Oscar organizers tried something unprecedented in the awards' 83-year history on Sunday -- entrusting a young, attractive pair of Hollywood stars, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, to host the film industry's highest honors.
 

Oscar organizers tried something unprecedented in the awards' 83-year history on Sunday -- entrusting a young, attractive pair of Hollywood stars to host the film industry's highest honors.

And the two newly minted masters of ceremony, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, wasted no time acknowledging their youth, and the notion that their presence might help lure a generation of television viewers who have increasingly tuned out the Oscars in recent years.

"Anne," I must say, you look so beautiful and so hip," Franco, 32, himself a nominee as best actor, deadpanned as the two walked on stage to open the show.

Early in the show, presenter Justin Timberlake, an actor-singer popular with the young-adult crowd, appeared to use a smart-phone computer app to illuminate a "Shrek" backdrop to introduce awards for animated films.

Two films wildly popular with young moviegoers this past year, "Twilight" sequel "Eclipse" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1," figured prominently in a pre-taped comic lip-syncing sequence.

But the show hardly turned its back on Hollywood of yesteryear. Kirk Douglas, 94, his speech badly slurred from a stroke 15 years ago, shuffled on stage with a cane to present the first acting award, the Oscar for best supporting actress, which went to Melissa Leo for "The Fighter."

Douglas, himself, alluded to the Oscar generation gap in complimenting Hathaway on her looks.

"She's gorgeous," he said as the young actress blew him kisses. "Where were you when I was making pictures?"

A short time later, the night's Oscar winner for best original screenplay, David Seidler, 73, for "The King's Speech," proclaimed in his acceptance speech that he was the oldest person ever to claim that award.

The program frequently conjured up images and music from Oscar-winning film blockbusters of yore, from "Gone with the Wind" to "Star Wars" and "Titanic."

The tension between young and old was orchestrated by producers, who have said they sought to reconnect movie fans with Hollywood history while giving the show a contemporary feel that would attract viewers in the key 18- to- 49-year-old ratings demographic prized by advertisers.

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

(Agencies)
 奥斯卡组织者们周日尝试了一种在奥斯卡83年历史中从未有过的方式——让一对年轻迷人的好莱坞影星来主持这个电影业最高荣誉的颁奖典礼。

两位主持新秀詹姆斯•弗兰科和安妮•海瑟薇也不失时机地打青春牌，以呼应“他们的出场可能会提高奥斯卡的收视率”的理念。近年来，越来越多的电视观众不再收看奥斯卡颁奖典礼。

两位主持人走上台开始主持的时候，32岁的弗兰科面无表情地说：“安妮，我必须说，你看起来光彩照人、相当时髦”。弗兰科也是最佳男主角的候选人之一。

在典礼开始后不久，颁奖者贾斯汀•汀布莱克在介绍动画电影的奖项时，用智能手机上的应用程序让屏幕上的“怪物史莱克”背景图亮了起来。汀布莱克是一位很受年轻人欢迎的演员兼歌手。

去年受年轻影迷们热捧的两部影片《暮光之城•月蚀》和《哈利波特与死亡圣器：上》出现在一组事前录好的喜感十足的电影片段串烧中，两位主持人给视频配上了新台词。

但是整个颁奖典礼跟去年的相比并没有本质的不同。94岁的柯克•道格拉斯拄着手杖，在台上颤颤巍巍地颁发典礼上的第一个表演奖——奥斯卡最佳女配角奖。15年前的中风留下的后遗症使得他的发言含混不清。该奖花落出演《斗士》的梅丽莎•里奥。

道格拉斯在称赞海瑟薇的美貌时，影射奥斯卡的“代沟”。

“她美极了”，他称赞的时候海瑟薇给了他几个飞吻。“但是我拍电影的时候你在哪儿呢？”

过了没一会儿，因《国王的演讲》荣获奥斯卡最佳原创剧本奖的73岁的大卫•塞德勒在他的获奖感言中说，他是有史以来该奖获得者中年龄最大的。

颁奖典礼上不时回放以前的一些奥斯卡获奖大片中的图像和音乐，包括《乱世佳人》、《星球大战》和《泰坦尼克号》等。

这种老一辈和年轻一代之间的紧张局面是制片人特意安排的，他们说他们想让电影迷们重温好莱坞的历史，同时他们也尽力为颁奖典礼营造一种“现代的感觉”，以吸引那些18岁到49岁的观众，这些人被广告商认为是提高收视率的关键人群。