Tagged: Hiking/Work Boots
Keith David in The Thing
Keith David in The Thing (1982)
Vitals
Keith David as Childs, skeptical research facility chief mechanic
Antarctica, Winter 1982
Film: The Thing
Release Date: June 25, 1982
Director: John Carpenter
Costume Supervisors: Ronald I. Caplan, Trish Keating, and Gilbert Loe
Background
One of my favorite movies to watch in the middle of winter is The Thing, a personal favorite of its director John Carpenter, who celebrates his 75th birthday tomorrow. For The Thing‘s 40th anniversary last year, I wrote about its lead protagonist—helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell)—though there’s plenty of unique wintry wardrobe choices among the research crew of U.S. Outpost 31.
Keith David made his major film debut as chief mechanic Childs, launching his prolific career in a versatile range of movies from the serious likes of Platoon (1986) and Requiem for a Dream (2000) to comedies like There’s Something About Mary (1998) and The Nice Guys (2016), most recently appearing in Nope (2022). Continue reading
Far From Heaven: Dennis Haysbert’s Green Work Jacket and Red Plaid Shirt
Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan in Far From Heaven (2002)
Vitals
Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan, affable gardener and widowed father
Suburban Connecticut, Fall 1957
Film: Far From Heaven
Release Date: November 8, 2002
Director: Todd Haynes
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell
Background
Far From Heaven premiered twenty years ago this week, a smart, sincere, and stylish drama that stands alone as a thoughtful story beyond its oft-discussed intentional parallels to the Douglas Sirk melodramas of a half-century prior.
The Sirk homages are evident not just in the autumnal photography but also the plot, recalling the romance between a woman and her gardener in All That Heaven Allows (1955) as well as the racial themes driving Imitation of Life (1959). In this case, the woman is housewife Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore), who raises her friends’ eyebrows through her growing bond with Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), a kind gardener taking over his late father’s accounts. Continue reading
Roddy Piper in They Live
Roddy Piper in They Live (1988)
Vitals
Roddy Piper as “Nada”, tough drifter and anti-alien vigilante
Los Angeles, Spring 1988
Film: They Live
Release Date: November 4, 1988
Director: John Carpenter
Costume Supervisor: Robin Michel Bush
Background
Released on this day in 1988, They Live followed the example of most of John Carpenter’s work by finding a cult following considerably after it came out, though it debuted at the top of the North American box office.
Adapted from Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning”, They Live stars Canadian-born wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper as an unnamed drifter who arrives in Los Angeles looking for work… and finds a box of sunglasses that literally open his eyes to the fact that an alien ruling class has been subliminally manipulating the public to conform, consume, and reproduce. Continue reading
John Forsythe’s Autumn Attire in The Trouble with Harry
John Forsythe as Sam Marlowe in The Trouble with Harry (1955)
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John Forsythe as Sam Marlowe, touchy artist who scores the town with his belting baritone
Vermont, Fall 1954
Film: The Trouble with Harry
Release Date: September 30, 1955
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Background
As we settle into what looks like a comfortable autumn—at least for fallphiles like me—I want to highlight what must be one of the earliest movies to truly capture the season’s striking colors.
Though regarded as the “Master of Suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock had long incorporated humor into his movies. The Trouble with Harry differentiates itself among Hitch’s more earnest thrillers and mysteries by emphasizing the comedy, resulting in what may be among of the director’s least suspenseful outfit but still entertaining and certainly aesthetically satisfying. Continue reading
On the Road: Dean Moriarty’s Fur-collar Flight Jacket
Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty in On the Road (2012)
Vitals
Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty, impulsive drifter based on Beat Generation figure Neal Cassady
New York to San Francisco, via New Orleans, Winter 1949
Film: On the Road
Release Date: October 12, 2012
Director: Walter Salles
Costume Designer: Danny Glicker
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of when On the Road was published on September 5, 1957. Jack Kerouac’s seminal Beat Generation novel had been years in the making, beginning with his continuous, single-spaced 120-page “scroll” that he typed across three weeks in April 1951, almost immediately after returning from the last of the book’s depicted travels.
With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road. Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never taking off. Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he actually was born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles.
Though Kerouac hardly shied away from including seedier details of his friend’s life, On the Road became something of a hagiography centered around Dean Moriarty, the alter ego he developed for his real-life pal Neal Cassady. With the same excitement of the Dexter Gordon, Lionel Hampton, and George Shearing performances they celebrate, the impulsive Dean steals the spotlight much as he and his fellow travelers steal to support their travels, or offset “the cost of living”, as they rationalize.
