Angelina Jolie has been confirmed as a presenter for this year’s Academy Awards. I like it! She hasn’t presented at the Oscars in a long time. When was the last time? 2004? Yikes. She presented Best Director at the Golden Globes this year, but for the past half-dozen years or so, Angelina has avoided presenting at awards shows, even when she’s nominated. I don’t really know why – she never seems nervous in front of a crowd or anything, so my guess is that it’s just A) bad timing and B) she doesn’t want to. But now that she’s going to the Oscars simply as “the date” of a (multiple) nominee, Angelina thought she might be bored, so she decided to take the producers up on their offer.

The last time Brangelina went to the Oscars, it was 2009 and both Brad and Angelina were up for lead acting awards, he for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and she for Changeling. The previous year, Angelina had been snubbed for a nomination for A Mighty Heart, and they made it a point to avoid going to the Oscars that year. In my opinion – and I have no proof to back this up – I’m guessing that Brad and Angelina have a standing invitation to present at every Oscar ceremony, regardless of whether they’re nominated. Producers simply want people to tune in, and more people tune in when Brad and Angelina show up.

Other presenters who have signed on thus far: Cameron Diaz, Halle Berry, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lopez, and the cast of Bridesmaids. It’s a good list. But I’m waiting to see if Jennifer Aniston gets added. Aniston famously showed up to present at the 2009 Oscars (with John Mayer, LOL) when Brad and Angelina were nominated, and Aniston has Wanderlust coming out THAT same weekend. Will she bring along her new John Mayer, Justin Theroux?

Here are some old photos of Angelina at previous Oscars. God, I still LOVE that Marc Bouwer dress. And I still think that black Elie Saab was beautifully tailored.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are more photos from yesterday’s Oscar nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills. I always think this must be one of the best events during the awards season – you don’t have to wear a gown, you don’t have to pose on a red carpet, you get to eat lunch with friends and other talented people, and you pose for a big “class photo” at the end. It seems more low-key, and as such, it’s never a big fashion event. Still, it’s nice to look at the photos. First off, here’s Michelle Williams, back to her beloved pale colors and Mia Farrow-in-1973-styling. Michelle is actually wearing a Victoria Beckham dress! Eh, I still don’t like it on Michelle.

I love Glenn Close’s face, and I love her talent. I’m happy she was nominated for an Oscar this year. But dear God, that is one ugly coat.

I love this color on Melissa McCarthy.

Can we talk about how great Meryl Streep looks? She’s so beautiful. I love her hair these days, and Meryl isn’t a hair person. This look is perfection except for the panty hose-with-open-toe shoes thing.

I actually like Rooney Mara’s outfit here. The blazer is Thierry Mugler and the jumpsuit is Asos. The pants need to lose an inch or two, though.

Viola in too-bright Juan Carlos Obando. I love her in bright colors, but this is just too “look at me!” for my tastes.

Octavia Spencer looks great here. I love her hairstyle!

And here’s a little Demian Bichir, because I haven’t been paying enough attention to him. He’s fine, isn’t he?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

In the wake of yesterday’s Oscar nominations announcement, seemingly every actor nominated has issued statements. Some are touching, some are purely professional, and all are ass-kissy – you can read some of the statements here. I was drawn to Brad Pitt’s statement, of course, because he actually gave an interview to the Today Show after his nomination came out, and he has more to say than “It’s an honor, blah, blah.”

Brad Pitt’s six kids with Angelina Jolie are in for a treat!

“It’s gonna be pancakes for everyone this morning!” the 48-year-old actor said when he phoned in to the Today show Tuesday morning. Just minutes earlier, the Moneyball actor was nominated in the Best Actor category at the 84th Annual Academy Awards.

Pitt — who will face off against George Clooney (The Descendants), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Jean Dujardin (The Artist) and Demian Bichir (A Better Life) — said he’s “ecstatic” to be recognized.

“It means so much considering this film was just dead on the rocks two years ago,” Pitt said. “It took a lot of people, a lot of artisans and craftsmen, to get it to the screen. It’s a great honor, a real tribute to Billy Beane and Oakland A’s organization. I’m really happy.”

