Well, it’s all over for another year. The lads and ladies of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have dished out their famous golden trophies in Hollywood, and as I type the glitterati of the film industry and their hangers on are still partying hard in the self-congratulatory glow of the media lenses. I’m sure if you hunt down a television now you’ll find a channel still doing some live coverage, but you’ll have a slightly harder time trying to find clips of the winning speeches online. Give it a few hours though and you can have your fill.

For the moment, it falls to us at BFF to report on the meaty substance of the evening. Who won what? No surprises for the most part for the Academy Awards represent the end of an ‘awards season’ that’s been going on some months, allowing us to predict with some accuracy where the golden statuettes would go beforehand.

As expected, God of Acting Daniel Day-Lewis has had his name written into the Hollywood history books by becoming the first man ever to win three Best Actor Oscars, picking up his third last night for his towering performance in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. The British-Irish thespian’s acceptance speech was one of the highlights of the evening when after accepting his trophy from fellow acclaimed ‘living legend’ Meryl Streep, he revealed the pair had done a ‘straight swap’ three years ago, he being originally cast to play Margaret Thatcher (for which she won her third gong two years ago) while she was first choice for Abraham Lincoln. The twin images were enough to nicely pop the self-regarding bubble that the audience seemed content to bask in beforehand, though there was genuine warmth, respect and affection for DDL in the Kodak Theatre, and rightly so for he is undoubtedly the finest actor of his, or maybe any, generation.

Elsewhere Christoph Waltz picked up his second Oscar for Django Unchained, having previously won three years ago for Inglourious Basterds. Writer-director Quentin Tarantino also received his second Academy Award for Original Screenplay for the film. As expected, Anne Hathaway bagged her first golden boy for her performance in Les Misérables. The producers of the show decided to have some sort of tribute to musicals as is there want every time a musical wins anything. This involved getting the cast of 2002’s Best Picture Chicago back to do a song and dance, Catherine Zeta-Jones looking as ravishing as ever with her black bob. Husband Michael Douglas was on hand to announce perhaps the biggest surprise of the evening…

Ang Lee got his second Best Director Oscar for the dark horse of the night, Life of Pi. It’s being reported that it was something of a ‘game-changer’ for 3-D, which we’re pretty sure was what everyone was saying about Avatar, but they gave the Oscar to James Cameron’s ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, favouring a traditional domestic drama over some new technological recognition. They’ve corrected that, then. Jennifer Lawrence‘s victory in the leading actress category for Silver Linings Playbook was largely expected, as was her falling over on the way to pick it up. America has a binge drinking problem.

Finally, there wasn’t much of a shock when Michelle Obama proclaimed Argo the year’s best picture live from the White House, absurdly. Matt Damon – I mean Ben Affleck – rambled on a lot from the podium, much like he did with Damon when they won for their Good Will Hunting screenplay in 1998. His breathless speech was eventually cut off by the orchestra, mercifully. It seems Argo‘s victory also got George Clooney a second Oscar, a feat which seemed to be a bit of a theme for the evening.

Other things to note: the usually thrilling Best Sound Editing category lived up to its hype yet again when a TIE was announced, the trophy being awarded to both Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty. The biggest victor of the night turned out to be Life of Pi, picking up 4; Argo and Les Misérables got three each and Django Unchained, Syfall and Lincoln got two a piece.

Few. See you next year.