Category: Casual
Jeff Bridges in Starman
Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen in Starman (1984)
Vitals
Jeff Bridges as “Star Man”, an alien taking the humanoid form of Scott Hayden
Wisconsin to Arizona, Spring 1984
Film: Starman
Release Date: December 14, 1984
Director: John Carpenter
Men’s Costumer: Andy Hylton
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 75th birthday to Jeff Bridges, born December 4, 1949. The actor received his third Academy Award nomination for Starman, an interdimensional dramedy considered by director John Carpenter to be his sci-fi twist on romantic classics like It Happened One Night and Brief Encounter. Released 40 years ago this month in December 1984, Starman remains Carpenter’s second-highest grossing movie.
The movie begins seven years after NASA launched the Voyager 2 space probe designed for diplomatic contact with extra-terrestrials when the eponymous “Star Man” crashes to Earth outside the remote Chequamegon Bay in northern Wisconsin. He takes refuge in the lakeside home of young widow Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen) while she skims through memories of her late husband Scott, inadvertently providing the opportunity for our Star Man to assume his likeness.
After initially freaking Jenny out by morphing from an alien-looking child into the form of her deceased husband standing nude before her, Star Man uses his loose grasp of language—despite knowing how to communicate “greetings” in 54 of them, including English—to compel her to drive him to his designated meeting point somewhere in “Arizona maybe”, at the wheel of the burnt-orange ’77 Mustang she had shared with Scott. Continue reading
Kramer vs. Kramer: Dustin Hoffman’s M-65 Field Jacket
Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
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Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer, ad man and divorced dad
New York City, January 1979
Film: Kramer vs. Kramer
Release Date: December 19, 1979
Director: Robert Benton
Costume Designer: Ruth Morley
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
One of my more recent posts focused on a movie where Dustin Hoffman played a conniving con artist, so let’s allow him to redeem himself as a workaholic learning how to be a more present dad in Kramer vs. Kramer, Robert Benton’s 1979 divorce-centric drama that won Hoffman his first Academy Award for Best Actor—in addition to Oscars for his co-star Meryl Streep, Benton’s screenplay and directing, and the Best Picture trophy.
Hoffman and Streep play the titular Kramer couple, who split after eight years of marriage when an overwhelmed Joanna leaves Ted and their seven-year-old son Billy (Justin Henry) in the New York apartment they once shared. Ted initially struggles with the demands of parenting, but he grows from an aloof workaholic to an engaged dad over the year and a half that he raises Billy exclusively before Joanna re-enters their lives and requests custody. Continue reading
When Harry Met Sally: Harry’s Leather Flight Jacket
Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally (1989)
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Billy Crystal as Harry Burns, sarcastic political consultant and recent divorcée
New York City, Fall 1987
Film: When Harry Met Sally…
Release Date: July 14, 1989
Director: Rob Reiner
Costume Designer: Gloria Gresham
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
One of the most aesthetically pleasing fall movies, Rob Reiner’s romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally celebrated its 35th anniversary earlier this year. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan—who celebrates her 63rd birthday today—star as the titular enemies-turned-friends-turned lovers. Continue reading
Midnight Cowboy: Jon Voight as Joe Buck
Jon Voight as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Vitals
Jon Voight as Joe Buck, naïve Texan wannabe gigolo and Army veteran
New York City, Summer through Winter 1968
Film: Midnight Cowboy
Release Date: May 25, 1969
Director: John Schlesinger
Costume Designer: Ann Roth
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Harry Nilsson recorded his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin'” 57 years ago this week on November 13, 1967. This Grammy-winning folk hit has since become inextricably linked with the 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy—which celebrated its 55th anniversary in May—after director John Schlesinger chose it as the film’s theme song.
