The 2019 Oscars

Remember when Jennifer Hudson got eliminated way too early on “American Idol?”

We don’t either because it still hurts!

Anyway, the singer showed up and showed out in a striking pantsuit with a train (a train, people!) to perform the song “I’ll Fight,” from the CNN Films documentary “RBG.”

It wasn’t her strongest performance, but even a less than 100% Hudson is better than so many other singers.

The award for best costume design went to Ruth Carter and in her own words, it was “a long time coming.”

Carter won for “Black Panther” and became the first African American to take home the statue.

She thanked Spike Lee for giving her her start and said she hoped she made him proud.

She also paid homage to the film that made her a trailblazer.

“Marvel may have created the first black superhero, but through costume design, we turned him into an African king,” Carter said.

She also showed love to her mother.

“This is for my 97-year-old mother watching in Massachusetts,” Carter said. “Mom, thank you for teaching me about people and telling their stories. You are the original super hero. “

Melissa McCarthy mocked “The Favourite” in probably one of the wackiest costumes to grace the Oscars stage.

McCarthy walked on stage with Brian Tyree Henry, who also wore an early 18th century gown, to present the best costume award.

Her dress was dotted with stuffed bunny rabbits — an homage to the main character in “The Favourite.”

As McCarthy presented the award, she performed ventriloquism with the rabbits.

“These artists create a pastiche of textiles with authenticity, yet never distract from the story. Costume designers construct the looks that ground a character to a particular time and place in the subtlest of ways,” McCarthy said.

It was a strange bit, but it brought plenty of laughs.

The internet went crazy for Chris Evans helping Regina King up on stage when she won for best supporting actress.

We get it. He’s adorable. It was adorable. Regina has always been adorable.

Heart it all.

National Geographic’s “Free Solo” just won for best documentary.

Directed by award-winning filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Free Solo” follows Alex Honnold for more than two years as he prepares for the climb of his life.

In June 2017, the 33-year-old became the first person to climb Californian granite monolith El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without any ropes – a skill known as free soloing.

These three women are hilarious.

Former “Saturday Night Live” stars and real-life BFFs Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph presented the first award of the night, best supporting actress.

They riffed on everything from the show’s lack of host to how all actresses are into supporting because women are supportive.

“For example, I support both of you financially,” Poehler joked.

They also gave us an example of what it would have been liked if they had been chosen as hosts.

“Hey Chadwick Boseman, ‘Wakanda’ plans you got later on tonight,” Rudolph said, giving us a taste of how they would have acted.

Regina King won the award, BTW.

Regina King just won best supporting actress for “If Beale Street Could Talk.”

She is the third black actress to win both an Oscar and a Primetime Emmy, joining Halle Berry and Viola Davis.

King thanked her mother and Baldwin, the author of the book that was adapted into the film.

King has three Emmys, which she won in 2015, 2016 and 2018. 

Adam Lambert performs onstage onstage during the 91st Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on February 24, 2019 in Hollywood, California.

If nothing else, the Oscars opening let us know which celebs can and cannot dance.

Queen, fronted by Adam Lambert, kicked off the 91st Academy Awards with a medley of the group’s hits including “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.”

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” the story of the late Freddie Mercury, Queen’s lead singer, is nominated for best picture as is its star, Rami Malek, for best actor.

Lady Gaga paid homage to old Hollywood with a black strapless gown with an exaggerated hip and long sleeves.

With her platinum blonde hair, Gaga, who is nominated for best actress for her performance in “A Star Is Born,” was reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe.

About that necklace: She donned a 128.54-carat Tiffany diamond necklace, which Audrey Hepburn wore in 1961, according to W Magazine.

The 91st Academy Awards are shaping up to be one the most unpredictable broadcasts in Oscar history. With no official host running the show and a series of wild card nominations, there’s no telling what’s going to happen.

While we may not know who’s going to win, we do know there’s a good chance that God, the Academy, and Bradley Cooper will be thanked in acceptance speeches.

Need something to keep your viewing party guests entertained while the PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants are on stage? Use our 2019 Oscar night bingo cards.

Check out the cards here. You can also download them.

Tonight’s red carpet was dominated by the color pink.

From hot pink tulle to soft pink to bubblegum pink, celebrities donned long, layered gowns and at least one suit in the color.

Check out some of the looks:

Gemma Chan

Kacey Musgraves

Helen Mirren

Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet

The majority of this year’s first-time nominees are hardly new to the game.

Director Spike Lee, who is up for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay, first burst onto the scene in 1986 with his directorial debut, “She’s Gotta Have It.”

Richard E. Grant has also been around since the ‘80s, when he debuted in the film “Withnail and I” before going on to memorable roles in “Game of Thrones” and the movie “Logan.”

He’s nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

Lady Gaga is nominated for best actress for her performance in “A Star Is Born” and she is, of course, Lady Gaga.