The actor’s 28-year-old costar Jonah Hill also scored his first Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category. “I’m so happy for Jonah Hill,” Pitt raved. “I can’t tell you.”

Moneyball wasn’t the only film to earn Pitt praise. “I’m doubly happy that Tree of Life made it in there,” he said. “We thought we were all but forgotten; just excited for [director and nominee] Terry Malick.”

The actor and producer, who’s been in love with 36-year-old Jolie since 2005, said he’s looking forward to seeing Clooney, 50, at the show.

“It’s more fun to have a friend there, and no one does it better than George,” Pitt said. “I say give him all the trophies, and when you run out of trophies, make some new ones and give him those, too.”

[From Us Weekly]

That’s interesting that Brad is coming out in support of Clooney too – much like Clooney has been talking up Brad’s nominations throughout this awards season too. While it’s easy to think that they’re two controlling type-A ballbusters who are just needling each other publicly, I think there is a genuine warmth between the two men. Clooney wants to win, of course, but if he lost to Brad, I don’t think he would be too worked up about it. And dear God, I hope Clooney does lose to Brad. I’ve discussed how much I loved Moneyball – I think it’s one of Brad’s best career performances, and worthy of an Oscar.

Oh, and I love that Brad gave a shout-out to Jonah Hill, who was also amazing in Moneyball. Can you believe that Jonah Hill is an Oscar nominee now? Incredible.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Well, the 2012 Oscar nominations just came out this morning, and it’s going to be interesting show this year. Although many people think that George Clooney is the frontrunner for Best Actor, but I think his position is soft, and I think the Best Actor category is far from decided. Sad news, though: NO FASSBENDER. Ugh. That sucks. Anyway, the only “sure thing” amongst the big acting awards is probably Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor for the independent film Beginners. Plummer’s got this. Anyway, here are the nominations (I’m only including the big ones, not the technical ones):

Best Supporting Actress:
Octavia Spencer, “The Help”
Berenice Bejo, “The Artist”
Jessica Chastain, “The Help”
Janet McTeer “Albert Nobbs”
Melissa McCarthy, “Bridesmaids”

Best Actress:
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor:
Kenneth Branagh
Nick Nolte
Jonah Hill
Christopher Plummer
Max Von Sydow

Best Actor:
George Clooney
Jean Dujardin
Gary Oldman
Brad Pitt
Demian Bichir

Original screenplay:
The Artist, Bridesmaids, Midnight in Paris, Margin Call, A Separation

Adapted screenplay:
The Descendants, Hugo, Ides of March, Moneyball, Tinker

Director:
Hazanavicius, Payne, Scorsese, Allen, Mallick

Best picture:
War Horse, Artist, Moneyball, Descendants, Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Hugo, Extremely Loud

Some surprises: no Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk about Kevin. No Fassbender. The inclusion of Rooney Mara is surprising too – I didn’t think she would have had a chance at a nomination. It’s also interesting that Gary Oldman ended up picking up a nomination, considering he’s been shut out of most other awards. It’s also great to see Melissa McCarthy up for Best Supporting, and Bridesmaids up for Best Screenplay. But I’m disappointed that 50/50 didn’t get a screenplay nomination – that was the most well-written film of the year, in my opinion.

Oh, and Angelina Jolie didn’t get a Best Foreign Film nomination for In the Land of Blood and Honey. It was a long shot anyway.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

This whole “What’s going to happen with the Oscars?” thing has become a big enough story, right? Usually it’s like pulling teeth, trying to get you bitches to care about these inside-Hollywood stories about producers and such. Well, ever since Brett Ratner mentioned, in passing, that he thinks rehearsals are for homosexuals (but worse), it’s been all hands on deck. Brett was allowed to “step down” rather gracefully, with an open letter describing in detail his apology. Within hours, Eddie Murphy, Brett’s hand-picked Oscar host, had also stepped down, this time with a less graceful apology. And now, hours after that, the Academy already has their replacement producer: Brian Grazer, the power-house producing partner of Ron Howard. Not the worst choice at all. Brian has won an Oscar before too – for A Beautiful Mind (for Best Picture). And there are already rumors that Brian wants “multiple hosts” for the Oscars. RUH-ROH.

