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The most well-known, respected, and, frankly, best of the bunch is “Let It Go,” by a married couple from Brooklyn that would join the revered “EGOT” Club should they win the Oscar, as I expect them to. Their other work has already netted them an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony for their work on Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon. The song accompanies the most popular movie in the bunch and also the most aggressively campaigned. Diva Idina Menzel will have much more to belt out about on Oscar night.

Best Visual Effects.

The good news about this category is that because prestigious Best Picture winners with showy effects are relatively uncommon, the branch has to really dive in and decide which movies were the best effected. The bad news is that if a Best Picture contender shows up in this category, it wins regardless of whether it deserves it or not. Every. Single. Time. It is a stunning statistic: it has never happened that a non-Best Picture contender has beaten out a Best Picture contender if one is nominated in this category. The Academy is too protective of its reputation and if it can avoid tagging a movie they do not respect as an Oscar winner (and, as we know, they do not respect effects-driven blockbusters), then it will avoid doing so.

Thus, perhaps the easiest call of the entire night is Gravity for Best Visual Effects. That is not to say, of course, that the movie does not deserve it. Indeed, over The Hobbit, The Lone Ranger, Iron Man 3, and Star Trek, it’s hard to begrudge them for picking a movie that is mostly effects driven and that provides a fresh perspective of space effects. My only nit with the branch is that they ignored the much more impressive effects of Pacific Rim in favor of the terrible Ranger, but that is neither here nor there in terms of the ultimate win. Gravity will win this award in a cake walk.

Best Make-up and Hairstyling.

Special rules for this category since its inception in 1982 keep the number of nominees at three, as the branch believes that movies worthy of recognition here are relatively few and far between. This year is no exception, and the three nominees are Dallas Buyers Club, Jackass: Bad Grandpa, and The Lone Ranger. Unlike Best Visual Effects, for whatever reason the Academy has not always picked a Best Picture contender over a non-contender in this category. So, for example, Men in Black famously beat Titanic here and prevented it from winning what would have been a record-setting 12th Oscar. However, you can bet that in this year the Academy will simply not be able to bring itself to award an Oscar to the two other duds that the branch served up in this category. You can take it to the bank that Dallas Buyers Club will win this category quite easily. *Note: I have not seen Jackass.

These four technical categories should be among the easiest to check off on Oscar night. Next time, we will delve into much harder categories, including Best Production Design, Best Film Editing, and (gasp) the Sound categories.

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