Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang Directed By: James Cameron Avatar (2009) is one of those ‘don’t judge a book by its cover films’. Just on the first trailer alone it seemed director James Cameron had been overdosing on his FernGully: The Last Rainforest video. Plus the promo art, for all its build up, was less than inspiring; looking something akin to an early nineties Rutger Hauer movie. Though being as this has nothing to do with the content of the film itself, it is irrelevant. It isn’t, of course, because even on a subliminal level factors such as these can affect a viewing experience. But it is supposed…

Produced by acclaimed filmmaker David Puttnam, The Mission (1986) is an epic 18th century set tale of Spanish Jesuits who travel into the South American jungle to protect an Indian tribe from virtual extinction under the Treaty of Madrid (the formation of what we now call Brazil). Jeremy Irons plays one of these adventurous Jesuit priests, tough but mild mannered Father Gabriel. During the film’s first act, as Gabriel undertakes a death defying waterfall climb to reach the Indian tribe, he wears a classic example of early extreme sports attire – a plain linen shirt: Natural linen open-neck shirt with long sleeves. Turn down outer collar and internal stand collar,…

Le full trailer for Luc Besson’s latest film as director, Les Aventures Extraordinaires d’Adele Blanc-Sec (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec) has arrived on the net. It is the early 20th Century and ladies wore massive hats. Watch le trailer with subtitles HERE Based on the dual French/Belgian comics of writer/illustrator Jacques Tardi, the movie, like the books, follows the escapades of heroine Adèle Blanc-Sec, an eligible investigative journalist who battles crime and mythical monsters while all the time endeavouring to ‘act like a lady’. The stories first appeared in 1976 and are set in the 1910s and later on around 1918, after Blanc-Sec is cryogenically frozen for the duration…

Despite being twice Oscar nominated, for Ray in 2004 and then Dreamgirls and 2006, costume designer Sharen Davis has yet to win the big one. She ticks a lot of the Academy’s boxes too: period clothes, stage wear, real life people. However, Ms. Davis is not just about history and glamour, her work is thoughtful, detailed and appropriate to tone. Django Unchained is the first time Sharen Davis has worked with Quentin Tarantino, as generally he favours using different costume designers depending on the project. Yet on this evidence the director is likely to employ her services again. The date may be 1859, the location America’s deep south, but this…

It’s the most celebrated, the most special, the most significant watch of all time; Rolex is symbolic of many things in the movies: style, wealth, attitude, and perhaps most importantly, taste. That is not to say a Rolex is elitist, but rather that the wearer on screen, anyone from James Bond to Steve McQueen, is someone possessed of the knowledge that there is no better. Rolex is the pinnacle. The history of Rolex on film is not nearly as interesting as the scope of its wearers and how this simple act of either discreet or ostentatious display can define character. Take James Bond, a man whose breeding was forced upon…

Trailer number one for The Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman. He is joining the Yakuza, fighting the Yakuza; dressed head to toe in black, basically he is trying to fit in. Wolverine, or more accurately Logan, appears to be adopting the paradoxically traditional yet modern uniform of crime organisation the Yakuza, aka the Japanese Mafia. This is black on black shirt, tie, suit and lightweight (slip on) coat with black leather shoes. Despite a past that reaches all the way back to the sixteenth century, the Yakuza of today made most of their money during the 1980s financial boom. Their unofficial uniform is sourced from the French interpretation of classic era…

Part two of a new Dual Analysis costume film review. Based on the 1967 novel by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby is a story about a young couple that is (voluntarily, on the part of the husband, and unwittingly on the part of the wife) lured into a satanic cult. The wife, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is unknowingly impregnated with Satan’s spawn, and she slowly figures out what is happening to her as the movie progresses. This film gave me nightmares last night. It’s pretty creepy. A warning: do not watch this film if you are pregnant!! The young couple, Rosemary and Guy (John Cassavetes), moves into a beautiful Gothic apartment building…

There are already a lot of excellent interviews with Oscar winning Beauty and the Beast costume designer Jacqueline Durran online, so with my limited communication I wanted to ask a little more about Belle’s (Emma[…] MILD SPOILERS Director Ben Wheatley’s latest, Free Fire, is set in Boston, 1978, but was actually shot in Brighton in 2015. Being as the plot revolves around ten characters involved in a one hour plus[…] To tie-in with the release of Disney’s new live-action version of Beauty and Beast, the project’s Oscar winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran teamed up with students from Central Saint Martin’s college in London to reinterpret[…] The 1945 cinematic adaptation of…

That’ll do, costume. That’ll do. Captain America: The Winter Soldier Hello Tailor is stealing away your life with her rundowns of this mildly popular comic book movie. Not all are costume based, though all are worth reading. Here is PART 1. PART 2 PART 3 PART 4! Keeping it Cap America, Tyranny of Style has an interview with the film’s costume designer – and original Hunger Games changer – Judianna Makovsky HERE. Mad Men Janie Bryant launches ‘Janie Bryant Couture’. So basically that’s techy tights designed by one of the world’s best known costume designers. Game of Thrones The desi influence. A bit of a stretch, but still an intriguing…

British actress Emily Blunt garnered a Golden Globe nomination this week for her fine work on The Young Victoria (2009). As such we are presented with the perfect excuse to run a revealing interview with the film’s costume designer Sandy Powell. Sandy Powell is no newbie to the world of costume design. Having won an Academy Award for Shakespeare in Love (1998), she has also worked with producer of The Young Victoria, Martin Scorsese, several times too, notably on Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator (2004, again an Oscar winner) and 1950s set Shutter Island which is due out later this year. Evidently period costumes are Powell’s niche, but she is…