Yes it has been confirmed that Eddie Murphy will host the 84th Academy Awards as the many characters he plays in the beloved comedy Norbit. Only kidding. Everyone hated Norbit.
Eddie, a one-time Oscar nominee for Dreamgirls (2007), will take up hosting duties for the first time along with fellow first-timer Brett Ratner who is producing the show set to air on 26 February 2012.
The good news here is that Eddie Murphy (unlike last year’s awkward pairing of Anne Hathaway and James Franco) is hilarious – a fact that anyone who’s ever gotten high in the years circa 1984 til now could testify.
The bad news is Eddie Murphy is very much a good-in-small-doses kinda guy* and as a performer he can be extremely hit or miss**. Three hours of Eddie Murphy might be hard for audiences to swallow, especially when dished up with the overblown terribleness that is Brett Ratner’s signature style.
Really, it will just be cool to see Eddie do his first stand up gig in forever. Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn out to be the tagline of Norbit…
*This is why everyone hated Norbit.
**Hit: Bowfinger; Miss: too many to name but does the words “Pluto Nash” mean anything to you?
