Almost everybody won the Oscar they were supposed to last night, with "No Country for Old Men" taking the most — four, including best picture and best directors (Joel and Ethan Coen). Fittingly, the first big Hollywood event after the 100-day Writers Guild strike won't be remembered for clever words. Hollywood handed out awards at "the Oscars that almost weren't" to a lot of people who were, like best actress winner Marion Cotillard ("La Vie En Rose"), "speechless" when their big moment hit.

Nobody had much that was witty to say. Well, until best actor Daniel Day-Lewis took the stage and acted out a fake knighthood ceremony. But mostly the telecast, rife with clip tributes of Oscars past, played like the backup-plan Oscars that were to be broadcast had the strike not ended two weeks ago.

The 80th Academy Awards were to be Hollywood's "makeup sex," emcee Jon Stewart joked. But it was makeup sex for a long-married couple. With kids. Lots of interrupting kids.

They were predictable. They were very slow to get going. And there were constant interruptions, with winners hurried through acceptance speeches to make way for montages and mock montages.

"Oscar's salute to binoculars and periscopes" and "Bad Dreams: An Oscar salute."

In between, the Academy scattered awards hither and yon — an "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (costumes) here, a "Sweeney Todd" (art direction), "Atonement" (best score), "The Golden Compass" (visual effects) or "There Will be Blood" (cinematography) there. "Bourne Ultimatum" picked up three sound and editing Oscars.

As he has all awards season, Javier Bardem collected the supporting actor award (for "No Country for Old Men") thanks to his directors, the Coen Brothers, who forced "the most horrible haircut in history on me."

Heavy favorite Diablo Cody won the screenwriting Oscar for "Juno."

Disney-Pixar's award-collecting "Ratatouille" won best animated feature, for which writer-director Brad Bird thanked his "junior high guidance counselor," who tried and failed to talk him out of a career in the movies.

Day-Lewis, also a favorite, gazed on his Oscar and said "this sprang like a golden sapling from the head of ("There Will Be Blood" director) Paul Thomas Anderson."

More unexpected, Tilda Swinton won best supporting actress for "Michael Clayton." Swinton looked shocked, muttering "Wow wow wow" as she made her way to the stage, where she vowed to give her Oscar to her American agent, "the spitting image" of the naked, bald statuette, including, "it has to be said, the buttocks."

OK, it wasn't totally predictable.

The Austrian Holocaust drama "The Counterfeiters" won best foreign language film.

Stewart, the anchor of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," seemed more at ease than in his first attempt at hosting the world's premier master-of-ceremonies gig a couple of years ago. Mixing up inside Hollywood humor with topical gags, he was still most at home with political jokes — the nominated film "Away from Her" is "about a woman who forgets who her husband is. Hilary Clinton called it 'the feel-good movie of the year.' "

But the most political moment came when "Taxi to the Dark Side," about Americans torturing an innocent Afghan to death, won an Oscar. Director Alex Gibney voiced the hope that "we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back into the light."

It was a muted ceremony, with light laughs and polite applause floating off into the vastness of the Kodak Auditorium. The loudest, most prolonged applause of the night? That came when "Falling Slowly," a song from "Once," won. Co-star and songwriter Glen Hansard marveled that their little "100 grand" movie could win anything. That was followed by the classiest moment: Stewart asked co-star and co-composer Marketa Irglova, who was "played off" before she could say anything, back onstage for a few words: "No matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible."

At three hours and 20 minutes, it wasn't the longest Oscars of recent vintage. Lacking the best efforts of Hollywood's best scribes, it just felt that way.