Remarkably, nine of the lead or supporting actress winners since 2000 have won for playing real- life people, a trend worth noting in future Oscar pools.

In the wide-open supporting actress race, Swinton's win for the admired best picture nominee, "Michael Clayton," seems natural since hers was probably the most widely seen performance in the category against competition from actresses whose nominations were virtually the only attention their films received.

Like Cotillard, Swinton spent a good deal of time in L.A. doing the Q&A circuit and started collecting the dividends of that effort when she won the BAFTA two weeks ago.

Both actresses made their acceptances with class, style, wit and emotion, and both seemed genuinely shocked when their names were called.

As for "No Country For Old Men," its four wins matched its guild wins and provided no surprise at all, unfortunately adding to the lackluster nature of much of this year's Oscar telecast with low-key acceptance speeches from Joel and Ethan Coen, who each won three Oscars.

After winning the director trophy, their second of the night, Ethan was hardly the height of emotion.

"I don't have a lot to add to what I said earlier [note: virtually nothing]. Thank you," he muttered.

Frequent Coen Bros. co-star George Clooney has said they make some of the worst acceptance speeches ever, and they proved him right.

Their co-producer Scott Rudin, added a classy touch in his best picture acceptance when he made a special mention and saluted his "Michael Clayton" competitor, the ailing Sydney Pollock.

With back-to-back quartets of Oscar for "The Departed" and "No Country," the academy is clearly showing new voting patterns and tolerance for the kind of dark, edgy films they might have nominated in the past , but rarely wanted to name best picture.

Wins for Day-Lewis, Bardem and "Juno" scribe Diablo Cody were 102% expected, but their heartfelt acceptances -- particularly the latter two -- made up for the lack of suspense.

(For all those amateur Oscar-stat freaks out there, Bardem is the first Spanish actor to win an Oscar, and Cody is the first stripper.)

In the battle of the blockbusters ,clearly the brilliantly reviewed summer smash "The Bourne Ultimatum" trounced the not-so-brilliantly reviewed summer smash "Transformers" to take film editing, sound mixing and sound editing Oscars, which many expected the latter to win if only to put mixer and now 20-time loser Kevin O'Connell out of his Oscar-less misery.

To add insult to injury O'Connell, is slated to moderate an evening at the Academy on March 8 with the winners of both 2007 sound awards. File it under "good sport" or "glutton for punishment." Maybe the "Bourne" gang will let him play with their shiny new Oscars.

Jon Stewart seemed to be having a good time as host and got off some great lines, but overall, a lack of emotional high points made this 80th Oscarcast watchable, if not memorable.