As I said last week (and have said several times before), no category is year-in and-year-out more perplexing than Best Makeup. Each year, this branch finds ways to turn otherwise dubious awards contenders into bona fide Oscar nominees — dubious because often nominees might be abysmal or relatively obscure. The branch seems to have its favorites – like Greg Cannom and Rick Baker – but nevertheless manages to snub them sometimes when they seem sure bets.
The category remains the sole remnant of the bake-off system, where the field is narrowed to seven and the nominees chosen from that collective. Year after year, shocking omissions occur in both rounds.
As I stated last time, despite the general weirdness of this category, we can put some traits as more likely to be embraced than others – aging, prosthetics and illness likely top the list. Also, while the category technically rewards both hairstyling and makeup, it rarely seems to concentrate on the former (“The Young Victoria” last year is a notable exception). So all that having been established, what do I expect to see in contention this year?