This upcoming Sunday, March 4th, marks the night of the 90th Academy Awards Ceremony. If a room filled with the most talented, glamorous, and influential people in Hollywood isn’t reason enough to tune into the awards season’s pinnacle event, here are five more:
1. Jimmy Kimmel is hosting
Everyone’s favorite funnyman is hosting the Oscars for the second consecutive year. In a recent USA Today interview, Kimmel hints at the film with the most comedic potential, “The Shape of Water is about a woman who has sex with a sea monster. So probably that one — that’s got to be right at the top.”
2. Performances by Mary J. Blige, Andra Day and Common, Sufjan Stevens, and more!
The “Best Original Song” category is brimming with incredible musical cinema masterpieces that will all be performed on the Oscars stage. We can look forward to hearing music from Call Me By Your Name, Coco, The Greatest Showman, Marshall, and Mudbound.
3. The race for “Best Picture”
Unlike past years, there is no clear “Best Picture” winner. Due to the unique preferential voting system applied only to the “Best Picture” category– Academy members rate their choices and the film with the least first place votes contributes their few votes to the second place film on those respective ballots– the winner is a toss-up. Will an underdog (Get Out or Lady Bird) take the victory??? Or will the films who lead in nominations (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri or Shape of Water) come out on top???
4. Another winner mix-up…?
Last year’s Oscars was plagued by the comical “Best Picture” mix-up when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway incorrectly announced La La Land as the winner of the category. Matters were made worse when the mistake was not corrected until after the La La Land crew went up to receive their award… Will the Academy learn from their mistake or create more great material for memes?
5. Timothée Chalamet.
If none of the other justifications were enough, Timothée Chalamet will be in attendance. Nominated for “Best Actor” in the also nominated film Call Me By Your Name, we can expect some incredibly charming interviews and more peach jokes.
(….one more for good measure)
(…and one more)