After plodding through yet another Golden Globes with Ricky Gervais and an unnoticeable SAG Awards, award season finally reached its annual zenith with the 84th Academy Awards. For the most part, they did not disappoint.

“The Artist” dominated this year’s show, taking home five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius and Best Actor for Jean Dujardin. Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” also came up big with five awards, while Christopher Plummer had the feel-good win of the night, taking home Best Supporting Actor for “The Beginners” and becoming the oldest actor to win an Oscar at 82-years-old.

Billy Crystal, hosting the show for the ninth time, started off with a video montage featuring himself in some of the films nominated for Best Picture, highlighted by a tender kiss between him and George Clooney. Afterwards, Crystal came onstage and launched into his customary monologue/song that wasn’t particularly funny but still was fun to watch.

As the night went on, though, the jokes piled up and Crystal validated his comedic prowess.

“When I came out of ‘The Help,’ I wanted to hug the first black woman I saw, which, from Beverly Hills, is about a 45 minute drive,” Crystal quipped. Crystal later noted the increasing role of women in cinema, remarking, “This has been a great year for strong feminine characters. Some wore high heels and ran countries, like the ‘Iron Lady’ and ‘J. Edgar.’”

Aside from Crystal’s witty humor, the pinnacle of the show was Cirque du Soleil’s performance. Although the performance was in no way relevant to the rest of the evening, it’s hard not to be mesmerized by people contorting their bodies into unfathomable positions and flipping into the air, all while aerialists swung high above on trapezes.

While the 84th Academy Awards were wonderful overall, there were still some duds in the show, including the video of a mock focus group. This segment presented a group of actors pretending to review “The Wizard of Oz.” What was intended as a comedy sketch fell flat on its face and was excruciating to watch.

With all of the pomp and glitz surrounding the Academy Awards, the show is still about the winners and losers, and this year, the Academy voters did a pretty excellent job. They rewarded Octavia Spencer for her tour de force performance in “The Help,” which resulted in an effusive thank-you speech matched only in quality by Best Actor winner Jean Dujardin’s, which blended sophisticated French language with Cuba Gooding-esque enthusiasm. In addition, Meryl Streep won her much-deserved third Oscar, further bolstering the resume of the 17-time nominee.

However, the Academy did make a few mistakes. “The Iron Lady” won the Oscar for Best Makeup — an award that should have gone to either “Albert Nobbs” or “Harry Potter.” Whereas Meryl Streep was still recognizable as Margaret Thatcher, the makeup artists behind the other two nominated films performed much more difficult feats in transforming actress Glenn Close into a man and creating a world populated with goblins and trolls.

In the Best Adapted Screenplay category, “Moneyball” was snubbed by voters. The film, written by two masters of their craft — Steven Zallian, the man behind “Schindler’s List,” and Aaron Sorkin of “The Social Network” — took a Michael Lewis book about baseball and statistics and spun it into a passionate film with an engaging narrative that resonated with baseball fans and non-baseball fans alike. “The Descendants,” the eventual winner, simply adopted a novel and played it safe, sticking to its source’s linear storyline.

Lastly, it’s important to mention the overall theme of the awards broadcast, which paid homage to the illustrious history of cinema. From the stage, which featured an old-fashioned movie theater with an archaic marquee and ticket booth, to the clips of classic films like “Titanic” and “Apollo 13” to the reels of actors discussing when they fell in love with the movies, the night had a very nostalgic feel to it.

While this theme did an excellent job in underlining the magic that is the film industry’s past, it also exposed the feebleness of its present. Gone are heart-wrenching, sentimental films like “E.T.” and “Forrest Gump” and brooding masterpieces like “The Godfather” and “Schindler’s List.” They’ve been replaced by formulaic films that lack the same artistry and emotion — a travesty that may just be the inevitable byproduct of a 21st century cinema driven by money and efficiency.

Still, even if today’s best pictures are a notch below the previous century’s, one fact remains true: the Oscars win the award for Best Awards Show.