TVSquad

The Vegas oddsmakers were wrong about Billy Crystal. He isn't hosting the Oscars. Neither is Hugh Jackman. No, today it was announced that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will serve as cohosts of the 82nd Academy Awards. Interestingly, Martin and Baldwin are costarring -- with Meryl Streep -- in the upcoming romantic comedy, It's Complicated.

Choosing these two guys, however, is not complicated. It's actually pretty damn clever. Both men are very funny, very comfortable in the moment -- a necessity for a complicated show like the Oscars when anything can go wrong -- and they bring a lot of good will and star power to the proceedings.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• G.I. Joe may have won the weekend box office, but when I was at my local theater on Saturday afternoon, I didn't hear one person in line ask for tickets to see it. So why did people stay away? Check out the review here.
• Cinematical is asking a lot of questions this weekend. The first of which is, what is your favorite John Hughes memory?
• Also, What happened to Rene Russo? I can't think of anything offhand that I've seen her in since The Thomas Crown Affair.
• How can Barbarella not be campy? Cinematical explains-- kinda.
• I saw the trailer for It's Complicated in front of Julie and Julia this weekend. It stars Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, and makes me hope that there will be more movies for the over-50 crowd. Cinematical seems to be cautiously optimistic about it.

It was the best of Oscar it was the worst of Oscar. It wasn't the best show I've ever seen, but was it the worst Oscars ever as one friend emailed me? I think there were features that worked and features that tanked. There could have been more star power -- where were Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Jim Carrey, Sandra Bullock, Christian Bale, Tyler Perry (he had the biggest box office opening last week!), etc.? Forget about stars from the '70s...

Anyway, I had predicted that the Oscars would stink. Well, I was wrong, or half-wrong. Separate from whether you agreed with the winners -- I did by and large -- or you didn't, what about the broadcast? I think if you had seen all the nominees (or at least the Best Picture noms), you probably had a rooting interest and were amused by most of the show. However, the other half was pretty bad. After the jump, what worked versus what did not.

(S34E14) This episode marked Steve Martin's 15th time hosting and one millionth appearance on SNL. My expectations are always a high for a returning show-favorite, as I picture the whole week of writing and rehearsals to be a wild, wild party praising the host and, between celebratory keg stands, they write bang-up material that uses the host to their full potential. Yes, it's my own fault for thinking like that because I'm inevitably let down, but every once in a while there's a hit. This episode was all right in general, but it certainly wasn't worthy of Steve Martin. Here are some video highlights from the night.

There seems to be an epidemic of blabbermouthing going around these days. First, Vice President Joe Biden's wife Jill lets it slip on Oprah that Joe had his choice of VP or Secretary of State (snap Hillary!), then Steve Martin reveals that he and Tina Fey will be presenting together at the Oscars (so much for secret presenters), now Donny's let the cat out of the bag.

While taping The Bonnie Hunt Show, Donny Osmond announced that he's doing Dancing With the Stars, the new edition that commences in March.

Oops! See, it wasn't Donny's job to make the announcement. He was supposed to let ABC decide the right time to reveal the lineup of celebrity dancers, although whether they can dance before the show begins is debatable.

Steve Martin, who rose to fame in the 1970's with the help of Saturday Night Live, will appear for a record 15th time on the show on January 31st. Just in time for sweeps.

Obviously, he'll be there to promote the Pink Panther sequel and his new Banjo CD. Once again I will put on my old person's hat and recall the times he hosted in my youth and how funny he was back then. While he obviously doesn't have the vigor of youth anymore, he has the sort of stage presence and timing that livens up the sort of comedy that SNL does (even when the sketch itself is lame). He's a better sketch performer than most of the current cast.

I loved the irony and intellectualism of the stand-up comedy of Martin's early career. I hope he returns to it some day and does an HBO special like Robin Williams did in 2002.

Hopefully the gelt you received this past holiday season hasn't been all used up on paying your credit card bills for the gifts you gave this holiday season. That's because there are a number of books about television that you could be using that free money towards. There are books about TV shows, books about TV characters, books written by TV characters, and just general television history books. There are so many books about television already out or about to be released that you could easily spend countless hours reading them on the steps of your local library after the nuclear holocaust.

Just don't break your glasses.

So, here are eight titles to get you started.

Ladies and gents, Steve Martin will be coming back to host Saturday Night Live on February 4. Whoo-hoo! This guy is such an important part of SNL history, it's as if he used to be a cast member himself. Actually, a lot of people think that Martin used to be a player, but nope, he's like Benjamin Franklin to the presidents (just because he's on the $100 bill doesn't mean he was ever president, y'know). Anyway, this will be an exciting episode. I hope they do this legend justice.

Prince will be the musical guest (I'm trying to think of some sort of Prince-like squeal to express happiness but I can't figure out how to spell it). I hope he and Fred Armisen (who sometimes plays him on the show) will do something together... Hey, maybe Steve Martin can bring Beyonce (his co-star in the new movie, The Pink Panther) to fill in for new mommy Maya Rudolph and Prince can fill in for Armisen! That way, they'd have a real "The Prince Show"! Oh man, that'd be twelve different kinds of awesome.