Best Make-Up & Hairstyling: Freaks, Schnozz, or Old Lady?

They use to disqualify movies from this Oscar if they used too much computer enhancement (see The Hours) and always wanted their makeup effects practical (like American Werewolf in London). But nowadays computer enhancements seem to be a non-issue (see several recent winners and one of this year's nominees Guardians of the Galaxy). There are four indisputable truths about this relatively young category and this Oscar branch and they are like so:

• They love old age makeup
• They worship werewolves and love fantastically weird creatures, but hate zombies
• Hairstyling was recently added to the official category name but usually the wig heavy movies lose to films that are more prosthetically-focused
• There should be five nominees like every other category since literally every live-action film employs makeup and hair. Not every film requires visual effects or original songs or even original scores and those categories all have 5 nominees.

The Nominees:

Foxcatcher - Bill Corso & Dennis Liddiard
Grand Budapest Hotel - Frances Hannon & Mark Coulier
Guardians of the Galaxy - Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou & David White

Corso and Coulier previously won Oscars (for Lemony Snicket and The Iron Lady respectively)  but the other four nominated artists are Oscarless. All three nominated films have a lot going for them but Foxcatcher would be a longshot since the recreation of existing people's looks via wig, hair and prosthetic enhancements generally has to settle for a nomination. But will they go with Guardians or Grand Budapest? It's tough to say. Guardians is well-loved -- I even talked to a voter who had it at #1 on his Best Picture ballot during the nomination round -- and very showy what with its rainbow of skin colors (blue, green, red you name it) and sci-fi hairdos and scarring. It wouldn't surprise me to see it win. But Grand Budapest Hotel has just about everything they love in this category: old age prosthetics, elaborate hair, memorable hideousness. And who can forget Tilda Swinton's glaucoma-plagued eyes, silver wigs, and old lady liver spots?

Will Win: Grand Budapest Hotel
Could Win: Guardians of the Galaxy
Should Win: Grand Budapest Hotel 

My ballot for this category (Hint: I'm thinking of renaming it "The Tilda Swinton Styling" Award)

Best Film Editing: Drums, Guns, or Twelve Years of "Boyhood"?

They call Editing the "invisible art" but when it comes to Oscar Watching each year, the prize is highly visible. Most pundits, armchair and professional, think of it as a bellwether. Everyone knows this one key stat: No movie has won Best Picture without an Editing nomination since Ordinary People (1980). But that stat is actually kind of misleading because it IS possible to win without an editing nomination and it's not even super rare. Birdman, should it triumph, would be the eighth film to do so... it used to happen about once a decade. Birdman's failure to get nominated in the category isn't particularly telling, if you ask me. Inarritu's technical gamble has very little visible editing given that the picture is a series of continuous shots stitched together in clever ways to appear to all be one thing.

The Nominees:

American Sniper - Joel Cox & Gary Roach
Boyhood - Sandra Adair
Grand Budapest Hotel - Barney Pilling
The Imitation Game - William Goldenberg
Whiplash - Tom Cross 

Should Boyhood lose the editing Oscar many people will be all "it's over, Birdman is winning!" but this isn't necessarily the case. In fact, Best Pictures only win this award about 50% of the time. Which is why this category feels up in the year. Any of the contenders could win: comedy doesn't win this category much (a pity since editing is so crucial to comic rhthyms) but Budapest feels like a real threat in all the craft categories; Boyhood could win on love for the film + respect for the time commitment but it's far less showily edited than the others and Oscar often wants to see your work;  If they want to honor American Sniper or The Imitation Game this could be the place for either with the ticking time bomb suspense that these former Oscar winners drum up; But speaking of drums... my bet is that Whiplash is the surprise winner here and I was going to make that call, I swear, before it won the BAFTA in this category. Whiplash's very masculine energies, focus on rhtymic intensity, and taut energy (despite repetitive scenes) are well served by this department. Bonus points for the editor's name being "Tom Cross". It's like an old fashioned stage name for a young movie star. It's just great. Well done, Mr & Mrs. Cross.

Will Win: Whiplash
Could Win: Boyhood
Should Win: Grand Budapest Hotel 

My ballot for this category 

Tim's Toons: Sex and Animation

Tim here. Two things are happening this weekend: one is Valentine's Day, when one's mind naturally turns to talk of romantic movies. The other, infinitely more exciting thing is the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, a movie about sex. Not a movie that contains sex; a movie in which sex is the sole facet of the plot. It's exciting to think of a high-profile wide-release blockbuster basing its whole identity on something adult and mature instead of yet another damn pre-pubescent techno-fantasy, even if FSOG is, by all accounts, not very good. At any rate, with cinematic sex at the forefront of everybody's minds, and since this is our weekly space for talking about the broad world of animation, how could I pass up a chance to talk about sexy cartoons?

