It’s gonna be an Oscar-heavy day around here. SAG Awards are getting announced soon, plus BAFTA announced their longlists in every category. So you’re gonna see me talking about all of this stuff throughout the day. And man… I am excited as shit to go into it all. (If any of you were at all concerned that you may never hear from me again once this site is retired, know that I practically audibly squealed with joy when I realized how much I had to talk about. I’m pretty sure I won’t really be going anywhere.)
Anywho, we’ll start with Makeup & Hairstyling. We’ve already got the shortlist, so this is really just gonna be about which ones make the most categories and how it cross lists with BFCA and BAFTA.
But, before we get into all of that, here’s your shortlist:
Coming 2 America
Cruella
Cyrano
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
Nightmare Alley
No Time to Die
The Suicide Squad
West Side Story
All of these should hit at least 1-2 categories in the guild, presumably. So let’s see how that all went.
Best Contemporary Makeup
Black Widow
Coming 2 America
Don’t Look Up
No Time to Die
The Suicide Squad
3/5 shortlisted films here. Black Widow and Don’t Look Up are the two that didn’t. Historically contemporary films don’t get nominated unless they have special prosthetics going on (like Bombshell or Vice or Wonder). So I’m gonna be leery about No Time to Die’s actual chances until I see it get on everywhere else (and even then, somewhat), but Suicide Squad won this category before and Coming 2 America makes a lot of sense, even though I’m not sure it 100% happens. But a good start. This all tracks.
Best Period/Character Makeup
Being the Ricardos
Cruella
Dune
House of Gucci
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
That’s 4/5. Being the Ricardos is the only film that didn’t make the shortlist from this category. So that means our entire shortlist is represented already in the Makeup side of things, except Cyrano, Nightmare Alley and West Side Story, all of which feel more like hairstyling films anyway. So okay. So far so good.
Best Special Makeup Effects
Coming 2 America
Dune
House of Gucci
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
The Suicide Squad
5/5 here. Good sign and probably a forebearer of what you’re likely to see in the final category. I almost questioned what House of Gucci’s makeup effects were and then I realized, “Oh, right… Jared Leto.”
Best Contemporary Hairstyling
Coming 2 America
In The Heights
No Time to Die
The Matrix Resurrections
The Suicide Squad
3/5 again. Same three as the Makeup category. Which makes sense, since the three remaining shortlisted films are all period.
Best Period/Character Hairstyling
Being the Ricardos
Cruella
House of Gucci
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
West Side Story
There’s West Side Story. Which means Nightmare Alley and Cyrano weren’t nominated anywhere at the guild. Which… interesting. I mean, Cyrano is for sure a BAFTA kind of movie. Nightmare Alley I’m curious about. I didn’t immediately recognize a lot of makeup or anything there, which probably hinders its actual chances even if it is Guillermo. But I’m gonna go back to BAFTA and BFCA in a second, so maybe there’s hope for it yet.
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To tally all of that up from the shortlist:
- Coming 2 America — 3 nominations
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye — 3 nominations
- House of Gucci — 3 nominations
- The Suicide Squad — 3 nominations
- Cruella — 2 nominations
- Dune — 2 nominations
- No Time to Die — 2 nominations
- West Side Story — 1 nomination
- Cyrano — 0 nominations
- Nightmare Alley — 0 nominations
It’s worth noting at this point that 0 guild nominations is not a death knell to something. Emma wasn’t nominated by the guild (or BAFTA) last year and got nominated off only a BFCA nomination. So those last two aren’t out yet. But with the amount of films nominated across three categories here, you gotta assume those have really strong cases.
Currently the BFCA list is Cruella, Dune, Eyes of Tammy Faye, House of Gucci and Nightmare Alley. And, to spoil a little, the BAFTA longlist includes everything except Nightmare Alley and Suicide Squad. So naturally we’ll have to wait to see what they actually nominate, but right now Nightmare Alley is holding a giant goose egg everywhere except BFCA and Cyrano, if it’s not nominated at BAFTA, will end up with nothing everywhere.
So, that said, if I’m handicapping a category based on what I know at this exact moment, this is how I’m leaning:
Cruella
Dune
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
House of Gucci
The Suicide Squad
Alternate: Coming 2 America
Dark Horse: West Side Story
Surprise: Cyrano, Nightmare Alley
Shock: No Time to Die
Here’s my reasoning for this: I assume that when it comes to final voting, immediate reaction to stuff takes precedent. So Cruella you think the pale face and big hairdo. Tammy Faye you think… all of that. Suicide Squad you think Harley Quinn. Dune you think creatures and whatnot, Jabba the Skarsgard. Gucci, you think Leto. I think that all holds weight over Coming 2 America, just because, while all the character work is there and everyone knows it’s there, they’ll also go, “Wasn’t that terrible?” And I think, without the immediate, “Oh, the work on that was incredible,” it’s hard for a ‘bad’ movie to make a lot of headway in this category. I’m probably wrong, but this is the time to be wrong. I’ll get this out of my system now and then, in a month when it’s time to actually guess this stuff, I’ll have the benefit of actual BAFTA nominees and (probably) a BFCA winner to help me figure out which of these to eliminate. Eyes of Tammy Faye is the lowest profile film on my list currently and House of Gucci feels like the most likely cast off to me personally. But like I said, I’ve got a month. Things change.
Even without that, No Time to Die would really surprise me if it got on, being contemporary without anything overtly memorable in the way of makeup (even Rami Malek’s face isn’t all that memorable compared to just about everything else on the shortlist). Nightmare Alley is Guillermo, which alone makes it feel like it’s got a legitimate shot. But without any kind of momentum, it’s hard to treat it as anything other than a potential surprise (unless it wins BFCA, then we can talk). And Cyrano has to be considered a surprise at best until it gets nominated at BAFTA. West Side Story, meanwhile, sounds like something that would fit well here, but it’s pretty much just the hairstyling and feels more like a red herring. Unless it also gets nominated at BAFTA (which is possible), I can’t feel like I need to guess it. Not that I’d be remotely surprised if it got on. So yeah. This feels pretty straightforward, but it’ll get a lot easier once we have an actual category. I think we’ve got a solid handle on the 6 (maybe 7) that feel like the top tier contenders, which is the best you can hope for in this category. 4/5 in every category with some 5/5s is a hell of a guessing year. I’ll take that all day.
Anyway, SAG nominations are getting announced real soon, so you should see me back within the next hour or two talking about those. And once that’s done I’ll get into all the BAFTA lists.
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