Los Angeles, February 27 – Now that the Academy Awards ceremony plopped the crown on the seemingly endless awards season, we’ll be at loose ends next weekend without at least one filmland back-patting extravaganza. But on the bright side, we won’t have to spend yet another evening with Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio or Jamie Foxx again for a while. They’re sweet, but enough is enough.

After months on the Aviator publicity trail, DiCaprio had his lady Gisele Bundchen on his arm publicly for the first time at the Oscars.

One recently split couple did the sibling thing; Jake Gyllenhaal brought sister Maggie, while his ex, Kirsten Dunst, was with her brother, Christian. Jay-Z was a bit lonely, since his lady, Beyonce, spent most of her time at the Oscars on the stage, singing. (She sang so often, at times we wondered if we’d stumbled into the wrong studio, and were watching a Beyonce special.)

And Beyonce may have been dripping with diamonds, but Johnny Depp was more discreet, hiding his bling in his mouth. It seems Depp’s gold-capped teeth are for his Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.

At one point backstage in the press area, some less-famous awardees were intimidated by the pack of screaming journalists vying for their attention, when Samuel L. Jackson strode in and announced, “Let me show you how this is done”. Jackson sat down on the riser, and the room was immediately pin-drop quiet. “This is how it’s done”, he said, and got up and walked out.