Hollywood turned its attention from 3-D spectacle to the harsh realities of modern warfare by naming The Hurt Locker as 2009's best film, at Sunday night's 82nd annual Academy Awards.

Set in Iraq among U.S. soldiers assigned to disable terrorist bombs, the movie won six Oscars, including an historic best director prize for Kathryn Bigelow. The film's neck-and-neck rival in nominations (9), the sci-fi epic Avatar, won three technical prizes.

Bigelow dedicated her prize and, later, the best picture award to "the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. May they come home safe."

Not only
is The Hurt Locker the first Iraq War movie to win the best picture
Oscar, it’s the first winner released while the war it depicts is still
being waged. Even World War II veterans waited until 1954’s From Here
to Eternity to see their battleground legacy honored with the academy’s
most coveted prize.

Previous best picture winners set in U.S. combat include the World War
II dramas The Bridge on the River Kwai (1958) and Patton (1971); the
Vietnam War movies The Deer Hunter (1979) and Platoon (1987), and –
marginally -- Forrest Gump (1995), which briefly featured Tom Hanks’
character in Vietnam-era conflict during his Candide-like quest through
American history.

The Hurt Locker is only the second film in the past decade – after
Crash -- to win both the best picture and original screenplay Oscars.
The academy traditionally shows more affection for movies created from
books and Broadway plays.

Bigelow made Oscar history when she was named best director for The Hurt Locker, the first woman ever to win that distinction.

"This really is, um, there's no other way to describe it; it's the moment of a lifetime," Bigelow said

Sandra Bullock couldn't resist stopping by to see fellow nominee Meryl Streep, on her way to picking up the best actress Oscar.

This time, they didn't kiss, as they did for laughs at the People's Choice Awards. Streep shooed off Bullock to receive the prize she has been doing everything possible to win over the past month.

"Did I really earn this," Bullock said at the outset, "or did I just wear you all down?

Bullock thanked the academy and praised her competition, singling out each woman for praise, and alluded to that comical locking of lips with Streep.

"Meryl, you know what I think of you, and you're such a good kisser."

The academy’s decision continued an interesting trend at Streep’s expense. Bullock is the sixth first-time nominee in the leading actress category to win the best actress Oscar over the past decade.

Other 21st century rookie winners include Halle Berry (2002), Charlize Theron (2004), Reese Witherspoon (2006) and Marion Cotillard (2008). Helen Mirren (The Queen, 2007) also won with her first lead actress nomination but had been previously nominated twice for best supporting actress. This year, Mirren (The Last Station) became the only one to make an encore in the category.

Bullock concluded her remarks with special thanks to "what this film is about for me."

"The moms who take care of the babies and hold them, no matter where they come from. Those moms and parents never get thanked."

"The Dude" abided in style when Jeff Bridges was named best actor of 2009 for Crazy Heart, a character study of a boozy country music has-been regaining his character.

Bridges, 60, a Hollywood darling since his father Lloyd made the TV series Sea Hunt, cashed in his fifth Oscar nomination and accepted with the kind of laid-back affability he showed in the cult favorite, The Big Lebowski.

Bridges' triumph is the culmination of a strange trip for Crazy Heart, even by Hollywood standards. Expected to be a straight-to-video release, the low-budget movie was picked up by Fox Searchlight and selected for a late-2009 release, hoping bridges' performance could be recognized.

Bridges received a long standing ovation, while he looked to the heavens and waved his statuette to the heavens, to his deceased parents.

"Thank you, Mom and Dad, for turning me on to such a groovy profession," he said. "My Dad and my Mom, they loved show biz so much. I can remember my Mom getting all of us to entertain at her parties, you now, my Dad would sit me on this bed and teach me all of the basics of acting, for a role in Sea Hunt. They loved show biz so much and I feel an extension of that. This is honoring them as much as it is me."

And, once again, Bridges thanked his wife of 33 years, Sue, and his children for their support, continuing the Bridges tradition: "I wouldn't be up here without you."

The searing urban drama Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire took an early advantage Sunday night, winning two major prizes while the glitzy affair struggled to end before Monday.

As expected, comedian and talk show host Mo’Nique claimed the best supporting actress Oscar for playing wildly against type in her first major film role. Mo’Nique etched one of the most despicable characters in years, the abusive mother of an overweight, illiterate woman deserving much better in life.