Oscar-winning producer Brian Grazer will take the reins as producer of the 84th Academy Awards after Brett Ratner dramatically stepped down, it was announced last night.

Sources tell Page Six the show under Grazer may now include an ensemble of “hot” presenters rather than one key host.

Grazer was due to meet last night with brass from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, sources said, to discuss new host ideas and to rescue the Feb. 26 live telecast.

The move to hire Grazer — in the wake of Ratner’s and then host Eddie Murphy’s dramatic exits — came as Imagine Entertainment honcho Grazer touched down in Los Angeles from New York late Tuesday after he’d screened his Clint Eastwood film, “J. Edgar,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is gaining big Oscar buzz.

“No decision has been made about who will take over the hosting duties,” said a source. “Brian has some ideas, but he wants to see who the Academy has already spoken to and what they think.” Also, events producer Don Mischer has stayed on to co-produce the show.

The choice of Grazer came in the wake of Ratner’s spectacular Oscars step-down: He resigned Tuesday after saying, “Rehearsal’s for fags” at a Q&A for the Grazer-produced “Tower Heist” last week, and then talking to Howard Stern about his eventful sex life.
Murphy followed suit, resigning as host yesterday, leaving the awards in chaos and Grazer to save the day.

About Murphy, a source told us, “Brett had persuaded him to host, and without Brett there, Eddie didn’t feel he wanted to do it.”

Hiring Grazer, who produced the Best Picture-winning “A Beautiful Mind,” will certainly keep many of the Academy’s more traditional guard happy after its experiment to be hip with Ratner backfired.

Academy president Tom Sherak announced the move. Grazer did not return calls.

[From Page Six]

Some people think Grazer’s kind of meh, but I think he’ll probably be pretty good. His reputation around Hollywood is as a detail-oriented task master who is capable of overseeing both huge, big-budget projects and smaller, narrower passion projects. Basically, he’s a great producer, and I think he’ll probably do a great job. As for the whole multiple host thing – as a long-time Oscar viewer, I prefer when they have some big personality being the ass-kissing ringmaster with just a hint of rage, honestly. Hugh Jackman was a great host. Steve Martin was a great host. They should totally ask one of them back.

I was thinking about this, though – what actors does Brian Grazer have long-standing relationships with? Tom Hanks. Gary Sinise. Clint Eastwood (but as a director). Russell Crowe. Big MEN. Tom Hanks isn’t a terrible idea as host. Neither is Gary Sinise, although Sinese isn’t really “funny” – but he hosts a lot of those veterans events in Washington, and he does a bang-up job there. Entertainment Weekly has a list too, and they included some of my picks as well – oooh, they put Jason Bateman on their list! Bateman wouldn’t be horrible either. I’m still hoping for Steve Martin, though.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

First of all: LOOK AT HIS FEET. Brett Ratner has tiny, delicate little feet, right? Yikes. That does not bode well. Anyway, you know how Brett Ratner made some rather disgusting comments about Olivia Munn? He said stuff like, “She wasn’t Asian back then… I banged her a few times … but I forgot her.” And, “She made up all these stories about me eating shrimp and masturbating in my trailer. And my shortcomings. She talked about my shortcomings. I get it. She’s bitter.” Then Brett tried to take it back, apologizing, calling Olivia a “friend” and saying, “She’s actually talented. The problem is I made her look like she’s a whore.”

Well, good news. Brett has gotten a pass for all of that. It seems like Hollywood in general doesn’t care if a Hollywood director disrespects and says nasty things about a young actress (probably because that actress said nasty things about the director too). They only care when the director says something like, “Rehearsal is for f-gs.” THAT comment will get you in hot water. That’s what Brett said last week, and he tried to apologize for it, but now he’s had to resign from producing the next Oscar telecast.

Director Brett Ratner submitted his resignation as a producer of the 84th Annual Academy Awards Tuesday after coming under fire for making a gay slur.

“He did the right thing for the academy and for himself,” Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak said Tuesday afternoon. “Words have meaning, and they have consequences. Brett is a good person, but his comments were unacceptable. We all hope this will be an opportunity to raise awareness about the harm that is caused by reckless and insensitive remarks, regardless of the intent.”

