Kinematoscope

Today, we'll look at some of the artier tech awards, and of course we'll also form some definite opinions that will turn out to be way off!

Best Makeup

Barney's Version- Adrien Morot (0/0)
The Way Back- Edouard F. Henriques (0/2), Greg Funk (0/0), Yolanda Toussieng (2/3)
The Wolfman- Rick Baker(6/11), Dave Elsey (0/1)

Research for this category revealed a fun fact: there is an Oscar-winning makeup artist (Braveheart) named 'Peter Frampton'! I think that must have an effect on that guy's life that is the exact opposite of the fictional 'Michael Bolton' in Office Space.

Anyhow- we meet again, Rick Baker. Will your flashy, more-is-more approach to hair and claws beat out two films that no one has seen? Of course it will.

Though the blistering heat-stroke of The Way Back (which I saw) and aging effects in Barney's Version (which I didn't) may be fine enough, Baker is this category's only superstar- and he took the inaugural win in it for An American Werewolf in London, besides.

Best Art Direction

Alice in Wonderland- Robert Stromberg (1/2), Karen O'Hara (0/1)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1- Stuart Craig (3/8), Stephenie McMillan (1/3)
Inception Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias, Douglas A. Mowat (all 0/0)
The King's Speech- Eve Stewart (0/1), Judy Farr (0/0)
True Grit- Jess Gonchor (0/0), Nancy Haigh (1/5)

It would seem that the heavyweights in this category are the Harry Potter team, but Oscar logic dictates that they will have to wait for the last film in the series to add another win (so mark that in for next year).

Look for The King's Speech to pick this up on its way to a near-sweep. True Grit feels like the only possible spoiler to me, if voters are feeling nostalgic for America instead of Britain.

Best Costume Design

Alice in Wonderland- Colleen Atwood (2/8)
I Am Love- Antonella Cannarozzi (0/0)
The King's Speech- Jenny Beavan (1/8)
The Tempest- Sandy Powell (3/8)
True Grit- Mary Zophres (0/0)

Three heavyweights in this category, but do we even need to think about it? If there's a category that loves British royalty movies even more than the Academy at large, it's this one, so put another in The King's Speech column. True Grit seems like the potential spoiler here as well, mostly because recent winners Atwood and Powell both worked on critically frowned-upon films.

Best Animated Feature

How To Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Included here with little fanfare because there's nothing left to say about Pixar and its dominance. Hopefully the upcoming Cars 2 will be terrible and we can all take glee in how they've sold out.

Coming up later today: Score and Song, which I always have a lot to say about.

What a great, great category this year. Apparently it takes 16 animated films in a year to expand the nominations to five, and we just barely squeaked by in '09.

There's your obligatory Pixar, an old-school hand-drawn Disney film, two great claymation entires (one based on a book by my favorite author), and just when you thought the last spot would go to a generic crowd-pleaser like Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, along comes an unheralded but awesome-looking Irish sleeper.

1. Coraline

Neil Gaiman would be the aforementioned favorite author of mine (better luck next time, Roald Dahl), and while Stardust was passable entertainment, Henry Selick's Coraline is by far superior in both overall quality and in capturing the spirit of Gaiman's work, seamlessly blending fright with wonder.

Dakota Fanning manages not to annoy the stuffing out of me in pure voice form, and beyond Teri Hatcher every other choice is a ringer: John Hodgman, Ian McShane, Dawn and French, and even a brief cameo by a They Might Be Giant.

2. Fantastic Mr. Fox

Not only would I have included this in the Best Picture race over Up, I would also venture that it was grieviously overlooked for both Adapted Screenplay and Art Direction- isn't set decoration harder when it's really, really small?

3. The Princess and the Frog

Didn't see it, sure it's fun, and so on. Not sure if I ever will, even though frogs are my favorite animals.

4. The Secret Of Kells

This hasn't been released in the U.S. as of yet, but my "friend" who lives in "Ireland" and has no idea what a torrent is whatsoever saw it and told me it was amazing.

A visually mesmerizing, hand-crafted style and Bruno Callais' painfully-snubbed score support a story set in the 9th century about monks, vikings, forest spirits, and an adorable cat. It's snappy, but has the straightforward, unexplained mysticism of a Miyazaki film.

...or so I hear.

5. Up

See the previous post on how this film was fine enough, but not a home run- more Cars than Wall-E, at least for me. But there's pretty much no way it's losing, unless enough people fall in love with The Secret of Kells- and hey, they're technically required to see all five before voting.