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The Best Actress Oscar went to Sandra Bullock for her work in The Blind Side; also, we should all get another chunk of the award for sitting through two painful introductions by five actors and actresses. Yikes. But, seriously, this award isn't much of a surprise, even if Bullock kind of hit the nail on the head with the beginning of her speech: did she earn this award, or did she just wear us down? She wore me down, for sure. Either way, her charm has worked wonders on the right people, and the people watching who could be baffled by the dance sequences and Paranormal Activity parody could hold onto Bullock's role in the crowd-pleasing The Blind Side as a major win. There was some skepticism that Bullock might not win tonight, potentially losing to Gabourey Sidibe, but Sandra Bullock was, in some ways, destined to win here. She steamrolled past the competition all throughout the Oscar race.

The Best Director Oscar winner was Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. It was more than appropriate for Barbara Streisand to award Bigelow for this great war movie, and even more appropriate that the first person who appeared to stand to give her an ovation was her competitor and ex-husband, James Cameron, a man who firmly appreciated her work, even if their personal lives weren't as solid. Bigelow's win wasn't a surprise, but still an impressive milestone for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, even if that milestone came in the 21st century, instead of sometime during the 1960s or 1970s. That aside, the win was a great step, if only because Kathryn Bigelow absolutely deserved it.

Of course, the biggest award of all was for Best Picture, and there were, as we've gone over many times, ten nominees. Tom Hanks, famed actor and Academy governor, announced, as quickly as a person could, that The Hurt Locker was the winner. First of all, congratulations are in order. Here it is, one of the truly great films, one of the best films of the year, and a movie that managed to take the big prize without making over $700 million at the box office. You have probably not seen The Hurt Locker, or you saw it on DVD. If you remain completely uninitiated, you must do yourself a favor and put this movie on your Netflix queue immediately. Just expect to be waiting for a long time to watch it.

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