The best visual effects and best makeup categories at the Oscars don't get five nominees, like all the others-- they're limited to three. But they get the better of the other categories by announcing all the movies that are eligible, then narrowing the group down to 15, then to 7, and finally, to the actual three nominees.
Both categories settled on their top 7 today, as reported by Awards Daily and others. There's some fun overlap between the two, with Hellboy 2: The Golden Army getting some respect from the Academy that it won't find elsewhere, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button showing up in what promises to be the first of many, many technical categories.
To me the VFX category seems pretty settled-- Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight and Iron Man, the most praised of the three effects-heavy movies of this year, should be the final three. What, do you think The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is going to get in there instead? But the makeup category is trickier, especially given that some really bizarre movies have made their way in there in the past-- let us all remember that Norbit won an Oscar. So while Benjamin Button seems like an obvious nominee given the transformative work on Cate Blanchett in the frame story, it might have taken even more skill to turn Robert Downey Jr. into a black man in Tropic Thunder, or create the magical beasts of Hellboy 2. And we'll never forget the makeup on the Joker in The Dark Knight, but does one iconic character Best Makeup make?
It's getting to be about that time for Oscar predictions-- so soon!-- so I'll go ahead and go out on a limb here; three of the titles in the below lists will be in bold, which means I think they'll make the final three. Don't take it as anything but mere guesswork, but then again, I care about this more than most normal humans too. Check out the lists below.
Best Makeup
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army”
“The Reader”
“Synecdoche, New York”
“The Wrestler”
Best Visual Effects
“Australia”
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“The Dark Knight”
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army”
“Iron Man”
“Journey to the Center of the Earth”
“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor”
