Tagged: Converse sneakers
The Dreamers: Michael Pitt’s Suede Jacket, Jeans, and Chuck Taylors
Michael Pitt in The Dreamers (2003)
Vitals
Michael Pitt as Matthew, expatriate student and self-professed cinephile
Paris, Spring 1968
Film: The Dreamers
Release Date: October 10, 2003
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Costume Designer: Louise Stjernsward
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Much discourse around Bertolucci’s 2003 erotic drama The Dreamers (which premiered in Italy 22 years ago today) centers around what the characters aren’t wearing, so I’ll flip the script by focusing on Louise Stjernsward’s evocative costume design that brings to life Parisian culture against the backdrop of the 1968 student protests.
Hailing from San Diego and studying in Paris, Matthew encounters sibling activists Isabelle (Eva Green) and Théo Fontaine (Louis Garrel) among his “freemasonry of cinephiles”—introduced during the very French situation of Isabelle asking Matthew to take her cigarette during a police demonstration at the storied Cinémathèque française. He’s quickly drawn into the siblings’ strange dynamic of deeply incestuous overtones littered with cinematic references epitomized by Isabelle’s insistence on leading the trio on a run through the Louve as seen in Bande à part. Continue reading
Robert Redford’s Flight Jacket as The Great Waldo Pepper
Robert Redford in The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
Vitals
Robert Redford as Waldo Pepper, daring stunt pilot
Midwest United States, Summer 1926 through Spring 1928
Film: The Great Waldo Pepper
Release Date: March 13, 1975
Director: George Roy Hill
Costume Designer: Edith Head
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
One year after portraying the titular Great Gatsby, Robert Redford starred in The Great Waldo Pepper as the fictional eponymous aviator—loosely inspired by several real-life daredevil flying aces of the Roaring ’20s—making it a fitting focus ahead of National Aviation Day tomorrow.
Born 89 years ago today on August 18, 1936, Redford was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s, thanks in part to his performances opposite Paul Newman in George Roy Hill’s hit comedies Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). Released 50 years ago this March, The Great Waldo Pepper reunited Redford with Hill for a more lighthearted counterpoint to the actor’s contemporaneous political thrillers like Three Days of the Condor (1975) and All the President’s Men (1976).
We first meet barnstormer Waldo Pepper in the summer of 1926, landing his bright yellow Standard J-1 in a Nebraska field to sell plane rides to curious locals. Continue reading
Under the Silver Lake: Andrew Garfield’s Wood Badge T-Shirt
Andrew Garfield in Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Vitals
Andrew Garfield as Sam, sensitive stoner and conspiracy theorist
Los Angeles, Late Summer 2011
Film: Under the Silver Lake
Release Date: April 19, 2019
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Costume Designer: Caroline Eselin
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
David Robert Mitchell’s surrealist neo-noir Under the Silver Lake premiered seven years ago today during the 71st Cannes Film Festival, nearly a year before it was finally released theatrically by A24 in April 2019.
Andrew Garfield stars as Sam, a stoner in his early 30s whose interests of comics, classic movies, and conspiracy theories combine when he begins investigating the disappearance of his attractive neighbor Sarah (Riley Keough), the day after they met at the pool in his apartment complex. The two spend the evening getting high and watching How to Marry a Millionaire, only to be interrupted when her roommates return to the apartment. Sam returns the next morning to find that Sam and her roommates have swiftly moved out with no indication regarding what happened—aside from a mysterious symbol pointed on the wall. Continue reading
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
Under the Silver Lake: Andrew Garfield’s Jungle King T-Shirt
Andrew Garfield in Under the Silver Lake (2018)
Vitals
Andrew Garfield as Sam, sensitive stoner and conspiracy theorist
Los Angeles, Late Summer 2011
Film: Under the Silver Lake
Release Date: April 19, 2019
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Costume Designer: Caroline Eselin
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 41st birthday to Golden Globe-winning screen and stage actor Andrew Garfield. Born in Los Angeles on August 20, 1993 but raised in England, Garfield rose to prominence through his role in The Social Network (2011), his portrayal of Spider-Man in three movies, and his Oscar-nominated performances in Hacksaw Ridge (2016) and Tick, Tick…Boom! (2021). However, my favorite of Garfield’s movies to date is Under the Silver Lake, the surreal neo-noir pastiche in the spirit of The Big Lebowski (1998) and Inherent Vice (2014).
Written, produced, and directed by David Robert Mitchell, Under the Silver Lake premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was released in France that August before it was finally released by A24 in the United States in April 2019. Continue reading
Al Pacino in Scarecrow
Al Pacino in Scarecrow (1973)
Vitals
Al Pacino as Francis Lionel “Lion” Delbuchi, scrappy drifter and former sailor
California to Detroit, Fall 1972
Film: Scarecrow
Release Date: April 11, 1973
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Costume Designer: Jo Ynocencio
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Scarecrow was Al Pacino’s first film after his Oscar-nominated breakthrough performance in The Godfather, reuniting him with Jerry Schatzberg, who had previously directed the actor to success in The Panic in Needle Park two years earlier.
