When will AMPAS embrace Horror makeup?

by Cláudio Alves

Between its box office numbers and pop culture footprint, The Substance has been one of the year's most unexpected success stories. MUBI's biggest release is also its most profitable, growing steadily through word of mouth and an aggressive campaign unafraid to highlight the picture's extreme body horror, its sheer grossness. Indeed, the Cannes Best Screenplay prizewinner is among the year's most-watched original films, having found its audience without the aid of IP recognition or all those shiny notions that excite Hollywood execs. In a world where genre bias wasn't a thing and snobbery didn't run rampant in film circles, one might expect Coralie Fargeat's provocation to factor heavily into the awards season. We don't live in that world. 

While one might suppose The Substance's rhapsodies of aged and mutated flesh, exaggerated voluptuousness, and grandiose gore would score an easy Best Makeup & Hairstyling nomination, that's not a safe bet. As the genre most dependent on makeup effects and where technical innovations often manifest, horror should have a place of honor in the category. Sadly, it doesn't. It hardly ever did…

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Beauty Break: Carol Spier & Cronenberg

by Cláudio Alves

As far as I'm concerned, EXISTENZ has Oscar-worthy production design.

Over the years, David Cronenberg has unleashed unimaginable visions onto the big screen, stretching the limits of body horror along the way. In the week the underrated eXistenZ celebrates its 25th anniversary, I was reminded of one name that should be nearly as recognized as that of the Canadian director. After all, Cronenbergian wouldn't be the same without the contributions of Carol Spier, his hard-working production designer whose mind has birthed such sights as Videodrome's flesh-like walls and the ruined tomorrow in Crimes of the Future. This year, the duo's new collaboration, The Shrouds, will premiere at Cannes in the official competition. Maybe Spier could even take the festival's Technical Grand Prize. It'd be a nice change of pace since, despite her genius, the artist has rarely been recognized by awards voters.

With all this in mind, let's recall some of Carol Spier's greatest creations for Cronenberg's nightmare cinema. Here are ten highlights from their shared filmography and where to watch them…

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Almost There: Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"

by Cláudio Alves        

Last week, you were asked to choose a horror movie performance to be analyzed in the Almost There series. From the ten possibilities, the pick was Jeff Goldblum in David Cronenberg's The Fly. Telling the story of a scientist who accidentally gene-splices himself with a housefly, the movie is the platonic ideal of body horror and probably the title most readily associated with the subgenre. Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis' makeup is justly legendary and won the pair an Oscar. One would think horror would be a mainstay in that particular category, but AMPAS rarely embraces it, even there. Hence why The Fly's awards success feels so thrilling. Unfortunately, it's also why Goldblum's transformative work was ignored...

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Horror Actressing: Geena Davis in "The Fly"

by Jason Adams

I think it was Roger Ebert who once said about Geena Davis she seemed difficult to cast in the movies as a normal human being because she always looked more like a Valkyrie come down from Valhalla than she ever did a simple waitress. And, Roger Ebert thinking with his hormones aside, he wasn't entirely wrong. For every Thelma there was a pirate, an assassin, a gigantic vampire countess waiting in the wings. Even in a reality-based movie like The Accidental Tourist it was her proto Manic Pixie character that represented a break in the mundane -- Geena Davis sweeping in always feels like an occasion!

That's why I think some of her absolute best work came in films where the reality rose up to meet her on her larger-than-life level. Her six full feet of rosy-cheeked goddessness needed a heightened world to roam most comfortably within, something like the afterlife wackiness of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, or as with today's subject, the deranged splatter romance of David Cronenberg's 1986 The Fly remake...

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Showbiz History: Super Remake, Early Franchise, and A Barrymore

10 random things that happened on this day in history (Aug 15th) as it relates to showbiz...

I am a collage of unaccounted for brush strokes...

1483 The Sistine Chapel is consecrated and holds its first mass at the Vatican. Remember that "anecdote" in Six Degrees of Separation (1993) about slapping the hand of god? What a fantastic play/film. Stockard Channing's nomination that year was so well-earned. In many years that performance would have been my gold medalist, but what a stellar Best Actress year 1993 was. Hunter, Bassett, Channing, etc...

1879 Future Oscar winner Ethel Barrymore (None but the Lonely Heart) born in Philadephia. She is one of only nine women to have ever been nominated for 4 Supporting Actress Oscars. We're discussing that list right now actually ...

1912 Amazing actress Wendy Hiller born in England on this day. She would go on to 3 Oscar nominations and a win (Separate Tables, 1958). On the same day in Pasadena...

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