One of her co-stars in that film, Sam Elliott, is nominated for best supporting actor and began his film career in the 1960s in projects such as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Regina King and Rami Malek can both thank the small screen for fans being familiar with their work.

King is nominated in the best supporting actress category for “If Beale Street Could Talk” and first found fame as a child star on the TV comedy “227” before she grew into more adult roles on the TV dramas “Southland” and “American Crime,” as well as films like “Jerry Maguire” and “Ray.”

Malek is up for best actor for his turn as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The actor previously starred as a computer hacker in the TV series “Mr. Robot.”

Olivia Colman’s skill portraying England’s Queen Anne in “The Favourite” earned her a best actress nod this time.

She’s known on both sides of the pond for critically acclaimed roles in “Broadchurch,” “The Thirteenth Tale” and “The Night Manager.”

Billy Porter knows how to “Pose.”

The star of the FX series “Pose” shut down the red carpet with his Christian Siriano tuxedo gown.

Porter told Vogue his “goal is to be a walking piece of political art every time I show up.”

“To challenge expectations. What is masculinity?” he asked. “What does that mean? Women show up every day in pants, but the minute a man wears a dress, the seas part.”

The actor said he’s always wanted to wear a dress.

“We wanted to play between the masculine and the feminine,” Porter said. “This look was interesting because it’s not drag. I’m not a drag queen, I’m a man in a dress.”

Oscar winners Mahershala Ali, Christian Bale, Sam Rockwell, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz are nominated this year again for acting.

They are among 20 acting nominees, and it’s the first acting nomination for nine members of that group.

Ali, a Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice winner, is going for his second Oscar in three years. He previously won best supporting actor for his role in “Moonlight.”

He nomination this year is for “Green Book,” which won best picture at the Producers Guild Awards. The PGA winner has gone on to win the best picture 20 of the last 29 years, including seven of the last nine years since the Academy Awards expanded the category in 2010.

Hollywood’s top actresses are owning the red carpet tonight.

They are donning long trains, ruffles, capes and pantsuits.

Here are some of the red carpet looks:

Melissa McCarthy

Linda Cardellini

Jennifer Hudson, Tina Fey, and Maya Rudolph

Amy Poehler 

What can you do to win glory at the Academy Awards? There’s no magic formula, but based on history, there are choices you can make that will boost your movie’s chances of winning best picture.

Take our quiz here, and see if you’ve got what it takes.

There can be a 100 celebrity pairings in the room and 99 don’t move you, but all it takes is one.

And that one, for us, is Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.

Those in the know are aware that the 100 vs. one thing is an homage to a meme-worthy speech Gaga gave (over and over again) about how Cooper believed in her enough to make “A Star Is Born” magical.

Cooper, who also directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay, stars as troubled singer Jackson Maine, who falls for Gaga’s character, Ally, a struggling artist.

Cooper and Gaga play the hell out of the roles and have formed a pretty strong bond off camera.

That sounds kind of romantic, doesn’t it?

Of course, Cooper has been in a nearly four-year relationship with model Irina Shayk, and the couple has a young daughter.

So while Gaga has reportedly split with her fiancé Christian Carino, the dream of Gooper or Caga (possible couple monikers) will probably remain just that – a dream.

We may be overthinking it, but we see you sis!

Glenn Close arrived on the red carpet, living her life like it’s golden.

Given that Close is favored to win the best actress Oscar for her role in “The Wife,” why not color coordinate with the statue?

For the record, Close told ABC the dress has 4 million beads and weighs 42 lbs.

“Roma’s” Yalitza Aparicio is the first indigenous woman and fourth Latina actress to be nominated for best actress.

But the road to the Oscars hasn’t been easy for the Oaxacan actress.

She recently responded to racist insults from Mexican soap opera actor Sergio Goyri, who was caught on video slamming her indigenous roots. He later apologized.

In “Roma,” director Alfonso Cuarón offers a semi-autobiographical tribute to the women who raised him, focusing on the family maid, played by Aparicio. The story is set amid a period of unrest, both within the family and society at large, in his native Mexico in the 1970s. Shot in black and white, the film marks Netflix’s first best picture nomination.

“Roma” is the 11th foreign-language film nominated for best picture. The last was “Amour” in 2012. No foreign-language film has ever won the award.

The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, down the street from its current home at the Dolby Theater. This year’s awards show will be its 91st ceremony. 

Spike Lee donned a key piece of jewelry that paid homage to Radio Raheem, a beloved character in the director’s film “Do the Right Thing,” and wore in all-purple look in honor of the late musician Prince as he walked the red carpet ahead of the Oscars.

Actor Bill Nunn, who died in 2016, played Radio Raheem in the 1989 critically acclaimed film. Many critics believed the film should have been nominated for an award.

Lee wore knuckle rings on each hand, emblazoned with the words “Love” and “Hate.” (Nunn wore similar knuckle rings in the film.) The director also donned a necklace with the unpronounceable symbol that Prince adopted as his name in 1993.

