Kimmel looking for laughs at Oscars
Though Jimmy Kimmel doesn’t expect another misstep in the announcement of an Academy Award winner, he concedes he wouldn’t mind if it happened.
After last year’s error heard round the world, with “La La Land” declared best picture — instead of the movie actually specified in the envelope, “Moonlight” — ABC latenight host Kimmel returns for the second consecutive year to preside over the network’s broadcast of the 90th Oscar ceremony tonight at 8.
Presented again from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, the event is sure to reflect the new consciousness about sexual misconduct that has rocked the entertainment industry in recent months. However, Kimmel also wants the occasion to be the fun that it’s always been for movie lovers.
“I think it’s important to make the people in the room laugh,” he said, “and if the people in the room laugh, the audience at home will at least ... you know, we’ve been conditioned to react to a laugh track since probably the ’50s. And I think it’s important for the audience at home to hear people laughing, maybe even more important than making them laugh themselves.”
Regarding the awards themselves, vote counter and envelope guard PricewaterhouseCoopers has instituted several new rules to prevent last year’s now-legendary wrong-winner gaffe from reoccurring.
Still, Kimmel said, “If it happens again, literally everyone that works at ABC should be fired, right? If it happens one time, that’s, I think, understandable. But if it happens a second time, no one (there) is competent enough to be running a television show or network ... so I don’t think it’s going to happen again. If it did, I would have to admit, it would tickle me deeply.”
Here are the nominees in several major categories for the 90th Oscars:
• Best picture: “Call Me by Your Name”; “Darkest Hour”; “Dunkirk”; “Get Out”; “Lady Bird”; “Phantom Thread”; “The Post”; “The Shape of Water”; “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
• Best director: Paul Thomas Anderson, “Phantom Thread”; Guillermo del Toro, “The Shape of Water”; Greta Gerwig, “Lady Bird”; Christopher Nolan, “Dunkirk”; Jordan Peele, “Get Out”
• Best actor: Timothee Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name”; Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread”; Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out”; Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour”; Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.”
• Best actress: Sally Hawkins, “The Shape of Water”; Frances McDormand, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”; Margot Robbie, “I, Tonya”; Saoirse Ronan, “Lady Bird”; Meryl Streep, “The Post”
• Best supporting actor: Willem Dafoe, “The Florida Project”; Woody Harrelson, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”; Richard Jenkins, “The Shape of Water”; Christopher Plummer, “All the Money in the World”; Sam Rockwell, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”
• Best supporting actress: Mary J. Blige, “Mudbound”; Allison Janney, “I, Tonya”; Lesley Manville, “Phantom Thread”; Laurie Metcalf, “Lady Bird”; Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”