Adapted by Waldo Salt from James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel of the same name, Midnight Cowboy received a controversial if critically acclaimed response upon its release. Six months earlier, the MPAA implemented its voluntary rating system to classify age suitability for major releases, replacing the increasingly outdated “Hays Code” that had been enforced since the early 1930s. Midnight Cowboy was one of the first mainstream movies to be rated “X”, which forbade any audience members under age 17 to be admitted and was reserved for movies demonstrating the most extreme sexual themes, graphic violence or language. Despite the stigma of this dramatically restrictive rating, Midnight Cowboy was the third highest-grossing American movie released in 1969 and won three of the seven Oscars for which it was nominated—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay—and it remains the only movie with an X (or equivalent NC-17) rating to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Continue reading
Silkwood: Kurt Russell’s A-2 Deck Jacket
Kurt Russell in Silkwood (1983)
Vitals
Kurt Russell as Drew Stephens, mechanic and former nuclear plant technician
Oklahoma, Fall 1974
Film: Silkwood
Release Date: December 14, 1983
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Ann Roth
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Fifty years ago tonight, chemical technician and labor activist Karen Silkwood died in a mysterious car accident near Crescent, Oklahoma. Silkwood had recently testified to the Atomic Energy Commission about safety concerns at the Kerr-McGee Corporation plant where she worked and was subsequently found to be contaminated with plutonium.
On the evening of November 13, 1974, the 28-year-old Silkwood was en route to meet a journalist from the New York Times and her national union representative when her white 1973 Honda Civic crashed into the wall of a concrete culvert off Highway 74, and she was pronounced dead at the scene. Contemporary findings strongly suggested foul play, though it was more likely that her pursuer’s intent was to intimidate Silkwood rather than to kill her.
The tumultuous last year of Karen Silkwood’s life was depicted in Mike Nichols’ 1983 drama Silkwood, starring Meryl Streep as the titular technician, Cher as her co-worker and roommate, and Kurt Russell as her boyfriend and fellow Kerr-McGee colleague Drew Stephens. Continue reading
Star Trek: Captain Kirk’s Depression-era Workwear in “The City on the Edge of Forever”
Thanks to a suggestion from reader Rob Sundquist, today’s entry will boldly go where no BAMF Style post has gone before!
William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek, Episode 1.28: “The City on the Edge of Forever”
Vitals
William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, time-traveling starship captain
New York City, Fall 1930
Series: Star Trek
Episode: “The City on the Edge of Forever” (Episode 1.28)
Air Date: April 6, 1967
Director: Joseph Pevney
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Costume Designer: William Ware Theiss
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Fans of Star Trek who are familiar with BAMF Style may not be surprised to learn that my inaugural post from this groundbreaking series covers “The City on the Edge of Forever”, the penultimate episode of the first season which has endured to be considered among the series’ best.
The episode begins on the USS Enterprise as first officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) reports that the starship’s turbulence is the result of “actually passing through ripples in time”. An accident results in medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) accidentally injecting himself with a massive dose of cordrazine, an in-universe stimulant that sends the doctor into a paranoid frenzy.
Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) recruits Spock, communications officer Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), chief engineer “Scotty” (James Doohan), and two redshirts onto the mysterious planet where Bones beamed himself, where they discover a time portal with the ability to transport entrants back to any time and place.
Bones leaps through the portal to evade capture, resulting in altering the past so dramatically that the crew’s reality—and ship—cease to exist. Thus, Kirk and Spock thus have no choice but to leap into the gateway in pursuit of Dr. McCoy… landing them in New York City, circa 1930, at the intersection of the Prohibition era and the Great Depression. Continue reading
Succession: Kendall’s Brown Leather Tom Ford Jacket
Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy on Succession (Episode 4.07: “Tailgate Party”). Photo credit: David Russell.
