Franco, Hathaway: Oscar night is young

Ricky Gervais will never host the Academy Awards, and not because he wasn't funny at the Golden Globes. It's because he was too funny - and flamingly disrespectful. When you consider the Oscar night hosts who've crashed and burned in recent years - David Letterman, Chris Rock, Jon Stewart - you realize they've been victimized by their own sense of perspective. They thought they were emceeing an awards show. That they were supposed to be funny. To make people laugh.

The audience? They like to laugh. But not at themselves. You can make fun of anything else. But when it comes to an evening of self-congratulation, Oscar people are pretty serious.

And the perception Out There seems to be that there's something less than serious about this year's emcees, James Franco and Anne Hathaway. They're charming, attractive, talented actors, and a pair of presenters whose combined age is five years less than that of last year's co-host, Steve Martin. Youth, obviously, is on the mind of the Oscar show producers. Ratings for the show, which drew 41 million-plus viewers in 2010, have risen for the past two years, after the all-time low (32 million) of 2008. The producers want the trend to continue. The expansion of the best picture category to 10 nominees certainly served to broaden the audience last year. But keeping ratings on the upswing - long term - also means engaging a viewership not already enrolled in AARP.

But their choice of hosts has been met by . . . doubt. The core question seems to be whether Franco and Hathaway have the appropriate gravitas for a program that was concluded last year by co-host Alec Baldwin patting best director winner Katherine Bigelow on the behind.

Meet the hosts

There is always the possibility that Oscar voters skew so old that many don't know who Franco and Hathaway are. But to be honest, Hathaway isn't really the issue. She's beautiful, a charmer, renowned for being industrious, cooperative and a good sport: When Hugh Jackman dragged her onstage two Oscars ago for a song and dance, she was as game as they come. She's been a nominee for best actress (2008, "Rachel Getting Married") and was considered a contender this year (for "Love and Other Drugs"). Her reaction to the Oscar gig has been classic industry professional: "I have so much going on, I'm just focusing on how wonderful it is to be challenged like this," she said in an interview. "It is amazing. Not everybody gets to do this, and I am really excited."

No, the wild card is Franco, Hollywood's renegade/renaissance man. At the recent Oscar nominees luncheon (Franco is up for best actor for "127 Hours"), he said what he's most proud of in his career is being invited to the Venice Biennale, the annual art exhibition that had been the subject of an online prank. Art dealer Edward Winkelman had blogged, cheekily, that the State Department had chosen Franco to represent the United States in Venice, a story others ran with, precisely because it seemed so plausible.

SEE PHOTOSSee photos of Anne Hathaway through the years

Franco's wide-ranging artistic endeavors - from a spring show at the downtown Manhattan Deitch Projects gallery to his recurring role on "General Hospital" (which has been part of a conceptual art project begun with art dealer Jeffrey Deitch) - have pegged Franco as artistically ambitious. His roles in the "Spider-Man" films and "Pineapple Express" have made him a star, but his participation in "Howl," "William Vincent" and other low- to no-budget indies have made him an art hero. He's a painter, writer, director and producer. And someone with a troubling insouciant attitude regarding the profundity of the Academy Awards telecast.

"Look, they know we're not Billy Crystal or Chris Rock," Franco told Vanity Fair. "If it is the worst Oscar show ever, who cares? . . . I'll try my best, but I don't see any shame [because] it's just like a movie . . . I mean, movies are so collaborative, [my] work is mediated through so many different people . . . if the movie comes out horrible, it's only partially my fault. It's the same thing with the Oscars."

Let the countdown begin

He and Hathaway will have help with some of the Oscars' more irritating aspects: the new 45-second countdown warning, for instance, which will illustrate the fleeting time with a black triangle graphic that swiftly fills in, followed by flashing red and black letters. It will mean the end of one contemptible Oscar tradition, the dismissal of long-winded winners with intrusive music. "That's the wrong kind of Oscar humiliation," said Tim Appelo, who writes The Hollywood Reporter's Oscar blog. "What we viewers want is close-ups of the losers' faces. But if they're smart enough to solve the overthanking problem, surely they're smart enough to write good stuff for two of the most chipper, charming sex bombs in America."

SEE PHOTOSJames Franco

The writers will have plenty of ammunition: Franco's art projects. Hathaway's sex scenes in "Love and Other Drugs." The awkwardness of Franco being both a nominee and the host. The controversial filmmaker Banksy. Snooki. "Dancing With the Stars." It could be one of the better Oscar nights in memory, as long as the Oscar audience doesn't take things too seriously.

These three were hosts of trouble

BY JOHN ANDERSON, Special to Newsday

James Franco and Anne Hathaway may seem like unconventional choices to host the Oscars. Let's hope they fare better than these three, who also raised eyebrows when they were announced as hosts.

DAVID LETTERMAN (1995) - They just didn't get him. "The Uma-Oprah" thing wasn't his finest moment, granted, but the fact is that hosts from the East (even Midwest transplants like Letterman) don't play well in L.A., where no one understands irony.

CHRIS ROCK (2005) - The New York comedian and once-only host probably sealed his Oscar fate with the sequence he shot at a Magic Johnson theater in Los Angeles, where patrons were asked if they'd ever heard of the best picture nominees. No one had. It was hilarious, while pointing out the irrelevance of the Oscars to a large part of the population. Which couldn't have made the academy happy.

JON STEWART (2006, 2008) - The "Daily Show" host, who is from (wait for it) New York, never really clicked with his Oscar audience, and suffered from the format - the intimacy on which Stewart thrives on TV was lost in the cavernous Kodak Theatre.