The Oscars try to get hip, but land lamely

As the movie industry’s big names gathered outside the Kodak Theatre for the 83rd Academy Awards last Sunday, viewers at home wondered, waiting with baited breath, how “hip” hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway would fare for the evening.

Would they open with a Billy Crystal song-and-dance number?

Would they leverage politic-tinged cynicism towards Hollywood liberalism, a la Jon Stewart?

Would they lash out in hostile (but hilarious) humor at everyone in the audience, like Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes? Would they totally tank?

When Franco and Hathaway opened with an Inception-esque mashup of this year’s best movies, things looked like they might be okay. After all, Alec Baldwin, the embodiment of everything wonderful and hilarious, had a cameo.

But then, they launched into their opening monologue. And that was when the misery began.

Hathaway, dolled up in a golden Givenchy number (first of many for her, as the night of a thousand stars turned into the night of a thousand Hathaway outfits), babbled on overexuberantly.

Franco, on the other hand, read off the monitor in a totally monotone voice, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. Or rolled something else. It was unclear.

Then, they brought out the moms.

Or, at least, Hathaway introduced her mom, who was sitting in the audience. There was a shtick about Mama Hathaway asking daughter Hathaway to stand up straight.

Franco introduced his grandmother, who was also sitting in the audience. There was a kind of an adorable moment when she shouted excitedly that “Marky Mark” was there, and the camera closed in on Mark Wahlberg, who didn’t look too happy at being referenced by his adolescent nickname.

The whole mom / grandma thing was sweet in a semi-kitschy way, but as one Twitter poster noted, it wasn’t a good sign that they relied on mom-cuteness so early on in the show.

From then on, things just got worse.

Hathaway’s trademark perkiness started out okay, but it wore on audiences quickly, making it obvious that she was trying far too hard to impress.

Conversely, Franco seemed entirely blase and out of it for the whole show, leading many to wonder if he’d been mellowing out on illicit substances backstage (his people maintain that he was just exhausted).

In fact, it was far more entertaining to Google “Is James Franco high?” and read the resulting Twitter feeds in real time than it was to watch the actual awards show.

While the show’s producers had picked Franco and Hathaway to host in hopes of bringing in a younger audience, the real appeal of watching the Oscars this year was simultaneously following it via social media.

Twitter was abuzz all night with Twitterer / Tweeters commenting on winners, losers and Hathaway’s hammy, mile-a-minute gushing.

Online magazine Slate even ran a live feed of all their blogger’s Tweets.

Franco himself uploaded dozens of backstage photos to his own Twitter account. He even posted a video of Hathaway giving him a hand massage prior to the ceremony.