I share all this not to brag, but simply to note that while watching the telecast at the home of a dear friend in LA I was still as caught up in the show as I always am. Even though I saw first-hand the amount of fakery and construction that goes into the telecast – the red carpet, the cheesy gigantic Oscars that flank the people who enter the theater, the fact that the Kodak theater anchors a mall – I suspended my disbelief without ever thinking about it. I screamed and yelled and carried on when something surprised me, I bitched and moaned when I felt the winner was less than deserving (I’m looking at you editor of The Bourne Ultimatum), and I still marvel at the sheer star-power of great actors and marvel at the mysterious skill of the writers and directors I adore.

And the show this year was as worthy of love as any in recent memory. Here are a few of the many memorable moments and innovations.

1. Jon Stewart was arguably a perfect host. He did not dominate the program, he simply guided it with a steady hand. No joke brought the show to a halt, and many of them were pretty savvy insider bits especially the montage of binoculars and telescopes, and the montage of bad dreams. These segments gently spoofed traditional elements of the show. But Stewart’s crowning moment of the night, and for my money one of the all-time great moments by any host in the telecast’s history, came when he brought Markéta Irglová back after the orchestra cut her off before she could say anything after winning the award for Best Song. She was allowed to give a speech as warm and touching and concise as the movie. This brings me to the next best thing about the night…

2. The acceptance speeches were full of genuine excitement and passion. From Tilda Swinton’s honest shock to the thunderously thankful creators of the best documentary short winner, to Marion Cotillard, to the duo from Once, many of the speeches came off as overwhelmingly heartfelt. There is absolutely no reason for the producers of the telecast to ever cut off a winner. These people, whether they are the sound effects editors, or the animated short directors, or the actors deserve to have as long as they want.

3. Having the presenters pre-record the reading of the nominees names was a masterstroke. No more stumbling over difficult names, no more having a nominee’s moment in the sun ruined by a glitch with the microphone, and no more self-conscious giggling when the presenters get tongue-tied made for a very smooth telecast that clocked in at a swift three hours and eighteen minutes.

4. Diablo Cody set a record for the largest visible tattoo ever seen on an Oscar winner.

5. Ethan Coen’s terse, gracious, humble acceptance speeches.

6. Daniel Day-Lewis being knighted by Helen Mirren.

7. Martin Scorsese getting one more joke out of having to wait so long to win his first Oscar.

8. Brad Bird giving credit to the high school guidance counselor who never believed that he would make a living making movies.

9. Only four films took home multiple awards this year, underscoring the fact that the Academy recognized this was a fantastic movie year full of films worthy of your time and attention.

10. The lifetime achievement award for Robert Boyle, a man whose amazing work for decades connected the show directly with a master like Alfred Hitchcock. Whenever the Oscar show can seamlessly teach history, whole new generations of movie fans are born.

Best Picture
Juno
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Zodiac

Best Foreign Film
Persepolis

Best Actor
Michael Cera – Juno
Daniel Day-Lewis – There Will Be Blood
Viggo Mortensen – Eastern Promises
Gordon Pinsent – Away From Her

Best Actress
Marion Coutillard – La Vie En Rose
Ellen Page – Juno
Keri Russell – Waitress

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem – No Country for Old Men
Paul Dano – There Will Be Blood
Robert Downey Jr. – Zodiac
Paul Rudd – Knocked Up
Mark Ruffalo – Zodiac
J.K. Simmons – Juno

Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Garner – Juno
Jennifer Jason Leigh – Margot at the Wedding
Kelly MacDonald – No Country for Old Men
Tilda Swinton – Michael Clayton

Best Ensemble Acting
Grindhouse
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
Zodiac

Best Director
David Cronenberg – Eastern Promises
Judd Apatow – Knocked Up
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen – No Country for Old Men
Brad Bird – Ratatouille
Paul Thomas Anderson – There Will Be Blood
David Fincher – Zodiac

Best Original Screenplay
Steve Knight - Eastern Promises
Diablo Cody - Juno
Judd Apatow - Knocked Up
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogan - Superbad

Best Adapted Screenplay
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi - Persepolis
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
James Vanderbilt - Zodiac

Best Looking Film
Grindhouse
Ratatouille
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood
300

Best Animated Film
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theater
Beowulf
Persepolis
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie

Most Overlooked Film
Grindhouse
The Hunting Party
Zodiac

Most Overrated
Knocked Up
300

Biggest Disappointment
Live Free or Die Hard
Shoot ‘Em Up

Best First Film
Ben Affleck - Gone Baby Gone
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Sarah Polley - Away From Her

Breakout Performance
Christopher Mintz-Plasse – Superbad
Ellen Page – Juno

Best Sequel or Remake
The Bourne Ultimatum
Ocean’s Thirteen
Spider Man III
3:10 to Yuma
28 Weeks Later

Best Use of Music
Grindhouse
Music and Lyrics
Once
There Will Be Blood
Walk Hard
Zodiac

Best Popcorn Film
Grindhouse
Hot Fuzz
Superbad

Best Documentary
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Lake of Fire
My Kid Could Paint That
Sicko
You’re Gonna Miss Me
Zoo

Best Family Film
Ratatouille

Favorite Title
The Astronaut Farmer
Sicko
There Will Be Blood

Best Actor:
Every year are there are some categories that are far gone conclusions. This is one of those years for Best Actor. Daniel Day-Lewis has won seemingly every award in the world for his work as Daniel Plainview, the driven oilman in There Will Be Blood, and nothing will change February 24 as the greatest actor of his generation will pick up his second trophy.

Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress:
While it would be silly to bet against Julie Christie, my personal vote goes somewhere else. Ellen Page had the breakout performance of the decade in Juno, and it seems almost a guarantee that she will one day snag this coveted award. Marion Cotillard certainly has her defenders and could pull off the upset, although it is unlikely. Personally, my vote would go to Laura Linney who inhabited a neurotic woman trying to keep herself together with little fuss and maximum empathy in The Savages.

Will Win: Julie Christie
Should Win: Laura Linney

Best Supporting Actor:
Pound for pound, this category offers the most impressive list of nominees among the acting categories. Every single nominee deserves to win, and the case can be made that each of them has a chance. Hal Holbrook is the old veteran playing a very likable part in Into the Wild, Casey Affleck is enjoying his breakout year, Tom Wilkinson manages to play his mentally unhinged lawyer as broadly as possible without straining credibility, Philip Seymour Hoffman is widely considered to be the best American actor of his generation, and Javier Bardem will forever haunt the memory of moviegoers. This is a tough one, but I will call it, friend-o.

Will Win: Javier Bardem
Should Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actress:
This is easily the toughest to call among all the major categories. Amy Ryan is the newcomer who made a huge splash with Gone Baby Gone, Ruby Dee is the old pro nominated for the first time from American Gangster, and Cate Blanchett is revered. All three of them are a real possibility, as is Tilda Swinton for her bloodless corporate drone in Michael Clayton. I’m not sure at all who will win, but I know for sure who I would vote for.

Will Win: Cate Blanchett
Should Win: Cate Blanchett

Best Director:
This is a three-headed/two horse race between the Coen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson. The Coens took home the Director’s Guild Award, making them a heavy favorite.

Will Win: Joel and Ethan
Should Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Original Screenplay:
It’s down to Diablo Cody vs. Tony Gilroy, and you have to give Cody the edge after she took home the WGA award.

Will Win: Diablo Cody
Should Win: Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, and Jim Capobianco for Ratatouille

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Yet again, this is a Coens vs. PTA showdown, and expect the brothers to triumph once again.

Will Win: Joel and Ethan
Should Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Picture:
For the third time, it comes down to There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. And for the third time, the Coen brothers will triumph.

Will Win: No Country for Old Men
Should Win: There Will Be Blood

As for the rest:
Best Animated Film: Gonna be Ratatouille, as well it should be.

Best Art Direction: Atonement will take this, but it should be There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography: Another remarkably competitive category where No Country for Old Men triumphs. My vote would go to DP Roger Deakins‘ other film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Best Costume Design: Atonement will pick up this coffee table award, but Elizabeth: The Golden Age would be my selection.

Best Documentary: No End In Sight

Best Editing: Traditionally this goes to the film with the “most” editing so expect The Bourne Ultimatum to conquer, but the Coen brothers deserve it for their mixture of taut thriller and languid moral confusion.

Best Make-Up: La Vie En Rose is the frontrunner, but prepare yourselves because there is a very real chance that Norbit will go down in history as an Academy Award winning movie.

Best Score: Another win for Atonement, but Michael Giacchino’s work in Ratatouille sticks in my memory much more strongly.

Best Song: Falling Slowly from Once should and will win.

The show started with the traditional “I’m an actor” speeches by various Guild members in the audience. Jane Krakowski walked off with the segment when she said that she loved acting because she gets to be other people, and then ended with a deadpan, “I’m Johnny Depp, and I’m an actor.”

The first half-hour of the show was a victory lap for The Sopranos. James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, and the ensemble cast swept the dramatic TV awards.

Javier Bardem took home the night’s first film award for his cold-blooded killer in No Country for old Men, and he gave a superb speech highlighted by thanking the Coen Brothers for cutting out all his bad takes. Acceptance speeches, good or bad, can affect your odds of winning an Oscar, (if you don’t believe that go back and look at Eddie Murphy’s Globes speech last year) and his was note perfect.

Tina Fey followed that up by giving the funniest acceptance speech of the night, comparing herself to the hat rack that danced with Fred Astaire. She also earned points for being the first person to mention the Writers Guild during the show, but she certainly would not be the last.

When the cast of The Office came on stage to accept their ensemble in a TV comedy award, the pain of the writers strike hit me full force for the first time. I miss these actors and those characters.

Am I the only person who, after hearing the emcee say, “Ladies and gentlemen, Holly Hunter and James Spader,” immediately thought, “Sweet! Crash reunion!”

