80th Oscars: the shortlist
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that seven films have been shorlisted for the Oscar for Best Makeup. On 19 January the members of the Academy’s Makeup Branch will view 10-minute excerpts from each of the seven films. Following the screenings, they will pick three films as the final Oscar nominations.
The shortlisted movies are
Le scaphandre et le papillon / The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
La Môme / La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
300.
The Oscar nominations will be announced on 22 January. The Academy Awards ceremony will be held on 24 February — unless it goes the way of the Golden Globes.
“knocked up” should really be up there for the amazing makeup job done in that movie.
it would be net to see a pregnant belly makeup section to the website
Of those shortlisted I think it would be a shame if ‘La Môme’ and ‘300′ fail to go through - otherwise I’m easy. But in saying that, I should admit that I haven’t seen ‘The Diving Bell’, and that I’m biased against ‘Norbit’ as the whole movie left me cold (also I’m not sure how much the ‘best’ fat-suit scenes were enhanced in post-production).
Again ‘Knocked Up’ just didn’t work for me as a movie. Her pregnancy looked good but, as so often, you actually saw very little of her apart from the midriff - the birth scene was a knock-out though.
A pregnancy section is coming but I can’t get to enthused about it. Mostly movie pregnancies are costuming (eg Tilda Swinton in ‘Stephanie Daley’) or just a portruding midriff (Piper Perabo in ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’) achieved with cross between a prosthetic and a corset. ‘The Constant Gardener’ looked interesting but - and correct me if I’m wrong - I understand the shower scene was done with CGI. Matthew Mungle’s makeup on Bridget Fonda in ‘A Simple Plan’ was great - see his website - but was only seen in the middle-distance through a doorway on-screen. I’ve been collecting them but the only two that really stand out for me are Thandie Newton in ‘Beloved’ and Virginie Ledoyen in ‘Saint Ange’.
The problem is similar to that with actresses playing pre-op MTF transsexuals - to see how good the makeup is you need to see them full-frontal. And there just aren’t that many: with MTF transsexuals only ‘The Ages of Lulu’, ‘Tiresia’, and ‘20 Centimetres’ spring to mind.