After Eddie Murphy abandoned his Oscar hosting duties, the Academy ran out and fetched Billy Crystal from the clutches of the Grim Reaper, thereby promising us timely jokes about City Slickers. And, er … City Slickers 2. Maybe he’ll even recreate the orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally with Elle Fanning, just to give this year’s Oscars a nice creepy pedo vibe. At least it’d be memorable. I miss the leering misogyny and the underlying homophobia that the 84th Academy Awards ceremony once promised when Brett Ratner was producing. *Sigh*

Alas, we’re stuck with Crystal, and after the jump, the poster for the 84th Academy Awards is revealed (YES, IT IS THAT SLOW OF A NEWS DAY). It is … completely underwhelming. However, it is fun to play “Which of these movies does not belong” with the images. I think it’s a tie between Gladiator and Forrest Gump.

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"This next one is called 'I Didn't Invite You on My Yacht for the Conversation'."

Fresh on the heels of Brett Ratner stepping down from producing the Oscars due to Fag-gate, Eddie Murphy has quit as the award show’s host.

“I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well,” said [Academy President Tom] Sherak.

Commented Murphy, “First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job.” [press release via Deadline]

Producing and hosting the Oscars are some of the more thankless jobs in Hollywood (after Ratner cocktail shrimp, of course), so Ratner and Murphy are probably better off doing nothing. The entire night is about fluffing self-important millionaires and trying to satisfy a critical viewing audience that will think the host was either too nice or too mean or too silly or not silly enough. Screw the Oscars, just let James Franco host every year.

If you’ve been following the Brett Ratner skeeve-fest at FilmDrunk, it should come as no surprise that the Tower Heist director has resigned as the producer of this February’s Oscars telecast.

To recap Ratner’s week: in response to Olivia Munn’s blind item about a “fat, slobby, smug, and ridiculously rich and famous blockbuster film director” masturbating while eating shrimp, Ratner said that he “banged her a few times, but forgot her” because “she wasn’t Asian back then.” He later admitted he never had sex with Munn. But Ratner was just getting warmed up with insensitive statements: last weekend, during a Q&A session about Tower Heist, he uttered the infamous “Rehearsal is for fags” line. He apologized — kind of — but the damage was done. Queue the resignation:

Over the last few days, I’ve gotten a well-deserved earful from many of the people I admire most in this industry expressing their outrage and disappointment over the hurtful and stupid things I said in a number of recent media appearances. To them, and to everyone I’ve hurt and offended, I’d like to apologize publicly and unreservedly.

Blah blah blah, LGBT community, dialogue, you get the picture. Much more entertaining is the Los Angeles Times’s scathing analysis of the fallout:

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Back in 2000, “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone went to the Oscars wearing the same dresses that had previously been worn by Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow to the awards show. Last night on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” they revealed how they worked up the nerve to do the stunt: they took acid.

Parker: “We thought of it the week before… We had tuxes as a backup because we thought we were gonna chicken out, and we did. And we were like, ‘Let’s not do that, let’s not do that.’ But then we were like, “Let’s take a little bit of acid.” So we did that and of course an hour later we were like, “WE GOTTA WEAR THE DRESSES.”

Stone: “It made that whole thing just make sense.”

There’s video below, and it’s funny to watch as Parker goes on to say that they were coming down as the ceremony was going on and how they hoped that they didn’t win.

Me? I don’t need drugs to wear a designer gown. Looking beautiful is its own high.

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Eddie Murphy has been confirmed as the host of next year’s Brett Ratner-produced telecast of the Academy Awards, thereby guaranteeing that the 2012 Oscars will either be the best or the worst Oscars ever. Perhaps both. Here are some canned “quotes” invented by someone who works in PR:

“Eddie is a comedic genius, one of the greatest and most influential live performers ever,” said Ratner. “With his love of movies, history of crafting unforgettable characters and his iconic performances – especially on stage – I know he will bring excitement, spontaneity and tremendous heart to the show Don [Mischer] and I want to produce in February.”

“I am enormously honored to join the great list of past Academy Award hosts from Hope and Carson to Crystal, Martin and Goldberg, among others,” said Murphy. “I’m looking forward to working with Brett and Don on creating a show that is enjoyable for both the fans at home and for the audience at the Kodak Theatre as we all come together to celebrate and recognize the great film contributions and collaborations from the past year.” [press release via Deadline]

Hey, I love Beverly Hills Cop and Raw and Delirious and James Brown’s Celebrity Hot Tub just as much as you. But that Eddie Murphy is dead, okay? There could be an Oscars montage of all the movies Murphy never should have made. Let’s keep expectations low, people.