The Oscars Play It Ultra-Safe With Steve Martin And Alec Baldwin

Steve Martin will co-host the Oscars with Alec Baldwin. They'll be fine, but it's an awfully safe choice. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

by Linda Holmes

When it was announced yesterday that the Oscar hosts next March would be Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, I felt oddly disappointed. They're both great at what they do -- I think Martin did a very fine job as host in 2001 and 2003, and Alec Baldwin is certainly wonderful on 30 Rock -- but I can hardly think of a less interesting choice the producers could have made. Other than going back to Billy Crystal.

The fine line between good hosting and bad, after the jump.

See, they're laboring so hard to drive new viewers to the ceremony. They've already increased the number of Best Picture nominees; undoubtedly they'll unveil all sorts of other innovations between now and March. So why choose two hosts -- two many-many-time Saturday Night Live hosts -- who are, in many ways, the same guy? (Smooth, funny, elegant guy between his early 50s and early 60s, mixing highbrow and lowbrow comedy, who's undoubtedly great at parties.)

It's a highly subjective thing, figuring out who's a good host and who isn't. I personally thought David Letterman wasn't nearly as bad as legend makes him out to be; I think the people in that room weren't sure how to laugh at jokes that weren't built on "wocka-wocka" punchlines, and they stiff-armed him unnecessarily, creating the appearance of a flop.

But the hosts I've liked the best are the ones who have a slightly uneasy relationship with some aspect of conventional movie stardom: Chris Rock, who was a marvelously unexpected choice for 2004. Or Jon Stewart, whose patina of vague bewilderment always kept things from getting too puffed-up when he hosted in 2006 and 2008.

I have absolutely no beef with either Martin or Baldwin. As I said, they're both solid performers. Am I regretful that in the last 23 years, only two women (Whoopi Goldberg and Ellen DeGeneres) have had the opportunity to host? Sure. I certainly hope extending an invitation to someone like Tina Fey was considered, especially once they decided they might use co-hosts.

But there's nothing wrong with either choice. In fact, I might have been less disappointed by the choice of either of them than I was by the choice of both of them. It feels a little redundant, and thus an especially safe choice. An emphatically safe choice.

Part of the fun of an awards ceremony -- if you believe there is anything fun about an awards ceremony -- is believing that something unexpected might happen. Remember Marketa Irglova being brought back on stage to give her speech after the orchestra cut her off? You, as the producers of the show, can eat lunch for years on a very small number of moments like that, because people will tune in just hoping they will happen.

But I feel like I know, months in advance, exactly what the Oscars hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will feel like and look like. It's not like it was with Hugh Jackman last year, where you can wonder about the spectacle of a Broadway star in an Oscar-show production number. And it's not like it was with Chris Rock, who was outspoken before the ceremony about his desire to see Jamie Foxx win for Ray.

The producers of the Academy Awards aren't necessarily in the position to make a choice as delicious as Ricky Gervais, whose turn as Golden Globes host we await with no little relish. The Oscars are always a stodgy event, no matter who hosts. But somehow, when the news hit, even though these are both performers whose work I enjoy, it felt oddly unsatisfying.