My Award nominations: Makeup and Hair

Whatever the makeup branch of the Academy is doing, it has to stop. I know some people really adore how this branch constantly goes out of its way to honour outright terrible films that happen to have elaborate makeup work, but two years in a row now it has come at the expense of the actual best makeup jobs of the year. Last year it was the invisibly convincing period makeup of Lincoln that gave way to the obvious (and hardly buyable) prosthetics of Hitchcock on nomination morning. This year was even worse, as the best work of the year failed to even make the bakeoff! So now we have Academy Awards nominees Bad Grandpa and The Lone Ranger, which I wouldn't mind so much if their old age makeup didn't look so rubbery and fake.

Anyway, rant over. Here is the true Best Makeup and Hair of 2013:

One Category at a Time: Makeup

By the time it gets boiled down to three nominees, this race is usually a pretty easy one to call, but I'm having unspeakable difficulty in deciding upon a winner this year. It's essentially a two-horse race between extensive fantasy work on a successful, beloved, but decidedly familiar series, and superior but subtler work on a reviled film with a high profile acting nomination. But let's begin with the nominee bringing up the rear.