After he portrayed the cunning and reserved Michael Corleone, Scarecrow brought Pacino back to that Needle Park-type of scrappily ambitious and affable street-smart drifter, now characterized as the simple and seemingly carefree Francis “Lion” Delbuchi who teams up with the temperamental ex-con Max Millian (Gene Hackman) in their transformative trek across the country to realize Max’s dream of opening a car wash in Pittsburgh. Continue reading
Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Vacation
Chevy Chase with Anthony Michael Hall, Beverly D’Angelo, and Dana Barron in National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)
Vitals
Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold, Jr., hapless family man
Chicago to Los Angeles, Summer 1982
Film: National Lampoon’s Vacation
Release Date: July 29, 1983
Director: Harold Ramis
Men’s Costumer: Robert Harris Jr.
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Why aren’t we flying? Because getting there is half the fun, you know that!
Today is the 40th anniversary of the release National Lampoon’s Vacation, a comedy classic celebrating the great American tradition of the family summer road trip. Inspired by John Hughes’ short story “Vacation ’58” about a fictitious cross-country trip to Disneyland in a lemony station wagon that ends with our protagonist’s Dad shooting Walt Disney in the leg, Vacation introduced audiences to Clark W. Griswold, Jr., a well-intended family man who regularly goes disastrously above and beyond expectations to attempt to create memorable experiences for his family.
National Lampoon’s Vacation sends the Griswold family toward the fictional southern California destination of Walley World, a thinly veiled nomen à clef of Disneyland, though filmed at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valenica. Clark packs his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and their children Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and Audrey (Dana Barron) into a clunky conglomeration of American automotive excess for a nightmarish family vacation from the Windy City to Walley World that Clark eventually describes to Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken) as “two weeks of living hell.” Continue reading
Dennis Quaid in Frequency
Dennis Quaid and Daniel Henson in Frequency (2000)
Vitals
Dennis Quaid as Frank Sullivan, Sr., firefighter and family man
New York, Fall 1969
Film: Frequency
Release Date: April 28, 2000
Director: Gregory Hoblit
Costume Designer: Elisabetta Beraldo
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Frequency might be one of those movies that doesn’t get discussed much these days, but I remember being intrigued when I caught it on TNT a few years after it came out. Flash forward to a few months ago when I saw it was among the movies leaving HBO Max that month, and I decided to revisit.
Without spoiling too much, the plot centers on a ham radio-driven multiverse without the added complication of a serial killer seemingly inspired by one part Richard Speck, one part Ted Bundy, while Frequency‘s most significant emotional impact comes from the intragenerational bond between a father and son—hence my posting about it on Father’s Day weekend. Continue reading
Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise
Ethan Hawke as Jesse in Before Sunrise (1995)
Vitals
Ethan Hawke as Jesse Wallace, itinerant American
Vienna, June 16-17, 1994
Film: Before Sunrise
Release Date: January 27, 1995
Director: Richard Linklater
Costume Designer: Florentina Welley
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy Valentine’s Day! While I’ve occasionally used this holiday to feature style from movies depicting gangland violence (think Jimmy Hoffa’s February 14th birthday or the 1967 movie The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre about the real-life 1929 event), this marks my first Valentine’s Day as a married man, so I’m feeling romantic and thus wanted to write about one of my favorite romance-themed movies: Before Sunrise.
For his fourth feature film, director Richard Linklater took inspiration from his chance meeting with a woman in a Philadelphia toy shop that led to the two walking through the city and conversing well into the night. Linklater collaborated with Kim Krizan on a screenplay that would focus heavily on dialogue between a man and a woman who had just met, with their conversations realistically balanced between casual and deep as they get to know each other… and learn more about themselves in the process. Continue reading
The Graduate: Ben’s Beige Windbreaker and Alfa Romeo
Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967)
Vitals
Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, nervous and aimless college graduate
Los Angeles, Summer to Fall 1967
Film: The Graduate
Release Date: December 22, 1967
Director: Mike Nichols
Costume Designer: Patricia Zipprodt
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Thelma & Louise, and The Sopranos, I felt like I had seen or heard about the famous ending of The Graduate in depth before actually seeing the movie itself. Given that the iconic movie is over 50 years old, I hope I wouldn’t invite too much ire by discussing its famous ending openly in discussing Benjamin Braddock’s style as he desperately races through southern California in the hopes of halting Elaine Robinson’s wedding to the dreaded Makeout King.
Having recently gotten engaged myself (yay!), it felt appropriate to end this installment of #CarWeek with the cherry red Alfa Romeo that factored so significantly in Benjamin’s life following his graduation, whether it it was on his burlesque-and-burgers date with the bright-eyed Elaine (Katharine Ross), furtive assignations with her mother (Anne Bancroft), or on his gas-guzzling dash to get him to the church on time scored by Simon & Garfunkel’s enduring folk banger “Mrs. Robinson”. Continue reading