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On the fuglification of Richard Armitage: Oh Peter Jackson, how could you do this to Richard Armitage? For those not familiar with Mr Armitage, he normally looks like this. Better, right?

On Harry Potter: I'm not super fannish about Harry Potter. I only went to the midnight screening because a friend organised it and I've never been involved in the fandom. Occasionally I feel the urge to read fic for certain characters - I went through a Tonks/Lupin phase last year and right now I'm reading a quite good James/Lily fic (though it does have the most appalling overuse of epithets I've ever seen. The Gryffindor/the redhead/the witch/the prefect - just call her Lily).

( Random thoughts on Slytherin and house rivalry )

On Inception: Five ways I would describe Arthur in canon: loyal, capable, intelligent, sarcastic, well-dressed.

Five ways I would describe Arthur in fanon: repressed, aloof, unimaginative, cold, constantly wearing a three-piece suit.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I've gotten a couple of comments during the past month on the costume meta that I wrote and they've all mentioned that they also think that canonical Arthur is nowhere near as uptight as the fandom generally writes him. ( More on characterisation )

On Harry Potter and Inception: My dashboard on Tumblr was 40% Harry Potter and 40% Inception all weekend. So I sent the dream team to Hogwarts.

( Fic: Construction )

It's rare that contemporary costume design in a film makes you sit up and take notice. Sometimes while watching a movie I'll think to myself "Hey, that's a cute dress!" or "How can she run in those heels?" or "How the hell can that character afford this wardrobe?!" but it is few and far between where I look at contemporary design and feel admiration and appreciation for the costumes as a whole.

Inception is one of those films. From start to finish I am in awe of designer Jeffrey Kurland's work. He had the difficult task of creating costumes for a largely corporate world set five minutes in the future and that could have resulted in everyone wearing futuristic suits of the same cut. Instead, the looks in this film are modern takes on classic silhouettes which magically equals fashion forward somehow. There are a few great stand out pieces, some subtle referencing of fashion archetypes that serve as characterisation shorthand, and there are a lot of unglamorous everyday looks that give authenticity to the characters' lives.

Clothing, especially the suits, is a huge part of the Inception fandom: there has been a tonne load of suit!porn, writers generally mention what the characters are wearing, it frequently informs the characterisation (especially of Arthur, but also Eames), and there has been a lot of fantastic art drawn to showcase the characters' outfits. There have even been a couple of great guides with hackthis's tutorial How to dress your man/character and butterflythread's essay on Dressing Arthur. Fandom, on the whole, loves Kurland's work.

You want to know who isn't loving it? The critics who hand out awards for such things. Now I never expected Kurland to win any awards because contemporary design is rarely recognised when there are period and fantasy films to contend with. Any film featuring kings and queens of the past is a shoe-in for a nomination (crowns! ceremonial robes!); add in films about classic literary figures or based on the work of classic literary figures (corsets! frock coats!), musicals (sequins! fringe!), fantasy epics (armour! tunics!), and sci-fi (uniforms! shiny!), and contemporary design starts to look like something you could buy at the mall.

The last time a film with contemporary design won the Oscar for best costumes was 1994 and as that film was The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert it still featured a high quotient of sequins and fringe. The Queen and The Devil Wears Prada were both nominated in 2006 and the former had the benefit of royals and being a biopic, while the latter was actually about contemporary fashion and its importance, and they still couldn't win (losing out to Marie Antoinette, natch).

Warner Brothers has done some campaigning on Kurland's behalf (see here and here for the 'For your consideration' ads) but, generally speaking, in order to win the big awards (or even get nominated for them) you need to build up momentum by getting recognition from the smaller, earlier awards. And as of this posting Kurland has received just one nomination for his work. This is in the contemporary category of the Costume Designers Guild Awards (because they do have specific categories for contemporary design as well as period and fantasy) and will face stiff competition from Black Swan, which has also been nominated for a BAFTA. The award ceremony will be held on the 22nd of February.

