One Category at a Time: Makeup and Hairstyling

The only thing predictable about the makeup branch is their unpredictability. It's often impossible to anticipate which celebrated film with excellent makeup will be shafted, and which critically dismissed films will make the cut at both the bakeoff and the nomination stage. Sometimes they go on a run of getting it right; The wins for The Wolfman and The Iron Lady are hard to dispute. Sometimes, they go on a run of getting it completely wrong; Last year's snub of Lincoln in favour of Hitchcock and this year's complete omission of Rush, The Butler, The Hobbit, and Lone Survivor from the bakeoff list is beyond embarrassing. As far as I'm concerned, only one of the three films that did survive this branch's questionable scrutiny deserves to be in the conversation, but hopefully that's the one that'll end up winning.