- by Steven McIntosh
- entertainment reporter
Michelle Yeoh is hoping to repeat her Best Actress win from last week’s Independent Spirit Awards
All eyes will later be on Hollywood to see if Everywhere Everywhere can cap off its extraordinary awards season by winning the Oscars.
The whimsical multiverse adventure is the favorite to win Best Picture following success at a host of preceding events.
But it faces competition from All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inishrin, among others.
Austin Butler, Brendan Fraser, Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh lead the acting categories.
The 2023 awards season has been one of the most unpredictable in recent years, with three out of four acting categories too close to call.
Other major ceremonies, such as the SAG Awards, BAFTAs and Golden Globes, have varying numbers of winners, and there is a lack of consensus on who will win at the Oscars as a result.
Who is hosting the Oscars?
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Jimmy Kimmel (left) last hosted the Oscars in 2018, when Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water won best picture
The 95th Academy Awards will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles.
The chat show host will be hosting the Academy Awards for the third time. He recently chaired the 2018 event.
US Comics is probably trying to forget about the second occasion, in 2017, when the ceremony descended into chaos after the Best Picture winner was incorrectly announced.
As part of a media call at the Dolby Theater on Wednesday, Kimmel joked about how the venue’s red carpet color has changed for the first time since 1960.
Kimmel (far right) highlights the new carpet color during a media call Wednesday
“I certainly hope not. But if there is, I think the decision to go with a champagne carpet instead of a red carpet shows how confident we are that no blood will be shed.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the decision to change the color of the carpet was actually made for practical reasons. The new means organizers can “more seamlessly transition from daytime arrivals to an elegant evening setting”.
how to watch oscars
Cate Blanchett is nominated for Best Leading Actress for her performance in The Wire.
Viewers in the US can watch the Oscars live on ABC. The network is also streaming the ceremony on its website and app.
In the UK, Sky will broadcast the ceremony simultaneously on four of its channels – Sky Arts, Sky News, Sky Showcase and Sky Cinema Oscars.
Unusually, this means British viewers can watch the Oscars on Freeview and Freesat. It will also be available on the streaming service NOW (formerly NOW TV).
The event begins at 17:00 PT / 20:00 ET on Sunday. In the UK, it starts at midnight as Sunday becomes Monday.
The awards are scheduled to be given in three hours – but the ceremony is delayed almost every year, often by at least 30 minutes.
Who’s Presenting at the Oscars?
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Last year’s winners (L-R) Arianna DeBose, Troy Kotsur and Jessica Chastain will be in attendance, but Will Smith will be absent
Traditionally, the four acting winners of the previous year’s Oscars return to present the award to their successors.
Other stars presenting categories this year include Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, John Travolta, Emily Blunt, Glenn Close, Jennifer Connelly and Florence Pugh.
Interestingly, Halle Berry has also been invited to perform. She remains the only woman of color to win Best Leading Actress at the Oscars, but we may see another this year with Yoh.
Other category presenters include Paul Dano, Andrew Garfield, Cara Delevingne, Kate Hudson, Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Mindy Kaling, Eva Longoria, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Andie MacDowell and Riz Ahmed.
They will join Antonio Banderas, Elizabeth Banks, Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek Pinault, Melissa McCarthy, Halle Bailey, Janelle Monáe, Questlove, Elizabeth Olsen and Pedro Pascal.
Who are the favorites to win?
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Brendan Fraser (left) and Austin Butler face off in the competitive best actor category
Excitingly, this year’s winners are the most difficult to predict for a while, due to the variation in the many preceding ceremonies.
The Only Acting Category Award Pundits Are Confident Is Everything Everywhere All At Once Star Ke Hui Quan winning Best Supporting Actor.
Otherwise, it’s all up for play. Brendan Fraser (whale) and Austin Butler (Elvis) Both have won Best Actor at other major shows and either one could take home an Oscar.
There’s another Dead Heat in the Actress category Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once) enjoying a late surge of pace, challenging the early frontrunner Cate Blanchett (Tar).
Best Supporting Actress is arguably the most open of the acting categories—there are three kind of races Angela Bassett (Wakanda Forever), kerry condon (Banshees of Inishrin) and Jamie Lee Curtis (everything together everywhere).
What will win best picture?
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Everywhere Everywhere All at Once was named Best Feature at last week’s Independent Spirit Awards
This time, everything together everywhere With the notable exception of the BAFTAs – the obvious frontrunner, which required almost every major frontrunner to win.
The British Academy was far less keen on the film than American voters, and the BAFTAs awarded far more. All Quiet on the Western Front.
At the Oscars, World War One is bookies’ second favorite to take the epic top prize, after Banshee of Inishrin,
Oscars 2023: Best picture contenders in 40 seconds
Best Picture is decided through preferential balloting—Academy members are asked to rank the 10 nominated films from favorite to least favorite.
This can mean that a film that has passionate support among a vocal but relatively small section of the Academy may lose to a film that has pleased a wider number of voters overall.
For example, a crowd pleaser such as Top Gun: Maverick May be a dark horse in the Best Picture race due to the large number of second- and third-place votes it is likely to receive.
Who is performing?
Rihanna will perform at the Oscars just a month after headlined the Super Bowl halftime show
The most likely winner in that category, however, is Naatu Naatu (from RRR) – which will be performed by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaal Bhairav at the ceremony.
David Byrne, Son Lux and Stephanie Hsu will perform This Is a Life (Everything Everywhere All at Once), while Diane Warren and Sophia Carson will perform Applause (from Tell It Like a Woman).
However, Lady Gaga will not perform her song Hold My Hand (from Top Gun: Maverick), despite being nominated fifth in the category. She is attending the ceremony though, so fans are hopeful that she can still put on a surprise performance.
Elsewhere, Lenny Kravitz will perform during the In Memoriam segment, which pays tribute to film personalities who have died in the past year.
Why is Oscar called Oscar?
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An Oscar statuette is 13.5 inches (34cm) tall and weighs 8.5lb (3.8kg).
Officially, these are the Academy Awards, but over the decades they have been affectionately known as the Oscars.
There are three possible sources. One is the late American columnist Sidney Skolsky, who claimed to have given the award his surname.
Actress Bette Davis claimed that the name was derived from her observation that the back of the statue resembled her husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson.
But the most popular theory is attributed to former Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who declared that the golden statuette looked like her uncle Oscar.
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