Hugh Jackman to Host Oscars

[silverscreenselect]

This is certainly a departure from their tradition of putting funny men (and women) up there. Bill Condon, director of Dreamgirls, is producing the show, so there's a good chance there will be more musical numbers. Condon has already indicated that there would be fewer of the clips and retrospectives than they have had in the past.

[a1mamacat]

hummana hummana

[DevilKitty100]

hummana hummana

Indeed..........hummana hummana hummana HUMMANA!

[Bob Juch]

This is certainly a departure from their tradition of putting funny men (and women) up there. Bill Condon, director of Dreamgirls, is producing the show, so there's a good chance there will be more musical numbers. Condon has already indicated that there would be fewer of the clips and retrospectives than they have had in the past.

Hugh Jackman is very funny!

[PlacentiaSoccerMom]

He's hot!

[franktangredi]

This is certainly a departure from their tradition of putting funny men (and women) up there. Bill Condon, director of Dreamgirls, is producing the show, so there's a good chance there will be more musical numbers. Condon has already indicated that there would be fewer of the clips and retrospectives than they have had in the past.

He did a tremendous job hosting the Tony Awards a few years ago. I think it's an excellent choice.

[NellyLunatic1980]

Hugh Jackman just seems like a perfect fit as Oscar host. He can act, sing, dance, and crack jokes... unlike Billy Crystal or Steve Martin, who just mail it in when it comes to singing and dancing. Sounds like we'll be in for a good show in 2009.

[etaoin22]

let me explain to all what is wrong with the Oscars. Yes, retrospectives of movies 99% of the public will not have an idea what they are seeing is unwise. They started brilliantly with Chaplin, when Chaplin was there. If they followed a rule of only showing clips as good as Charlie Chaplin, then the clips will seldom come and wishd-for come.

(Like Shakespeherian quotations.......)

But that is not it.

The problem is the venue. It is too large and sterile.

In the other places -- like Dorothy Chandler's Pavilion -- the show was too large for its locale, giving the impression of bursting at the seams, with real enthusiasm (or Hollywood-good genuine fake real enthusiasm. And in I think all cases -- poliitics, train rides coming home for the holidays, first-run movies, rock-n-roll concerts -- this sort of bursting is the antecedent to euphoria. For the Oscars, it helped contribute to the peculiar annual delusion I felt, that somehow I in the casual film audience was still in some fashion part of the extended family of the Crystals and Spielbergs and Nicholsons.

Now, all I see is a vast chasms -- both on stage and auditorium -- which might as well extend on to be runways at LAX, and I feel nothing - just a big not-very-interesting variety show spersed with some too long repartee. I usually don't watch, and, because of or not I am not sure, I am watching a lot fewer movies in the year.