“Some people will say it’s the worst choice in the world.”

That’s how Alec Baldwin figures the reception will be for news that he and Steve Martin are co-hosting the 2010 Academy Awards on March 7th.

“They’ll say, What, are they kidding?” Baldwin was one of the co-hosts last night for the Film Foundation’s magnificent restoration of Michael Powell’s 1948 classic, “The Red Shoes.” He joined director Martin Scorsese, who runs the Foundation, Scorsese’s famed editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who is Powell’s widow), as well as a very pregnant Emily Mortimer and husband Alessandra Nivola, and a very engaged Emily Blunt and John Krasinski, as well as director James Toback and Robert Wuhl later for a Gucci-sponsored soiree at Nobu 57.

A Nobu no-show, but present at the screening at the Directors Guild Theater, was none other than Woody Allen with one of his daughters with Soon Yi Previn.

Baldwin was sanguine about his new job, just announced before the screening started. “I told them I do not play the banjo,” he said, referring to Martin’s hobby. “I’m doing it,” he joked, “out of my respect for the Academy.”

A few other people came by to congratulate him. “You’ll give the show some edge,” someone said.

“Yes,” Baldwin intoned back very Jack Donaghy-like. Ironically, he was sitting at a Nobu table across from Krasinski, who’s on NBC’s rival to Baldwin’s “30 Rock” — “The Office.”

Emily Blunt showed off her very nice engagement ring. She’s shooting a movie in New York right now. Krasinski is in the middle of promoting the film he directed, “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.”

“We’re just starting our next round of cities we’re releasing to, and more publicity,” he told me.

I told him, I am obsessed with “The Office.”

“I keep waiting for it to jump the shark,” the very amiable Krasinski said. “But it hasn’t. I think the Jim and Pam wedding went very well, it became a universal thing.” He praised star Steve Carell, and agreed that Carell has great chemistry with Amy Ryan, who occasionally plays Holly. “I think it’s great she comes and goes. It prolongs interest.”

When will they — Krasinski and Blunt — actually get married? “Probably during hiatus,” he replied and then sort of kicked himself. “What a showbiz thing to say.”

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