In a Q&A session last weekend after a screening of his new film, “Tower Heist,” Ratner said, “rehearsal is for fags.” He then went on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM show and talked about masturbation, cunnilingus, pubic hair, the size of his testicles, his sexual encounter with Lindsay Lohan. Ratner apologized Monday and Sherak seemed to accept his apology, but the drumbeat of criticism continued Tuesday, culminating in Ratner’s resignation. It was not immediately clear whether Ratner’s handpicked host, Eddie Murphy, would also leave the show, scheduled for late February. Ratner and Murphy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ratner’s resignation letter read:

An Open Letter to the Entertainment Industry from Brett Ratner
Dear Colleagues,

Over the last few days, I’ve gotten a well-deserved earful from many of the people I admire most in this industry expressing their outrage and disappointment over the hurtful and stupid things I said in a number of recent media appearances. To them, and to everyone I’ve hurt and offended, I’d like to apologize publicly and unreservedly.

As difficult as the last few days have been for me, they cannot compare to the experience of any young man or woman who has been the target of offensive slurs or derogatory comments. And they pale in comparison to what any gay, lesbian, or transgender individual must deal with as they confront the many inequalities that continue to plague our world. So many artists and craftspeople in our business are members of the LGBT community, and it pains me deeply that I may have hurt them. I should have known this all along, but at least I know it now: words do matter. Having love in your heart doesn’t count for much if what comes out of your mouth is ugly and bigoted. With this in mind, and to all those who understandably feel that apologies are not enough, please know that I will be taking real action over the coming weeks and months in an effort to do everything I can both professionally and personally to help stamp out the kind of thoughtless bigotry I’ve so foolishly perpetuated.

As a first step, I called Tom Sherak this morning and resigned as a producer of the 84th Academy Awards telecast. Being asked to help put on the Oscar show was the proudest moment of my career. But as painful as this may be for me, it would be worse if my association with the show were to be a distraction from the Academy and the high ideals it represents.

I am grateful to GLAAD for engaging me in a dialogue about what we can do together to increase awareness of the important and troubling issues this episode has raised and I look forward to working with them. I am incredibly lucky to have a career in this business that I love with all of my heart and to be able to work alongside so many of my heroes. I deeply regret my actions and I am determined to learn from this experience.

Sincerely,
Brett Ratner

[From The Los Angeles Times]

Well, he fell on his sword with grace at least. I think he made the right decision for his longterm career – he totally could have bullied his way past the critics and fought and won his way to producing the Oscar telecast, but he would have been the focus rather than the actual awards, and the controversy would probably have gotten dragged out for months. It’s smart that he knew that his best option was to step aside, and now people will say, “Did he really have to step aside? Didn’t we hire him to bring in a younger audience? Couldn’t this have been a teachable moment?” Which is a better place to be in if you’re Brett Ratner.

Photos courtesy of Fame.

That’s it, my crush on James Franco is official over. Franco will be on Letterman tonight. A preview (above) has him talking about his about his disastrous gig as Oscar host and refusing to take any responsibility for failing so miserably. He says he wasn’t stoned, that he just looked mellow compared to Anne Hathaway’s bubbly personality, and that “I actually played those lines as well as well as I could.” ORLY? Then he goes on to bitch about how everyone paid attention to him in the first place. We’ve heard the same sh*t from so many douches before. I’m surprised he doesn’t say “there’s a war on/there are natural disasters/the government budget crisis affects us all.”

For the first time since hosting the Oscars, James Franco is addressing rumors that he was stoned during the gig. In an interview on ‘The Late Show With Dave Letterman,’ airing Thursday evening, [sic: it airs tonight, Friday] the actor reveals why he appeared so low energy.

“People said I was under the influence,” Franco said during his ‘Late Show’ interview, which airs tonight.

“Now why would they say that?” asked Letterman with a laugh.

The ’127 Hours’ actor replied, “I’ve thought about it. I think I know why, because–I love her–but Anne Hathaway is so energetic, I think the Tasmanian Devil would look stoned standing next to Anne Hathaway.”

“Truthfully,” Franco added, “and I haven’t watched it back, maybe I had low energy. I actually played those lines as well as well as I could.”

