They said there were no obvious winners this year, no cinematic monsters like 'Oppenheimer' to dominate proceedings. And they were right.
Yes, Kieran Culkin was strongly tipped for best supporting actor in 'A Real Pain', and it was a popular win (though maybe it wasn't the best time to remember the bet he made with his wife to have more kids if he won an Oscar!).
But when Mikey Madison won the Oscar for best actress in 'Anora', there was a big intake of breath in the press room – few had seen this one coming. Audible surprise.
Well, it was going to be between her and Demi Moore in 'The Substance', with most leaning towards Moore, but it was not to be.
'Anora' was the big winner. A film that cost $6 million to make is now poised to reap multiples of that from all the publicity of the Oscars.
The driving creative force, Sean Baker took three awards - directing, editing and original screenplay, a reflection of the "cottage industry" scale of this film.
But is it any good? My cameraman is most upset. A film school graduate (so not shy about art house movies), he was rooting for the Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown'.
Now he is saying he is too upset to work tonight. I’ve got some news for him …
Quentin Tarantino presented the award for best director to Baker, he made an impassioned plea for people to go to cinemas to watch movies, and for directors to keep making films to be seen on the big screen. And wished his mother a happy birthday (she introduced him to cinema at the age of five).
Baker used his acceptance speech to thank sex workers – for their insights, helping him write the role of the leading lady for Mikey Madison, who also hung out with hookers as part of her research.
Baker also walked home with the Oscar for best film editing. I really hoped Nick Emerson would win for 'Conclave', a carefully staged ensemble piece that unfolds meticulously – pacing that good editing brings to the moving image.
And out of more than two hundred eligible movies, only five were nominated in this category. So well done Nick.
Well done to the Tailored Films of Dublin for the same reason. Of all the films out there, that could have got nominations for their leading and supporting actors, very few were chosen, and 'The Apprentice' was one of them: Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong both get the "Academy Award Nominee" tag now – always useful in this brutally competitive business.
Another big winner was Conan O’Brien, who hosted the show. A dangerous role if the jokes fall flat or offend the wrong people in the Hollywood pecking order or are just off. This is a big budget, big audience production, so it should be more or less on the money every time.
And yes, comedy is the hardest thing to write. But Conan did a good job, and will no doubt be back in the future.
He was even able to hand over the joke making to a group of LA firefighters – part of a tribute to the Fire Department that battled hard against natures forces. Best of the gags? A fire captain saying, "we send our sympathies to the people who lost their homes – the producers of Joker 2".
Or another who quipped Timothée Chalamet (star of the Bob Dylan biopic 'A Complete Unknown') had learnt to sing for the role and "was so good at singing that he nearly lost the part". (Conan had ordered the audience to laugh).
Late in the show Conan said: "If you are still enjoying the show, you have something called Stockholm Syndrome".
Then he introduced Cillian Murphy to present the leading actor award, and he handed the statuette to Adrien Brody, star of 'The Brutalist', about a Hungarian architect who survives the holocaust and makes it big in America.
Brody said acting is a very fragile career, though sometimes it can be glamourous. But it can all disappear instantly as well. "What makes this night special is the awareness of that", he said.
'The Brutalist' is a long film, three-and-a-half hours - one of the reasons that it's not in many multiplexes. Earlier, Conan had talked about how much he enjoyed watching the film: "I didn't want it to end … and it didn’t!"
Brody also refused to leave the stage when the music started - the audio equivalent of the bums rush, to encourage people to wrap up and keep the speeches short. But Brody said cut the music I’ve done this before. Then he spoke about not letting hate win, of being against racism and anti-Semitism.
Read more: Dark fairytale Anora the big winner at the Oscars
Overt politics was kept in check, part of the more restrained approach to the whole proceedings.
A Palestinian Israeli documentary about the destruction of a West Bank village called 'No Other Land' won the feature documentary category. The collective that produced the film - Israelis and Palestinians - clearly had lots to say but decided not to.
They were introduced to the press room, and lots of us leaned forward, ready for some heavy politics.
Instead, the special effects team from 'Dune: Part Two' stepped forward, reminding a questioner who was already in full flight about the Middle East that they were there for the visual effects.
In the final analysis, Americas top movie awards were all about the relationship between a Russian oligarch and a prostitute. No politics there.
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