As expected, "Million Dollar Baby" took home the big award, while Martin Scorcese went home empty-handed yet again. For an Oscar race that had been hyped as the closest in years, I'm a little disappointed that there weren't more, or even any, surprise winners in the major categories. I managed to correctly predict a semi-respectable 15 of the night's 24 winners (though I did horribly in the documentary and short film categories, going 0 for 4).

A few random observations about the ceremony...

• To my pleasant surprise, Chris Rock did a fantastic job hosting. His monologue was boosted by the introduction of something usually missing from his stand-up: self deprecation. Come back anytime, Chris.
• Sean Penn's lame attempt at criticizing Rock only succeeded in illustrating that Jeff Spicoli no longer has a sense of humor.
• Since musical director Bill Conti had the gall to cut-off Hilary Swank's acceptance speech, why couldn't he have cued the music during Salma Hayek's long-winded introduction to Antonio Banderas's "pre-formance" of the first Spanish language song ever nominated "by" an Academy Award? Stick to the Tele-Prompter, Salma. (Update: I just learned that Salma Hayek has dyslexia. Which, of course, makes me an asshole for the Tele-Prompter remark.)
• (With apologies to Renee Zellweger) The always classy Cate Blanchett is probably our best bet for ending the trend of Best Supporting Actress winners who disappear (Mira Sorvino), become embarrassments (Marisa Tomei), and hawk cell phones (Catherine Zeta Jones).
• Let's call the on-stage cattle calls and in-audience award presentations for "lesser" categories exactly what they are: Insulting.
• I want to send out a big thank you to Oscar voters for finally giving an award to the best screenwriter on the planet, Charlie Kaufman. Too bad his brother Donald couldn't be there with him.

For a complete list of winners, check out Oscar.com.