The Oscars hosts have been officially announced, and it will be Steve Martin, hosting his third Oscars, paired with Alec Baldwin in his first. It seems like an okay, if boring choice. Until you read this:
The pairing of Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Martin comes with a self-referential twist: The two are cast as rivals for the affection of a character played by Meryl Streep in a romantic comedy, “It’s Complicated,” which is directed by Nancy Meyers and is set for release by Universal Pictures on Christmas Day. [NYTimes]
Oof. I hope we aren’t choosing hosts by who has a movie to promote now. But I’ll save the conspiracy theories for when we talk about how the CIA wanted to assassinate Kennedy with an AIDS monkey. Truth is, these hosts are sorta meh, just like the Oscars itself is sorta meh. I was excited back when Dave Letterman was set to host, just like I was excited when Chris Rock and Jon Stewart were set to host. But what happened? Not a lot. It’s an impossible gig because you’re trying to make jokes about people on the night when they’re taking something that’s supposed to be fun super seriously. The closest they ever got to spontaneity was when Chris Rock made a Jude Law joke and Sean Penn ran onstage to complain that he didn’t get to be on the committee that decided whether it was okay to tell a joke or not. Bottom line, short of getting Tracy Morgan to host and letting him ad-lib stories from his childhood to introduce categories (seriously, make this phone call now), nothing all that interesting is going to happen.
According to Nikki Finke, who as far as I can tell is the only source for this, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. were approached by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences about hosting this year’s Oscars as a duo, but turned them down. Pretty disappointing, especially if RDJ was considering doing the whole show in blackface, as Billy Crystal used to do. But you can hardly blame them for not wanting to take orders from this guy:
Nikki Finke recently broke the news (accompanied by one of her always classy and humble ‘TOLDJA!’ headlines, of course), that Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic would be producing the next Oscars telecast. Nikki writes:
I consider it a good choice that bodes well for AMPAS new president Tom Sherak. Both Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic are experienced movie people, and Shankman has the added benefit of current TV experience.
Is this bitch serious? Let’s do a run through of the movies Adam Shankman directed and their accompanying rank on RottenTomatoes, shall we?
- The Wedding Planner, 16%
- A Walk to Remember, 27%
- Bringing Down the House, 34% (34%? Really?)
- The Pacifier, 21%
- Cheaper By the Dozen 2, 7%
- Hairspray, 91%
- Bedtime Stories, 24%
The one success is Hairspray, which was based on an already-successful play, which was in turn based on a cult-classic John Waters movie. And having seen the horrific nightmare fuel that is John Travolta in drag, I still wouldn’t watch that flick unless I got kidnapped by the Saw guy and it was either that or gouge out a testicle and eat it. Oh, but he does have non-directorial credits, what were those again?
