The Directors Guild of America Awards ceremony ended about 90 minutes ago with Joel Coen and Ethan Coen winning the feature film directing award for "No Country for Old Men." They were presented the award by last year's winner, Martin Scorsese, who brought a glass of champagne with him to the podium and toasted all the nominees before announcing the winner,

It was a star-studded affair at the Century Plaza Hotel with presenters that included 2008 Oscar nominees Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Hal Holbrook, Amy Ryan, Daniel-Day Lewis, Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page as well as Josh Brolin, Vanessa Williams, Emile Hirsch, Debra Messing, Chi McBride, Kristin Chenoweth, Anna Paquin, John Larroquette and Helen Hunt.

The evening was hosted, for the 21st consecutive year, by Carl Reiner who walked out onto the stage and confessed to the audience: "I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning feeling so [expletive]."
He wondered if he should maybe find a replacement but decided to keep the gig after "I went through a list of all the people in the business who might've done as I and I couldn't come up with one!"

Reiner, in his mid-80s, was sharp and spontanious throughout. At one point he spotted Day-Lewis sitting in the audience and said: "He [is] so (expletive] gifted. There are other actors walking around without the gift because he got most of it.'

Day-Lewis was funny and touching while presenting a silver plate nomination medallion to his "There Will Be Blood" director Paul Michael Anderson: "If you have to go stark raving mad in the desert. I'd rather do it with Paul Michael Anderson than just about anyone I can think of. ...Paul handed everything to me on a silver plate and for yiu Paul, here's a silver plate piled high with admiration and pride."

Josh Brolin was very, very funny when presenting the Coens with their nomination medallion as he alternated between praising them and roasting them: "I had the pleasure of working with these socially challenged individuals for three months. If truth be told, I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot." When Brolin left the stage with the Coens, Reiner remarked:"That is the most [expletive] charming man I've ever seen" and remarked that directors in the audience should take notice.
They already have: Aming Brolin's recent roles in addition to "Country" are "American Gangster" and "Grindhouse."

Tony Gilroy accepted his nomination medallion for "Michael Clayton"), his first film as a director and said: "Wow. What a trip. To be honored by your peers. All I was trying to do when we started this was to become a peer...I'm going to thank the people who are here and lie to everybody else. We can all tell George Clooney that it was all about him."

With Sean Penn not present at the awards ceremony, it was up to Hal Holbrook and Emile Hirsch - two of the stars of Penn's "Into the Wild" - to both present and accept Penn's nomination medallion. Holbrook got a big hand when he said of Penn: "He's been called a rebel - that's good. Rebels are who got this country started."
Holbrook also said: "He has instinct and he's willing to trust it. When you're under Sean's direction, you get the feeling he trusts you."
When it came time for Hirsch to speak, he got a boig laugh when he looked at the audience and said: "I kind of feel like I'm on this massive job interview right now." Hirsch said Penn was "challenging at a time when for me that that's what I was looking for. I don't think anyone else could have physically made this movie. He was always climbing mountains."

The evening's most awkward moment came when Julian Schnabel was accepting his nomination medallion and a woman heckled him. He stopped cold and asked, "Who just said that to me?...Why don't YOU finish my speech darling?'"