July 5, 2008 world of men's style / fashion / grooming RSS

KEMPT

A blog dedicated to the interesting, scandalous, useful and cutting edge in the world of men’s style, fashion and grooming.

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Filmic
06/12/08 ·

Filmic

Playtime

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There are some pretty great life stories out there, but Hugh Hefner has to be one of the better ones. So we’re understandably excited to hear that someone’s finally thinking about the movie version.

In an interview with Comingsoon.net, Hef gives some details on the project including attached director (Brett Ratner) and hopeful star (Robert Downey Jr.). Although Hef claims Iron Man has nothing to do with it, it’s hard to ignore Downey’s recent take on Tony Starks as a techier version of the Playboy magnate. As for Ratner, we assume he’ll go easy on the car chases.

More on Hef: The Movie»

06/03/08 ·

Filmic

Harry’s Back

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Today sees the Blu-ray rerelease of the Dirty Harry series. As with most series, the law of diminishing returns sets in pretty quickly—and the less said about Slash’s cameo in The Dead Pool, the better—but the first movie hasn’t lost any of its iconic magic. The trick was the timing: Harry took the free-floating animosity of the era, put a right-wing twist on 60s anti-establishment sentiments, and wrapped it all in a tweed blazer. With elbow patches»

05/27/08 ·

Filmic

The Middlebrow

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Kempt bids a fond farewell to Sydney Pollack today, a filmmaker who made his name on restraint, subtle humanism and consummate professionalism. In short, a man in full. As his recent co-star George Clooney put it, “Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act. He will be missed.”

More on Mr. Pollack»

05/13/08 ·

Filmic

The Silver Ghost

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Any brand with a decent bit of history behind it is bound to have a few stories in its files. Take, for instance, Rolls Royce’s famous hood ornament, a statuette with enough history to have a movie deal behind it.

The movie is The Silver Ghost, set to star Christian Bale and currently making the pre-production rounds. But the story itself is better than you might think»

03/19/08 ·

Filmic

The Talented Mr. Minghella

ripley1_crop.jpgThe Talented Mr. Ripley

In the wake of Anthony Minghella’s unexpected death, we thought we might take a look at the sartorial legacy his short body of work has left. His longtime collaboration with costume designer Ann Roth—beginning with The English Patient—cast a long shadow over his short body of work. His movies had a real sense of style, remarkable for both its faithfulness to the period and its emotional effect.

More on Anthony Minghella»

02/26/08 ·

Filmic

There Will Be Shoes

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We applauded Daniel Day-Lewis’ Oscar win Sunday night as recognition for both a great actor and a great man of style, but also an excellent cobbler.

Everyone needs a hobby.

More on the Oscar-cobbling connection»

01/04/08 ·

Filmic

The New Bond Girl Next Door

Gemma

Ah, the Bond Girl—intended as a paragon of her species, the female foil and flame of cinema’s ultimate embodiment of masculinity says more about what we wish women were than what they are. Beginning with Ursula Andress (who emerged Aphrodite-like from the surf), the history of Bond’s beauties is a long and luscious chronicle of our desires both sublime (Barbara Bach’s Agent XXX) and ignoble (Denise Richards’ Dr. Christmas Jones).

Read more about the new Bond beauty »

12/20/07 ·

Filmic

Bond's "Big Into" Tom

Daniel Craig in GQ

It appears that the “brutal” new James Bond is something of a prima donna. At the cover shoot for GQ’s December Men of the Year issue, deconstructed 007 Daniel Craig refused to wear any of the designer duds the magazine’s fashion mavens picked out for him, insisting instead on a suit of his own. Having caught wind of the clothing contretemps, we asked GQ’s Adam Rapoport, who wrote the Craig cover story, what went down.

His report from the shoot after the jump »

12/05/07 ·

Filmic

Ode to Joy

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Now that the weather feels like Manchester, we thought it appropriate to chime in on the much ballyhooed Ian Curtis biopic Control. While The Clash’s Joe Strummer worked hard to achieve style icon status, Joy Division frontman Curtis only really reached his posthumously—and even then to a much lesser degree. Of course, since he killed himself in 1980 at the age of 23, he didn’t get much of a chance. But rakish rock’n’roll photographer Anton Corbijn goes some way toward setting the record straight in his supercool film.

More on the stylish trappings of Curtis’ life »

11/27/07 ·

Filmic

Culture Clash

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Few rock bands have had a greater influence on the cultural landscape than The Clash. Trying to trace all the evidence of their inspiration on fashion alone would be a Herculean task, but their influence on modern menswear can be seen in the designs of everyone from Helmut Lang to Hedi Slimane.

The Clash’s frontman, Joe Strummer, who died in 2002, was responsible for most of what made them great. You can see how it all went down in punk auteur Julien Temple’s excellent new documentary, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten—and maybe pick up a few style tips of your own.

Strummer was a genius with color and contrast for one thing; after all, this is the guy who mixed preppy pink and green with an iconic punk rock photograph on the cover of London Calling.

11/14/07 ·

Filmic

London Calling

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It turns out that American Gangster costume designer Janty Yates was being semi-truthful when she said that Denzel Washington wore bespoke Savile Row suits in the flick. “Page Six” notes in passing that Denzel’s dapper duds—some 30 suits, worth well over $100,000—were in fact made by English custom tailor Leonard Logsdail of… East 53rd St. in Manhattan…

11/06/07 ·

Filmic

Gangster Wrap

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In American Gangster, Denzel Washington’s up-and-coming Harlem druglord character Frank Lucas eschews the pimp aesthetic in favor of some very sharp suits. On his journey from bumpkin to kingpin, Lucas learns some important sartorial lessons; the quiet, understated elegance of his clothing allows him to pass as a respectable businessman while flashier rivals get picked off by the cops.

—J.P.S.