this shit is bananas

Time for the Oscar countdown, folks! We've got the first important piece of info about 3pies4rolls's favorite day of the year: Oscar Day!!! (set your countdown clocks for February 27th). Today's news? Oscar hosts. Yes, plural again.

Producers of the show have announced that James Franco and Anne Hathaway will co-host the big day.



Now, I'd consider this a definite improvement over last year. As much as I love Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, I thought they were pretty terrible Oscar hosts. Franco and Hathaway strike me as more ready to be the "performers" that the show needs. And (while it makes me feel like a traitor to Jon Stewart to say so), Hugh Jackman was my favorite host of recent years, and I think these two fit more in that mold.

I love Franco, and I go back and forth between finding Anne Hathaway really charming and kind of annoying. So hopefully the charming part will win out. Plus, she featured in the brilliant opening number from Jackman:



(if you want a better version of that, go to the official video- they just won't let me embed it)

The weirdest part for me is the very good chance of having one of the hosts also competing for an Oscar. Hathaway is a long-shot for "Love and Other Drugs", but Franco is considered a shoo-in for at least a nomination for "127 Hours". So that just brings in a weird dynamic that I'd rather not deal with. But what are you gonna do?

Anyone else miss Hugh Jackman?

Oh, Oscar Day. How I hate when you are over. 364 days until the next one. sigh. Of course, you do make it slightly easier when you are like last night. Because, while I was happy with the winners (although my dream of a Colin Firth upset went unrealized), the show itself was so bleh. (See a story or list of the winners)

Let's start with the opening. Frankly, all I got out of it was why is NPH not hosting this show? Because his opening number was the best "host" type thing of the night. Baldwin and Martin? All my fears from the original announcement of you guys as hosts came true. Boring, not very funny, and the pace of the show ground to a halt whenever you were onstage. Your opening shtick went on about 15 people longer than it should have (the first 2 or so minutes are glorious NPH time, the rest, well...):



Then you did that weird dance thing for the nominees for Best Score. Did you really think that would engage people more than the Best Song performances you eliminated? Because, if so, you should not be producing awards shows. Further evidence in that you gave about 4 minutes to horror movies (which basically reminded us why horror movies aren't well represented at the Oscars (and, by the way, the Twilight movies are NOT horror movies)), and like 6 minutes to John Hughes (while leaving Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur off of the "In Memoriam" video). All of these led to a rushed finale for the Hurt Locker's big win and an anticlimactic feel to the end of the show.

There were some highlights. Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr. were fantastic (shocking). Once I can find some video of that we'll get it up here. (UPDATE: Video located! Watch it here) And Sandy Bullock's speech was as charming as we could have hoped for.



We'll be talking about red-carpet fashion later, but i wanted to get some of our initial thoughts out to the interwebs. So, tell us, what did you think?

holy shit

They've announced the Oscar hosts. That's right, I said hosts. It's gonna be Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Which is just in no way as awesome as Ricky Gervais.

I'm a big fan of both of them, but I just don't like this. Thoughts?

UPDATE:
Okay, so upon thinking about this more and consulting with my fellow 3pies4rolls associates, the idea is beginning to grow on me. It's certainly waaaay better than some of the ideas that had been thrown around. So I'm putting my faith in Baldwin, and choosing to think positively :)