Lynne Warfel's Oscars preview

The Oscars have come a long way, baby, since a few colleagues in the industry gathered in 1929 at the Roosevelt Hotel, paying five bucks for their guests' tickets to see all of 15 awards being handed out, and then heading out early to yet another Hollywood hostelry for dinner.

The ceremony has moved from some pretty swank hotels — the Biltmore and the Ambassador — to theatre palaces like Grauman's Chinese on Hollywood Boulevard, the Pantages, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the old LA Music Center. For the last several years, it's been back home in Hollywood, right around the corner from the former Grauman's, at the Dolby Theater on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue just two blocks from where my first radio station, KFAC AM and FM, used to stand.

Back then, radio was king and the ceremonies were covered with audio only until 1953, when the Oscars were aired for the very first time live on TV from both Los Angeles and New York. Bob Hope hosted on the West Coast, and Frederic March from the East. The Oscars have the distinction of being the only awards program broadcast live to all US time zones, just in case you need a conversation starter for your Oscar party Sunday night.

The Oscars are no stranger to controversy, either. The proposed boycott this year for the absence of nominations for black actors two years in a row is on, but it's not totally new. Throughout the years, The Oscars have been accused of bias, sentimentality, and of favoring "Oscar bait" like historical period dramas, romantic dramas, and big-budget films. George C. Scott refused the award for Patton, calling the awards a meat market he wanted no part of; and Marlon Brando famously refused the award, sending a spokesperson to explain his disgust at the treatment of Native Americans by the industry.

Although this year's winners are known only to those mysterious people from Price Waterhouse who arrive on stage every year looking like tuxedoed deer in the headlights, here are a couple of predictions I'm willing to make, or at least hedge bets on.

I think it most likely Leonardo DiCaprio will take Best Actor for The Revenant. In the Best Picture category, I think it will be a tight finish between The Big Short and Spotlight, although my personal favorite was The Martian. (I'm not big on blood and gore movies. A wimp.)

And the Oscar for Best Original Score? It's very possible Alexandre Desplat could win again this year, but I think the real horse race is between the octogenarians, John Williams and Ennio Morricone. While the smash hit Star Wars: The Force Awakens occasioned the 83-year-old Williams's 50th nomination, I think it's more likely the award will go to 87-year-old Morricone for Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. Williams might use the Force, though, and levitate the statue right out of Morricone's hands.

As I write, the nominees are probably at final fittings of gowns they won't own, with rented Harry Winston jewels even they can't afford. If that's well beyond your means too, you can always wear something like I'm wearing to our pre-Oscar Saturday Cinema party, The Spoiler: jeans by Levi Strauss, sweatshirt by (your school name here, I'm in a Northwestern University original), and footwear by Converse.

Join me on YourClassical's Radio stream at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Feb. 27, for a special two-hour Saturday Cinema: An Oscar Celebration. Starting in the 1930s, it's a quick look at some of the Best Score and Best Song winners from the past and samplings of the music from the current crop of nominees. If Harry Winston wants to loan me some simple but fabulous earrings for the show, I wouldn't refuse as long as they go with my dazzling red Chuckies.

Now playing on YourClassical's Movies stream: Oscar-honored film scores from past and present.

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