There is a reason that Billy Crystal has hosted this damn thing nine times. He is pretty fuckin’ good at it. Bravo sir. You managed to be classy and sassy at the same time.

Crystal was a delight. His canned montages and other video bits were fine, but he really shined in, what seemed like, off-the-cuff moments in between presentations.

As a non-fashion guru, I didn’t notice any startling dresses this year — at least not in the same way that Mila Kunis made America do a collective “swinggg” last year. For me, the most notable, or memorable, was the dress worn by Penelope Cruz. It seemed like a throwback dress, something that appeared to reference a 1950′s American style.

In addition to Crystal’s solid hosting gig, there were at least three really good comedic moments from the awards show. 1) The Martin Scorsese drinking game bit 2) Will Farrell and Zach Galifianakis playing cymbals and 3) Emma Stone nailing a scripted dialougue bit.

A further note about Stone, who was crazy beautiful in her red dress… That may be the first time in the history of the Oscars that a presenter nailed their pitter-patter dialogue. She SOLD that shit. Loved it.

Among the best acceptance speeches were Christopher Plummer, early in the evening, after his best supporting actor win, and Meryl Streep, later in the night, for her best actress win. Both were classy and earnest.

The other standout was the “swamp rats” who won the animated short Oscar. Cheers to the makers of that film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, for their exuberance.

The other standout acceptance speech was by Bret McKenzie, who won the Oscar for best original song for his work on The Muppets. The song was titled Man or Muppet. He gave a really wonderful and collected speech.

Other than that, I was also wowed by Bradley Cooper’s mustache.

That is all. It was a fun, tiring night. No outrageous moments, but plenty of them that were enjoyable. It was one of the better shows in recent years.

Oh, I almost forgot… Cirque du Soleil… that shit was pretty crazy awesome. Standing ovation… deserved.

What did you guys think?