So the purpose of this picspam is to examine the work that went into these costumes, tease out what they say about the characters, and generally just heap praise upon Jeffrey Kurland because, dammit, someone should.



( And hey, if you don't like Inception but you do like good looking men in suits then just sit back and enjoy the pretty. )

I had it in my head that The Good Wife was back last night (and thus I would be able to download it today) but alas, it did not, so I could not.

A shame, because I'm really, really hankering for some awesome female-centric TV right now.

By my reckoning, the new hour-longs (I'm not wading into sitcom territory) with the most critical buzz are: Boardwalk Empire, Lone Star, and Terriers. However, I haven't felt a strong inclination to check any of them out because they are all male-centric. My understanding (based mostly on short promos and reviews from people like Alan Sepinwall) is that they break down like this:

- Terriers: Focuses on two unlicensed male PIs. Apparently, one has a well-written girlfriend and the other has a cliche of an ex-wife, but both are supporting characters.

- Boardwalk Empire: Male main character, whole bunch of male supporting characters, and Kelly MacDonald, who is/will be romantically involved with a male character. Also, as it is set in the 20s, chances for empowered, independent females who have goals and achieve them are slim to non.

- Lone Star: Male main character, four supporting male characters, 2 supporting female characters, both of whom are love interests of the main male character.

[This meta could take a turn for the serious if I was to do more in-depth research into the cast make-ups of all of these shows, but, as my mother has informed me, most viewers don't read half-a-dozen blogs or check YouTube for trailers when deciding what new shows to watch. They catch a promo on TV, they read a blurb in the TV guide, and they need to be hooked on the premise by that. So I'm doing this largely from the POV of the average viewer and also, I don't want to research a bunch of shows that have already failed to grab me, which is kind of my point.]

Now, just scrolling through the my mental Rolodex of new shows, I can think of only three where a female is unquestionably the main character: Body of Proof (not airing for another month or so), Nikita, Hellcats.

If anyone can think of anymore, please tell me! Until then, let this thought fester: two of those shows are on The CW, which, yes, does skew towards a young female audience anyway, but still. The freakin' CW is telling more new female stories than any other network.

Now, there are shows where a female shares the lead with a male. Off the top of my head: The Whole Truth (as far as I know, they are old friends but are not romantically involved and they are opponents in court), Undercovers (husband and wife), My Generation (seems to be a fairly balanced ensemble but I can't tell if there is a lead or not largely because there's been barely any buzz, good or bad, about it), No Ordinary Family, and Chase (Daniel Fienberg says "Justified is a star vehicle for Timothy Olyphant and In Plain Sight is the same for Mary McCormack. Chase isn't built the same was for Kelli Giddish, who gets the most screentime, but definitely is part of the sort of ensemble you'd see going after serial killers on CBS", which I take to mean that this isn't her story they're telling nor that they are filtering it through her POV (also, he says she's poorly written as a character too)).

Other new hour-longs with male leads: Outlaw, Hawaii Five-O, Detroit 1-8-7, The Event (actually, I don't think this has a clear lead but Jason Ritter and Blair Underwood appear to be the protagonists, Laura Innes and Scott Patterson seem to be supporting, Zeljko Ivanek seems to be supporting anatgonist, and Sarah Roemer pushes the plot forward by disappearing), Blue Bloods (again, not sure if Tom Selleck is the lead, but it is a largely male ensemble), and The Defenders.

So, for the TL;DR crowd:

- Male leads: 9

- Female leads: 3

- Male and Female lead/largely balanced ensemble: 5

In conclusion: write more TV shows with women as the main characters, where they get to be multifaceted, have goals and desires of their own, and be successful in their jobs and relationships.

You know, this was going to be a quick rant before I talked about the amazingness that is Being Erica (for the things that I listed above) but now I am spent. I'll be back later.