One Category at a Time: Best Foreign Language Film

When the Academy changed its rules to allow the entire membership to vote on Best Foreign Language Film a few years ago, the process of predicting the winner has become somewhat streamlined. No more did pundits have to carefully assess each nominee for factors like subject matter and age appeal. All that needed to be rated was the film's critical hype and level of exposure, with reputation playing more than a trifling part. It's a bit of a shame, actually, because even though the winners from recent years have been a mostly respectable crop, nothing can top the now extinct satisfaction of pegging a surprise Best Foreign Language Film winner under the old system.

But this year we find ourselves in untested territory. How will the Academy respond to a roster from which the most critically revered imports of the year are missing? The Handmaiden wasn't even submitted by Korea and France's Elle failed to be saved by the branch's executive committee when deciding upon the nine semifinalists. These two subtitled phenoms were easily the most buzzed about in December, taking the bulk of regional critics prizes plus the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe respectively. Their absence creates a vacuum here.

So who wins?

One Category at a Time: Best Makeup & Hairstyling

The polls are open! And with just under two weeks to go until the big night, it's time to start breaking down the previous two months of precursors and campaign antics to determine who will be the winners at the 89th Academy Awards.

All eyes will be glued to see if La La Land can tie the auspicious record of 11 wins (currently held by Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), but I'm kicking off my yearly series of predictions with one of the few categories where Damien Chazelle's powerhouse musical missed the nomination: Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

This has always been a wonderfully weird contest for Oscar watchers: There is perhaps no branch of the Academy more iconoclastic than the makeup branch, with its active resistance to beloved Best Picture frontrunners or seemingly obvious contenders. And with only three slots available (umm... why?), high profile snubs are a yearly occurrence. Winning this particular Oscar is 50% quality of work, 50% the branch eliminating the heaviest competition. Suffering from their unpredictable tendencies this year was Florence Foster Jenkins, the only semifinalist to have been nominated by both the BAFTA and the corresponding industry guild MUAHS. Alas, Meryl's wigs and syphilis weren't enough, clearing the way for our first nominee.