The Holdovers: Paul Giamatti’s Tan Corduroy Suit and Sweater Vest

Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers (2023)

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Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, cantankerous boarding school professor

Massachusetts, Winter 1970/1971

Film: The Holdovers
Release Date: October 27, 2023
Director: Alexander Payne
Costume Designer: Wendy Chuck

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of my favorite new releases in 2023 is The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s comedy-drama centered around the skeleton staff chaperoning a group of boarding school students who aren’t going home for the holidays.

Set through the 1970 winter break, The Holdovers centers around the cranky classics professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), an odorous, lazy-eyed loner whose few friends among the Barton Academy staff include cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and administrator Lydia Crane (Carrie Preston). After four of the five students are given the opportunity to leave Barton days before Christmas, Paul and the remaining student—the bright but troubled Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa)—transform their mutual dislike into a surprising bond.

As many are returning to work and school this week after the holidays, let’s take a deeper look at Paul’s classic Ivy fashions that he wears to bookend the Barton Academy holiday break. Continue reading →

The Godfather, Part II: Fredo’s White Suit on New Year’s Eve

John Cazale as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974)

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John Cazale as Fredo Corleone, insecure mob family sibling

Havana, New Year’s Eve 1958

Film: The Godfather Part II
Release Date: December 12, 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy New Year! Ringing in 2024 also celebrates the 50th anniversary of The Godfather, Part II, Francis Ford Coppola’s mob epic that many consider equal or even superior to its masterpiece predecessor.

In the spirit of this weekend’s celebration, let’s travel back to New Year’s Eve 1958 as the weak-willed Fredo Corleone (John Cazale) joins his powerful younger brother Michael (Al Pacino) in Havana to negotiate their family’s casino interests—unaware that all their work will be undone by Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries within 24 hours.

Of course, both Corleones are also tragically unaware that the events of the evening will reveal to Michael that he’s been betrayed by his own brother, whom Michael would bestow with a now-iconic kiss of death at midnight:

John Cazale and Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II (1974) Continue reading →

Succession: Connor Roy’s Blue Glen Plaid Three-Piece “Rehearsal” Suit

Alan Ruck as Connor Roy on Succession, Episode 4.02 (“Rehearsal”)

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Alan Ruck as Connor Roy, neglected millionaire heir and failed presidential candidate

New York City, Fall 2020

Series: Succession
Episode: “Rehearsal” (Episode 4.02)
Air Date: April 2, 2023
Director: Becky Martin
Creator: Jesse Armstrong
Costume Designer: Michelle Matland

Background

It’s four in the morning, the end of December…

By Succession‘s timeline, poor Connor Roy (Alan Ruck) still had two months to go until the end of December when crooning Leonard Cohen’s 1971 folk ballad “Famous Blue Raincoat” in the private room of a Midtown Manhattan karaoke lounge. I use the adjective “poor” rather loosely here as Connor’s the kind of guy who can afford to spare millions on a misguided presidential campaign merely to prove his own relevance to himself and his family, but that’s beside the point. Continue reading →

Blast of Silence: Allen Baron’s Killer Style

Allen Baron in Blast of Silence (1961)

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Allen Baron as Frankie Bono, misanthropic Mafia hitman

New York City, Christmas 1959

Film: Blast of Silence
Release Date: March 20, 1961
Director: Allen Baron

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Time to kill. 24 hours to stay faceless in the crowd. Get yourself lost in the city. Lose yourself in the Christmas spirit with the rest of the suckers.

I love Christmas movies—whether bona fide holiday classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, or White Christmas, schlocky made-for-Hallmark holiday romances, or among of the many great movies set at yuletide even when the holiday isn’t central to the plot (looking at you, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Thin Man, Three Days of the Condor.)

When the Criterion Channel announced their Holiday Noir lineup this month, I was understandably thrilled. A few, like Lady in the Lake and They Drive By Night, I was already familiar with, but I had long wanted to see Blast of Silence, the stark neo-noir filmed guerilla-style on location in New York City during the 1959 holiday season, following Frankie Bono, a lonely killer working for the Cleveland mob who has returned to the Big Apple for a hit. Blast of Silence was written and directed by Allen Baron, who also starred as Frankie after his first choice—Peter Falk(!)—was hired instead for the similarly themed film Murder, Inc.

