Marking the 80th year of the Oscars, this year’s show only felt like it lasted 70. Still, it was a chance to see Hollywood’s most glamorous stars come out in force, celebrating the end of a months-long writers’ strike that reduced this winter’s Golden Globes to an embarrassing press conference. As the affable but too-aloof host Jon Stewart put it: “Welcome to the makeup sex!”

But an Oscar host, especially one hampered by a lack of prep time, is only as good as the material he has to work with. And given the bleak nature of most of this year’s nominees — "Does this town need a hug?" he wondered — Stewart scored his best laughs with political material, as befits the Daily Show anchor. On Oscar turning 80: "Makes him now automatically the front-runner for the Republican nomination." On the Democratic contenders: "Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president [in a movie], an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty."

The Oscar show took an unconscionable 45 minutes to give out its first acting award, and it wasn’t until well into the second hour, with Marion Cotillard’s giddy win for La Vie en Rose, that we saw what felt like a truly spontaneous expression of surprise and joy.

Montages (and even at one point a send-up of montages) cluttered the broadcast. Intended to pay homage to 80 years of Oscar movie love, they instead served to remind us how much more exciting the speeches, the hosts — and even the caliber of legendary movie stars — were back in the day. 

For more on the Oscars — and all the hot after-parties — pick up the new issue of TV Guide, on sale now.