BAFTA winners do little to clarify Oscar race

With the Winter Olympics pushing the Oscar voting window back a couple of weeks, all eyes this were on the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTAs) to indicate any late-breaking momentum for this contender or that during this crucial final phase of the season. However, it seems that the Brits are about as indecisive as American awards groups have been this year, as they too ended up splitting their decision between the leading runners in the race.

In eerily similar fashion to the way the Golden Globes went down, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave managed to claim the Best Film prize at the BAFTAs, but only after it had been nearly shut out all night long. Losing categories in which it is believed to be the Oscar favourite (Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay) must have been cause for excruciating nervousness, but then it reared its head at the last minute with a victory for lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (in the absence of Oscar frontrunner Matthew McConaughey) and ultimately Best Picture.

But Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity led the total trophy haul with six, including Best British Film. Ironically, many would argue that the actual Best Film winner 12 Years a Slave is more British than the Mexican director's U.S.-financed space adventure. Keeping its own Oscar fires stoked with three wins was David O. Russell's American Hustle.

Check out the winners below for more commentary on individual categories, and how the winners here might affect the Oscar outcome.

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: Supporting Actor

Plenty of variety for Oscar voters to choose from in this category, which didn't deviate too far from my own preferences. The only actor who could claim to be snubbed is Daniel Bruhl, who was excellent in Rush. I must admit I'm saddened by it. I thought he was good enough to be nominated back in 2005 for the wonderful German comedy Goodbye, Lenin, and a nomination looked like it was in the cards this time, especially after being up for the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and SAG Award. That said, there is a certain justice to this cruelty, as a nomination for him here would've been blatant category fraud, so let's be happy we skirted that controversy.

Anyway, of the actual nominees, a clear frontrunner has asserted himself:

My Award nominations: Sound Mixing

The sound people provided us with a wealth of rich sounding films this year. I once thought that my own award would be a slam dunk for one film in particular, but as I look at my final five, I honestly don't know which one I'm going to crown the best Sound Mixing of the year. They're all so deserving...

Motion Picture Sound Editors nominate

The final guild to drop its list of year-end nominees -- on the eve of Oscar nominations no less -- is the MPSE.

The most important category, Best Sound Effects and Foley, includes Oscar hopefuls Gravity, Captain Phillips, Lone Survivor, and All Is Lost, among others.

The only conspicuous omission is Rush, and I gotta say, I don't understand the industry's resistance to this movie. Sure, I didn't love it, but there's a lot of craftsmanship to appreciate. The fact that it's also been shut out by the CAS, the Makeup and Hairstylists Guild, and the ASC in a field of seven nominees...
Way. Harsh.

Anyway, check out all the categories and my thoughts after the cut.

So there's a Makeup and Hairstylers Guild

Who knew! Apparently they haven't given out awards for the last ten years for some reason (?), but they're back, so here are the nominees.

All the Academy finalists are represented. Similarly, the Academy snubs are snubbed! Seriously, how does Rush not get in for Period/Character makeup? The title of that award is like it was designed to be won by Rush!

My Award nominations: Cinematography

I'm kicking off this year's award nominees with my favourite of all categories, Best Cinematography. There was a lot of great work to pick from this year, and inevitably I had to leave some excellent work off my final five (some that will probably be Oscar recognized anyway).

Check out my top five below, accompanied by my favourite shot from each.

Makeup bake-off replete, as always, with baffling omissions

I don't know why I even bother predicting Best Makeup nominees before the list of finalists is unveiled. Every year there's at least one (or two, or in this case three of my presumed nominees) that fail to advance past the bake-off stage.

The unforgivable omissions this year are Rush and The Hobbit. The former not only applied squeamishly effective burn prosthetics to star Daniel Bruhl, but also featured tons of striking period hairstyles. In the case of the latter, I suppose it's possible that the makeup branch didn't deem there to be enough new makeup after last year's nominated effort already introduced us to all those dwarfs, but this one did boast many new characters designs from orcs to elves to skin-changers and involved a shitload of grime/dirt/weathering effects.

Confusing. Just... so confusing.

Review - Rush

The 'sports movie' tends to be a troubled genre; one usually marred by predictability and all too willing to eschew the human spirit behind the sport. Such is not the case in Ron Howard's Rush, which takes us inside the world of 1970s Forumla One racing for a look at a legendary rivalry bewteen two champion motorists. The film is less interested in impressing us with their achievements, as it is in discovering what drives the drivers.

One is James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth); with his roguish good looks, cocky charm and playboy antics, he seems the spitting tabloid image of a stereotypical racing superstar. It helps that he has the God-given skill and renegade aggression behind the wheel to back up his boasts in front of a microphone. The other is Nikki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl); more prickly and misanthropic, but with a sharply analytical mind that serves him remarkably well in the garage and on the pavement.