CRYSTAL "MEH"

Billy Crystal tells the Los Angeles Times that as recently as just before Christmas, Academy Awards producer Gil Cates was lobbying him to again host the March 5 kudos-cast. Crystal, though, will have just completed the L.A. run of his one-man stage show, 700 Sundays, and as such, "I didn't want to go from that into a meeting where I'm saying, 'Give me Brokeback Mountain jokes,'" he says. "It seemed so not what I wanted to do." The Daily Show's Jon Stewart will emcee the evening instead. Me, I'm just waiting for Debbie Allen's Brokeback interpretive dance.