Mo’Nique used her acceptance speech to praise a cultural trailblazer, whose movie career inspired hers:
"I want to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to, so that I would not have to."

Mo'Nique is reportedly in negotiations to portray McDaniel -- the first African-American to ever win an Oscar, for supporting actress in Gone with the Wind -- along with Precious director Lee Daniels, a nominee Sunday night.
Mo’Nique win capped a flawless run through award season, including Saturday night's Film Independent Spirit awards that don't usually involve Oscar nominees.

More surprising was Geoffrey Fletcher’s win in the best adapted screenplay category, an Oscar widely conceded to Up in the Air after the preceding awards shows, including the Writers Guild of America. Fletcher also becomes the first screenwriter to ever have his inspiration clearly identified in the movie’s title – one of those tidbits Oscar watchers love stashing away for trivia games.

The early Oscars for Precious added a measure of suspense to a program billed as a showdown between The Hurt Locker and Avatar, each with nine nominations including best picture. After more than two hours of celebrity backslapping, The Hurt Locker led that race with three Oscars – for Mark Boal’s original screenplay, and sound mixing and editing – while Avatar enjoyed two, for art direction and cinematography.

Tonight's broadcast may drag here and there, but it probably won't be blamed on co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, who many feared would open the show with the desperate vitality of a Catskills comedy team avoiding Sunshine Boys status.

After all, this is the year when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doubled its best picture nominee list to get a few movies into the mix that people have actually seen, grabbed Miley Cyrus, Taylor Lautner and Zac Efron to let the kids know the academy is still cool. 

The academy "leaked" the promise of a surprise opening, a "last-minute change," according to red carpet Hobbit Ryan Seacrest on the E! channel pre-show. Part of the surprise turned out to be all of the acting nominees willing to do it, to stand on stage for a round of applause.

But then, Neil Patrick Harris pops out with a bouncy, sometimes suggestive song and dance declaring "no one wants to do it alone," referring to Martin and Baldwin. Harris already proved his hosting chops at the Emmys, and the academy would do well to hammer out a few more movie roles to justify bringing him back.

Martin and Baldwin shook off a few early timing issues to eventually roll through a cheeky duo-logue that was lighter on the indie jokes than many previous hosts, yet with affection for show biz masked as well as Jon Stewart and Chris Rock couldn't disguise their disdain in previous stints.

Martin had a succinct line when he noted the best picture race expansion to 10 nominees: "All of us thought the same thing: What's five times two?"

Later, he earned the gasps of a punchline gone gloriously right when he noted something in common with Precious star Gabourey Sidibe: "In our first movies, we were both both born a poor black child." If you don't remember Martin's opening lines in his debut, The Jerk, too bad.

Martin and Baldwin, who co-starred with best actress nominee Meryl Streep in the holiday hit It's Complicated, made her the brunt of several jokes only buddies can crack, including a reference to her "collection of Hitler memorabilia."

Martin and Baldwin are relishing the first time the Oscars have relied upon more than one host since 1987. They're much funnier than Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan (which shows how much the academy was scraping for charm in the 80's.

Eighteen minutes into the program, the first award was presented (one minute later than the first one was doled out last year, so the academy's streamlining strategy already isn't working).

Christoph Waltz won the award in his first trip to the Oscars, playing the bilingual Nazi "Jew Hunter" in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. His award was presented by last year's best supporting actress (and nominee for Nine this year), Penelope Cruz. He joined a short list of Oscar winners honored for their first starring roles in American productions.

"Oscar and Penelope, that's an uber-bingo," Waltz said, in a callback to a line his character gleefully delivers in the offbeat World War II drama. The 53-year-old Austrian actor appeared to have exhausted his interesting acceptance remarks after completing a rare sweep of every major supporting actor trophy for 2009 releases.

A few minutes later, the fable of unending love Up won the best animated feature Oscar, making it five prizes for Pixar Animation Studios since 2002 when the award was created. In the film, an elderly man (voice of Edward Asner) floats away in a helium-lifted house to a place he never had the chance to visit with his deceased wife.

Co-director and writer Pete Docter "Boy, never did I dream that making a flipbook out of my third grade math book would lead to this. It's incredible being here...

"The heart of it came from home. To our families... you guys are the greatest adventure."

In quick time, the Academy Award for best original was presented for the first time in memory without live performances tugging at the show's running time. As expected, the Oscar went to The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart, a sadly hopeful country ditty written by Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett.

