I thought Steve Martin was the best Oscar host in many years…better even than Billy Crystal. I always liked Crystal but felt that when he hosted, the show — which oughta be about the awards and their recipients — was a bit too much about Billy Crystal. Martin was funny, unobtrusive and managed to treat the event with the limited seriousness it deserves. And I find the response to him interesting. Today's Variety review is a rave, whereas the guy at the Hollywood Reporter was apparently watching a different Academy Awards broadcast, on which Martin bombed big-time. Reaction across the Internet — not that that's ever indicative of anything — seems generally positive, though one finds the usual unwarranted assumption about comedy material. It's the old, naïve audience belief that the jokes which flopped were all because of the lousy writers, whereas the jokes that succeeded were all a matter of, in this case, Steve Martin being brilliant. I still think the odds are against there being a Writers Guild strike in May (or, at least, a long one) but if there is one, maybe it'll remind America that there's a reason that writers get paid all that money.