James Franco and Anne Hathaway are earning rave reviews for new films in which they portray, respectively, a self-amputating hiker and Jake Gyllenhaal's girlfriend. Now the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has announced the duo will host the 83rd Oscar ceremony in February. Awards show aficionados were incredulous.

• "Judging from my texts and e-mails, the instant reaction to James Franco and Anne Hathaway being named as co-hosts of next February's Academy Awards is pretty much the same. In a word: incredulous. Or as one industry executive put it: 'How many people do you think turned 'em down before they got to Franco and Hathaway?'" - Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

• "Well, that was unexpected" - Josh Rottenberg, Entertainment Weekly

• "If you had given me until, oh, the end of time to guess who’d be hosting the 2011 Oscars, I never would have come up with James Franco and Anne Hathaway." - Kristina Dosey, The New London Day

• "[New York magazine blog] Vulture has gone ahead and tabulated the things that we're most likely to see, based on what we already know about each of the two co-hosts. Anne Hathaway's song-and-dance skills? Noted! James Franco's stoner-adjacent savoir faire? Considered!" - Kyle Buchanan and Jillian Goodman, New York magazine

• "You know what it means for Anne Hathaway and James Franco to be hired as next year's Oscar hosts? It means one to two stand-up comics with perhaps no significant film credits won't be hired." - Joal Ryan, E! Online

• "Somebody's really, really trying to bring in younger viewers, right?!" - Matthew Gilbert, The Boston Globe

• "Given that the Oscar telecast usually feels like it lasts about 127 hours, and that watching it sometimes induces the feeling that you would rather gnaw off an arm than sit through till the end, Franco is imminently well qualified." - Richard Horgan, FishbowlLA

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Ray Gustini