Tagged: Remington Model 870
Ray Milland in Panic in Year Zero!
Ray Milland in Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Vitals
Ray Milland as Harry Baldwin, California family man-turned-survivalist
Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spring 1962
Film: Panic in Year Zero!
(also released as End of the World)
Release Date: July 5, 1962
Director: Ray Milland
Wardrobe Credit: Marjorie Corso
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
In addition to his prolific acting career that won him the Academy Award for his performance in The Lost Weekend (1945), Welsh star Ray Milland also directed a handful of films and television episodes. His penultimate directorial effort was Panic in Year Zero!, a survival thriller written by John Morton and Jay Simms that underscored contemporary apocalyptic anxieties during the atomic age.
Every footpath will be crawling with men saying “no matter what, I’m going to live,” and that’s what I’m saying too. My family must survive!
Milland also starred in his film as Harry Baldwin, the resourceful patriarch of a well-to-do family from southern California leading a fishing trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains with his wife Ann (Jean Hagen) and their teenage children Rick (Frankie Avalon) and Karen (Mary Mitchel).
Shortly after the Baldwins hit the road one early morning in March, their journey is interrupted by a thermonuclear explosion that destroys Los Angeles—part of a massive targeted attack that also decimated major cities across the world from New York City and Chicago to London, Paris, and Rome. As they gradually understand the scope of the situation, the family’s vacation transforms into a struggle to survive amidst the quickly decaying morality of a society driven to desperation. Continue reading
Fargo, Season 5: Jon Hamm’s Shearling Coat and Ranchwear as Sheriff Roy Tillman
Jon Hamm as Sheriff Roy Tillman on Fargo (Episode 5.02: “Trials and Tribulations”). Photo credit: Michelle Faye/FX.
Vitals
Jon Hamm as Roy Tillman, ranch-owning sheriff of Stark County, North Dakota, and “a hard man… for hard times”
North Dakota, Fall 2019
Series: Fargo, Season 5
Air Dates: November 21, 2023 – January 16, 2024
Creator: Noah Hawley
Costume Designer: Carol Case
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Celebrating his 53rd birthday today, Jon Hamm recently co-starred on the fifth season of Fargo as Roy Tillman, an “unorthodox” sheriff who runs Stark County, North Dakota with an iron fist backed by Old Testament-sounding guidance, “bound by duty, blood, and tradition,” though this—more often than not—just means bullying constituents and outsiders alike. To solidify his position, Roy doesn’t shy away from dangerous alliances, including a local militia of reactionaries that he supplies with arms and support. 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
Day Shift: Jamie Foxx’s Vampire-Hunting Aloha Shirts
Jamie Foxx as Bud Jablonski in Day Shift (2022)
Photo by Andrew Cooper/Netflix
Vitals
Jamie Foxx as Bud Jablonski, maverick vampire hunter
San Fernando Valley, California, Summer 2022
Film: Day Shift
Release Date: August 12, 2022
Director: J.J. Perry
Costume Designer: Kelli Jones
Background
When I saw that Day Shift, the latest Netflix action comedy, centered around Jamie Foxx killing vampires while wearing a rotation of Hawaiian shirts, I knew I had to check it out.
Foxx stars as Bud Jablonski, whose job cleaning pools in the San Fernando Valley provides cover for his more serious occupation of hunting the undead. Continue reading
Jeffrey Wright in Hold the Dark
Jeffrey Wright and Riley Keough in Hold the Dark (2018)
Vitals
Jeffrey Wright as Russell Core, thoughtful and grizzled wolf expert
Alaska, December 2004
Film: Hold the Dark
Release Date: September 28, 2018
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Costume Designer: Antoinette Messam
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
With another snowstorm predicted for this weekend, I tend to find strange comfort in dark, brooding winter-set tales. A recent search to replenish my cinematic catalog led me to the moody Hold the Dark, an under-promoted Netflix release starring Jeffrey Wright as a wolf expert summoned to a remote Alaskan town by a quietly distressed mother, Medora Slone (Riley Keough), who hopes he can use his skills to hunt the wolf she believes responsible for the disappearance of three local children, including her own six-year-old son.
Despite his doubts that the activity can be attributed to wolf behavior, Core investigates and finds himself enveloped in a bleak and brutal mystery appropriately dark for a grim place that gets less than six hours of sunlight each day. Continue reading
Matthew McConaughey as Mud
Matthew McConaughey as the titular Mud (2012).
Vitals
Matthew McConaughey as Mud, mysterious fugitive and Arkansas River drifter
DeWitt, Arkansas, Summer 2012
Film: Mud
Release Date: May 26, 2012
Director: Jeff Nichols
Costume Designer: Kari Perkins
Background
As the weather’s getting warmer and days are getting more adventurous, BAMF Style is taking a look at the modern Mark Twain-style titular hero of 2012’s Mud.
Mud doesn’t give Matthew McConaughey the chance to show off any sharp clothes as any of his previous roles had, but it’s also part of the “McConnaissance” that has marked the complex roles of his more recent career. After a string of stupid romantic comedies and Kate Hudson vehicles, McConaughey decided to show the world he was a seriously talented actor with films like The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Killer Joe, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Interstellar as well as his Academy Award-winning performance in Dallas Buyers Club and nihilistically stunning role in the first season of HBO’s mind-fucking True Detective.
In Mud, McConaughey plays a mysterious drifter living in a boat in the backwoods off the Arkansas River. Mud promises two adventurous boys, Ellis and the awesomely-named Neckbone, that he will give them the boat if they get him food and help him reunite with his troubled ex-girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). Continue reading