Keeping the show front-loaded with key categories, Tina Fey and Robert Downey, Jr. presented the best original screenplay Oscar to Mark Boal for The Hurt Locker. Boal was an embedded journalist in Iraq, where he found the inspiration for his script. Currently, a member of the platoon Boal worked with is suing the writer and others for using his experiences without compensation. That didn't come up in Boal's acceptance speech.

"You honor me and humble me with this, more than you know," Boal said onstage. "I was a reporter back from Iraq with the idea for a story about these men on the front lines of an unpopular war. I thought it it might make a movie., The results have wildly exceeded my wildest expectations... I'd like to dedicate this to the troops; the 115,000 who are still in Iraq, the 120,000 in Afghanistan, the 30,000 wounded, and the 4,000 who have not made it home."

The longest segment of the show's first hour was a tribute to filmmaker John Hughes, who died in 2009 of a heart attack. The creator of The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and other models of 1980s teen movies was saluted by several actors he directed, in a procession of platitudes and memories:

Jon Cryer: "John created characters that were at once familiar, almost painfully ordinary but at the same time transcendent and iconic."

Anthony Michael Hall: "John gave us all the gift of laughter and understanding."

Judd Nelson: "He had a gift for treating young people, not as children but developing adults."

Ally Sheedy: "When you get older your heart dies. Ironic words written by a modern day Peter Pan, a man who refused to get older."

Macauley Culkin: "John always treated me with dignity, even that tiny 9-year-old version of myself because that's what he did: he treated people with respect."

Matthew Broderick then introduced members of Hughes's family in attendance, and signed off with the title of one of Ferris' favorite songs: Danke Schoen.

After a hilarious appearance by Ben Stiller in full Avatar alien Na'vi gear to present the best makeup award to Star Trek, the academy got back to serious business with the best adapted screenplay award. The envelope's results was the evening's first shock, revealing Fletcher as the winner for best adapted screenplay.

Fletcher appeared as surprised as almost everyone in the Kodak Theater, after Up in the Air had been pegged as the heavy favorite throughout awards season.

"I don't know what to say," Fletcher said between sobs. "This is for everybody who works on a dream every day. Precious boys and girls everywhere, all the cast and crew, anyone who kept believing in me."

Robin Williams showed up to make a typically obvious joke about the Governor's Ball being held later, and to present the best supporting actress award to Mo'Nique, for her searing portrayal of Mary Jones, possibly the most abusive mother ever depicted on screen

Like Waltz, the woman who doubles as a comedian and talk show host had a flawless run through award season, including Saturday night's Film Independent Spirit awards that don't usually involve Oscar nominees.

Mo'Nique addressed her issues with Oscar campaigning right away: "First, I would like to thank the academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics"

Mo'Nique soon turned her attention to husband Sidney Hicks, who supported her early resistance to Oscars politics, which included skipping the traditional nominees luncheon/photo-op to tape her TV show. She also reportedly demanded compensation for appearances to promote the movie, which she denied. That could have been a rumor planted in step with the very politicking Mo'Nique resisted.

"Sometimes you have to forego doing what's popular in order to do what's right," Mo'Nique said to Hicks, "and baby, you were so right."

While the show had a decidedly younger vibe than usual -- forced at times, like featuring Twilight stars Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart with a horror genre tribute when Twilight isn't scary -- James Taylor added a babyboomer glow to the traditional "in memorium" segment, doing an gentle acoustic version of In My Life while photos flashed of the dearly departed.

Then the academy just had to indulge its fetish for interpretive dance, stretching the show with a terpsichorean medley of original score nominees. The only things missing were Rob Lowe and Snow White. By the way, Michael Giacchino's lovely music for Up was named the winner.

Personally, my most gratifying moment of the evening -- I know it isn't over -- is The Cove being named best documentary feature of 2009. The Cove was one of the most memorable movie experiences of the year that almost nobody saw, a mix of social commentary and caper movie suspense.

Director-producer Louis Psihoyos gave a hearty shout-out to marine conservation activist Ric O'Barry, whose intrepid investigation of dolphin herding and slaughters in Japan inspired the movie:

"My hero, Ric O'Barry, who is not only a hero to this species but to all species, and the man who came up with the idea."

O'Barry was onstage, holding a placard forwarding his cause: "Text DOLPHIN 44144."