Oscars - The Results...

Four hours, twenty-five gongs and more fancy frocks than you can shake a Jimmy Choo shoe at later, and the 80th Academy Awards ceremony is over. And, despite all the hubbub over writers' strikes and rain-sodden red carpets, it all went pretty much according to plan.

The biggest surprise of the night was Marion Cotillard scooping Best Actress ahead of the more fancied Julie Christie and Ellen Page for her turn as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. Tilda Swinton's triumph over Cate Blanchett in the Supporting Actress category was also a slight shock, but as both women won at the BAFTAs two weeks' ago, their victories were hardly without precedent.

The Actor categories were foregone conclusions. Javier Bardem rightly claimed the Supporting prize for his subtly unnerving portrayal of hired assassin Anton Chigurh in the Coens' No Country For Old Men, while at the other end of the scale, Daniel Day-Lewis was an equally deserved winner for his brilliantly barmy turn as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.

As was predicted, Paul Thomas Anderson's masterpiece was overlooked for the main two prizes. Instead, it was No Country that took home the Best Picture and Director awards, and although it remains one of the best films of the Coens’ career, I can't help but feel the Academy wimped out slightly by not handing at least one of the two to TWBB, which is a far more daring and innovative piece of work.

Aside from Cotillard, the only other prediction we got wrong in this blog came in the Adapted Screenplay category. We tipped Ronald Harwood's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; those darn Coens picked it up for their faithful rendition of Cormac McCarthy's book. Meanwhile, Diablo Cody won the Original Screenplay for Juno (and gave one of the sweetest speeches of the night), which means the former stripper is now a member of the Academy.

The perfect opportunity for that long overdue Showgirls reappraisal methinks...