By Maddy Rodak
Staff Writer

Movie season is among us. The Academy Awards, the most prestigious award show of the year, commences at the turn of 8 p.m. on Feb. 22 in Hollywood, California.

‘How I Met Your Mother’ favorite Neil Patrick Harris will host the award show, and will surely bring good-natured humor to stage like last year’s host Ellen DeGeneres. This will be Harris’ first time hosting the lofty ceremony. “We are thrilled to have Neil host the Oscars,” said ceremony producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. “We have known him his entire adult life, and we have watched him explode as a great performer in feature films, television and stage.”

According to the Huffington Post, Harris blatantly admitted to New York radio show Z100 that he was quite terrified to host the biggest event in Hollywood. “I’ve been in the hosting world for a little while and the Oscars has been that show that I was terrified to take on, but had never been asked to do,” Harris said.

There are eight ‘Best Motion Picture of the Year’ nominees in total: ‘Boyhood’, ‘The Imitation Game’, ‘The Theory of Everything’, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, ‘Whiplash’, ‘Selma’, and ‘American Sniper’. Both movies ‘Birdman’ and ‘Budapest’ lead the way with 9 nominations each, though the others are all strong contenders as well.

Star-studded performances will liven up the night-long show. International recording star Rita Ora will perform Oscar-nominated song ‘Grateful’ from the film ‘Beyond the Lights’, and Adam Levine, the Grammy-winning lead singer of band Maroon 5 will perform ‘Lost Stars’, an ‘Original Song’ nominee from the film ‘Begin Again’. Critically-acclaimed artists John Legend and Common will perform ‘Glory’ from Oscar-nominated film ‘Selma’, the fifth hip-hop act to be nominated for ‘Best Original Song’. Tim McGraw will sing ‘‘I’m Not Gonna Miss You’ in dedication to country music icon Glen Campbell.

Oscar host Harris will be performing as well, which shouldn’t be a shocker, considering he’s won many awards for his work in the musical scene. Harris will perform a musical sequence called ‘Moving Pictures’, an original song written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, the singer-songwriter duo who wrote ‘Let it Go’ from the Oscar-winning movie ‘Frozen’.

Though the length of the ceremony may range from anywhere between two to four hours, the show will definitely have many surprises. Who knows what Harris has up his sleeve?