Anne Hathaway was deemed best dressed — by people who dress her for work.
The “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Dark Knight Rises” actress, who’s nominated for the supporting actress Academy Award for her role in “Les Miserables,” was honored Tuesday evening with the spotlight award at the 15th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards. The spotlight award honors actors and directors for their collaborations with costume designers.
“I especially treasure the moment that happens on set when all the choices have been made, rehearsal is done, you’re about to start, you look down and you believe in what you’re wearing, so that way when you look up, you are gone, and it’s finally the character’s moment to come alive,” said Hathaway while accepting her trophy.
Other celebrity attendees at the Beverly Hills Hotel ceremony hosted by “Community” star Joel McHale included Jon Hamm, Connie Britton, Shirley MacLaine, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Russell Crowe, who presented Hathaway with her prize.
The costume designers behind “Skyfall,” ”Anna Karenina” and “Mirror Mirror” won the night’s top prizes. Unlike the Oscars, which lump costume design into one category, the Costume Designers Guild divides film honors across three genres.
The winners were Jany Temime (“Skyfall”) for contemporary film, Jacqueline Durran (“Anna Karenina”) for period film and Eiko Ishioka (“Mirror Mirror”) for fantasy film.
Durran and the late Ishioka will compete against Joanna Johnston (“Lincoln”), Paco Delgado (“Les Miserables”) and Colleen Atwood (“Snow White and the Huntsman”) for the costume design Oscar at Sunday’s 85th annual Academy Awards.
In the TV categories, the winners were Caroline McCall (“Downton Abbey”) for period/fantasy series, Molly Maginnis (“Smash”) for contemporary series, Lou Eyrich (“American Horror Story: Asylum”) for TV movie or mini-series and Judianna Makovsky in the commercial category for a Captain Morgan ad.
“Ugly Betty” and “Once Upon a Time” costume designer Eduardo Castro received the career achievement in TV honor. Makovsky, whose credits include “Big” and “The Hunger Games,” was awarded the career achievement award in film.
“I completely forgot I put Tom Hanks in a pair of child’s underpants,” Makovsky said following a montage of her work.
Other winners included “Titanic” and “Minority Report” assistant costume designer David Le Vey for the distinguished service award and “Saturday Night Live” executive producer Lorne Michaels for the distinguished collaborator award, which was presented by funnyman and “SNL” alum Steve Martin.
“Congratulations, Lorne. I’m so proud of you,” said Martin. “It’s going to be a long time before I forget this night, but believe me when I tell you, I will forget it.”
Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky
Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.
The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.
The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.
Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
"They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More