Oscar Nominees Shortlist

Oscar nominations are due to be announced at the end of this month. According to Variety the shortlist for nominations for best makeup consists of the following movies:
The Chronicles of Narnia
Cinderella Man
A History of Violence
The Libertine
The New World
Mrs Henderson Presents
Star Wars: Episode III.

There’s sometimes a question about the relative merits of in-your-face makeup transformations compared with with subtle characterisations. But this shortlist does cover a range of types of makeups.

There’s no great surprises. I wouldn’t personally rate Mrs Henderson Presents as outstanding and The New World I can only judge on the basis of the stills I’ve seen. But I accept that all these films contain fine makeups.

There’s some obvious omissions but Memoirs of a Geisha, I had mixed feelings about and it seems to have taken a lot of knocking and maybe the Skull Island residents in King Kong got overlooked in a push to get other effects nominated. The only real surprise is the absence of Sin City where I thought the makeups were superb.

So why am I not excited?

Well it’s all a bit predictable so I suppose that’s part of it. But also none of the makeups that touched me this year made the cut: the makeup on Diane Keaton in The Family Stone; Felicity Huffman in TransAmerica; Mónica Cervera in 20 Centímetros; 2046…

Okay at least some of those may not have eligible but I’m still not excited.