Tagged: Leather Jacket
Mission: Impossible — Tom Cruise’s Black Leather Blazer as Ethan Hunt
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible (1996). Photo by Murray Close.
Vitals
Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, Impossible Missions Force agent
Prague to London, Spring 1996
Film: Mission: Impossible
Release Date: May 22, 1996
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Penny Rose
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Despite how much I enjoy espionage-themed spy movies—indicated by the plethora I’ve written about James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Three Days of the Condor—I had strangely never seen Ethan Hunt in action until just last week, two months shy of my 36th birthday, when all the buzz around Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning convinced me that it was time for me to trust Tom Cruise’s almost-superhuman spy one… first… time.
And, of course, I loved it. I had either forgotten or didn’t know that the 1996 film was directed by Brian De Palma from a script co-written by Robert Towne—with David Koepp, from a story by Koepp and Steven Zaillain. None of that considerable talent was wasted in rebooting Bruce Geller’s TV series for the screen, resulting in a stylish and fun blockbuster that became the third highest-grossing movie of 1996 and spawned a successful film franchise with the eighth (and likely final) installment released last month.
Mission: Impossible reintroduces Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), a reimagining of the character originated by Peter Graves on TV decades earlier. The movie begins as Jim assembles his squad—Ethan Hunt, Sarah Davies (Kristin Scott Thomas), Jack Harmon (an uncredited Emilio Estevez), Jim’s wife Claire Phelps (Emmanuelle Béart), and Hannah Williams (Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė)—at a Prague safe-house, where he briefs the team on their upcoming mission to surveil and stop a rogue agent from stealing a list of the CIA’s non-official cover (NOC) identities.
When the IMF team and their target are wiped out with the NOC list missing, suspicion falls on the mission’s lone survivor: Ethan Hunt, who now has to prove his innocence while finding the real mole at the center of the scheme.
Sounds impossible? Not for Ethan Hunt. Continue reading
Near Dark: Bill Paxton as a Vampire Biker
Bill Paxton in Near Dark (1987)
Vitals
Bill Paxton as Severen, vampire biker
Oklahoma to Kansas, Fall 1986
Film: Near Dark
Release Date: October 2, 1987
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Costume Designer: Joseph A. Porro
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today would’ve been the 70th birthday of Bill Paxton, born May 17, 1955. After his uncredited screen debut in Jonathan Demme’s period crime flick Crazy Mama (1975), Paxton emerged as one of director James Cameron’s favorite supporting players through the 1980s and ’90s as seen in The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), True Lies (1994), and Titanic (1997).
Amidst these, Paxton also appeared as the memorably psychotic vampire Severen in Kathryn Bigelow’s solo directorial debut, the 1987 neo-Western horror film Near Dark. Despite an underwhelming initial box office performance, many contemporary critics praised the film—specifically Paxton’s “exceptional [performance]… as the undead sex symbol,” according to Jay Scott for The Globe and Mail. Near Dark has continued growing a cult following in the decades since its release. Continue reading
Johnny Depp as Cry-Baby
Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby (1990)
Vitals
Johnny Depp as Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker, rebellious high school hellcat and rockabilly singer
Baltimore, Spring 1954
Film: Cry-Baby
Release Date: April 6, 1990
Director: John Waters
Wardrobe & Makeup Designer: Van Smith
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Just over three weeks after its premiere in John Waters’ native Baltimore where the film—among so many of his others—is set, Cry-Baby was more widely released 35 years ago tomorrow on April 5, 1990 in more than 1,200 theaters across North America—an unprecedented opening for the offbeat director.
