You asked for it, so here’s an occasional open thread to bitch about anything tangentially related to history, costume, movies, or TV shows! Or whatever else is on your mind right now. Note that URLs are automatically held for moderation, but most anything else goes as long as you’re not bitchier than we are!
Summer is all but over, and fall frock flicks are on the horizon. Will they be high quality or snarkable dreck? Your guess is as good as ours.
Have you said good-bye to summer?
I’m no expert on all historical fashion, but Jane Austen – Rise of a Genius on Britbox is horrid. What is she wearing? Puffy sleeves, a leather belt and reticule on her waist? WHYYYY.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2025/22/jane-austen-rise-of-a-genius
I’m guessing production didn’t care about costuming.
Earlier this summer, I watched a YouTube video from Aethelhampton House about getting dressed as a Tudor maid. It was confusing. I understand some of these videos take creative liberty with some clothing, mimicking the look without recreating the cut.
This video showed the maid getting dressed with a visibly torn smock. I don’t know why production decided to film using this smock, and chose not to repair it before filming.
The other weird part was the “apron,” a large piece of linen pulled under a leather belt. In all the period pictures I’ve seen, there was nothing like this “apron,” with a visible line of leather around the waist, and an upside down linen U above the belt. According to the voiceover, this poorly secured piece of fabric was a safety feature, as it could be removed quickly in case it caught fire. I don’t know what their research department was thinking.
The more I see of the new Sense and Sensibility, the worse it gets. Seriously, a turtleneck and cargo pants sans waistcoat on Edward Farrars, WTFrock is happening?! Oh and a bonus derpy bonnet sans hairpins on Elinor Dashwood? Why do they think this is enticing people to watch?! Rant over!
I just can’t with that. I had to watch the 1995 version after seeing the trailer. And don’t get me started on the hair! AARRGGHH! (Rant is also over).
A turtleneck and cargo pants? Is he a tech bro? Is he unable to marry Eleanor because he sank all of his capital into financing his innovative cotillion pairing app?!
Also, is anyone interested in an episodic recap of the Upstairs Downstairs revival?
A friend is trying to get a group of us to go to a local preview screening of this S&S. I said no because I had reservations based on the great hairpin shortage. She countered that she wanted to support one particular person in the cast. Said person already has thousands, if not millions, of mindless fan zombies. My not being there will make no difference whatsoever. I can understand if someone in the cast was a personal friend, but this is NOT the case. ugh I am really hating modern fandom.
Great cast actually. Such a WASTE!!
I’m mostly just counting down the days until season 4 of The Gilded Age comes out (hopefully November?). I didn’t really think I’d even like it that much when I first started it, but I’m pretty invested in the George and Bertha plot now.
Yes! When I first started watching the show it was a bit of an adjustment with original characters and no knowledge of where the plot would lead. I just trusted that it would be good because it was the team that created Downton Abbey. I am so addicted now. I just started rewatching again from the beginning. I know it’s a soap opera, but what high end suds they give us!
Honestly, I think I might like it a little more than Downton. It started off a bit weak, but I kept getting surprised by how much I kept liking it. I feel like Julian Fellowes actually read a lot of 19th century literature, because the characters feel mostly true to the period and not like modern stand-ins (looking at you, The Forsytes)
Apparently, he was inspired by the book To Marry an English Lord, an in-depth look at the American heiresses during the Gilded Age. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in the history. :)
I love that book! And it definitely shows with Gladys’ storyline, but sometimes I’ll find myself thinking that Marian and Aunt Ada should take a nice holiday to Avonlea.
Which makes me really wish that Fellowes would adapt “A Tangled Web”, because he’s at his best writing funny lines for big casts of costumed characters.
Looking at upcoming cinematic releases here in the UK (on IMDB), it doesn’t look like there’s much in the way of period films in September, just a couple of WW2 films (Pressure, about a meteorologist in the lead-up to D-Day, and De Gaulle, about the Free French leader) and of course the new Sense & Sensibility (what was wrong with the Emma Thompson version?!).
In October there’s The Uprising, the Andrew Garfield film which seems to have started life as a film about the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 but somehow morphed into a Robin Hood film…?!?!
Relevant link re: The Uprising:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/27/andrew-garfield-the-uprising-movie-robin-hood
Yeah, so “The Uprosing” is about uprising of the peasants, pissed off because the bad, bad king took away their cloth dyes.
I just found out on another forum that actress-turned-wannabe-director Rebecca Hirani has said “hold my beer” to actress-turned-director Emerald Fennell — and has barfed out a forthcoming “sequel” of sorts.
Brace yourself for new depths of craptastic in — WUTHERING HEIGHTS: THE HOUSE OF THE DAMNED.
Per IMDb:
“The dark and gothic soul of Emily Brontë’s classic novel is exposed in this horror adaptation, where Heathcliff’s obsession with his beloved Catherine deepens to a murderous state of madness. Catherine’s vengeful ghost haunts the halls of Wuthering Heights, terrorising its occupants and all who venture there. Heathcliff must satisfy Catherine’s bloodlust in order to keep her presence there, performing human sacrifices on unassuming victims for her soul to be able to possess a new body; a living body that he can feel and touch once more. The lovers’ plan to reunite is hindered, however, when dashing newcomer Mr Lockwood, a new tenant of the neighbouring cottage, arrives at Wuthering Heights. Lockwood’s innocent interference leads to him being entangled in the sinful affairs of the family and trapped at the estate in a series of unfortunate events. As Lockwood grows more sick, weary and delusional, the more he encounters Catherine’s tortured ghost. Can he escape Wuthering Heights before he himself becomes subject to the lovers’ deadly ploy?”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38907742/?_ssoLoop=1
WUT. Is this going to be a cinematic universe now?
