From America's sweetheart to Academy darling, Sandra Bullock capped off the best year of her career with the win for Best Actress for playing a well-off Southern woman who completely turns around the life of an underprivileged black teen in the based-on-a-true-story The Blind Side.
"Did I really earn this, or did I just wear y'all down?" Bullock, fighting tears already, asked when she reached the stage. In nods to her fellow nominees, she said how much she loves Gabourey Sidibe, how Carey Mulligan's elegance, beauty and talent "make me sick," how words can't describe how she feels about Helen Mirren and, last but not least, what a good kisser Meryl Streep is.
She also gave an emotional shout-out to her late mother, and a final thank-you to "my lover, Meryl Streep."
"Thank you, mom and dad, for turning me onto such a groovy profession," Bridges said, looking skyward in tribute to his late actor parents, Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges.
Making geniuses of all the Oscar prognosticators, however, was Mo'Nique, who was favored to win Best Supporting Actress and, without a blink from presenter Robin Williams, did just that.
"First, I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics," the 42-year-old comedian said in accepting for her breakout dramatic role as a monstrously abusive mom in Precious.
"I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to," Mo'Nique said, nodding to the Gone With the Wind star, the first black woman to win an Oscar, "[Precious producers] Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, because you touched it—the whole world saw it." She went on to thank her lawyer, her families from Precious and BET, and, as always, her husband.
But while the supporting actress category was about as not suspenseful as it gets, it's not like its male counterpart was a nail-biter or anything.
Christoph Waltz, a winner at Cannes nearly a year ago, capped off the most dominating awards seasons in recent memory for a European actor with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
"Quentin, with his unorthodox methods of navigation, this fearless explorer, took this ship across and brought it in with flying colors, and that's why I'm here," the eloquent Austrian said, bringing his metaphorical tale of a journey well taken to a close.
But Inglourious Basterds' winning streak ended there, with the gory reimagining of World War II ultimately only going one for eight.
The Hurt Locker scribe Mark Boal ended up blowing past Quentin Tarantino, the early favorite to win for Best Original Screenplay. In addition to the usual suspects, including Bigelow, he thanked the 200,000-plus troops still serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, the thousands who didn't make it home, and his late father, who died just last month.
Tarantino didn't seem to let the loss spoil his time, though, going on to heartily applaud John Travolta, who introduced Inglourious Basterds as a Best Picture nominee, and to join Pedro Almodóvar in presenting Best Foreign Language Film to The Secret in Their Eyes, (El Secreto De Sus Ojos) from Argentina.
"I want to thank the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language," director Juan José Campanella said, more earnestly than not.
More of an upset occurred when Geoffrey Fletcher, who adapted Precious for the big screen, sent the favored Up in the Air team of Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner plummeting to earth with his win for Best Adapted Screenplay. In the end, Up in the Air flew home empty-handed, zero for six.
"This is for everybody who works on a dream everyday," Fletcher began and, after singling out director Lee Daniels and his brothers, ultimately became overcome with emotion and just thanked "everyone."
"I wrote that speech for him," quipped Oscar cohost Steven Martin, who along with Alec Baldwin (and at times, George Clooney, whose smooth-shaven face had to have been the one most panned to throughout the ceremony), kept the tone light, the jokes plentiful (if at times corny) and Meryl Streep laughing hysterically.
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