The show respectfully slowed during Charles Durning’s long overdue lifetime achievement award, but it nearly came to a halt during Mickey Rooney’s reading of the nominees in the best actress in a TV movie or miniseries category. This was followed by the montage of those who had passed away since the previous awards show, a certainly necessary part of the show, but one that understandably ladles a somberness over the proceedings.

Ruby Dee’s surprise win for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture certainly shook things up. She received one of the few standing ovations of the night, and her warm and gracious speech certainly helped pick up the pace of the telecast.

Daniel Day-Lewis gave the most impassioned acceptance speech, offering a beautiful eulogy for Heath Ledger. Although the two had never worked together, Lewis served up perceptive and awestruck praise for Ledger’s work in Monster’s Ball and Brokeback Mountain, and dedicated his win to the recently deceased actor. It was a moment as genuine as one will ever see during an awards show.

When Tom Cruise strolled out to hand out the best ensemble cast in a feature film award I feared the fix was in the works and he would read that Hairspray was taking home the night’s final prize, but his announcement of No Country for Old Men as the winner solidified the favorites for this year’s Oscars.

Thank you Screen Actors Guild for giving us back a genuine awards show during this strike affected kudos season.

The Coen Brothers snagged the award from the Directors Guild making them a huge favorite to take home the Oscar. The winner of that award takes home the Academy Award over 90% of the time. And since best director and Best Picture go hand in hand more often than not, No Country for Old Men seems at this point to be the odds on favorite for that prize. Only There Will Be Blood, which is the only film this year to successfully run an old-school prestige-pic Oscar campaign, could manage to take it away. Either way, a genuinely worthy film will take home the big prize

1. Paul Thomas Anderson: There Will Be Blood tied for the most nominations among all films with eight. Anderson garnered his third screenplay nomination and his first Best Director nod for a film that was marketed as the prestige pic of the season. That plan worked, making it more than likely this film gets the biggest boost at the box office this weekend.

2. Cate Blanchett: The woman considered by many to be the best actress of her generation became one of the handful of performers to score multiple nominations in the same year. Odds are low on her capturing her first Best Actress statuette, but she is certainly in the running for the Supporting trophy for her work as one of the many faces of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.

3. Paramount Vantage and Miramax: These two studios claim co-ownership of both There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, the two films that led all films with eight nominations each.

4. Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz: The composer and lyricist collaborators scored three nominations in the Best Song category for their work on Enchanted.

5. Joel and Ethan Coen: The brothers each picked up four nominations, one each for screenwriting, directing, producing, and editing as Roderick Jaynes is the name they take when working together in that capacity.

1. They didn’t read all the award winners. If you’re going to present the telecast as a news event, you should report all the news. Anyone watching last night didn’t hear who won best screenplay (The Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men), best foreign language film (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), best original score (Dario Marianelli for Atonement), or best original song (“Guaranteed” by Eddie Vedder for Into the Wild). Anybody watching this telecast is going to be a hardcore awards junkie, so why would they leave out any information?

2. Make the hosts watch some movies. When Samantha Morton won an award for her work in the spectacular Longford, the hosts looked shocked and dismayed, most likely because they had not seen it. In that same vein, Billy Bush opined after a win for Sweeney Todd that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have one of those great collaborations like Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. One must assume that Mr. Bush thinks Robert De Niro is nothing more than a straight man for Ben Stiller.

3. NBC overdid the self-promotion. They chose a clip from The Simpsons Movie that name-checked Access Hollywood, and even worse, Bush and Nancy O’Dell felt the need to comment on that right after it aired. And I didn’t have a stopwatch on this, so I’m not sure if it’s true, but it sure felt like the clips from NBC shows like 30 Rock went on just a little bit longer than the others.

4. The banter was even worse than the usual awards show patter. Biggest offender: Billy Bush, after Jon Hamm won an award for his work on Mad Men, remarked on the irony of an actor named Hamm. Please settle the writers’ strike before Billy Bush is let anywhere near a microphone in prime time again.

5. The few attempts at analysis and insight they offered lacked any real substance whatsoever. Case in point – in the movie categories, all but one of the acting awards went to performers born in a country other than the United States. (Even the lone US-born nominee, Johnny Depp, played a Brit.) And the four best picture winners – Atonement, Sweeney Todd, Ratatouille, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - all transpire in a foreign country. The Hollywood Foreign Press going outside America for all of its winners is certainly an interesting trend worthy of some perspective or analysis, but you didn’t get a word of any of that last night.

“The show must go on, that is one of the tenets of everything…I just hope that the big guys who make big decisions up high in their corporate boardrooms and what not get down to honest bargaining and everyone can get back to work.

As a big cheese within the academy, and one of the most visible members of the Screen Actors Guild, don’t discount that Hanks’ words might have some influence, even if it is only on fellow actors who might begin speaking out more vocally on behalf of their WGA colleagues.

The biggest loser in all this, apart from those of us who live for kudosfests like this, is obviously Rumor Willis.