A&E - Oscar Night Ups and Downs

First off, fucking hells yes for The Departed. Screw all of you who chose to hate on one of the truly great pictures of the year. Screw all of you who complained that it isn't "great Scorsese." No, it's NOT as good as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation, GoodFellas, or The Aviator. But you know what? It stands firmly on its own two feet, and Scorsese shows again just how much command he has over the medium. The Departed taking Picture, Director, Editing, and Adapted Screenplay got me so impossibly excited I can't even describe. We all went nuts when Scorsese took Director. I don't care how clear-cut that decision was ahead of time, seeing it was a beautiful moment. Presented by Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg no less...big set up, yeah, but I don't care because it was one of the truly great moments in Oscar history, putting four legends onstage together (Lucas is not a great director, but he's contributed so much to the form). And though I think United 93 got screwed out of an editing Oscar, you could give Thelma Schoonmaker one every year and I'd be thrilled.

Another award that had me excited as all shit was Alan Arkin getting Best Supporting Actor. Of all the performances this year, not just the NOMINATED ones, he's the guy I'd pick. I was beyond happy when he got that.

Forest Whitaker had a great speech.

The evening wasn't perfect though, basically because Pan's Labyrinth didn't take Best Foreign and Children of Men was robbed even further than it was in nominations (how in the hell do you not give it Cinematography? There's a NINE MINUTE tracking shot through a battleground!...that alone gets it the award).

But overall, this is the happiest I've been about the Oscar results in a long, long time. Mainly for The Departed.