Sunday was Hollywood's big night, and as always I was glued to my television from mid-afternoon onward. I don't want to call the awards show boring, but while Jon Stewart did a fine job hosting, the overall broadcast was just a bit too, well, boring. With one exception ("Falling Slowly" from Once by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová), the best song nominees were spectacularly dull, and the canned montages before each of the big awards grew tiresome. The latter flaw, of course, was due to the recently resolved writers' strike. The show's producers prepared these reviews of past winners when there was a real chance no writers would be allowed to prepare material for the broadcast. Jon Stewart's Daily Show scribes did manage to cull a decent amount of gags in about a week, but some of the preproduced material was left in for padding.

Ironically, the show's highlight came during the presentation of the Best Song award. Hansard and Irglová walked to the stage to a warm reception from the Hollywood crowd. After Hansard gave his thanks, the band started playing, cutting off Irglová before she could utter a single word. After the next commercial break, Stewart took the unprecedented step of asking Irglová to return to the stage to speak. A truly classy gesture from the Oscar host. (Hopefully, the win for Once will mean a bigger audience for this amazing little film.)

As you've probably heard by now, the night's big winner was No Country for Old Men, which took home four statues, including Best Picture and Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem). Blockbuster action movie The Bourne Ultimatum surprised everyone by bagging three awards, though all were in technical categories. Both actress categories were minor upsets, with Marion Cotillard beating Julie Christie in Best Actress, while Tilda Swinton bested Cate Blanchett and Amy Ryan in the supporting field. Otherwise, the big awards went exactly as all the pundits had predicted.

So how did I do with my annual punditry? Not too well. I got only 14 of 24 categories correct. Last year, in a set of unpublished picks, I got 20 right. Two years ago I picked 18 and the year before that 15. Thus, this year marks a low point for me. I got burned by my prediction that Transformers would win three Oscars and Michael Clayton none. Instead, the giant robots were shut out, and Swinton made sure that Clayton got its due. Fine with me.

Here all the nights winners, along with a tally of which categories I got right and wrong:

✔ Picture: No Country for Old Men
✘ Actress: Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose (My pick: Julie Christie)
✔ Actor: Daniel Day Lewis - There Will Be Blood
✘ Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton (My pick:  Amy Ryan)
✔ Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
✔ Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
✔ Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
✔ Original Screenplay: Juno
✔ Cinematography: There Will Be Blood
✘ Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum (My pick: No Country for Old Men)
✔ Art Direction: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
✘ Costume Design: Elizabeth: The Golden Age (My pick: Sweeney Todd)
✔ Original Score: Atonement
✔ Original Song: "Falling Slowly" - Once
✔ Makeup: La Vie En Rose
✘ Sound Mixing: The Bourne Ultimatum (My pick: Transformers)
✘ Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum (My pick: Transformers)
✘ Visual Effects: The Golden Compass (My pick: Transformers)
✔ Animated Feature: Ratatouille
✔ Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters
✘ Documentary Feature: The Taxi to the Dark Side (My pick: No End in Sight)
✔ Documentary Short: Freeheld
✘ Animated Short Film: Peter & the Wolf (My pick: I Met the Walrus)
✘ Live Action Short Film: Le Mozart des Pickpockets (My pick: The Tonto Woman)