OVP: Best Makeup (2000)
The Nominees Were...
Michele Burke & Edouard Henriques, The Cell
Rick Baker & Gail Ryan, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Ann Buchanan & Amber Sibley, Shadow of the Vampire
My Thoughts: We begin our look at the 2000 Oscars, as ever, with Best Makeup. One of those categories that just sort of bounced from one number of nominees to another until it finalized in 2019. 200 gives us three contenders, one of which Oscar went for in a big way, and is about as engrained in pop culture as you can get (it helps when you're in the #1 movie of the year) while the other two are in films that have sort of entered the "career asterisks" for all involved. But we don't judge based on fame here, we judge based on the quality of the work in front of us.
The Cell is one of those movies that has a cult following amongst those who read the name "Tarsem Singh" as hallowed, but is otherwise known to the mass public (if they know it at all) as that "Jennifer Lopez in a Nightmare" movie. The film is not good, in my opinion, but the makeup is considerably better. The motif of Lopez in flawless drag queen makeup works. It's not always successful (and some of the more ostentatious moments are the result of visual effects more than the makeup team), but it all looks good and I think is an underrated nominee.
Shadow of the Vampire is also a movie I left underwhelmed by, but unlike The Cell, I don't really get the makeup. It feels like the hyper-realistic looks sported by Willem Dafoe as a fictional Max Schreck, here an actual vampire rather than a pretend one, don't serve enough of a purpose. It's too bland (particularly for a film where a vampire is terrorizing a movie set, which is honestly the definition of my horror film wheelhouse), and I wasn't into it. It doesn't help that, outside of the work done on Dafoe, there's nothing there-it's a centerpiece nomination where the rest of the case feels too overdone, and the centerpiece isn't that great.
The Grinch is a centerpiece nomination that does work. I have nothing bad to say about Jim Carrey's look in this film, which is completely iconic and works within the confines of the movie. If everything in this movie was up to those standards, this would be a slam dunk victory, and an all-timer for the category. But that's not what happens-the rest of the Who's down in Whoville look terrible, like weird combinations of reindeer & bizarre pig noses. I don't get it-this isn't necessarily copying the cute, pert noses of the cartoon (so you could claim "accuracy"), where they look largely humanoid, and instead just reads as ugly. It doesn't help that the film itself is not very good, so this ugly distraction feels just gaudy. So yes to the Grinch, but this isn't "Best Makeup for a Character" it's focused on the whole movie, where it otherwise fails.
Other Precursor Contenders: BAFTA was doing five nominees in this category instead of just one (and they also had it as Makeup and Hair), so they picked Grinch against Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Gladiator, and Quills, while the Saturn Awards (which focus on Horror, SciFi, and Fantasy) also gave their win to Grinch, against Nutty Professor II, Shadow of the Vampire, The Cell, The 6th Day, and X-Men. In terms of fourth place, we know there were just two shortlisted films, so it was either Bedazzled (a Faust tale with Brendan Fraser & Elizabeth Hurley) and Cast Away (where I'm guessing Tom Hanks look as a disheveled Robinson Crusoe was the point of the nomination?). Cast Away was actually on Oscar's radar, and likely in fourth.
Films I Would Have Nominated: I oftentimes talk about about Oscar's weird aversion to horror films here, but it's also true for superhero films. X-Men, for example, has a fantastic look for both Hugh Jackman & Rebecca Romijn in this movie that became definitive looks for major characters in the years that followed, and was completely skipped.
Oscar’s Choice: An easy call for Rick Baker's Grinch, one of Oscar's favorite artists.
My Choice: If Baker's work in The Grinch was just as good for Jim Carrey as the rest of the film, or even halfway as good, this would be his Oscar. But given I hated the rest of the makeup, I'm going to give it the silver and reward The Cell with the gold. Shadow of the Vampire is in third.
And those are my thoughts-what are yours? Do you want to go with the holiday-themed prosthetics of The Grinch or are you more on for some fabulous demonic clubbing with J Lo? Why do you think that Oscar's Makeup branch basically pretends that superhero films don't exist? And was it Cast Away or Bedazzled that just missed here? Share your thoughts below!
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