The Oscars 2014 is this Sunday night, so it's time to get excited and stay up really late to watch lots of famous people cry and feign surprise. Here's why...
1. Awards shows are, by their very nature, a load of tedious, nauseating crap. So, if, we are going to waste three hours of our lives watching millionaires crying about how wonderful they are, we might as well waste them watching the big one.
2. As I'm writing this list for MyDaily I'm contractually obliged to say I can't wait to see who's wearing what on the red carpet. It's going to be, like, totally amazing (or something).
3. Last year, the show's charming host Seth McFarlane made the earth-shattering and apparently hilarious point, via the medium of song, that actresses possess breasts and sometimes wap them out. Maybe this year's host, Ellen DeGeneres, will crack a load of cock jokes to even things up.
4. The most exciting part of any Oscars ceremony is, of course, the bit when the best actress winner gives the kind of hideous speech that make the every sane member of the viewing public want to kill themselves (see Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet and Anne Hathaway for previous examples). This year it seems a dead cert that Cate Blanchett will be the one to get us all reaching for the sleeping pills and vodka.
5. Blanchett's speech will also come with the added frisson of seeing how she manages to accept another award for Blue Jasmine without mentioning Woody Allen by name. At the Baftas she distracted everyone by invoking poor old Philip Seymour Hoffman. Perhaps James Gandolfini will get a mention this time.
6. As far as Gandolfini and the Baftas are concerned, it will be nice to see the Oscars right the wrong done in the British ceremony, by paying tribute to the sadly departed Soprano in the memorial reel. Presumably, Trigger out of Only Fools and Horses, also snubbed by Bafta, won't be getting a name-check, though.
7. Good music news: Karen O from Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Pharrell Williams will be performing live. Terrible music news: U2 will be playing their Nelson Mandela tribute song (possibly the most doom-laden prospect since Iran started cracking open the uranium).
8. Every year I look forward to that moment in the Oscars when the Academy patronises people wot talk a bit funny by handing out the gong for Best Film in a Foreign Language. Like never inviting U2, the thought a film in French, Arabic or Italian might be the best out of all of them (English language or Johnny-Foreign) is clearly too obvious an idea for anyone at the Academy to have actually considered.
9. One of my favourite pastimes is shouting at the telly about how I'm cleverer than most of the people on it. That's why I watch Question Time. And the Oscars, where there's usually a film or two that hasn't been properly recognised (in my not so humble opinion, obviously). This year, I'll be getting pointlessly furious on behalf of the Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis.
10. And finally, what I really can't wait for is the post-ceremony verdict from that Hollywood-based showbiz correspondent off Daybreak. Until Ross McOrange passes judgment on what we're all about to see, I won't have a clue what I should think about any of it.
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MORE! See all the latest on the Oscars 2014 here.