Tagged: Fancy Waistcoat
Oscar Isaac’s Byronic Black Frock Coat and Red Kerchief as Victor Frankenstein
Oscar Isaac in Frankenstein (2025)
Vitals
Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, baron and budding mad scientist
Edinburgh, Scotland, Fall 1855
Film: Frankenstein
Release Date: October 17, 2025
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Costume Designer: Kate Hawley
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
“I feel like, if I were around in the 1850s, this is how I would have dressed,” I commented to my wife, who just nodded with her characteristic patience when I say insane things. While she didn’t respond by telling me how much I look like Oscar Isaac (but was definitely thinking it, right? Right??), I was nonetheless intrigued by Kate Hawley’s deservedly Academy Award-nominated costume design in Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 retelling of Frankenstein, adapted from the famous 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, who died 175 years ago this week on February 1, 1851.
Director and screenwriter del Toro updated Shelley’s Romantic era setting to the 1850s, incorporating the medical advancements during the Crimean War into the context around Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments. We are introduced to the adult Frankenstein as he vehemently defends himself to a disciplinary tribunal for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh:
If we are to behave as immodestly as gods, we must—at the very least—deliver miracles, wouldn’t you say? Ignite a divine spark in these young students’ minds: teach them defiance rather than obedience!
Samuel L. Jackson in The Hateful Eight
Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren in The Hateful Eight (2015)
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Samuel L. Jackson as Maj. Marquis Warren, bounty hunter and veteran Union Army cavalry officer
Wyoming Territory, Winter 1877
Film: The Hateful Eight
Release Date: December 25, 2015
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Courtney Hoffman
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy birthday to Samuel L. Jackson! Born December 21, 1948, the actor hustled for two decades before his breakthrough performance as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction (1994), his first of six collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, and he is currently the highest-grossing actor of all time with his films having collectively grossed more than $27 billion worldwide.
The actor’s most recent prominent role in a QT joint was the wintry western The Hateful Eight, released ten years ago this month on Christmas 2015, and an appropriate watch for tonight’s winter solstice.
Jackson leads the ensemble cast as Major Marquis Warren, a former Union Army cavalry officer now working as a bounty hunter who prides himself on his deadly reputation:
My bounties never hang, ’cause I never bring ’em in alive.
Wicked: Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz
Jeff Goldblum in Wicked (2024)
Vitals
Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz
Emerald City in the land of Oz, circa 1900
Film: Wicked: Part I
Release Date: November 22, 2024
Director: Jon M. Chu
Costume Designer: Paul Tazewell
Tailor: Martin Nicholls
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Congratulations to Wicked costume designer Paul Tazewell, who received the Academy Award for Best Costume Design during last night’s Oscars ceremony. Jon M. Chu’s first installment adapting this mega-hit Broadway musical was nominated for ten Academy Awards, also winning for Best Production Design.
The musical itself was adapted by Stephen Schwartz from Gregory Macguire’s 1995 novel Wicked, a revisionist expansion of the universe that L. Frank Baum developed in his “Oz” books and had been immortalized in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. The stage and screen musical adaptations of Wicked refrain from some of the novel’s darker elements in favor of maintaining the colorful fantasy associated with the story.
We don’t actually meet the wizard until the final act of Wicked, nearly two hours into the 160-minute movie. After an intimidating introduction as a gravely, disembodied voice behind a massive robotic face, the wizard reveals himself to be a man as Jeff Goldblum strides out and introduces himself to fledgling witches Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda Upland (Ariana Grande). Continue reading
Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma
Russell Crowe as Ben Wade in 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Vitals
Russell Crowe as Ben Wade, cunning bandit leader
Arizona Territory, Fall 1884
Film: 3:10 to Yuma
Release Date: September 7, 2007
Director: James Mangold
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The remake of the classic 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma, based on Elmore Leonard’s short story of the same name, was released 15 years ago this week during a renaissance year for Western-themed movies, including the respective masterpieces No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I have fond memories of seeing each one in theaters with my dad including this one, which we saw one weekend early in my first semester of college and particularly resonated with its themes of fatherhood.
Russell Crowe was James Mangold’s first choice for the role of Ben Wade, the introspective and thoughtful yet still ultimately ruthless outlaw leader who had been originated on screen by Glenn Ford fifty years earlier. With a fear-and-awe-inspiring reputation akin to the real-life Jesse James (who was born today in 1847, 160 years to the day before this version of 3:10 to Yuma was released), Wade defies bandit stereotypes by seemingly preferring quietly sketching to shootouts… but that doesn’t mean he’ll hesitate to shoot fast, straight, and with wicked accuracy when he feels compelled. “I wouldn’t last five minutes leadin’ an outfit like that if I wasn’t as rotten a hell,” Wade reassures us. Continue reading
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