Oscars 2016: All eyes on Chris Rock

Lawrence had her Cinderella moment at the 2013 Academy Awards, when she won her first Oscar, taking home Best Actress for her role in Silver Linings Playbook.

Fast forward to this Sunday night.

The group says it wants to put pressure on advertisers – especially the retailer Kohl’s, the award show’s new sponsor this year – to suspend their relationships with the Academy until it takes concrete steps to address its diversity issues.

The 88th Academy Awards (and McLane’s fourth as production designer) will be broadcast Sunday on ABC.

Inarritu won last year with “Birdman”, and this year he and his lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio look like they might be sweeping away all the glory with their man versus nature survival thriller “The Revenant”.

Rock said he also plans to keep “the show moving”.

He’s been nominated for six Oscars in his long and acclaimed career but has yet to pick up a single statuette, but 2016 looks like it could be his year.

But how can you watch the show and just who is going to win what?

“It’ll be Chris Rock mining the truth of the matter, and clearly that’s the elephant in the room”, Dennis said.

There are so many other things to blame the academy for, starting with a telecast dragged down by self-congratulatory hype, unusual production numbers and boring speeches. Representatives of the Academy Awards did not respond to a request from The Guardian for comment for this story.

If anybody’s [planning on] boycotting the Oscars, don’t, because Chris Rock is gonna annihilate every one of us [leaders of Hollywood studios/distribution companies] in the first 20 minutes of the show, and it will be well worth watching. The public relations branch, which strategizes those awards campaigns, is 95% white. It would also mark the third year in a row that this overwhelmingly old white male (and politically liberal) voting body has chosen works by filmmakers of color in these two prestigious categories.

Cate Blanchett has been part of awards season six times and says one downside is “you do get a little bit sick of the sound of your own voice”.

Rock also hinted about the type of jokes viewers can expect in his interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

“A woman’s film is always harder to get made at a studio”, veteran film producer Lynda Obst told Reuters. The accompanying text message is just as intriguing: “See you Sunday…” “The Purge”? ‘Neighbours”? I’m not sure there is”. Actors such as Idris Elba of “Beasts of No Nation”, Will Smith of “Concussion”, and Samuel L. Jackson of “The Hateful Eight” were thought to be contenders this year but did not make the cut.

Meanwhile, there was an obvious and insistent flip side to the message: Black actors and black filmmakers have a responsibility to their art too. You don’t realise how much energy you’re putting out enjoying yourself but I sleep really well. In Rock’s defense, when he signed on to host this year’s ceremony, the nominees had not yet been announced.