Days before Christmas, Frankie Bono steps off the train onto the platform in Manhattan, taking in his hometown through a cloud of cigarette smoke while a choir sings “Silent Night”. “The railroad company makes sure you don’t forget you’re coming to town on Christmas,” Frankie narrates. “It gives you the creeps, but that’s alright! Everyone on the goodwill kit, maybe they’ll leave you alone?” Continue reading →

The Bear: Carmy’s Rugby Shirt on Christmas Eve

Jeremy Allen White as Carmy Berzatto on The Bear (Episode 2.06: “Fishes”)

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Jeremy Allen White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, celebrated international chef

Chicago, Christmas Eve 2018

Series: The Bear
Episode: “Fishes” (Episode 2.06)
Air Date: June 22, 2023
Director: Christopher Storer
Creator: Christopher Storer
Costume Designer: Courtney Wheeler

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Merry Christmas to all BAMF Style readers who celebrate!

Among its Yoshimi-sharp depictions of service industry stress, The Bear brought its anxiety in-house for the second season’s brilliant, bonkers, and relentless sixth episode “Fishes”, flashing back several years from the show’s narrative to a chaotic Christmas Eve with the Berzatto family.

Our protagonist Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) takes a supporting role in the proceedings as we spend an increasingly stressful hour with his family and those “related through friendship” in his childhood home, decorated like an Olive Garden for the holidays. There are a few familiar faces—like his late brother Mikey (Jon Berthal), his sister Natalie (Abby Elliott) whose “Sugar” nickname is finally explained, his unrelated-cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and their “uncle” Jimmy (Oliver Platt)—as well as several all-new cast members, many of whom appear only in this episode.

“I wanted it to be distracting,” series creator Christopher Storer told Yvonne Villarreal for the Los Angeles Times. “I wanted the viewer to be like, ‘What the fuck is Bob Odenkirk doing here?’ I wanted it to really feel like when you walk into your family’s house and you are just overwhelmed by a cousin who you don’t want to talk to, an uncle you don’t want to see. You don’t even know who’s related to who, which I always feel like is the truest thing—everyone’s calling each other cousin and you don’t know what the fuck is really going on, but you do know that even through all their weirdness and how dark it gets, they do kind of love each other.” Continue reading →

Die Hard: Ranking the Henchmen’s Holiday Hijacking Wardrobes

Clarence Gilyard Jr., Dennis Hayden, Al Leong, Hans Buhringer, Alan Rickman, Wilhelm von Homburg, Lorenzo Caccialanza, Joseph Plewa, Andreas Wisniewski, Gary Roberts, Bruno Doyon, Gérard Bonn, and Alexander Godunov in Die Hard (1988)

“Some badass perpetrators and they’re here to stay…”

Los Angeles, Christmas 1987

Film: Die Hard
Release Date: July 15, 1988
Director: John McTiernan
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

On the 35th anniversary year of this action classic, today’s post analyzes the style of the dozen bad guys led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) during their Christmas Eve takeover of Nakatomi Plaza. As I’ve done with Christmas episodes of The Office in past years, I’ll dig into my own completely arbitrary rating system to rank each by their suitability for a holiday party hijacking.

One of my favorite aspects of Die Hard is how it makes the effort to define distinctively personalities for Hans’ baddies, rather than just filling the cast with anonymous mooks as in any lesser action movie. We may not get full backstories and motivations (we only have two hours, and would we really need to know?), but they still have distinctive roles, attitudes, and aesthetics to differentiate them and make return viewings even more rewarding.

As their leader, Hans maintains an elevated look with his dark double-breasted suit, informed by his knowledge of men’s fashion (“John Phillips, London,” he acutely observes of Nakatomi CEO Joe Takagi’s silk suit), but how do his twelve henchmen rate?

Unlike Hans’ ultimate descent from Nakatomi Tower, let’s start at the bottom. Continue reading →

Brad Pitt in Bullet Train

Brad Pitt in Bullet Train (2022)

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Brad Pitt as “Ladybug”, anxious assassin

Tokyo to Kyoto, Japan, Spring 2021

Film: Bullet Train
Release Date: August 5, 2022
Director: David Leitch
Costume Designer: Sarah Evelyn
Brad Pitt’s Personal Costumer: Craig Anthony

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 60th birthday to Brad Pitt, born in Shawnee, Oklahoma on December 18, 1963. In addition to many acclaimed dramatic and romantic roles, the Oscar-winning actor has long excelled in playing comedic roles as recently affirmed with his performance in David Leitch’s action comedy Bullet Train, adapted from Kōtarō Isaka’s 2010 novel Maria Beetle.

