The first Guild Nominations are here!

by Cláudio Alves

THE SUBSTANCE continues to be a hit with precursors. A rare feat for horror cinema.

So far, the season has been dominated by critics' awards, which, while worthy of attention, don't offer great help when it comes to predicting the Oscars. After all, AMPAS is formed by industry people rather than critics. So, the guilds are a better indicator of what might be a hit with the Academy and, at long last, we're starting to see the first guild nominations. These past few days, the American Cinema Editors (ACE) and the Makeup Artist & Hair Stylist Guild (MUHS) announced their yearly honors. The Producers Guild of America (PGA) also announced their documentary contenders. Let's see what we can deduce from the results so far…

AMERICAN CINEMA EDITORS

Best Edited Feature Film – Drama, Theatrical 

• CIVIL WAR, Jake Roberts
• CONCLAVE, Nick Emerson
• DUNE: PART TWO, Joe Walker
• EMILIA PÉREZ, Juliette Welfling
• FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA, Eliot Knapman & Margaret Sixel

Best Edited Feature Film – Comedy, Theatrical 

• ANORA, Sean Baker
• A REAL PAIN, Robert Nassau
• CHALLENGERS, Marco Costa
• THE SUBSTANCE, Coralie Fargeat, Jérôme Eltabet & Valentin Féron
• WICKED, Myron Kerstein

Best Edited Animated Feature Film

• FLOW, Gints Zilbalodis
• INSIDE OUT 2, Maurissa Horwitz
• MOANA 2, Jeremy Milton & Michael Louis Hill
• WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL, Dan Hembery
• THE WILD ROBOT, Mary Blee

Best Edited Documentary Feature

• BEATLES '64, Mariah Rehmet
• JIM HENSON: IDEA MAN, Sierra Neal & Paul Crowder
• HER NAME WAS MOVIOLA, Howard Berry
• SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY, Otto Burnham
• WILL & HARPER, Monique Zavistovski

Best Edited Feature Film – Non-Theatrical

• AM I OK?, Kaula M. Emter & Glen Scantlebury
• ROAD HOUSE, Doc Crotzer
• UNFROSTED, Evan Henke

In the 21st century, only two films managed to win the Best Picture Oscar without first being recognized by the American Cinema Editors – Spotlight in 2015 and CODA in 2021. So, this is terrible news for The Brutalist and September 5. I still think the latter will secure a nomination from the Academy's editors branch, but this proves it's less liked than one might have presumed. In contrast, Civil War and Furiosa rise as potential contenders. If not for Best Editing, then for other technical honors. There's undoubtedly some industry love there, as well as for The Substance and Challengers. Seems that Hollywood awards voters aren't as allergic to horror and erotic melodrama as some believed. Like Best Actress, the editing race could go a million different ways this season and I, for one, can't begin to tell you how much this unpredictability thrills me.

The animated feature nominations also point toward Flow's popularity beyond the critics. The documentary honors are as conventional as ever, much more so than the Academy's branch as of late. The Oscars aren't fond of celebrity profiles, which dominate this lineup. It is fun to see a movie on the Moviola getting celebrated by editors. Feels fitting, doesn't it?

MAKEUP ARTISTS & HAIR STYLISTS GUILD

Best Contemporary Make-Up

• THE DELIVERANCE, Beverly Jo Pryor, Eric Pagdin, Chloe Sens & Doug Fairall
• EMILIA PÉREZ, Julia Floch Carbonel & Simon Livet
• IT ENDS WITH US, Sarah Graalman, Vivian Baker & Melanie Licata
• SMILE 2, Sasha Grossman & Valerie Carney
• THE SUBSTANCE, Stéphanie Guillon

Best Period and/or Character Make-Up

• BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, Christine Blundell, Lesa Warrener, Charmaine Fuller, Mona Turnbull & Chloe Meddings
• DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, Bill Corso, Whitney James, Paula Price, Monica Huppert & Cyndi Reece-Thorne
• GLADIATOR II, Jana Carboni, Charlie Hounslow, Maria Solberg Lepre, Lauren Baldwin & Chantal Busuttil
• MAXXXINE, Sarah Rubano, Mandy Artusato & Akiko Matsumoto
• WICKED, Frances Hannon, Alice Jones, Nuria Mbornio, Johanna Nielsen & Branka Vorkapic

