Live From Hollywood, California. It's Very Early on Monday Morning...

Last night a little award ceremony took place in the Kodak Theatre. Hollywood's glitziest and trashiest turned up to have little statues thrust upon them and there to meet them on the red carpet were all manner of appalling, fawning sycophants ready to illicit no productive information at all. If anything, it seemed like Sky's Angela Griffin had just written a letter to the Make A Wish Foundation saying "please let me go to the Oscars and get a little bit too excited about all the celebs, love Angela". The red carpet nonsense went on for about 3 hours before eventually the nominees began filing into their seats. Even then we didn't get underway (many of them too busy blowing air kisses at each other presumably... or getting the night's drinks if you're George Clooney or Morgan Freeman, both of whom had so much faith in winning the Best Actor gong that they were permanently soused for the entire evening). Finally, everyone was in their places and the 82nd Annual Academy Awards was about to get underway.

And so the festivities began. The nominated actors and actresses lined the stage with mindless grins. What would take place after last year's all singing, all dancing Hugh Jack-man led affair? Well, Doogie Howser M.D. then did an all singing, all dancing number in a shiny tux. Come back nominees, all is forgiven. Then Martin and Baldwin take the stage- what Doogie (also Barney from How I Met Your Mother) called "the biggest pair since Dolly Parton" to a mild embarrassed titter. Watching Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin is like watching Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin; Steve Martin's probably got more money but you know he wishes he was Alec Baldwin. They hit their straps with a gag about the pair donning 3D glasses to look at James Cameron and followed up with Martin quipping "there's that damn Helen Hirren" with Baldwin correcting him "That's Dame Helen Mirred". Haha. To be fair, they were doing a fine job. Martin returning to comedy hosting after a brief spell as an American folk musician and Baldwin off the face of the highly successful Tina Fey sitcom 30 Rock (and the less successful It's Complicated with Oscar nominee ((obviously not for that movie)) Meryl Streep). I should point out that regardless of how good and likeable Baldwin is in anything, I still just think of Team America, "Arec Barrwin" and "I can't upstage Alec Baldwin, he's the greatest actor in the world".

Seeing as that nice Mr. Murdoch had taken my televised Oscars away I followed the ceremony on 5Live and on the Guardian Liveblog written by critic and columnist Xan Brooks. The Liveblog was mightily entertaining, Brooks fully aware that only a handful of people would stay up until the small hours to read about millionaires receiving accolades. He has a healthy sense of derision for both the ceremony and the celebrities... and even the idea of liveblogging itself, I would suggest. He's up there with Paxman in the pantheon of journalists who 'don't really give a shit about their superiors'. There were some magnificent ethereal tracts during the night, one of my early favourites referring to T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham winning Best Song.

"Incidentally, isn't "Ryan Bingham" the name of the character that George Clooney plays in Up in the Air? All of a sudden these Oscars are starting to blur; the line between fiction and reality warping and breaking down. Next I'll be wondering if T-Bone Burnett was actually the name of the seductive, lingerie-wearing muse that Penélope Cruz played in Nine. Already I'm starting to believe that it was. The best bit of that entire film was the scene in which T-Bone Burnett writhed on that four-poster bed and stuck his bum in the air."

He christened the first award of the night (Best Actor in a Supporting Role) the 'No Shit Sherlock Award', which predictably went to Christoph Waltz who has (rightly) won all of them since Cannes last year, I think. It is however the end of a remarkable season for Waltz and his five star turn in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Before Basterds, Austrian Waltz had lost his faith in the acting profession and now he finds himself with every top gong going and a darling of Hollywood. A touching story and a well-deserved oscar for a tour-de-force performance.

We'd be here for days if I was to attempt to list all the awards, so if you simply desire the cold hard facts, check here. Naturally there were some set pieces from Hollywood's most popular comedians. Ben Stiller presented the Best Make-Up award to Star Trek while trussed up in full Na'vi gear to a begruding smile from Avatar director James Cameron, after which the Best Adapted Screenplay award is presented to Precious and not In The Loop... rather unfairly. Still don't understand why exactly In The Loop was considered to be an adapted screenplay and not an original screenplay. @LloydWoolf suggested that:

People seem to think it counts as being adapted from The Thick Of It. Like when the On The Buses gang went to Spain.

As good an explanation as any. Geoffrey Fletcher collecting the Best Original Screenplay gong choked up at the podium with an entire 45 second gap to fill. "I'm drying up." He said. That was the best he could do? Jesse Armstrong had promised a Sieg Heil if In The Loop had won. Fletcher was ushered off the podium and Steve Martin boasted "I wrote that script for him." All the while The Hurt Locker was picking up awards like the Greeks throw plates and before long we had arrived at the customary dance number. Dance routines. "What would Oscar night be without a big, razzle-dazzle dance routine?" mused Brooks "Probably 10 minutes shorter and immeasurably more satisfying." More gongs went the way of HL and it led Avatar 4-3. After what seemed like an eternity, Kate Winslet arrived to present the Best Actor award which was, as one might imagine, won at the fifth time of asking by heavy favourite Jeff 'always the Dudesmaid, never the Dude' Bridges who raised his statuette to the rafters, a-whooping and a-hollering. Tremendous.

Would Sandra Bullock do the unthinkable and win both the Razzie for Worst Actress and Oscar for Best Actress in the same year? The day before at the spoof awards ceremony, Bullock had, to her credit, turned up to accept the ignominious gong with a truckload of DVDs of 'All About Steve', the much-maligned romcom for which she had sealed the award. However The Blind Side, yet to be released over here in Blighty had American critics falling over themselves like drunks in a ball pit and, sure enough, Sean Penn read out her name for the win. "Carey [Mulligan]" she said, "your grace and your elegance and your beauty and your talent makes me sick". A reminder that Bullock is actually a rather funny lady, if only she'd shown us that in All About Steve then she wouldn't have picked up the Razzie.

Then it was time for the big ones. Was there to be a repeat of the Baftas, where Cameron was basically out of his seat when the Hurt Locker was named Best Picture and he slumped back, face like thunder. Avatar had been touted as the main contender until the British Academy foisted praise upon Bigelow's effot and the Iraq bomb-disposal movie (no hard-sell needed for this one...) made a late surge for the main prize of the evening. First there was the skirmish, Best Director. Streisand took the stage. "The time has come." She said ominously. "Katherine Bigelow!" became the first woman to take the Best Director gong... ever. The Best Picture statuette was brought to the stage. The tension was palapable. Hanks tore open the envelope like a child at Christmas (this may be an exaggeration) and announced that The Hurt Locker had won. Cameron, face like a slapped arse, clapped unenthusiastically as he simmered gently beneath the surface and we had reached the end of another Academy Awards ceremony. "This show was so long that Avatar now takes place in the past," quipped Martin. He wasn't lying.