by Nathaniel R
We can't be constrained by the now! Yesterday the Academy announced the 7 finalists hoping to nab one of the 3 nomination spots for Best Makeup and Hairstyling but we were too busy listing the past 35 (no 37) winners of this category to mention it. So here we are a day late without a stitch of makeup on to share / discuss and grouse about the exclusions. Join us after the jump won't you?
This remains a perpetually perplexing Oscar category. It's the only category with less than 5 nominees though every single film made (other than animated films and documentaries one could argue) includes a makeup and hairstyling department so the numbers just don't add up; many categories with 5 nominees like Visual Effects or Foreign Film or Original Song don't have EVERY MOVIE MADE IN A YEAR among their eligibility pool, you know? Makeup totally deserves 5 nominees (and a larger finalist list to boot), and we'll keep saying that until Oscar listens.
The finalists
The makeup branch will watch 10 minute highlight reels and then vote on January 6th to determine the 3 nominees for the 90th Oscars
- Bright
- Darkest Hour
- Ghost in the Shell
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- I, Tonya
- Victoria & Abdul
- Wonder
A literal of everything is included here: heavy genre-film prosthetics, biographical transformations, sci-fi and superhero oddities, comic personality enhancements, period finery. Given the confines of this small finalist list, though, it seems unlikely that Darkest Hour can lose this.
Notable Omissions
As usual many films with noteworthy makeup & hair work were left out. We're left wondering how on earth they were deemed inferior to some of those seven films above. We're talking: Atomic Blonde, The Bad Batch, Battle of the Sexes, The Beguiled, Blade Runner 2049, Lady Bird (Saoirse's skin alone -we've never seen teenage blemishes look that real when the actress in question has the most flawless porcelain skin imaginable in real life), mother!, Mudbound, My Cousin Rachel and The Shape of Water.
Two genres this category seems made to honor yet is perpetually disinterested in are horror (no It, really?) and superhero action. The latter genre includes a worthy option in Logan 's aging, scarring, and mutations but they could have also thought to honor Thor Ragnarok's pop aesthetic or Wonder Woman's engaging combo of glamour, grotesqueries, and period work. And if you take a less than charitable view of the category's history and deem this prize "Most Makeup"... you might wonder why Murder on the Orient Express and Power Rangers weren't in the finals either.
Who do you think will be nominated? What exclusion bugs you the most?