Franco concluded talking about the awards show by pointing out how wishy-washy Hollywood is: “But here’s the hypocritical thing: Leading up the Oscars, I couldn’t hear enough about how, ‘Oh, people don’t care about the Oscars anymore; it’s dead, it’s boring, it’s at the end of a long awards season, who cares about it?’ Well, as soon as you don’t host the way they want you to, they suddenly care and won’t shut up about it!”

[From Popeater]

So it’s Anne Hathaway’s fault that Franco was a zombie, and it’s the writers fault that they wrote such bad lines, and it’s everyone else’s fault for paying attention. Read my past coverage of this guy (not Kaiser’s, she’s been right about him from the beginning) and see how I’ve defended him. Yes the lines he was given totally sucked, and even the most energetic host couldn’t have saved that bloated self-congratulatory mess of a show that was in no way entertaining, I still stand by that. But Franco is really showing his true colors here. His first excuse is that he sucked because Hathaway tried too hard (he didn’t say that exactly, but that’s what I got out of it) and his next excuse is an implied one that the lines sucked. Then finally he blames people for caring about it. Not once did he say any variation of “I feel bad, I’m sorry, I was tired, I wish I would have brought it, I misjudged what needed to be done” or “I didn’t prepare enough.” He could have made some little tiny concession that he didn’t do the best job he could or was somehow responsible but there’s none of that from Franco. Again, my crush is officially over and he is that “I went to film school” douche that Kaiser and Lainey have been telling me about. My apologies for ever giving him the benefit of the doubt or finding him charming.

Franco outside the Late Show on 3/28 wearing sunglasses at night. Credit: WENN.com.

Oscar writer and comic Bruce Vilanch was asked by NY Magazine for his thoughts on James Franco’s performance as a co-host of the ceremony this year. Vilanch is one of a team of about four writers responsible for the cringe-worthy out-of-date jokes at this years’ Oscar ceremony. He said that he approved of the idea to use Franco and Hathaway as hosts, but when it came down to it Franco wasn’t experienced enough. Vilanch also denied that Franco was high when he hosted, as many suspected:

Longtime Oscar writer Bruce Vilanch isn’t one to mince words about awards-show hosts, so when we caught up with him last night at the premiere of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, we had to ask him about James Franco and Anne Hathaway, who emceed this year’s poorly received Academy Awards broadcast. “I have to call James Franco and tell him the show’s over,” Vilanch quipped. “He doesn’t know. He took a nap and he woke up in class.” Does Vilanch attribute Franco’s sleepy performance to an actual lack of sleep? “He has so many balls in the air, he didn’t get to town till Thursday before the show on Sunday. And so we e-mailed a lot. But we had a lot of meetings. He had a bunch of people who were writing for him, and if it had been him alone, it would have been different. But it was him and Anne Hathaway, and they both had to be serviced. So there was a lot of communication beforehand. But he didn’t get there.”

“I don’t think he realized how big a deal it is to do it until he was actually confronted with it,” Vilanch continued. “I think he thought he would kind of … I don’t know what he thought. I thought maybe it was a performance-art prank, and then I realized he sincerely wanted to do it. But it’s outside of those guys’ comfort zones. The only people who know how to host those shows are people who get up onstage every night and say, ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A funny thing happened … ‘ Or people like Bette [Midler] who get up and sing all night and tell stories.”

Still, Vilanch had been in favor of the pairing, which was suggested by producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer. “I told them what I thought. I liked the two of them [James and Anne], and what I like about them is they both hosted Saturday Night Live successfully, and what that meant is they knew all about working live, with little rehearsal, with many script changes, and a lot of pressure. And that’s sort of half of the job right there of the Oscar show.”

One last question: Was Franco really stoned, as rumored?

“No, he wasn’t high,” Vilanch said. “I was with him, and he wasn’t high. And I asked him, ‘Are you high, and can I have some?’ And he said no to both.”

