It’s about the movies, stupid.

Let the backbiting Jackman backlash begin! Mary McNamara, LA Times TV critic, can’t decide if Hugh Jackman is a hottie or a nottie:

Yes, Jackman was just named People‚Äôs Sexiest Man Alive, and yes, he is Wolverine of ‚ÄúX-Men‚Äù but do we want Wolverine hosting the Oscars? Probably not… Will the Oscar gift baskets include smelling salts?

I think she means poppers. Patrick Goldstein has had enough of TV talk show hosts bombing the Oscar celebration into a ratings crater.

I’m beginning to think that Larry Mark and Bill Condon, the producers of this year’s Academy Awards telecast, actually have a few tricks up their sleeves. More important, I think they’re determined to take the woebegone Oscar telecast in a fresh new direction. That’s the clear message of Friday’s selection of Hugh Jackman as the host of February’s broadcast. By opting for Jackman, a classy movie and theater star instead of a big-mouth comic, Mark and Condon are signaling that they’re trying to turn the Oscars into a party instead of the usual three-hour-plus cobwebby self-congratulatory snooze-athon.

McNamara says, “I would lean toward thinking ‘television’ rather than ‘Broadway’…” Go think ‘television’ someplace else, Mary. The movie people are busy making the Oscars about the movies again.