I expected James to look stoned which he did, but he was not funny, not clever. He was just reading the teleprompter the whole time. He didn’t even look good. Poor Anne was trying to save the show.
it was kind of obvious he was never going to take it seriously and just piss about. i love him for it but i do feel bad for anne having to work overtime.
Right? The more bored and over it he was the more she seemed to be working herself into a frenzy…. (!).
It was like a high school theater party where only two people show up and one of them keeps trying to climb out of the bathroom window.
Maybe Franco was doing the whole thing as a performance piece to fulfill some grad school obligations….
Right, Pierre. In lieu of writing a paper, he did a wooden MC gig.
From what I saw Franco was the only good thing about the oscars.
Anne Hathaway was good as co-host. James Franco looked like he could double for The Joker in a future Batman movie.
@Z Bart – I was trying to find a reason why he less animated. It’s grasping at straws, to be sure.
Can you blame him, oscar talk makes my eye lids heavy anyway.
His mind was where mine was — not interested in the oscars. (I didn’t watch. Rarely ever do). However, it’s odd that he agreed to do the gig considering that. Did someone threaten him to do it?
@Allan, not not really. Most of these award shows are only meant for casual filmgoers, so you’re not alone in getting the drowsy feeling.
I’ve been to the Oscars (my husband worked for the film archive of The Academy at one time) and believe me, they’re even MORE boring in person.
the most unfunny hosts ever. please get billy crystal back
Can you blame him
yeah I can… take the gig, do the gig
that’s show business baby
It’s true. Look at Billy Crystal, look at James Franco. One was born to entertain the academy, and the other simply was not. Youthful exubrance this year… but in a dry sort of way…
Guy was totally high.
He seemed really nervous not bored. I couldn’t stand Anne’s Woo Hoos.
Lol!
was not too impressed with Franco or Hathaway
I noticed that when Billy Crystal appeared he got a mini-standing ovation. he was missed
Why was Franco even picked to host anyway?
completely lame. What’s so great about this guy anyway?
The entire show seemed pretty uninteresting, even more than usual. How about that segment on Great Oscar Acceptances, and they show 7 seconds of Tom Hanks nearly crying and even less of an over-exuberant Robert Benigni…that’s it! Pa-the-tic…
I had a wonderful dream where the Oscars took place in a soccer stadium and after each person received their award they were lined up and shot.
It was a method that actually saw awards going to the most deserving. go figure.
I hate it when they show people nearly crying. Either cry, or get the hell out.
Love this:
“While tonight’s Oscar ceremony was all about honoring work done last year, some of the most exciting acting of the new century was taking place on the stage at the Kodak Theater. Co-host James Franco, in a stunning act of bravura and sustained performance art, masterfully and completely deconstructed the ceremony and telecast.
“It puzzled many why a young, interesting actor like Franco would take a lame job like hosting the Oscars, but tonight answered that question. For a little more than three hours the immortally talented actor took us on a journey; he began the night game and filled with possibility during the opening skit, but as the hours wore on his enthusiasm dampened and waned. Halfway through he tested the very boundaries of our concepts of humiliation by coming out on stage in Marilyn Monroe drag for a piece that was anti-comedy in the finest Andy Kaufman tradition. Finally by the end Franco was apathy personified, lazily reading his lines from the teleprompter, seemingly unclear that The King’s Speech had just won Best Picture, and even rolling his eyes in the final moments of the show. It was breathtaking, and the commitment that he showed to his performance piece was astonishing. In just over three hours Franco had taken us through the entire awards season, starting with the excitement of Telluride and Toronto, stopping at the whoring of the guild and critic awards (the Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend dress!) and ending with the sheer hateful exhaustion at the Kodak – complete with the prediction of us all eventually forgetting who even won this year.
“Of course Franco couldn’t do it alone. Anne Hathaway, who had not been previously known to have an interest in avant-garde performance, played opposite the actor and sketched the arc of a person slowly becoming unhinged, throwing herself into all of the stupidest moments and unfunniest jokes of the night with daring aplomb. Her ability to project a desperate desire to keep this sinking ship of an awards show afloat with only the sheer force of her flop-sweated will was the exact perfect counterpoint to Franco’s performance as a guy just giving up and essentially tanking the jokes on purpose.
“Bravo, James, for daring to use the Oscar telecast as an opportunity to examine our own fatigue with awards season. Kudos, Anne, for throwing yourself totally into the part of a performer dying on stage for three excruciating hours. Your skill, your talent and your sheer artistry at tonight’s Oscars should be a glorious high water mark for acting as a craft, as an art and as a form of communication.”
—Devin Faraci
If that analysis has a shred of credibility, as opposed to be ironic, I want to watch the show! It sounds like a pseudo-Andy Kaufman approach.
it’s ironic without being accurate.
if you know what I mean.
^ Probably. Still love it.
Oh, too bad.
Pretty lousy host !!!
peter smith
The guy made my generation looked like a cliche. At least Anne was entertaining.