Wuthering Heights 2: This Time It’s Personal?
2 Wuthering 2 Heights?
Wuthering Heights: Tokyo Drift?
LOL! Don’t forget — WUTHERING HEIGHTS: THE WUTHERING.
And according to the credits on that trailer, Rebecca/Becca Hirani (per IMDb, aka “Becky Fletcher” in early acting roles) is directing, producing and editing as “Rebecca J Matthews” — as with her earlier direct-to-streaming ventures NUTCRACKER MASSACRE, CANNIBAL TROLL, WITCHES OF AMITYVILLE ACADEMY, PET GRAVEYARD, and BAD NUN: DEADLY VOWS, among a surprisingly large number of others in this vein.
(And no, I never heard of her before someone posted about this thing elsewhere, and got me curious enough to look at the IMDb listings.)
This “sequel” sounds closer to Wuthering Heights: My Immortal.
‘My name is Katherine Urnshaw n im GOFFIK. I wear black fishnets n hot topic eyeliner n a miniskirt made of pink vinyl as i walk gloomily across teh moors. One day I saw heathcliff aka Vampire n he was wearing tight leather pants n a trenchcoat he looked soooooo hot. I walked up to him goffikly n said “hey vampire lets make out” n he said “no ur 2 prep 4 me” n i said “nuh uh im more goffik than u” n to prove it i drank teh blud of a prep n put on mcr real loud. Vampire said “ok ur goffik” n we went up to teh attic n he put his thingy in my u kno what’
Brilliant XD
LOL! Sadly, that’s probably better dialogue and more entertaining than what you’re sending up…
Sweet baby Jesus. Can we stop this? If not, can we at least start referring to these exploitative “artists” as Rebecca Fucking Hirani and Emerald Fucking Fennell? They deserve it as much as Philippa Fucking Gregory.
I totally agree on “Emerald Fucking Fennell” — every bit as deserving as “Philippa Fucking Gregory.” But I’ve got to disagree on “Rebecca Fucking Hirani.”
For one thing, though “Becca Hirani” is the name on her personal IMDb page as well as the name that the IMDb credits the director of WH:THOTD on its own page, she doesn’t seem to use that as a professional name.
The actual credits on the preview are for “Rebecca J Matthews” — same as with most of her other credits as actress and director. It’s unclear from what’s on IMDb where the “Hirani” even comes into it.
And since she’s such a no-name, small-potatoes offender, grinding out junky fodder for the streaming market — more frequently but with nowhere near the reach of Fennell or Gregory — may I propose instead “Rebecca Jacking-off Matthews” as an alternate?
(Assuming, of course, we ever even have a reason to mention her again.)
Pardon me if I don’t want my heights wuthered any more than they already have been. Leave Heathcliff and Catherine’s ghosts to roam the moors in whatever passes for peace.
There’s the Night and Day adaptation coming state-side! It doesn’t look awful, but wrong decade, as I’m sure the Novel by Virginia Woolf was set in the early 1910s, pls correct me if I’m wrong!
I saw that in the cinema – it came out in the UK a while back. I thought it was…OK. (It is indeed set around 1911-12, though it otherwise deviates a far bit from the novel, to my knowledge.)
“Uprising,” starring Andrew Garfield Shouting looks like it could be entertainingly bad and “The Weight” starring Ethan Hawke looks like it could be good.
Has anyone read the novel “Victorian Psycho?” I’m waffling about whether to read it before the movie comes out.
So on the arr Byzantium subreddit someone posted a still from a now lost (except perhaps in some older person’s basement) 80’s costume drama called Purple and Blood (Porphyra Kai Aima), which was about the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa and the battle of Manzikert.
A Greek production from the 1980’s probably had a smaller budget than some of the big studio mega-epics floating around, and yet…judging by this one still, they managed to frock the flick better than so many big budget productions. Romanos’s costume is adorned with gold medallions that look something like goat teats, BUT, it’s purple velvet with gold or at least well-done fake gold trimmings. Empress Eudokia: has her hair up! HAS HER HAIR UP, everyone! Netted in jewels and covered with a veil. And her dress, while it might not be strictly costume period accurate, is purple and silver and fits well and looks convincingly like what an Empress might wear! Romanos is NOT in quilted black pleather with inexplicable silver chains at the shoulders. Eudokia is NOT in a Thrift Shop Prom Dress Special with hot-glued rhinestones! Her jewelry does not look like a Claire’s close-out! And did I mention SHE IS WEARING HER HAIR UP? Because someone in the stylist department must have insisted that Empresses in general wear their hair up and elaborately confined (see the mosaics of Zoe Porphyrogenita and Irene of Hungary – those ‘dos must have taken hours and several ornatrices) and especially a middle-aged mother of grown sons isn’t going to be sashaying around the palace in beachy waves.
I and some other poster who might well be a Frock Flicks reader were agonizing over not being able to see the full movie because of the costumes.
Would love to see a MCM on Winston Churchill. There are so many films where he is represented. Operation Mincemeat, The Gathering Storm, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare to name a few. Have a good fall and if you’re in California prepare for rain.
I’ve been thinking about it, except it’s such a mammoth production since Churchill has been portrayed in a million shows! Some day :)