(CNN) — The big question for the 88th Academy Awards can be reduced to five letters: WWCRD?
What Will Chris Rock Do?
The Oscars may be about pageantry, tedium and — oh, yeah — honoring the best cinematic efforts of the year, but this season, there’s been an addition to the usual niceties: #OscarsSoWhite.
You may remember it from last year.
This sequel was probably about as welcome as “Jack and Jill 2.” #OscarsSoWhite became a trending topic last year thanks to the lack of people of color among acting nominees. Two years in a row? The movie capital and its institutions probably hoped the issue would have gone away.
Instead, it’s earned more attention than ever.
Enter Rock, who’s hosting the show. He wasted no time in cracking a joke about the controversy on Twitter: “The #Oscars. The White BET Awards,” he wrote the day after nominations were announced.
Academy Awards show producer Reginald Hudlin said in January that Rock was rewriting his monologue, though a rep for Rock quickly said that the comedian had made “no decisions about the content of the show.”
“All will be revealed on February 28th. We will not comment further on this,” Rock’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Rock’s comedy is known for tackling societal issues head-on — and poking fun at sacred cows. Indeed, during his 2005 Oscar hosting gig, he showed how Hollywood was “out of touch” with a bit in which he interviewed African-American moviegoers, none of whom had seen the best picture nominees.
Motion Picture Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said she expected nothing less from him this year.
“We want him to (go there), obviously, because way before this, our selection of Chris was to bring some edge and some fun and some funny — intelligent funny — to the telecast,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “So we know he’s going to do that.”
Other celebrities, including Jada Pinkett Smith and Spike Lee, chose a different tack. They’re not going to the ceremony. (Lee was careful to note he didn’t use the word “boycott.”) Lee’s snub is particularly pointed, as he received an honorary Oscar in November.
Still, Lee said Rock can do what he likes.
“Chris Rock is a grown-a** man,” Lee told “Good Morning America.” “He’s just going to do what he wants to do, and I support either way.”
Who’s going to win?
Rock’s hosting may be the only surprise of what’s become a ceremony with few wild cards.
Gone are the days when you could gather around your Oscar pool sheet and truly wonder who was going to win the major categories, jolted by a win for Marlee Matlin or shocked by “Shakespeare in Love” beating “Saving Private Ryan.”
These days, awards season is followed almost as closely as the latest Instagram from the “Star Wars” set, leaving little room for the unexpected.
Still, it’s not as if the envelopes have already been opened.
Best picture: For much of awards season, “Spotlight” was leading the best picture race. The film, about a group of investigative reporters looking into sexual abuse by Catholic priests, won best film honors from the broadcast film critics, the American Film Institute and the SAG Awards, among others.
But in recent weeks, “The Revenant,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a vengeful trapper left for dead in the 1820s frontier, has come on strong. It won the Golden Globe for best drama, the BAFTA for best film and the Directors Guild honor. “The Revenant” was also nominated for pack-leading 12 Oscars, often a good indicator of best picture strength.
Still, don’t count out such nominees as “The Big Short,” about financial wizards who take advantage of the 2008 market meltdown, or “Room,” which may be helped by a best picture voting system that gives everyone’s second choice an edge. Assuming “Room” is everyone’s second choice.
Best director: Usually, picture and director are in lockstep, so “Revenant’s” win at the DGA helps its director, Alejandro González Iñárritu. If Iñárritu, who won for “Birdman” last year, wins again, he’ll be the just the third director to win consecutive best director trophies — and the first in 65 years, since Joseph L. Mankiewicz did it for 1949’s “A Letter to Three Wives” and 1950’s “All About Eve.”
However, “Mad Max: Fury Road’s” George Miller has earned strong support from critics’ organizations, and if enough Oscar voters have been impressed by his handling of the film’s wild bikers and gleeful action sequences, he could sneak in.
Best actor: There’s really no question here: If the winner isn’t Leonardo DiCaprio, it will be the biggest shocker since Roberto Benigni won for “Life Is Beautiful” in 1999. Not only has DiCaprio never won — despite his performances in such films as “The Aviator” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” — he ate a bison liver for his role. The academy loves that kind of commitment.
If it’s not DiCaprio? Well, it could be anyone. But probably the best bet is Matt Damon, who put on a one-man show as a stranded astronaut in “The Martian.”
Best actress: What started out as a competitive category, featuring the likes of two-time winner Cate Blanchett (“Carol”) and the popular Jennifer Lawrence (“Joy”), has turned into Brie Larson’s to lose. The 26-year-old star of “Room” has won everything in sight for her performance as a kidnapped mother protecting her young son, and the Oscars — which love anointing up-and-coming actresses — should be no different.
Larson’s main competition comes from the equally youthful “Brooklyn” star Saoirse Ronan, 21, who’s been here before: She was nominated eight years ago for “Atonement.”
Best supporting actor: The standing ovation “Creed’s” Sylvester Stallone received at the Golden Globes means his colleagues like him, they really like him, and he’ll probably also waltz away with an Oscar for playing Rocky Balboa, 39 years after his best actor nomination for the same role. Any other year, this award would probably go to Mark Rylance, who gives a quietly powerful performance as a Russian agent in “Bridge of Spies.”
Best supporting actress: Of the acting categories, this is the most unsettled, but oddsmakers are leaning toward “The Danish Girl’s” Alicia Vikander. The Swedish actress came on strong in 2015, appearing in four major films.
Right behind her are Kate Winslet (“Jobs”) and Rooney Mara (“Carol”), both of whom could easily take the prize.
That’s entertainment
Even with Rock and 24 categories’ full of awards, the Oscars still have to fill the night. After all, as Johnny Carson once noted, the ceremony is “two hours of sparkling entertainment spread out over a four-hour show.”
So what else can you expect?
There will be performances of three best song nominees by Lady Gaga (“‘Til It Happens to You”), Sam Smith (“Writing’s on the Wall”) and the Weeknd (“Earned It”), though there are five songs nominated. (Sorry, “Manta Ray” and “Simple Song #3.”)
There will almost certainly be a splashy opening skit, an Oscar tradition since Billy Crystal hosted the show. Those sketches can be hit or miss, but any of them will be better than the infamous Rob Lowe-Snow White opening number.
There will be an “In Memoriam” sequence that the Internet, noticing a missing favorite, will complain about.
And there might be a protest or two, whether by a winner or by the orchestra, straining to play off an overly effusive trophy holder.
So looks like we’re counting on Rock to say something provocative. He should have no problem doing so.
The 88th Academy Awards will air Sunday from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. The red carpet begins at 7 p.m. ET, with the show to follow at 8:30. The show will air on ABC.
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