Best Costume Design
The Avengers
Cloud Atlas
Django Unchained
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Moonrise Kingdom
I am always disappointed with what bland choices the Academy comes up with in this category every year, almost exclusively picking elaborate period pieces while ignoring all the other wonderful things costuming can achieve. Think, for instance, of how downright cool each of the Avengers look. Those costumes may be based on comic-book drawings, but bringing them each to life in such spectacular fashion certainly deserves a nod. And consider how inventive all the costumes are in Moonrise Kingdom, each keeping with Wes Anderson’s stylistic, storyboard vision. In The Hobbit, creative costumes are key to bringing the citizens of Middle Earth to life, and the costume designers on Cloud Atlas had to pull sextuple duty crafting costumes for characters across the ages.
But in the end, I find I must declare a period piece the winner here, albeit a ridiculously suave and stylized period piece. The costuming in Django Unchained is marvelous, not just in recreating the antebellum south, but in lending additional personality to all of the characters. Jamie Foxx is a fantastic Django, but he needs a great costume designer to illustrate the character’s awesome eye for style. Django Unchained is filled to burst with fantastic costumes, and takes this (imaginary) award with ease.
Dream Winner: Django Unchained
Tough Omissions: The Master; Skyfall; The Dark Knight Rises; Lincoln; The Hunger Games; Les Miserables
Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Cloud Atlas
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Holy Motors
The easiest selection of no-brainer nominations any category has had in years, the Academy has inexplicably chosen to exclude both Cloud Atlas and Holy Motors – each of which feature wildly transformative makeup work that is central to the film’s story – from the shortlist of possible contenders, meaning neither will get a real nomination. I guess that’s why I call this the “dream” nominations. In any case, both films feature some of the best and most integral makeup work I have ever seen, while The Hobbit stands among them for the incredible artistry employed to bring thirteen dwarves, a Hobbit, some elves, and several wizards to life. All three films deserve recognition, but given how much attention makeup is given in Holy Motors – the film is, in many ways, a love letter to the art of this category – I give it the edge it will, sadly, never get.
Dream Winner: Holy Motors
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