Lee and Prince were good friends.

The filmmaker included Prince’s version of “Mary Don’t You Weep” at the end of his Oscar-nominated film “BlacKkKlansman.” 

We already knew that Marie Kondo cleaned up well, but it’s a whole new level when you do it on the Oscars red carpet.

The Netflix star – who has us all dragging stuffed trash bags to consignment shops – was a welcome surprise Sunday night.

Followers of her Instagram account knew ahead of time, as she announced it on Saturday.

“I’m going to the Oscars! I’ve shared a few photos of my dress fitting in Highlights, above,” the caption read. “Can’t wait to show you more on Sunday.”

Any doubts as to whether Alex Honnold is the greatest rock climber of all time were erased when the American did something that no one thought was humanly possible.

In June 2017, the 33-year-old became the first person to climb Californian granite monolith El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without any ropes – a skill known as free soloing.

His achievement has since been immortalized in a breathtaking BAFTA-winning National Geographic documentary “Free Solo,” which has been nominated for best documentary at this year’s Oscars.

Directed by award-winning film-makers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Free Solo” follows Honnold for more than two years as he prepares for the climb of his life.

However, keeping the cameras at a distance was imperative in order to keep Honnold safe and allow him to have the experience he was craving.

More than 8,000 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decide the fate of the Oscar nominees.

Folks have noticed that the stage design for the 91st Academy Awards seems to resemble the coif of a certain leader of the free world.

But as President Trump might say, you aren’t seeing what you think you’re seeing.

The stage’s production designer, David Korins, told the Los Angeles Times that the stage design of “a shimmering, swirling symphony of sparkling blues and gold dotted with 1,250 Swarovski crystal strands painstakingly hung above the Dolby stage, weighing 1,600 pounds” was not meant to look like Trump’s hair.

“I don’t see that, but I think that people see in artistic endeavors all sorts of things,” Korins told the publication. “You look at paintings and sculpture and architecture and people see what they want to see. And I choose to see one of inclusion and humanity, femininity and beauty.”

Some celebrities are sharing their secrets to looking red carpet-ready ahead of tonight’s big show.

From red light facials and quiet time to sitting down with a makeup artist, the stars are pulling out all the stops.

Here’s a look at their preparations:

Spike Lee

Allison Janney

Caitlyn Jenner

Octavia Spencer

Constance Wu

Gabrielle Union

Ashley Graham

This year’s Oscar nominations are some of the most diverse ever.

Just check out the best picture nominees alone: “Black Panther,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Roma” and “Green book.”

Two front-runners for best supporting actor and actress are black — Mahershala Ali and Regina King — and the best director category includes first-timer Spike Lee and Latino director Alfonso Cuarón.

Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio is nominated in the best actress category.

What does it all mean for the state of #OscarsSoWhite? (It’s the campaign that became shorthand a few years ago for the lack of opportunities and recognition for people of color in Hollywood.)

The hashtag was created in 2015 by April Reign, who this year will be attending the Oscars ceremony for the first time.

Lee has publicly credited the campaign with his nominations this year for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — the organization behind the Oscars — moved to try to improve the diversity by extending membership to more than 900 new members last year, with more women and people of color being included.

But Reign has talked to CNN in the past about the need to not believe the work is done, just because black actors and directors are receiving more recognition.

“Black Panther” made history as the first superhero film to ever be nominated for best picture.

It’s also the third-highest-grossing movie in domestic history.

The nomination is one of seven for the film overall: The Marvel mega-hit was joined in that category by “BlacKkKlansman,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Favourite,” “Green Book,” “Roma,” “A Star Is Born” and “Vice.”

The nomination is not only a nod to the $700 million that the movie earned in North America alone, but an acknowledgement of its cultural impact, and what it says about Hollywood representation involving people of color. It also follows a history of prior superhero sensations (“The Dark Knight,” “Wonder Woman” among them) being denied the respect that comes with being invited to the entertainment industry’s biggest stage.

The drama about who might host the Academy Awards may well turn out to be more exciting than the show itself.

After Kevin Hart stepped down following controversy over some homophobic comments and tweets from years ago, there was a lot of back and forth over who – if anyone – would step in.

Daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres even had Hart on her show to try to convince him to return to the gig.

She wasn’t successful and the lack of a replacement resulted in ceremony with no host.

But what happens if that formula ends up being successful?

Let’s be honest: The Oscars sometimes suffer by being the last hurrah of awards season. We have already partied through the boozy Golden Globe Awards, embraced the speeches of the Screen Actors Guild Awards and rocked out to the performances at the Grammys.

So maybe not having a host and his or her accompanying opening monologue and jokes to critique might force the Oscars to come up with other ways to entertain the audience.

Though, to be fair, CNN’s Brian Lowry reminded us that the last hostless Academy Awards in 1989 featured the much-mocked opening musical number involving Rob Lowe and an actress playing Snow White. It can only get better, right?