1. American Hustle2. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa3. The Great Gatsby(Alt: Dallas Buyers Club) The Best Makeup and Hairstyling race is a seven film race, literally. The Makeup and Hairstyling branch has a system where by the field is whittled down to seven possible nominees through a bake-off, an event where clips highlighting the makeup and hairstyling of films are shown and scored. Based on these scores, the films are either eliminated from contention or move on to the final field of seven, of which three are chosen for actual Oscar nominations. The seven movies in contention for this year's Best Makeup and Hairstyling are American Hustle, Dallas Buyers Club, The Great Gatsby, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters , The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, and The Lone Ranger. This branch definitely has a mind of its own and truly votes for whatever it feels is the best of the field, regardless of the overall merits of the film. That being said, it doesn't hurt to be a frontrunner in major categories, so given the popularity of the film (and the actual significant role that the characters' hair plays in the film's narrative), I definitely expect American Hustle to be among the nominees. On the other side of the coin, I have a hard time imagining Hansel and Gretel making the cut, whatever its makeup merits may be. As ridiculous as it may sound, I actually think that Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa will be an Oscar nominee. The whole film is basically a demonstration of the powerful of artfully applied makeup, so I can't imagine the Makeup branch would pass up the opportunity to reward it. For the final spot then, we are left with a fantasy film, a western, a period piece, and a contemporary drama. Out of these options, I think the branch will most likely warm to the period piece, Baz Lurmann's glamorous The Great Gatsby, but if the branch isn't in the mood for 1920's opulence, then they might go with the gritty realist makeup of Dallas Buyers Club.
A film fanatic at a very young age, starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies and gradually moving up to more sophisticated fare, at around the age of ten he became inexplicably obsessed with all things Oscar. With the incredibly trivial power of being able to chronologically name every Best Picture winner from memory, his lifelong goal is to see every Oscar nominated film, in every major category, in the history of the Academy Awards.