We have all the time in the world (or this month, which these days could very well boil down to the same timespan) to go over the showstopping implosion of yet another of Netflix’s headlining Oscar ponies. Suffice it here to say that we’re guessing the only “makeup” Oscar voters are concerned with when it comes to the increasingly toxic Emilia Pérez is the concealer they’d like to apply to their ballots to hide most of the film’s 13 nominations. (Or would that be vanishing crème? James Charles we’re admittedly not.)
No doubt there are still some voting for Emilia Pérez here, even though Karla Sofía Gascón’s mug isn’t painted anywhere near as ostentatiously in Jacques Audiard’s film as usually wins in this category. And the same goes for Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba, serving up basic “Alexis Michelle intentionally pissing off Michelle Visage” realness in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked.
But when this category includes an option for voters to reward over-the-top viscera from partly respectable genre films, they’ve usually taken the bait, so long as there isn’t a biopic in the mix. And since this year’s late surge for A Complete Unknown didn’t quite go the full distance, it feels right that The Substance’s prom dress-wearing Monstro Elisasue will take one more blood-spewing bow here. After all, this work has more or less won before, with 1986’s The Fly.
Will Win: The Substance
Could Win: A Different Man
Should Win: Nosferatu
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