The link between sex and animation goes way back – I've seen some silent animated pornography that would probably get me drummed out of Team Experience if I linked to it directly, but if you want to see the absolute weirdest damn thing you have encountered all week, Google "Eveready Harton" and make sure there aren't children around. But it reached its first pinnacle in the form of flapper Betty Boop. [More...]

Click to read more ...

"The Last Five Years" Is Here

My two favorite Off Broadway musicals of all time have both now made the trek to movie screens. Hedwig and the Angry Inch which I saw thrice in 1999 right after moving to NYC became an instant cult classic in film form thanks to its brilliant creator / star / writer John Cameron Mitchell. He just returned to the role on Broadway (though he's out for a bit after an injury so Michael C Hall is back to fill in for him). The second The Last Five Years took much longer. I saw it during the last week of its original run (whew!) in 2002 and 13 years later it's on screens with Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan as the troubled couple Cathy and Jamie who can't quite connect (illustrated narratively by his story moving forward while hers moves backwards through the relationship. It's not the unqualified success that Hedwig was but if you love the movie musical genre you really need to see it because it's a really unique beast.

Radius TWC is distributing which means there aren't many theaters playing it yet beyond Los Angeles, New York and Toronto but it's also available On Demand. On Oscar weekend it expands to several more cities. I'd love to hear from any TFE readers who see it. It's a very unusual musical to adapt since the concept is very theatrical and it's intimate whereas most movie musicals are big glitzy things. Wisely they cast two actors who can sing the hell out of its tremendously satisfying song score.

Two key blog posts in case you missed them...

Anna Kendrick Interview

Nathaniel: "Summer in Ohio"... I LOVE this version.
Anna Kendrick: I'm so glad. It was a ton of work. In the show she's writing a letter but I thought when I'm away from my boyfriend we Skype. And Cathy in that number is not just recounting her day, she's performing for Jamie because even at the beginning of their marriage she’s like “I have to keep him interested. I have to keep him in love with me”... [Read the Rest]

Toronto Film Festival Review

The first thing you see in The Last Five Years is a white brownstone. It looks almost like a ghost in the middle of a New York City block. As the notes begin to play, the camera drifts upwards to peer into windows and search for its movie star within them. No, that's not her.  Not her either. Ah, there she is. Anna Kendrick sings the entirety of "Still Hurting", moping around a dark apartment, crying. The camera moves around her (in strange patterns) and her voice is just beautiful. And then I realize I've forgotten to breathe and am gripping my armrest. [Read the Rest]

10 Days Til Oscar... What's Your Excitement Level Like?

It's ten days until Oscar night so each day going forward expect "final predictions" for each category and one last look at the 8 Best Pictures. But a quick question: If we can't go back to a 5 wide shortlist  (TFE's preference) would you prefer that AMPAS had stuck with a top ten for symmetry's sake? It's so difficult to compare years with 5, 8, 9, and 10 nominees, you know? If it were still a top ten as it was for two short years (2009 & 2010) which films do you think would have been the two additional nominees in Best Picture this year? It appears obvious that against the odds Foxcatcher, given that "lone director" nomination, was one of them but maybe Nightcrawler wasn't given that it only won a Screenplay nomination?

But we only have 8 movies to deal with this year and since the Oscar race is all subjectivity let's get real objective and rank them by totally measureable stats for a moment.

	Box Office	Longest To Shortest	RT/MC Ratings	Most Contemporary to Oldest Setting
1	Sniper (284)	Boyhood (166)	Boyhood (98/100)	Birdman (Now)
2	Imitation (75)	Sniper (132)	Selma (98/89)	Whiplash (Now)
3	Budapest (59)	Selma (127)	Whiplash (95/88)	Boyhood (2002-2013)
4	Selma (46)	Theory (123)	Budapest (92/88)	Sniper (1998-2013)
5	Birdman (35)	Birdman (119)	Birdman (92/88)	Theory (1963-1990s)
6	Theory (32)	Imitation (114)	Imitation (89/73)	Selma (1965)
7	Boyhood (25)	Whiplash (106)	Theory (80/72)	Imitation (1920s-1954)
8	Whiplash (9)	Budapest (100)	Sniper (73/72)	Budapest (1930s)

I guess I'm in a dark cloud mood today because I thought about adding "most to least onscreen deaths" but I realized beyond 1. Sniper 2. Budapest 3. Selma it was a 5 way tie for the others... unless well, what to do about Birdman? Again I was trying to stick to measureable things for fun this afternoon. And I thought about adding The Bechdel Test because it was just too damn depressing since I think only Boyhood passes it (maybe Birdman and Selma and Theory, too? Only if you're being generous and if they do its just barely)

While we're on the topic, make sure to vote on the Best Picture poll and on the other polls on the individual chart pages.