It's over! After months of hype and hooey, the Oscars are yesterday's news. Except of course for grading the telecast. The winners were mostly well chosen—in an enlightened world The Golden Compass would win nothing, even visual effects—but the dullness quotient increased as the show dragged on and on and on. Here then, teacher's grades for the best and worst moments, remembering of course that the best is often the worst. Feel free to chime in.

A
Best Supporting Actress winner Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). What other actress would begin an acceptance speech with the words, "Oh noooo," and then proceed to give her statuette away to her American agent because his ass resembled Oscar's? Great, unexpected stuff on a night of dreary rectitude.

Big winners Joel and Ethan Coen (Best Picture, Screenplay and Direction for No Country for Old Men). They deserved every prize but looked like they'd been called to the principal's office to be chewed out each time they hit the massive stage of the Kodak theater.

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11:40 PM: BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese opens the envelope.
Joel and Ethan Coen drag their asses to the stage. Ethan looks like he'd like to drop through the floor. Joel comes through with a nice anecdote about how they've been making movies since he was 11. One, about shuttle diplomacy, is called Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go. I'd like to see that one. Nice to see Joel's wife, Frances McDormand, in the audience smiling for her husband and her brother-in-law.

11:45 PM: BEST PICTURE: Denzel Washington does the envelope opening.
It's No Country for Old Men, as I hoped it would be. Even Ethan Coen smiles. I saw it. You did too. Producer Scott Rudin makes a moving tribute to the ailing Sydney Pollack, to No Country author Cormac McCarthy, and to the love of his life without whom he says—holding up the Oscar—"this would be hardware." And so that's all the hardware for this year. Do you think most of the hardware was deserved. Or would you, paraphrasing Daniel Day Lewis, like to bludgeon someone with it?

11:35 PM: BEST ACTOR TIME. Helen Mirren, looking regal, steps up and says "cojones" with real punch.
Nominees all look nervous — Clooney fidgets, Depp pulls at his goatee, even Tommy Lee looks squiggly. If Daniel Day Lewis doesn't win, I'm going out to picket ... He does. Nice bow to Queen Mirren — "the closest I'll ever get to a knighthood," he says, as she taps him with the Oscar. And one of the great performances in modern cinema gets its due.

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In the last of his Oscar prediction videos, Peter Travers contemplates what movie should win the big prize and be called "Best Picture." Will it be the epic There Will Be Blood, the intense No Country for Old Men, the quirky Juno, the romantic Atonement or the thrilling Michael Clayton? Click above for the Rolling Stone film critic's take, and be sure to tune in to The Travers Take tomorrow for his live blog of the Oscar ceremony, starting at 8PM EST.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Please join me Sunday night for my live Oscar blog, starting at 8pm EST, where I'll shoot poison darts at every major category from acting to acting stupid and invite you to do the same.

The Oscars are almost here, and Peter Travers is nearly done making his picks. Today, the Rolling Stone film critic weighs the Best Actress category. Will the Academy err on the side of Hollywood newcomers Ellen Page or Marion Cotillard, or will the experience of Julie Christie, Laura Linney or Cate Blanchett win out? Click above to hear Travers' complete argument, and tune in tomorrow for his pick for Best Picture.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

A pox on the Academy for giving The Bourne Ultimatum (see photo) no identity in the big-ticket categories. Below the star line, though, Bourne pops up three times for technical awards, the kind most people will snooze through during the Sunday Oscarcast. But there are a few technical awards that are essential to how a movie looks, sounds and feels. Take a peek, and see if you agree:

BEST EDITING

The Bourne Ultimatum—Christopher Rouse

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly—Juliette Welfling

Into the Wild—Jay Cassidy

No Country for Old Men—Roderick Jaynes

There Will Be Blood—Dylan Tichenor

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Peter Travers' Oscar picks continues today with the contest for Best Actor. Daniel Day-Lewis seems like a lock for his stunning performance in There Will Be Blood, but will George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones or Viggo Mortensen pull off the upset? Click above to hear the Rolling Stone film critic's take, and be sure to tune in tomorrow for his thoughts on the race for Best Actress.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

It's in the air, people. As Oscar Sunday approaches, rumors are flying that No Country for Old Men is no longer a lock as Best Picture. Academy voters hate that damn ending and the fact that we never see the Josh Brolin character get his. Colossal stupidity, of course, but idiot thinking is part of the Oscar process. The hot skinny has it that Juno, the populist candidate, and Michael Clayton, the throwback to the 1970s when Academy voters were last comfortable with movies, are gaining ground. Suddenly, the Coen brothers are Hillary Clinton and Juno and Michael Clayton are on the Obama ticket for change. The Crash upset over Brokeback Mountain two years ago is being cited as precedent. But homophobia was the force that brought down Brokeback—no cornholing cowpokes for Oscar's old-guard, thank you very much. Before weighing in yourselves, take a look at the platforms each movie is running on:

Juno promises you a movie you'll take to heart, an Oscar nominated performance by new star Ellen Page and the only Oscar nominated screenplay ever written by a former stripper and phone sex operator. And Juno is raking in big bucks—$125 million so far. On the downside, the teen pregnancy issue is glibly sidestepped and the character of Juno is irritating the shit out of some people with her smartass patter set to a Kimya Dawson soundtrack.

Michael Clayton promises a movie with a moral center, a leading actor (George Clooney) who was just dubbed by Time magazine as "The Last Movie Star," Oscar nominated supporting performances by Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton, a solid first-time director in Tony Gilroy, who also wrote the script, and—crucial point here—no bloody violence. On the downside, the movie is barely hitting $50 million at the box-office and, well, it actually delivers as a movie with a moral center.

I'd like to try an experiment on this blog and ask you to cast your vote for either Juno or Michael Clayton as a possible Best Picture winner. Let's see if an upset really is in the wind.

We're one day closer to this Sunday's Oscars, which means Peter Travers is engaging another close race. Today, he looks at the Best Supporting Actress category. Will it be Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There, Ruby Dee in American Gangster, Saoirse Ronan in Atonement or Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton? Click about to hear the Rolling Stone film critic's arguments, and be sure to tune in later today for his thoughts on who should win the Oscar for Best Actor.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

If the Oscars are making you nuts with their Hollywood bias—though there's less glitz among this year's nominees than ever—you can detox with the Independent Spirit Awards. Taking place this Saturday, and broadcast on the Independent Film Channel (IFC), the 23rd Independent Spirit Awards celebrate what you can do with film talent, working fast and on the cheap. Hosted by Rainn Wilson, of The Office and Juno, the ceremony takes place in front of an audience that gathers inside a beachfront tent in Santa Monica. On the Red Carpet, the Spirits are to cargo pants what the Oscars are to Dolce and Gabbana. The crowd is low-key and by my own witness not adverse to maverick behavior and controlled substances. Mostly, though, it's a chance for the indies get a little cred. Here are a few of the nominees:

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The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

I'm Not There

Juno

A Mighty Heart

Paranoid Park

Only Juno is also on Oscar's Best Picture list. But I think this award will go to Todd Haynes' I'm Not There (see photo) or Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which both represent rule-busting experimentation pushed to the max. You can't say that about Juno.

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