Pitt’s introduction in Bullet Train is scored to a Japanese rendition of the Bee Gees’ disco-era anthem “Stayin’ Alive” (one of many Japanese versions of popular songs featured on the soundtrack), framed just like Travolta had been 45 years earlier in Saturday Night Fever as we start on Pitt’s kicks hitting Tokyo’s neon-lit pavement before we meet the man himself, his shoulder-length hair contained to a dirty bucket hat with a graying goatee framing his beaming smile. Indeed, his new therapist Barry has helped him develop a positive outlook to overcome his anxiety about being unlucky—a particularly unfortunate trait for a contract killer:

My bad luck is biblical. I’m not even trying to kill people and someone dies.

Continue reading →

Santa Claus on AOL Blast for Detective Crashmore

Biff Wiff as Santa Claus on I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson

Santa Claus on AOL Blast

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Biff Wiff as Santa Claus, serious actor who does Christmas

AOL Blast studio, Summer 2022

Series: I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
Episode: “You sure about that? You sure about that that’s why?” (Episode 2.03)
Streaming Date: July 6, 2021
Directed by: Alice Mathias, Zach Kanin, Akiva Schaffer, and Zachary Johnson
Created by: Tim Robinson & Zach Kanin
Costume Designer: Monica Chamberlain

Background

If Leonardo DiCaprio was here, would you ask him about Christmas is around the corner?

Santa Claus graciously appeared on AOL Blast—despite the fact that no one watches it due to its unprofessional bullshit—to promote his latest film Detective Crashmore, for which Lamador Pictures paid him his rate of $2 mil to play the eponymous crazier-than-hell detective.

Once the unprofesssional host Wesley Fillmore finally determined that he would follow his guest’s instructions to interview him as an actor, we learn about the cosmic gumbo—Santa had joked with his co-star Ryan Tanna on set about how it was a cosmic gumbo—that mixes “the action of the ’90s combined with the exploitation films of the ’70s” while almost moving to the beat of jazz. Continue reading →

Jimmy Stewart’s Christmas Cardigan in The FBI Story

James Stewart in The FBI Story (1959)

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James Stewart as John “Chip” Hardesty, earnest FBI agent

Chicago, Christmas 1933

Film: The FBI Story
Release Date: October 1959
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Costume Designer: Adele Palmer

Background

While Jimmy Stewart’s cinematic Christmas creds are primarily as the troubled protagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life, more than a decade later we’re treated to a brief holiday sequence in The FBI Story.

Essentially a feature-length dramatization propagating the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s role in quelling all American lawlessness across the first half of the 20th century, the once-obscure The FBI Story has been the subject of some renewed interest as it had been the first major production to depict the Osage murders of the 1920s that were recently at the center of Martin Scorsese’s epic Killers of the Flower Moon.

Continue reading →

The Seven-Ups: Roy Scheider’s Leather Jacket and Pontiac Ventura

Roy Scheider as Buddy Manucci in The Seven-Ups (1973)

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Roy Scheider as Buddy Manucci, renegade NYPD detective

New York City, Winter 1972

Film: The Seven-Ups
Release Date: December 14, 1973
Director: Philip D’Antoni
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Philip D’Antoni’s sole directorial effort The Seven-Ups was released 50 years ago today, starring Roy Scheider in his first major leading role as the lead of a group of renegade NYPD detectives who specialize in securing arrests for crooks who will serve sentences of at least seven years… hence being known as “the seven-ups.”

The Seven-Ups could be argued as a spiritual continuation of The French Connection, which D’Antoni had accepted the Academy Award for producing two years earlier. Both movies were filmed and set during a gritty winter in early 1970s New York City, focused on crusading cops unafraid to break a few rules—including Scheider as an Italian-American detective named Buddy, inspired by the real-life Sonny Grosso.

Both The French Connection and The Seven-Ups also featured a thrilling car chase centered around our protagonist behind the wheel of an ordinary Pontiac, pushed to perform extraordinary stunts thanks to the late, great Bill Hickman.

The Seven-Ups (1973)

If you liked seeing one Pontiac at the heart of The French Connection‘s famous chase, you’ll love seeing two Pontiacs duking it out in The Seven-Ups!

But before that…

Continue reading →