This wider release indicated the film’s more mainstream appeal, lacking the more scatological elements of Waters’ prior works like Pink Flamingos (1972) while retaining enough of the director’s signatures to make it an effective introduction to his work. Despite this increased accessibility and some critical acclaim, Waters’ camped-up tribute to ’50s teen romances (think Grease for weirdos) still failed to find a solid audience at the outset. It wasn’t until years after its initial release that Cry-Baby developed a cult following among much of Waters’ other movies. Continue reading
Moonlighting: Bruce Willis’ First Brown Leather Jacket
Bruce Willis as David Addison on the pilot episode of Moonlighting
Vitals
Bruce Willis as David Addison Jr., wisecracking private detective
Los Angeles, Spring 1985
Series: Moonlighting
Episodes:
– “Pilot” (Episodes 1.01-1.02, dir. Glenn Gordon Caron, aired 3/3/1985)
– “The Murder’s in the Mail” (Episode 1.07, dir. Peter Werner, aired 4/2/1985)
– “Funeral for a Door Nail” (Episode 2.17, dir. Allan Arkush, aired 4/26/1986)
Creator: Glenn Gordon Caron
Costume Designer: Robert Turtrice
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
For Bruce Willis’ 70th birthday today, I was inspired by a reader’s recent comment to revisit the series that launched the actor to initial fame. Moonlighting premiered with its two-part pilot episode 40 years ago this month, starring Willis opposite Cybill Shepherd. Continue reading
Murder by Contract: Vince Edwards’ Leather Jacket
Vince Edwards in Murder by Contract (1958)
Vitals
Vince Edwards as Claude, existential contract killer
Los Angeles, Spring 1958
Film: Murder by Contract
Release Date: December 4, 1958
Director: Irving Lerner
Wardrobe Credit: Norman Martien
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Thanks to a recommendation from BAMF Style reader Jake—and the fact that it was briefly hosted on the Criterion Channel—one of my favorite “first watches” of this year has been the swift and slick 1958 film noir Murder by Contract.
Vince Edwards stars as Claude, a bored comptometer operator who capitalizes on his sociopathy to develop a profitable side hustler as a contract killer. As his reputation grows among the underworld, Claude’s mysterious boss Mr. Brink offers him $5,000 to complete the high-profile hit of a heavily guarded government witness scheduled to testify against him at an upcoming trial.
Heaven Can Wait: Warren Beatty’s Leather Jacket
Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Vitals
Warren Beatty as Joe Pendleton, L.A. Rams quarterback
Los Angeles, February 1978
Film: Heaven Can Wait
Release Date: June 28, 1978
Directed by: Warren Beatty & Buck Henry
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Ahead of the Super Bowl this weekend, one of the movies that the big game always brings to mind for me is Heaven Can Wait, Warren Beatty and Buck Henry’s 1978 remake of Harry Segall’s 1930s play of the same name, which had already been adapted for the screen in 1941 as Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
Beatty stars as Joe Pendleton, an affably simple-minded backup quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams whose sole ambition is to lead his team to the Super Bowl. Continue reading
Slap Shot: Paul Newman’s Fur-collared Leather Coat
Paul Newman in Slap Shot (1977)
Vitals
Paul Newman as Reggie Dunlop, renegade hockey coach and player
Southwestern Pennsylvania, Winter 1977
Film: Slap Shot
Release Date: February 25, 1977
Director: George Roy Hill
Costume Designer: Tom Bronson
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today would have been the 100th birthday of screen icon Paul Newman, born January 26, 1925. Across his prolific career that spanned six decades and yielded a competitive Oscar win among his ten nominations, Newman frequently cited the 1977 sports comedy Slap Shot as the most fun of his career. Continue reading
The Fourth Protocol: Pierce Brosnan’s Black Leather Biker Gear
Pierce Brosnan in The Fourth Protocol (1987). Photo credit: Stanley Bielecki.
Vitals
Pierce Brosnan as Valeri Alekseyevich Petrofsky, cold-blooded undercover KGB operative
Suffolk, England, Spring 1987
Film: The Fourth Protocol
Release Date: March 20, 1987
Director: John Mackenzie
Costume Designer: Tiny Nicholls
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Many James Bond fans know that Pierce Brosnan was first offered the role in the 1980s, but the announcement ironically improved Remington Steele‘s ratings to the point that the series was renewed and Brosnan had to turn down the Bond role to honor his commitments to the series. Three months before the next Bond film—The Living Daylights starring Timothy Dalton—was released in June 1987, Brosnan appeared in a different espionage thriller, The Fourth Protocol.
Indeed, the plot of a British agent trying to stop a rogue Soviet mission to detonate a “false flag” nuclear device at an American airbase must have sounded awfully familiar to Bond fans who watched Roger Moore do the same thing four years earlier in Octopussy… but this time, the maverick British spy is an MI5 agent named John Preston (Michael Caine), squaring off against Brosnan as KGB Major Valeri Petrofsky. 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
When Harry Met Sally: Harry’s Leather Flight Jacket
Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Vitals
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
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