Numlock Awards: Three More Races to Consider

Could we have an historic first in Best Cinematography?

Numlock Awards is your one-stop awards season newsletter, and it’s back! Every week, join Walt Hickey and Michael Domanico as they break down the math behind the Oscars and the best narratives going into film’s biggest night. Today’s edition comes from Michael.

We’re in the final stretch! Voting closes tomorrow, so everything is just about locked in when it comes to the votes, and the campaigns have done their best to persuade members to honor them with an Oscar. In lieu of a deep dive this week on one category, I wanted to quickly spotlight three interesting races in this final stretch. 

Elvis v. The Whale Is Not Only One of the Tightest Acting Categories…

It’s also the big show-down in the Best Make-Up & Hairstyling category. At the guild awards for Make-Up & Hairstyling, Elvis took home two awards (Best Period and/or Character Make-Up, and Best Period and/or Character Hairstyling), while The Whale took home one (Best Special Make-Up Effects). 

This is a category that loves to reward Most. A survey of the last five winners bear that out: The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Bombshell, Vice, and Darkest Hour aren’t exactly that episode of Full House where Aunt Becky teaches DJ to do less with more. 

The Whale’s makeup has been a centerpiece of the movie’s campaign — it’s become one of the main talking points for Brendan Fraser, to shout-out Adrien Morot and his team for their work on transforming him into the 600-pound character and to discuss the four-hour process to get ready to shoot each day. And this category likes to reward weight transformations done with prosthetics. 

That being said, I think the edge goes to Elvis, which plays into some of the weight transformation as Elvis ages, but also has the iconic hairstyling to go with it. This is a dual category for both make-up and hairstyling, and as impressive as The Whale is on make-up, it’s not like the hairstyling is a focal point, whereas Elvis’ pompadour is half the screen whenever Austin Butler shows up. Elvis also picked up the BAFTA in this category, so I think voters are also viewing the category holistically. 

Tom Cruise Doomed the Maverick VFX Team’s Chances…

Listen, I may be overstating the case, but the focal point of Top Gun: Maverick — besides it’s insane $1.4 billion gross, after sitting on the shelf throughout the pandemic — has been that the actors were truly in the planes, when the reality is a little bit more complicated. 

You can see it in the coverage — How Top Gun: Maverick’s Breathtaking Practical Effects Were Achieved (video below), THR’s Revealing the Nearly Hidden VFX in Top Gun: Maverick, and so forth. As the annual VFX Bake-Off revealed, Top Gun: Maverick does have 2,400 VFX shots in it, comparable to the 2,500 in a movie like Spider-Man: No Way Home. 

This isn’t to take away from the actors, who really did have to get comfortable going in the air and being around Tom Cruise for extended periods of time. But when the narrative driving your movie is, this all really happened and the cameras just captured it, you’re at a disadvantage for an award for VFX. 

Plus, Avatar: The Way of Water just picked up nine awards at the Visual Effects Society Awards (where, funnily enough, James Cameron’s ex-wife Gale Anne Hurd received the Lifetime Achievement honor). While the sequel might not be the Oscar Goliath its predecessor was, it should have this award locked in. 

Best Cinematography Could Have an Historic First…

Elvis cinematographer Mandy Walker is only the third woman ever nominated for Best Cinematography at the Oscars, and she is now the first woman to ever win the American Society of Cinematographers Award and the AACTA Award (Australia’s Oscars equivalent). 

Four of the last five ASC winners have gone on to win the Oscar — though three of those four also had wins at BAFTA, where All Quiet on the Western Front had a super strong showing and took this category, too. Given Everything Everywhere All At Once’s dominance in Best Picture, All Quiet isn’t looking to repeat winning top honors at the Oscars. But it still earned nine nominations, so there’s a lot of love for the film, especially on a craft level. 

Still, THR reported how the “room erupted with applause” when Walker won, and she dedicated the award to “all the women that win this award after me.” This happened just this past Sunday, so we’ll see if this final push and chance to make Oscar history persuades those voters who waited until deadline to submit their ballots.