Tagged: Shearling / Sheepskin Coat

Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us

Vitals

Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller, tough pandemic survivor and former contractor

Boston to Utah, Fall through winter 2023

Series: The Last of Us (Season 1)
Air Dates: January 15, 2023 – March 12, 2023
Created by: Craig Mazin & Neil Druckmann
Costume Designer: Cynthia Ann Summers

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

It was fascinating to see my distaste for mushrooms validated in such a distressing manner in one of the biggest shows of the year.

Based on Naughty Dog’s popular video game of the same name, The Last of Us concluded its acclaimed first season on Sunday night. The series was primarily set in a post-apocalyptic 2023 in the grim aftermath in a global pandemic (albeit far more dystopian than our current reality), caused by a mass fungal infection that transforms its human hosts into grotesque quasi-zombies (shroombies?) that still roam the tattered world two decades following the societal collapse. Continue reading

The Rocky IV Shearling Jacket

Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky IV (1985)

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Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa, two-time heavyweight world champion boxer

Krasnogorsk, Russia, Winter 1985

Film: Rocky IV
Release Date: November 27, 1985
Director: Sylvester Stallone
Costume Designer: Tom Bronson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

“New year, new you” messaging seems to dominate the beginning of every January, and what character better embodies getting in shape than the Italian Stallion and his famous training montages?

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Steve Buscemi in Fargo

Steve Buscemi as Carl Showalter in Fargo (1996)

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Steve Buscemi as Carl Showalter, loquacious kidnapper

Minnesota, Winter 1987

Film: Fargo
Release Date: March 8, 1996
Director: Joel & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 65th birthday to Steve Buscemi, born in Brooklyn on December 13, 1957. After serving as a New York City firefighter in the early ’80s (and volunteering again the day after 9/11), Buscemi steadily became an increasingly familiar face in movies and TV, particularly films depicted by Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. 1996 was a breakthrough year for Buscemi, who wrote and directed his first feature—the excellent Trees Lounge—and co-starred as the “funny-lookin'” crook Carl Showalter in the Coens’ acclaimed wintry black comedy Fargo.

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Tom Hanks in Greyhound

Tom Hanks as Commander Ernest Krause in Greyhound

Tom Hanks as CDR Ernest Krause in Greyhound (2020)

Vitals

Tom Hanks as CDR Ernest Krause, USN, commanding officer of USS Keeling

North Atlantic Ocean, February 1942

Film: Greyhound
Release Date: July 10, 2020
Director: Aaron Schneider
Costume Designer: Julie Weiss
Military Costume Consultant: Steve McColgan

Background

…the goods will be delivered by this nation, whose Navy believes in the tradition of “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

— Franklin Delano Roosevelt, October 27, 1941

Greyhound begins just over three months after the United States entered World War II and nearly five months after FDR’s address for Navy and Total Defense Day, in which he reinforced with the above words the protection that the U.S. Navy would offer merchant ships carrying supplies to support the Allied war effort. The eponymous “Greyhound” is the codename for USS Keeling, one of the American destroyers assigned to protect a 37-ship convoy on its way to Liverpool.

We join up with the multi-national convoy HX-25 as it enters its first of two days traveling through the “Black Pit”, the area of the North Atlantic considered most vulnerable as it was beyond the range of air cover. Leading the convoy’s military escort from the bridge of USS Keeling is straight-laced Commander Ernest Krause, played by Tom Hanks. Continue reading

Boardwalk Empire: Al Capone’s 1920s Leather Car Coat

Stephen Graham as Al Capone on Boardwalk Empire

Stephen Graham as Al Capone on Boardwalk Empire (Episode 1.01: “Boardwalk Empire”)

Vitals

Stephen Graham as Al Capone, ambitious but volatile mob enforcer

Chicago, Winter 1920

Series: Boardwalk Empire
Episodes:
– “Boardwalk Empire” (Episode 1.01, dir. Martin Scorsese, aired 9/19/2010)
– “Anastasia” (Episode 1.04, dir. Jeremy Podeswa, aired 10/10/2010)
Creator: Terence Winter
Costume Designer: John A. Dunn

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On the 75th anniversary of Al Capone’s death, I wanted to take this blog’s first overdue look at Stephen Graham’s explosive performance as the infamous gangster on Boardwalk Empire. Capone features as an influential if tertiary character to the main drama in Atlantic City, introduced as a smart-talking enforcer to the old-fashioned—and ill-fated—”Big Jim” Colosimo during the series premiere, set in January 1920 when Prohibition became the unpopular law of the land.

