The costume vault

The Oscars have come and gone once more, and so I am faced once again with the task of analyzing and reviewing this year's nominees (and eventually the winner) for Best Achievement in Costume Design. The first of these nominees which I'll be covering in this year's retrospective will be Joe Wright's latest period drama; Darkest Hour , a movie that in the end leaves us quite unimpressed by the effort. It's a paint by numbers movie that even though it boasts of outstanding photography, camera work, and incredible acting talent, still manages to waste it all into a boring, run-of-the-mill script that has nothing new to offer. Darkest Hour  focusses on the one month span between Churchill becoming Prime Minister and his famous "never surrender" speech that marked the decisive moment in which Great Britain decided to confront Germany and Hitler head-on. And while it sounds interesting enough on paper, it doesn't help that it feels that betwe...

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the first of the planned spin-off/prequel series of the Harry Potter Saga and the screenwriting debut of J.K.Rowling, the mind behind the Harry Potter  books. This new installment is an ambitious attempt, both in scale and in narrative, as it tries to tell both a brand new story with brand new characters and also be linked to the original saga through the character of Grindelwald. The problem is that this juggling act forces the movie to fit in together two stories that have little to do with each other. On the one hand, there's Grindenwald and the Obscurial's story and on the other, the bizarre adventures of Newt Scamander as he tries to fetch back his creatures. Separately, these two stories, could have made for two entertaining movies, but the problem is that, together, they just don't mix  very well. On top of that, the radical changes in tone throughout the movie only manage to drag the final product further down. ...

Allied is a World War II romance with an old Hollywood flair. This newest Zemeckis' movie is definitely trying to be the next Casablanca or the next Notorious . And, while that is a good goal for a movie to have, it's not as good when if fails to actually get there. The sad truth is that  Allied lacks the passion, driving force and creativity to be either of those movies. Still, despite its most glaring flaws, Allied certainly has not a lack of ambition. Quite the contrary; it attempts to be a triumphal fanfare that both pays homage and injects new life into the great war movies of the 30's and 40's. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, it hardly amounts to a shallow imitation that it's lucky enough to be entertaining enough at certain points of its story. But, this movie's greatest fault is not its lack of spark or originality. Its worst crime is to contain two radically different movies in tone within its two-hour run-time. What do I mean...