It's Official: Eddie Murphy to Host the 84th Academy Awards

Broken exclusively by Nikki Finke, it looks like the Brett Ratner/Eddie Murphy Oscars is a go — let’s promote our new movie Tower Heist!  I had put my money on the whiter of the two, Ben Stiller (whom I still think is the better choice here) but I’m not entirely shocked that they went with Murphy instead. You can bet Stiller will be there anyway.

Well, the good: the “Kids are all white” Oscars decides to do something right and have a black person host once again.  Who can criticize such a choice? Also, this will wipe clean the bad blood people suspected from the Dreamgirls debacle when Murphy lost to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine.  Remember the whole “Eddie Murphy is pissed” thing?

The bad: It’s a weird precedent to have people pushing their own movies involved in the Oscars. Kind of leaves a bitter taste in your mouth the way it does when ABC puts on all of their people as presenters.

The ugly: it doesn’t change the real demographics of how the Oscars go down — five white male director nominees, writers, actors, etc.  But hey, hats off to them for this, I think.  What the hell. How much worse could it get than last year’s horror show?

What do you all think?