Vitals
Jeremy Strong as Kendall Roy, ousted media conglomerate exec and self-described defender of democracy
New York City, Fall 2020
Series: Succession
Episode: “Tailgate Party” (Episode 4.07)
Air Date: May 7, 2023
Directed by: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
Creator: Jesse Armstrong
Costume Designer: Michelle Matland
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
It’s Election Day in America—a tense, centuries-old national tradition determining the fate of all those in the country not privileged enough to see politics as a mere game… which is exactly how the billionare Roy family experiences it on Succession, hosting their usual pre-election “tailgate party” fueled by money, gossip, and flag-waving finger foods.
Hosted at the apartment shared by Siobhan “Shiv” Roy (Sarah Snook) and her sleepy husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), the party provides an opportunity for the Roys to rub elbows with political insiders and industry bigwigs to position themselves for success over the next four years.
“They’re not all crypto-fascist and right-wing nutjobs, we also have some venture capital Dems and centrist ghouls,” Kendall (Jeremy Strong) observes of their late father’s guest list. “Dad’s ideological range was… wide.” Continue reading
The Mechanic: Charles Bronson’s Deck Jacket
Charles Bronson in The Mechanic (1972)
Vitals
Charles Bronson as Arthur Bishop, disciplined but depressed contract killer
Los Angeles, Fall 1972
Film: The Mechanic
Release Date: November 17, 1972
Director: Michael Winner
Costume Designer: Lambert Marks
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Action star and Army veteran Charles Bronson was born 103 years ago today on November 3, 1921. Born and raised in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania where he mined coal before joining the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, Bronson brought his tough guy bona fides to supporting roles in 1960s war films and westerns like The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
Bronson emerged as the world’s top box-office star by the early 1970s during collaborations with director Michael Winner that included Chato’s Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972), The Stone Killer (1973), and Death Wish (1974). Their sophomore collaboration, The Mechanic, may be my favorite of this group. Conceptualized and written by Lewis John Carlino, the story centers around the skilled but anxiety-ridden assassin Arthur Bishop, whose personal and professional comfort is disrupted after hiring a hotheaded protégé.
True to Carlino’s nuanced original vision, the first sixteen minutes of The Mechanic are devoid of dialogue as we follow the solitary Arthur through the motions of one of his artistic assassinations. Continue reading
Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street
In the spirit of Halloween tomorrow and following a suggestion received from a BAMF Style reader earlier this year, today’s post explores the costume of a cinematic horror icon who needs little introduction.
Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Vitals
Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger, supernatural serial killer
Suburban Ohio, Spring 1981
Film: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Release Date: November 9, 1984
Director: Wes Craven
Costume Designer: Dana Lyman
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Next month will mark the 40th anniversary of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven’s iconic slasher film that introduced the world to the terrifying Freddy Krueger, the pizza-faced killer who can target his victims through their dreams—a concept inspired by the mysterious deaths among Hmong refugees who mysteriously died in their sleep following disturbing nightmares.
Craven embodied the terror of a monster who can attack people at their most vulnerable in the form of Freddy Krueger, the undead spirit of a vindictive child murderer. I have to respect Craven’s own vindictiveness, borrowing the name from his childhood bully Fred Krueger and immortalizing it as one of the most grotesque monsters in horror cinema history. Continue reading
Kris Kristofferson’s Brown Suede Jacket as Cisco Pike
Kris Kristofferson on the cover of his 1971 album The Silver Tongued Devil and I, photographed by Baron Wolman the previous year while in costume for Cisco Pike (1973).
Vitals
Kris Kristofferson as Cisco Pike, down-on-his-luck musician and former drug dealer
Venice Beach, California, Fall 1970
Film: Cisco Pike
Release Date: January 14, 1972
Director: Bill L. Norton
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
He’s a poet, he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, he’s a pusher, he’s a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he’s stoned. He’s a walkin’ contradiction—partly truth and partly fiction—takin’ every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.
In tribute to the late outlaw country icon who died one month ago today at the age of 88, I recently received a great suggestion from a BAMF Style reader to cover the style that Kris Kristofferson wore in Bill L. Norton’s directorial debut Cisco Pike. Continue reading
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