[From NYMag.com via Huffington Post]

Here’s the thing – Franco did phone it in, and while I’ve defended him in the past I’ve come around on this and do find him to be an arrogant prick now. He could have prepared better, he could have looked like he wanted to be there and he could have tried. I’ll repeat what I said after the Oscars and still believe now, though – the jokes sucked and no one could have made them funny. The ceremony was extremely long and boring as usual and that’s in no way the fault of the hosts. As I’ve also mentioned before, when Jon Stewart hosted in 2006 and brought his A game and a team of writers from the Daily Show he got panned too. There’s a tendency to blame the host (and Franco is an understandable target given his attitude) when blame should be placed on the writers and producers for putting out a long, unwieldy and in no way entertaining mess.

Franco is a sulky bitch who can’t handle criticism, however. He scrawled a message on a picture of Villant in response to these comments. He wrote a quote for Villant in Perez Hilton style MS Paint style: “James f’cked up the Oscars. Trust me, I know comedy. I mean, come on, I write for Bette Midler.” He’s since deleted the picture, but it’s out there now.

This isn’t the first time Franco has done this. Earlier this month he scrawled a message to his school newspaper, The Yale Daily News, on a photo of himself earlier in response to a negative article they ran about him. He wrote “F’ck the Yale Daily News”

Note to James Franco: try Picnik.com to add quotes and text to photos. You can pick from several different fonts, but they won’t give your petulant photo responses the grade school quality they deserve.

Photos are of Franco outside The Daily Show on 1/25/11. Credit: Fame

You can watch a segment from Camille’s CNN gig here. I can’t embed it.

I’m finally getting the chance to watch some of the stuff I DVRed this weekend, including the Independent Spirit Awards, where host Joel McHale killed it with bawdy jokes and impeccable delivery. The Spirit Awards were so much more watchable than the Oscars and seeing them really brings the point home that the Oscars sucked. It’s Wednesday though and I’m over it. This must be how sports fans feel when their team bombs in the playoffs.

The night of the Oscars I alternated between E! and the TV Guide channel to get my red carpet coverage. On another TV I taped CNN’s coverage just to see if they would get any obnoxious quotes or obvious flubs from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills personality Camille Grammer. This morning I watched it with my finger on fast forward. Camille did ok and it seems like they set it up so she couldn’t say much. They had her on in quick segments that just required minimal fashion coverage or statements about things they’d obviously briefed her on ahead of time. There was one woman on the red carpet interviewing celebrities, Brooke Anderson, another woman monitoring Twitter and social networking stuff, Kareen Wynter, and CNN Showbiz Tonight host A.J. Hammer offered commentary from a platform above the red carpet. Camille was supposedly with A.J. most of the time but she was off to the side until about 20 minutes in and they only showed her occasionally.

In the 50 minutes I got on tape Camille spoke four times in brief segments. When Camille wasn’t talking and was just shown on camera she preened and did that mouth pout/cheek suck thing. They also had commentary from actress Sheryl Lee Ralph (I recognized her, but barely) and radio host Carlos Diaz.

Here’s basically all of what Camille said. Kelly Osbourne did a much better job on E!

Talked about the weather with A.J. Hammer
“Yesterday we had hail here, but today is a perfect night.”

On Jennifer Lawrence’s dress
“She looked stunning in her red Calvin Klein gown. I have heard that her publicist said, or her stylist said ‘Nipples are in this season,’ so let Showbiz Tonight be the first ones to say that, nipples are in! [laughs] At 20 years old, you can get away with it.”

On Hailee Steinfeld
“At 14 years old her dress was absolutely perfect. She wore Marchesa. Perfect princess gown. It just looked beautiful on her.”

Michelle Williams
“I loved Michelle Williams’ gown head to almost toe, but the shoes looked like something she bought from Payless. I’m sorry, but the gown was perfect.”

On Anne Hathaway and James Franco hosting
“I think they’re going to be absolutely fantastic. James Franco, what can we say? Hot, hot, hot. Going for a PhD? Perfect.”

A.J. Hammer asked Camille if Franco was her type
“Yes, but a little older.” [Read: richer]

When asked if Kelsey would always have a speech prepared
“No, he would always wing it, he never prepared a speech which is amazing, that’s a talent. He knew how to wing it, he was really good at that, quite a gift.”

On Helena Bonham Carter’s outfit
“Well, I think she was [a disaster]. It just looked like Edward Scissorhands got a hold of her dress. I’m not a fan.”

On Scarlett Johansson’s dress
“I think she’s a beautiful beautiful young lady, but I’m not a fan of the dress.”

