Tagged: Writer
Curb Your Enthusiasm: Larry’s White Wedding Suit
Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm (Episode 10.04: “You’re Not Going to Get Me to Say Anything Bad About Mickey”)
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Larry David as himself, a neurotic comedy writer
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Summer 2019
Series: Curb Your Enthusiasm
Episode: “You’re Not Going to Get Me to Say Anything Bad About Mickey” (Episode 10.04)
Air Date: February 9, 2020
Director: Jeff Schaffer
Creator: Larry David
Costume Designer: Leslie Schilling
Background
Happy birthday to Larry David! Born 76 years ago today on July 2, 1947, LD grew successful as a co-creator of Seinfeld in the 1990s before becoming more visibly famous as an exaggeratedly neurotic version of himself on Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is currently producing its twelfth (and possibly final) season.
The tenth-season episode “You’re Not Going to Get Me to Say Anything Bad About Mickey” begins with Larry consulting with the ubiquitous Leon (J.B. Smoove) amidst construction of Latte Larry’s, the “spite store” he’s building to steal business from his rival Mocha Joe (Saverio Guerra), who stops in to remind him that “good coffee is all about the beans.”
At the same time, Larry’s coterie is planning a plane trip to Cabo San Lucas for their friend Mickey’s wedding, despite Larry grumbling about having to travel two hours for a wedding, prompting his manager Jeff (Jeff Garlin) to utter the episode’s title in the unseen Mickey’s defense… and who could portray such a widely revered friend but the absurdly charismatic Timothy Olyphant? Continue reading
Mad Men: Kinsey’s 420-Friendly Mohair Cardigan
Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey on Mad Men, Episode 3.03: “My Old Kentucky Home”
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Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey, blowhard advertising copywriter
New York City, Spring 1963
Series: Mad Men
Episode: “My Old Kentucky Home” (Episode 3.03)
Air Date: August 30, 2009
Director: Jennifer Getzinger
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant
Background
Though Mad Men is typically associated with alcohol, especially in the early seasons set early in the 1960s, the series still included a handful of memorable 420 moments, from Don Draper’s flashback-inducing toke at a Bohemian shindig to when Pete Campbell finally chills out with a much-needed spliff to the tune of Janis Joplin toward the end of the sixth season. But before we get to that point, we have a trio of Sterling Cooper creatives spending their Saturday afternoon trying to smoke their way to success on the Bacardi account in the third-season episode “My Old Kentucky Home”, set sixty years ago in the spring of 1963.
While the senior staff are invited to “work disguised as a party” hosted by Roger Sterling and his new wife Jane, copywriter Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) is among the Sterling Cooper skeleton crew of Smitty Smith (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) stranded in the office on this sunny spring weekend. Continue reading
Leslie Howard in The Petrified Forest
Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest (1936)
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Leslie Howard as Alan Squier, itinerant and nihilistic writer “… in a way”
Black Mesa, Arizona, January 1936
Film: The Petrified Forest
Release Date: February 6, 1936
Director: Archie Mayo
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (uncredited)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
“Petrified Forest, eh? A suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that’s what I’m destined to become… an interesting fossil for future study,” suggests the self-deprecating Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) after he learns more about the surrounding desert region he’s entered after his thumb-powered journey to “set forth and discover America.” Continue reading
The Man Who Came to Dinner
Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
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Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside, catty, cantankerous, and “celebrated author and critic”
Ohio, Winter 1941
Film: The Man Who Came to Dinner
Release Date: January 1, 1942
Director: William Keighley
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly
Background
Based on a play of the same name by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the holiday-centered screwball comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner was released 80 years ago this year. Inspired by Hart’s own experiences with critic and writer Alexander Woollcott, the eponymous “man” is Sheridan Whiteside, an acerbic radio personality whose well-publicized national tour includes a stop in the invented town of Mesalia, Ohio, where his prestige has preceded him more than his condescending attitude. Continue reading
California Split: George Segal’s Aran Turtleneck
George Segal as Bill Denny in California Split (1974)
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George Segal as Bill Denny, magazine writer and casual gambler
Los Angeles, Winter 1973
Film: California Split
Release Date: August 7, 1974
Director: Robert Altman
Costumer: Hugh McFarland
Background
In honor of George Segal, who died a year ago today, today’s post introduces us to his character in California Split, directed by Robert Altman and described by Tim Grierson and Will Leitch for Vulture as the greatest movie about gambling ever made, “one of the high watermarks of ’70s hangout cinema.” Continue reading
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)
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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
Jeffrey Wright in Hold the Dark
Jeffrey Wright and Riley Keough in Hold the Dark (2018)
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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
The Shining — Jack’s Gray Tweed Interview Sport Jacket
Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980)
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Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, former teacher, aspiring writer, and potential hotel caretaker
Silver Creek, Colorado, Fall 1979
Film: The Shining
Release Date: May 23, 1980
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Costume Designer: Milena Canonero
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Want to inject some Halloween spirit into your office attire this week without sending your co-workers into a panic? Take seasonal inspiration from Jack Torrance’s tweed jacket and tie as he successfully interviewed for the job of caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining.
La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Windowpane Shirts and Autumn-Ready Storm Rider
Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in La Piscine (1969)
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Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer on vacation
French Riviera, Summer 1968
Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
“Actually, I don’t care much for summer,” the glamorous sun-kissed socialite Marianne (Romy Schneider) explains, clarifying “just the in-between seasons.” As tomorrow marks the first day of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, start finding your style for this transitional “in-between” season! Continue reading
La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Iconic Swimwear
Alain Delon as Jean-Paul in La Piscine (1969)
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Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer on vacation
French Riviera, Summer 1968
Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
More than a half-century after its release, La Piscine remains hailed as one of the most stylish movies, not just for French designer André Courrèges’s costumes but also its sun-drenched Côte d’Azur setting, Michel Legrand’s jazzy score, and the smoldering expressions of its quartet of stars. “The less you put in words, the more you will oblige me to have imagination,” director Jacques Deray reportedly screenwriter instructed Jean-Claude Carrière.
Deray’s “imagination” draws the most from the dangerously intense sexual tension among its leads, beginning with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider as the vacationing couple spending their summer in an opulent villa secluded in the French Riviera. Continue reading