It's hard to tell what direction this branch will go on a yearly basis. They really do nominate what they feel constitutes the best work, and pay little attention to critical reception or Best Picture buzz. And to be honest, that's the way it aught to be. So who stands a chance of getting in this year?
Given their openness to nominating films that the critics really don't give a damn about, I haven't got a problem in predicting a film like
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - one which I doubt will fare too well with cinephiles - to earn a nod. Two of the previous three
Pirates films made it in here, and with past winners Joel Harlow and Peter King on board, I imagine the makeup work will be great.
A call I'm less confident in but still willing to make is
A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg's look at the lives and work of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. The film's makeup and hair designer Stephan Dupuis already has an Oscar to his name, albeit for his more grotesque transformative magic on Cronenberg's
The Fly. Can he follow up his sole nomination from 25 years ago with another one for what we can only assume will be more subtle work?
And what about all those comic-book-character-based blockbusters coming out this summer? Surely they can't
all be passed over by the Academy.
Captain America's WWII setting may allow Lisa Westcott and David White to cook up some realistic war-related makeup to compliment what will probably be their more memorable creation; Hugo Weaving's transformation into Red Skull.
Predicted three:
Captain America: The First Avenger
A Dangerous Method
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Also consider: Cowboys and Aliens,
The Green Lantern,
Harry Potter 7,
The Iron Lady,
Thor,
War Horse.