On Sharon Stone’s look
“She’s doing the ‘Black Swan’ tonight… a little too much Cruella De Ville.”

Nicole Kidman
A.J. asked “Should she have stayed in the rabbit hole?”
“You said it. It was fine, but I wasn’t impressed… I was disappointed.”

Oh Camille, all you have to offer is garden variety cattiness. CNN announced this hosting gig with much fanfare, and then tried to complain about the “haters” in order to squeeze some more publicity out of it. CNN is going to have to come up with some better tactics to spice up their entertainment coverage. They should go for more sensational coverage instead of trying to import it in the form of watered down reality show villains.

James Franco was a big Oscar fail, but I think that instead of sucking it up and putting on his game face like little miss try-hard he got really baked and just coasted through. (Did anyone catch the pre-Oscar interview with Franco backstage on ABC? He was playing with words for no reason and said “G – uess, Ge-hesss.”)

Franco knew that the material sucked, he probably tried to talk to producers about it, or maybe they sprung that sh*t on him at the last minute and he was too busy to do anything but show up and deliver the very bad lines they gave him. I still like Franco. I know that he’s all “I went to film school” at every moment, but he did, and education is important to him. I find him kind of quirky and refreshing. It’s not Franco and Hathaway’s fault that the Oscars blew, and if Franco faked a sunny disposition (as he’s more than capable of doing, even as stoned as he was) it would have been just as boring and hard to sit through.

US Weekly is reporting that Franco was scheduled to attend an after party in his honor, but he didn’t show up and just went straight back to New York, tweeting “Goodbye LA” and “It was fun! Time to head back to class.”

After the star severely disappointed many fans and critics as co-host of Sunday’s Academy Awards, Franco bailed on his own after-party, held at L.A.’s Supper Club.

While a few stars — Seth Rogen, Kevin Spacey and stars of the CW’s 90210 showed up — Franco, 32, was a no-show, a source confirms to UsMagazine.com.

The Supper Club bash, the insider adds, was a “bust.”

Indeed, Franco immediately boarded an NYC-bound plane following the ceremony — posting pics from his brand-new Twitter account.

“Goodbye L.A.,” he scrawled across one pic, in which the 127 Hours actor, still in a tux, sips what appears to be a Bloody Mary. “It was fun! Time to head back to class.”

(The multitasking hunk is famously a student at both NYU and Yale.)

Sniped The Hollywood Reporter of Franco’s stint co-hosting alongside Anne Hathaway: “The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will likely be remembered as the night James Franco couldn’t act like a host…Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout.”

Complaining that Franco and Hathaway suffered from an “absence of chemistry,” the New York Times said: “Mr. Franco looked a little distracted and even blase — not surprisingly for a multiplatform performer-writer who is working on an English doctorate at Yale.”

[From US Weekly]

People said that John Stewart bombed at the Oscars back when he did a highly competent job in 2006. If the show sucks, the tendency is to blame the host even when they’re just working with the script they’re given. Yes Franco was like “whatever” and like he didn’t want to be there, but consider the terrible lines he had to deliver:

“It was a good year for lesbians… ‘The Kids are All Right’ – Lesbians, ‘Black Swan’ – Dancing Lesbians, ‘Toy Story 3′ – Where’s the dad?”

“I am six degrees of Kevin Bacon separated from our next presenters. Look it up on the Internet.”

On the movie titles: “Winter’s Bone, Rabbit Hole, How to Train Your Dragon, that’s disgusting.”

Do you think Franco wrote any of that crap? Of course he didn’t. No one under 50 could write those stupid jokes. It’s a shame that the Oscars tried to pick on 2009 host Hugh Jackman when that was just about the only recent year that they tried to mix it up and were even remotely entertaining. Jackman even earned high ratings for them and reportedly wasn’t invited back.

Franco put up a lot of backstage videos and photos from the Oscars ceremony on his Twitter account if you’re interested. The Oscar people probably put him up to it as part of his hosting duties, thinking it was “young” and “hip” to Tweet. They obviously have no clue.

Image above via Franco’s twitter. Other images from the Independent Spirit Awards on 2/26/11 thanks to PRPhotos