Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! This year’s Academy Awards will go down in history as the “indie Oscars”, when low-budget films about extreme situations swept the ceremony with big wins for “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” and “The Hurt Locker,” as well as “Crazy Heart,” a film that, according to New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik, ” was almost relegated to the DVD dustbin of history.”

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Best Director award. Meanwhile, Sandra Bullock pulled off an unlikely twofer, winning the Best Actress Oscar for “The Blind Side” a day after she took home the Razzie for Worst Actress for her work in “All About Steve.”

Another historical win: Geoffrey Fletcher became the first African-American to win a writing award for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

In her brief acceptance speech, Best Supporting Actress winner Mo’Nique thanked her husband, Sidney Hicks, for encouraging her to work on “Precious,” a film about an abusive, dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship that hardly seemed like the typical box-office hit-maker when it was released last year.

Her husband pushed her, she said, by stressing that “sometimes, you have to forgo doing what is popular in order to do what’s right. Baby, you were so right.”