What’s For Dinner at the Annual Governor’s Ball and Other Oscars News

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Features

Published on Wednesday, 28 February 2018 12:48

Written by Lapacazo Sandoval

Photos by Lapacazo Sandoval

The Oscars® are marking their 90th celebration which will air live on Sunday, March 4, on ABC. Producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd return along with 10 key members of the production team.  

“This team brings more than 90 years of combined Oscars telecast experience,” said De Luca and Todd. “Collaborating with them as we celebrate the 90th year of the Oscars is both fitting and thrilling.”

Academy governor Jeffrey Kurland, event producer Cheryl Cecchetto and master chef Wolfgang Puck return to create the Governors Ball, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ official post-Oscar celebration which immediately follows.

On March 1st the annual Governors Ball’s preview gives the media an opportunity to taste the food, wine, and spirits that will be served to the ball’s 1,500 invited guests which includes Oscar winners and nominees, show presenters and other telecast participants.

A showman himself, Puck will set the stage with a Governors Ball menu pairing Hollywood glamour with culinary whimsy. There are always new menu items but Puck’s signature dishes such as smoked salmon Oscars, chicken pot pie with shaved black truffles, and baked macaroni and cheese, will return, and having tasted them all, it’s a winning combination for the palette.

The pastry team offers innovative and playful desserts served at multiple dessert stations including the ultimate dessert buffet featuring Puck’s sought-after 24-karat-gold chocolate Oscars. Wolfgang Puck Catering team will direct more than 900 event staff through the evening’s intricately detailed logistics to deliver guests a true restaurant-style hospitality experience.

The Governors Ball will take place in the Ray Dolby Ballroom on the top level of the Hollywood & Highland Center immediately following the Oscar telecast.

This year’s best-original-song Academy Award category is absolutely packed with haunting melodies and invigorating performers making this section one the highlights of the live Academy Awards telecast.  Nominated this year is Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s sweet lullaby Remember Me from “Coco”; Sufjan Stevens’s indie-folk song Mystery of Love from “Call Me by Your Name”; Mary J. Blige’s powerful R&B ballad Mighty River from “Mudbound;”  Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s uplifting pop song This Is Me from “The Greatest Showman”; and Diane Warren and Common’s soul anthem Stand Up for Something from “Marshall.”

According to several articles and social media, the paring of Diane Warren with Common began by chance on an airplane, where the iconic Warren sang the chorus of Stand Up for Something in Common.  As reported the direct-to-the-point songstress said, “I never want to waste an opportunity,” and the 61-year-young Warren didn’t miss this opportunity to pair with 45-year-old Common.

Common credits his mother for planting the Oscar seed idea inside his creative and fertile mind.  It’s an endearing quote and one that touched me deeply because my very own dear and departed mothers’ dream was that I cover the Oscars an event we both cherished during my childhood. The Oscars in a word was our “Superbowl” and a mother-and-daughter bonding event which formed some of my very best childhood memories.

Says Oscar winner Common:  “My mother said to me, ‘You, a little black kid from the South Side of Chicago, you’re going to the Oscars . . . Think about that.’ I would never have thought.”  

The year that he and John Legend took home an Oscar I was there front-and-center inside the winner's room where I asked both of them just what they loved about being storytellers. To listen to their answers you can go to YoutTube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0e9QAtlLVE and fast forward to @5:41/10.13.  

Please follow me @lapacazo and on Instagram.

The 90th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be broadcast live on the ABC Television Network at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT and will be televised in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

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