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We'd never dream of spoiling any part of the utterly surprising, constantly unfolding majesty that is the Academy Awards telecast; robbing you of the joy of discovering for yourself the wonders that the event's producers have planned for a stated worldwide audience of fifty-six billion people would be tantamount to us scorching off your genitals before sending you to one of the many complimentary brothels the Academy has established in various private residences in the Hills to celebrate Oscar week. Others, however, have no such qualms: The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke delights in trying to ruin your Sunday evening by revealing some unexpected program elements designed to make viewers soil themselves in delight, such as [SPOILER ALERT!] the pairing of Paramount castoffs Tom Cruise and Sherry Lansing for the ten-minute musical number "Sumner Redstone Can Go Fuck Himself." Also: [PLEASE POKE OUT EYES, ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT] The ceremony's going to be very, very long. Not again, Oscar ! And one more [FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T READ THIS ONE—SPOILER AHEAD]:

3. Here's another secret: I'm told that there's a big change in the order that the awards will be presented. The Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards will NOT be presented in the up-front portion of the show, as in previous years. Instead, none of the acting awards will be given out until the last third of the telecast. The Academy is doing this, I understand, because Oscar viewership starts out strong and then wanes. Ziskin is hoping that this will keep the audience glued to the entire broadcast hour after hour. But I understand this decision was hotly disputed because it breaks with tradition. All I can say is that now there's not much reason to watch the beginning of the show, either.

In order to obtain permission to willfully violate sacred Oscar tradition, producer Ziskin had to promise to deliver an unforgettable hook at the top of the program; accordingly, the nominees for all four acting categories will be gathered on stage, with one hopeless candidate from each group beaten to death with an Oscar statuette by his or her peers. By the end of the first twenty minutes of the program, Ryan Gosling, Penelope Cruz, Djimon Hounsou, and Adriana Barraza will no longer be with us, becoming cinematic apparitions hastily edited into the show's "In Memoriam" montage.

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