Despite considerable interest—including from the author himself—in cinematic adaptations, it wouldn’t be until more than a half-century passed that cameras would finally roll on bringing On the Road to the screen. Francis Ford Coppola had held the rights since 1979, holding on through decades of development hell until the artistic critical success of The Motorcycle Diaries encouraged him to hand over the reins to director Walter Salles and writer José Rivera. Salles again collaborated with cinematographer Éric Gautier, whose photography brought mid-century America back to life across the small towns, sandy deserts, and snowy hillsides that resisted generations of change.
Garrett Hedlund’s appropriately kinetic performance as the dangerously charismatic Dean also emerged as one of the strongest aspects of Salles’ On the Road adaptation, with Owen Gleiberman writing for Entertainment Weekly that “the best thing in the movie is Garrett Hedlund’s performance as Dean Moriarty, whose hunger for life—avid, erotic, insatiable, destructive—kindles a fire that will light the way to a new era.” Continue reading
Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
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Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy, cheeky petty criminal undergoing psychiatric evaluation
Oregon State Hospital, Fall 1963
Film: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Release Date: November 19, 1975
Director: Miloš Forman
Costume Designer: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today is Jack Nicholson’s 85th birthday, a worthy occasion for recalling one of his most iconic roles: the irreverent and incorrigible Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
On the Road: Sam Riley Channels Kerouac in Dark Blue Flannel Plaid
Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, Jack Kerouac’s alter ego, in On the Road (2012)
Vitals
Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, aspiring writer based on future Beat icon Jack Kerouac
Queens, New York, Winter 1947
Film: On the Road
Release Date: October 12, 2012
Director: Walter Salles
Costume Designer: Danny Glicker
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Jack Kerouac was born 100 years ago today on March 12, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. His 1957 roman à clef On the Road became a defining work of what would be called the Beat Generation, chronicling the author’s wanderings in the late 1940s with contemporaries like William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Allen Ginsberg, all thinly disguised in the novel with pseudonyms.
Kerouac had started work on the novel almost immediately upon returning from his travels, the original draft being a continuous, single-spaced 120-page “scroll” that he typed across three weeks in April 1951. This free-flowing stream of consciousness has been called the ideal medium that captured the mad impulses that drove his adventures with Cassady, represented by the larger-than-life character Dean Moriarty. Continue reading
Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs, desperate drifter-turned-treasure hunter
Mexico, Spring to Summer 1925
Film: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Release Date: January 6, 1948
Director: John Huston
Wardrobe: Robert O’Dell & Ted Schultz (uncredited)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
On the 65th anniversary of when Humphrey Bogart died on January 14, 1957, I wanted to visit one of his most lasting—if not exactly best-dressed—roles.
“Wait until you see me in my next picture,” Bogie had proclaimed to a New York Post critic outside 21 one night. “I play the worst shit you ever saw!” Indeed, unlike his previous protagonists like Sam Spade, Rick Blaine, and Philip Marlowe, who were primarily heroes marred by a cynical streak, there are few redeeming factors to Fred C. Dobbs, the panhandling prospector whose treacherous greed leads him well past the point of no return. Continue reading
Dennis Haysbert’s Brown Plaid Jacket in Far From Heaven
Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan in Far From Heaven (2002)
Vitals
Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan, affable gardener and widowed father
Suburban Connecticut, Fall 1957 into Winter 1958
Film: Far From Heaven
Release Date: November 8, 2002
Director: Todd Haynes
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Todd Haynes’ 1950s-set Far From Heaven paid homage to Douglas Sirk’s visually stunning mid-century melodramas like All That Heaven Allows, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, and Written on the Wind, addressing themes of love, class, and race, often against stunningly idyllic autumnal backdrops that belie the intense personal dramas beyond those white picket fences and manicured lawns.
After years of semi-satisfied suburban life, well-to-do housewife Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) finds herself in a maelstrom of conflict after discovering her husband’s homosexuality as well as her own feelings for Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), the son of her family’s late gardener whose race has her “friends” and neighbors clutching their proverbial pearls in reaction to the developing relationship between the two. Continue reading
Point Break: Keanu Reeves’ Wet Lee Storm Rider Jacket
Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah in Point Break (1991)
Vitals
Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, ambitious FBI agent
Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia, Spring 1991
Film: Point Break
Release Date: July 12, 1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Costume Supervisors: Colby P. Bart & Louis Infante
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy birthday to Keanu Reeves, born September 2, 1964. Born in Beirut, Reeves spent his childhood moving between several countries around the world, including Australia, which would later be the setting for the finale of Point Break, one of the Reeves’ first major movies and a cult favorite 30 years after its release.