tumultuous year in their lives, scored by Vivaldi’s concerti of the same name. (The film was recently adapted as a Netflix series co-created by and starring Tina Fey with Alda’s endorsement, as the actor also appears as Fey’s father.)

The second segment of The Four Seasons is set during the summer when the group sails their rented boat Sandavore through the U.S. Virgin Islands. The dynamic has shifted since the salesman Nick (Len Cariou) left his wife and has brought his much younger girlfriend Ginny (Bess Armstrong) on the trip, distracting the rest with loud sex at night and nude swimming in the morning. Alda’s moralistic lawyer Jack tries to openly explore how this has affected the group, but denies to his wife Kate (Carol Burnett) that he harbors any fantasties of his own around Ginny or a woman like her, instead venting his frustrations about Nick and Ginny treating the group expedition like a private holiday:

They’re not even on this trip! They walk around mooning all the time, making goo-goo eyes. My God, if one of them farts, the other one thinks it’s Guy Lombardo!

Continue reading →

Marlon Brando’s Snakeskin Jacket in The Fugitive Kind

Marlon Brando in The Fugitive Kind (1960)

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Marlon Brando as Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier, guitar-playing drifter seeking redemption

Mississippi Delta, January 1959

Film: The Fugitive Kind
Release Date: April 14, 1960
Director: Sidney Lumet
Costume Designer: Frank L. Thompson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

For National Snake Day on July 16th, let’s celebrate the famous snakeskin jacket that Marlon Brando wore as Valentine “Val” Xavier in The Fugitive Kind, adapted from Tennessee Williams’ 1957 play Orpheus Descending—itself a modern retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Continue reading →

Paris, Texas: Harry Dean Stanton’s Red Road Trip Shirt and Ranchero

Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984)

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Harry Dean Stanton as Travis Henderson, once-wandering drifter

Los Angeles to Houston, Fall 1983

Film: Paris, Texas
Release Date: September 19, 1984
Director: Wim Wenders
Costume Designer: Birgitta Bjerke

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of my favorite actors, Harry Dean Stanton, was born 100 years ago today on July 14, 1926 in Kentucky. Following his U.S. Navy service during World War II, Stanton began an acting career that lasted more than six decades until his death from heart failure at age 91 in September 2017 after completing his penultimate film Lucky, which also afforded Stanton the rare starring role. He was a close, respected friend of many A-listers like Francis Ford Coppola, David Lynch, and Jack Nicholson, who included Stanton as best man in his 1962 wedding and habitually scrawled “H.D. Stanton” on the sets of his films.

Stanton typically made the most of supporting roles in films like Cool Hand Luke (1967), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Red Dawn (1984), Pretty in Pink (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Green Mile (1999), and The Avengers (2012)—a filmography so prolific that Roger Ebert once declared that, with the sole exception of Dream a Little Dream (1989), “no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad.”

Despite his prolific supporting career, Stanton was cast in leading parts for back-to-back films released in 1984: Alex Cox’s dark sci-fi comedy Repo Man and Wim Wenders’ elegiac road drama Paris, Texas. The latter won the Palme d’Or when it premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival and, though overlooked by most American award bodies, has grown its cult reputation as one of the greatest movies ever made. With additional style provided by Ry Cooder’s original score and Robby Müller’s masterful cinematography, the script was written by L.M. Kit Carson and Sam Shepard, who offered Stanton the part after the two connected at a Santa Fe film festival. Continue reading →

Point Break: Keanu Reeves’ Pale-Blue Camp Shirt and Jeans

Keanu Reeves as FBI Agent Johnny Utah in Point Break (1991)

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Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, ambitious FBI agent

Los Angeles, Summer 1991

Film: Point Break
Release Date: July 12, 1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Costume Supervisors: Colby P. Bart & Louis Infante

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Point Break was released 35 years ago today on July 12, 1991, chronicling Ohio State football star-turned-FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) infiltrating a group of bank-robbing surfers and skydivers led by the enigmatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) while also buying two meatball subs for his supervisor, Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey). It feels especially appropriate to celebrate Point Break‘s cinematic legacy on the day after World Skydiving Day—observed on the second Saturday of July. Continue reading →

Kill Me Again: Val Kilmer’s White Shirt and White Cadillac

Val Kilmer in Kill Me Again (1989)

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Val Kilmer as Jack Andrews, cynical private investigator

Nevada, Spring 1989

Film: Kill Me Again
Release Date: October 27, 1989
Director: John Dahl
Costume Designer: Terry Dresbach

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This summer’s Car Week wraps with Kill Me Again, John Dahl’s little-known (at least to me, before last year) 1989 neo-noir thriller starring the late Val Kilmer and Michael Madsen opposite Kilmer’s then-wife Joanne Whalley as a dangerous femme fatale.

I’ll admit I was drawn to this as a subject this week due to some stylistic similarities with one of my favorite “car movies”, Vanishing Point (1971), which also features a man in a white shirt and jeans desperately racing a white two-door hardtop V8 through the desert until the car meets a fiery end. In this case, it’s not the nihilistic Kowalski in a Dodge Challenger but our widowed gambler P.I. in his quarter-century-old Cadillac, racing through the sand for a bundle of stolen cash. Continue reading →

Two-Lane Blacktop: James Taylor as a ’55 Chevy Driver

James Taylor with Dennis Wilson and Laurie Bird in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

Vitals

James Taylor as “The Driver”, laconic race car driver

Arizona through Tennessee, Fall 1970

Film: Two-Lane Blacktop
Release Date: July 7, 1971
Director: Monte Hellman
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Monte Hellman’s offbeat cult classic road movie Two-Lane Blacktop was released 55 years ago this week on July 7, 1971, starring musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson as the unnamed driver and mechanic of a ’55 Chevy gasser that picks up a hitchhiker (Laurie Bird) and falls into a cross-country race for pinks against the blustering driver of a new Pontiac GTO, played by Warren Oates.

Always an unorthodox maverick, Hellman was inspired to cast Taylor after spying his face on a Sunset Boulevard billboard, recalling that he “just flipped over his face.” Both Taylor and his late co-star Oates recalled the first-time actor feeling frustrated with his lack of control as Hellman and his 30-person crew shot the film in sequence, offering the cast only a few pages of the script at a time. “I’m not talking out of turn when I say Jimmy Taylor had terrible struggles relinquishing control to Monte,” Oates later shared.

The on-set strife reached a point where Hellman convinced Taylor not to quit the production by finally allowing him to read the entirety of Rudy Wurtlizer’s screenplay… which he didn’t do. Still, Taylor didn’t see Two-Lane Blacktop as the detour to a new path in his career, explaining in a contemporary interview with the Los Angeles Times that “I’m not an actor. I’ll never do this again. If I ever did another film I’d have to be the director and writer, I’d have to be in control.” To date, this remains the six-time Grammy-winning Taylor’s sole big-screen acting credit apart from cameos.

As this summer’s Car Week feature stretches on, let’s follow Sweet Baby James in that primer-gray Chevy along America’s blue highways stretching east from Arizona. Continue reading →