Despite downpours of rain, anticipation builds on Oscar weekend and INSIDE EDITION reports on the latest from Hollywood's biggest night.
It's a downpour as workers do their best to protect the red carpet for Sunday night's Oscars.
Buckets of water are accumulating on the tent covering the carpet, and despite the plastic covering, it's getting soaked! It's so wet, it squishes under everyone's feet.
Inside the Dolby Theatre, host Ellen DeGeneres was drowned out by the noise of last minute construction. The Academy is counting on her to bring the Oscars back to its glory days after three years running of disappointing hosts.
Last year, Seth MacFarlaine came under fire for being too mean. Billy Crystal's much-anticipated return the year before was labeled lackluster. And in 2011 the pairing of James Franco and Anne Hathaway was widely panned.
The Wall Street Journal calls Ellen "the safe choice."
She told GMAs Robin Roberts that she plans to be the queen of nice. "I'll be in the audience a lot, and playing with people a lot," said DeGeneres. "It's just never been my humor to get a laugh at someone else's expense. There's never going to be a mean joke."
And look at this—a life-sized Oscar statue has been set up just three blocks from the Dolby Theatre, with a needle sticking out of its arm. A plaque on the statue reads: "Hollywood's Best Kept Secret."
It's a shocking commentary on the recent heroin overdose of Philip Seymour Hoffman who won a Best Actor Oscar.
In a statement, the performance artist who put up the statute said, "From Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, Heath Ledger, and more recently Philip Seymour Hoffman, almost every week someone in the industry dies from the effects of drug use."
Back at the Dolby Theatre, come rain or shine, the Oscars will go on.
