No, I’m not talking about awards predictions. Those are sooooo boring. La La Land will undeservedly win everything, half the people will cheer, half the people will give the middle finger, then we’ll all grumble how the white movie won over the intersectional movie yet again. Think pieces will be written. We’ll all hate La La Land by next year. It will be in exile for about 10-15 years (notice how people are starting to come back to say how good Titanic is?). And then it will make a resurgence as a “It’s not all that bad.” movie. Blah.
I’m talking about Oscar Night. Glenn Weiss is returning to direct the most self-serious awards show in the American culture. With a running time between 3-4 hours, the Oscars can serve as one of the most self-congratulatory shows of the season. After raking in billions of dollars on big blockbuster movies, AMPAS throws the studios a ceremony to celebrate the largest achievements in medium-budget film making of that year (exceptions are occasionally made – Titanic, The Lord of the Rings – but they’re not the rule).
This year, Jimmy Kimmel is hosting the Oscars for the first time. He hosted last year’s Emmy awards where he was apparently amusing enough, affable enough, and kept the train rolling smoothly along with little to no effort. Will he keep the train running on time? Or, will he hide out back stage making meta videos for the online community a la Jimmy Franco? Will he say anything edgy or smart? Or, will he have pizzas delivered because four hours is a long ass time to sit in the chairs without food or drink.
And, what of the musical numbers? There used to be outlandishly entertaining numbers to accompany the individual best songs, but some years skimped on those in favor of more video montages. Will there be ANY this year? Just the one at the beginning?
Every year, they have an in memoriam section, and, given the amount of death in 2016, this one could easily take up a full hour and still leave out some important people. This year, I’m banking that they’re probably going to leave out Troma’s big star Joe Fleishaker, who starred in 19 movies from Tromeo and Juliet to Poultrygeist: Chicken of the Dead. But, who will be left in? Who might get their own independent segment? Who deserves their own separate highlight reel?
At this year’s Golden Globes, Meryl Streep made headlines by using her speech time to resist the Trump administration (a bold move considering that many of Hollywood’s biggest players are Republican). Will Oscar use this time to highlight the problems with the current administration? Or, will they be bravely apolitical?
How about the fashions on the red carpet? Will any actors or actresses get mad at the hosts for asking about which designer they’re wearing? Will somebody be wearing a Donald Trump dress? Maybe Channing Tatum will crash the party in a dress made out of hurricane fence (we could be so lucky)
And, what of the floor show?