We're almost to the nominations, can you believe it? So we're furiously trying to wrap up our predictions. Let's do Costume Design and the rest of the eye candy categories.
COSTUME DESIGN
My favourite tech category should give three-time winner Sandy Powell a historic THIRD double-nomination in a single category with both Mary Poppins Returns and The Favourite feeling secure for nominations. It also feels like there's little chance that Black Panther could miss, and we expect voters will want to take this opportunity to finally hand Ruth E Carter her Oscar (this will be her third Oscar nomination, tying her with Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer for most Oscar nominations for a black woman). Those are the locks...
There are dozens upon dozens of contenders out there in films like First Man, If Beale Street Could Talk, A Simple Favor, BlacKkKlansman, Cold War, Suspiria, Wildlife, Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Fantastic Beasts 2, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, and many more. We'd love to predict a curveball nomination for Lindy Hemming's amusing work on Paddington 2, since she's gotten to Oscar before without CDG or BAFTA support, but the odds are against her since the last time she did that (Topsy-Turvy in 1999) her film was a latebreaker and a period piece and Paddington 2 opened a full year ago, which is ancient history for voters! So we're banking on voters being somewhat lazy and giving another nomination to Alexandra Byrne for Mary Queen of Scots (she's already won the Oscar for costuming this exact same story in Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and to throw Bohemian Rhapsody yet another bone for the recreation of Freddie Mercury's flamboyant looks.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
We've been predicting the same five films for this category for months and months but we're going to make one switch. The locks feel like Roma, Cold War, and First Man which were all nominated for the ASC and BAFTA. The ASC threw A Star is Born and The Favourite into the mix and BAFTA countered with Bohemian Rhapsody (shudder) and The Favourite. Though we personally love Matthew Libatique's cinematography on A Star is Born (its concert sequences run circles around that other rock drama) we have to assume that its slight fade in awards season is going to cost it somewhere and perhaps that'll be here. So we're guessing that The Favourite's fish eyes and candle light sequences make it instead. Meanwhile, we're staying out on that previous limb of guessing that If Beale Street Could Talk will pick up enough steam to show up out of nowhere since it's beyond beautiful and shot by a former Oscar nominee. We shudder to think of Bohemian Rhapsody as a distinct possibility but BAFTA tells us otherwise. Remember when The King's Speech was nominated for the Oscar in this category for no reason that was plain to the eyeballs other than that the movie was popular?
MAKEUP AND HAIR
A true nail-biter as this category is notoriously hard to predict and all seven of the finalists feel viable for a nomination. Of the Oscar finalists BAFTA honored Bohemian Rhapsody, Mary Queen of Scots, Stan & Ollie, and Vice. But Oscar only has three slots and the other competitors: Black Panther, Border, and Suspiria feel just as likely, really. This branch changes its mind about what it's looking for all the time but they're weirdly resistant to horror so we're calling Suspiria the easiest to rule out and Black Panther the second because it's hair and makeup work is more subtle than its competition. We're including Border because if it made the finalist list, its VERY deserving makeup work has not gone unappreciated within the branch. Plus, if you've seen the movie, it's very hard to forget, even if you don't particularly like the movie. As much as we don't want to include Bohemian Rhapsody we're bracing for plentiful inexplicable nominations so we'll say that Rami's distracting fake teeth somehow make the cut. For the last slot a true free for all. Let's assume the two other celebrities transforming into other celebritys (Vice and Stan & Ollie) cancel each other out and Mary Queen of Scots rises since it's got fancy hairstyles and crazy sickbed makeup.
FILM EDITING
Sigh. It's so insane that we have to consider Bohemian Rhapsody which is stitched together from Bryan Singer remnants and DP Thomas Newton Sigel takeover and then the third guy who came in to wrap it up, but the BAFTA and ACE Editing nominations tell us that we must. That said, what a competitive and showy category this is this year. Best Picture heat and ACE Eddie nominations suggests that The Favourite and Roma and Green Book are all threats despite not having showy editing. ACE nominated First Man has been cleaning up with the guilds so it might make it in even if it misses Best Picture. And then you have your showy also ACE nominated options like BlacKkKlansman, Vice and A Star is Born. And even though they weren't ACE nominated you have to think that Black Panther, A Quiet Place, or maybe even Mission: Impossible - Fallout could surprise since action movies are not automatically shunned in this category. I mean toss a coin right? I'm going to guess A Star is Born, Vice, The Favourite, and First Man all make it. Going out on something of a big limb, let's predict that the sublime Roma misses (it can't be nominated EVERYWHERE) and is ridiculously replaced by Bohemian Rhapsody because that would be such a fitting capper on this truly bizarre awards season. Also a truly bizarre cap on this awards season, that the impressively confrontational editing of BlacKkKlansman doesn't seem to have heat in this category. What's that about?
PRODUCTION DESIGN
We're sticking with the five we've been predicting for a long time here: The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, Black Panther, First Man, and Roma. It's PROBABLY foolish to bet against Stuart Craig getting his umpteenth nomination for the Harry Potter universe but we are doing just that. Sue us!
PREDICTION INDEX -- all categories now updated except for leading acting & short films