Best Special Make-Up Effects

• A DIFFERENT MAN, Mike Marino, David Presto & Crystal Junado
• BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, Jennifer Kewley, Megan Thomas & Martin Rezard
• DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, Bill Corso, Andrew Clement, Monica Huppert, Geoff Redknap & Robb Crafer
• THE DELIVERANCE, Jason Collins, Chloe Sens & Michael McCarty
• THE SUBSTANCE, Pierre-Olivier Persin

Best Contemporary Hair Styling

• IT ENDS WITH US, Robert Lugo, Vita Viscuso & Anne Carroll
• MEGALOPOLIS, Terrie Velazquez Owen, April Schuller, Tracy Moss, Victor Paz & Alexis Continenente
• THE DELIVERANCE, Melissa Forney, Linda Flowers, Tommie Ammons, Jackie Noel & Eric Matthews
• THE LAST SHOWGIRL, Katy McClintock, Marc Boyle & Stephanie Hobgood
• THE SUBSTANCE, Frédérique Arguello

Best Period and/or Character Hair Styling

• BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, Christine Blundell, Lesa Warrener, Susan Cole, Charmaine Fuller & Chloe Meddings
• BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE, Carla Farmer, Nadia Stacey & Morris Roots
• GLADIATOR II, Giuliano Mariano, Kerstin Weller, Romina Ronzani, Nicola Mariano & Marcelle Genovese
• SHIRLEY, Nakoya Yancey, Wayne Jolla Jr., Gayette Williams & Lisa Thomas
• WICKED, Frances Hannon, Sarah Nuth, Sim Camps & Gabor Kerekes

It seems Megalopolis isn't so dead after all, even if Coppola and his team seem entirely uninterested in awards gold and don't seem to be campaigning much. But the big news here has to be the multiple nods for Lee Daniels' The Deliverance. Can another of Glenn Close's shots at Netflix-produced Grand Guignol nab a Makeup nod at the Oscars? Hey, it worked for the dreadful Hillbilly Elegy.

There's a temptation to look at the guild's love for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Gladiator II, The Substance and Wicked and presume they are Oscar shoo-ins, with Emilia Pérez, A Different Man and maybe even Deadpool & Wolverine battling it out for the last slot. However, the MUHS isn't always in synchronicity with AMPAS. Just last year, Society of the Snow was shut out altogether before securing an Oscar nomination.

But also, where is Nosferatu?

PRODUCERS GUILD AWARDS

Outstanding Producer of Documentary Motion Picture 

• GAUCHO
• MEDIHA
• MOUNTAIN QUEEN: THE SUMMITS OF LHAKPA SHERPA
• PORCELAIN WAR
• SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY
• WE WILL DANCE AGAIN

Now, it's important to note that PGA has a much more conservative and Hollywood-forward taste in non-fiction cinema than the Academy's increasingly eclectic and international Documentary Branch. For example, it's exceedingly rare for the PGA to nominate films without a distributor, but AMPAS often shortlists them, with 2022's A House Made of Splinters making it to the final ballot. That means we shouldn't count out No Other Land entirely. Confrontationally political and international films also have an easier time with AMPAS than the PGA voters.

But maybe the biggest takeaway from these nods is a matter of precedent and the category's recent history. Lately, there's always a couple of documentary frontrunners that garner a mountain of support from precursors and then get snubbed by the Academy. Remember the PGA-nominated Beyond Utopia, Apollo 11, Won't You Be My Neighbor?, Three Identical Strangers, Jane, and Life Itself, among many others? Will that be Super/Man this year? I wonder.

What do you make of these first guild nominations? Anything stand out to you that I didn't mention?

Comments

[DK]

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[Robert G]

Very strange to see Smile 2 in contemporary but not in sfx. The concert looks are cool but you don’t get there without the darker creature and gore effects.

[Mr Ripley79]

I'm very happy that someone has thrown a bone Civil War's way.