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For Your Eyes Only: Bond’s Sheepskin Jacket and New Lotus

Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Roger Moore as a Lotus-driving James Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

Today’s post extends #CarWeek to close out this year’s 40th anniversary celebration of my favorite of Roger Moore’s Bond movies, For Your Eyes Only, with a wintry look apropos the 00-7th of December as Mr. Bond drives into the ski resort town of Cortina d’Ampezzo behind the wheel of his latest Q-issued Lotus, dressed for warmth in shearling and cashmere.

Following a tip from the Italian secret service, Bond has arrived to interface with MI6’s “man in northern Italy”—Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno)—as he surveils Locque, the mysterious man he had observed paying off Hector Gonzales. Continue reading

Love Story: Ryan O’Neal’s Sheepskin Flight Jacket

Ryan O'Neal as Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story (1970)

Ryan O’Neal as Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story (1970)

Vitals

Ryan O’Neal as Oliver Barrett IV, newlywed Harvard graduate

Boston, Fall to Winter 1968

Film: Love Story
Release Date: December 16, 1970
Director: Arthur Hiller
Costume Design: Alice Manougian Martin & Pearl Somner

Background

If all goes to plan, I’ll be getting married exactly one year from today so it felt appropriate to revisit some of the fall-friendly fashions from one of the most famous—or infamous, if you’re so inclined—romance movies of all time, Love Story.

Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw star as the Ivy League lovers Oliver and Jenny who, once she overcomes her distaste for his upper-class roots (drink every time she calls him “preppy”), defy his blue-blood father’s wishes and get married, beginning their humble lives together in a Boston apartment following his graduation.

Oliver remains defiantly bitter following his father’s rejection of Jenny, cutting off all contact. After receiving an invitation to his estranged father’s 60th birthday party, Oliver refuses to even respond with their regrets, resulting in his and Jenny’s first major argument. She runs from the apartment, sending Oliver on an increasingly desperate search from local shops to music classes, until he returns home that night to find her waiting on their stoop.

Regretting his behavior, Oliver offers his apologies, to which Jenny responds by hitting him with one of the most criticized lines in movie history:

Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

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William Holden in Stalag 17

In recognition of POW/MIA Day, observed on the third Friday of September, let’s delve into one of the first major movies to shine a light on the POW experience.

William Holden as Staff Sergeant J.J. Sefton in Stalag 17 (1953)

William Holden as Staff Sergeant J.J. Sefton in Stalag 17 (1953)

Vitals

William Holden as J.J. Sefton, USAAF Staff Sergeant and prisoner of war

“Somewhere on the Danube”, December 1944

Film: Stalag 17
Release Date: May 29, 1953
Director: Billy Wilder
Wardrobe Credit: J. Allen Slone

Background

I don’t know about you, but it always makes me sore when I see those war pictures… all about flying leathernecks and submarine patrols and frogmen and guerrillas in the Philippines. What gets me is there never was a movie about POWs… about prisoners of war.

… and so Clarence Harvey Cook (Gil Stratton) begins his narration, setting the scene for the week leading up to Christmas 1944 when he and his fellow downed colleagues discovered a potential informant—er, a “dirty stinkin’ stoolie”—in their barracks.

After two airmen are shot trying to escape, suspicion eventually falls on J.J. Sefton, the cigarette-dealing but cigar-chomping staff sergeant whose cynicism has already rendered him unpopular with most of the Americans aside from Cookie, who serves as Sefton’s unofficial batman and describes him as “one of the most unforgettable ch-characters you’ve ever met.” Continue reading

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Tom Hardy in Belstaff Sheepskin

Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

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Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr, disillusioned British spy

Istanbul, Fall 1973

Film: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Release Date: September 16, 2011
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Durran

Background

Happy birthday to Tom Hardy, born September 15, 1977. Following his debut in Black Hawk Down (2001), Hardy’s steady work through the decade established his stardom by the time he joined the ensemble cast of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on John le Carré’s famous 1974 spy novel of the same name. Continue reading

Gorky Park: Lee Marvin’s Sheepskin Flight Jacket

Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne in Gorky Park (1983)

Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne in Gorky Park (1983)

Vitals

Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne, American fur importer

Stockholm, April 1983

Film: Gorky Park
Release Date: December 15, 1983
Director: Michael Apted
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As winter rages on, you’d think I would be looking for escape via light movies set in tropical locations… but instead, I recently rewatched Gorky Park, adapted from Martin Cruz Smith’s 1981 novel that begins with three disfigured corpses found in the snow outside a Moscow ice rink. (And I wonder why I get depressed!)

Our ostensible hero is Militsiya officer Arkady Renko (William Hurt), whose investigation of the grisly murders leads him to the sophisticated yet sinister sable importer Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin). Continue reading