Ah, the Oscars!

So Martin Scorsese finally wins an Oscar for Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and Goodfellas! Woo-hoo!! :)

About time!

While I'm happy for Scorcese, The Departed winning best picture was essentially a show-me-the-money award in addition to payback for all the Oscars Scorsese should have won, but didn't. The film grossed about US$129 million, better than the other four nominees.

Personally, I liked Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong crime drama on which The Departed was based, much better. The Departed was certainly competent, but had a rote feel to it. While I periodically revisit Scorsese crime classics like Goodfellas, I can't see myself doing the same with The Departed.

And as far as best director goes, Paul Greengrass of United 93 and Stephen Frears of The Queen would have been legitimate winners too, but as I've said, I think Scorsese won as much for his previous work as this current entry.

For me, the two best films of 2006 were Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men.

That being said, I've seen The Lives of Others, which won for best foreign film, and it's an excellent movie in its own right.

And Pan did pick up three Oscars, which has me sad that Children didn't get any recognition -- even though that says nothing of substance about the film's excellence.

While the environment is an obvious hobby horse for me, I don't know if I'm down with the pick of An Inconvenient Truth as best documentary (Melissa Etheridge won best original song for I Need To Wake Up, which accompanies the doc).

Personally, I think Jesus Camp may have been a better film, and Iraq in Fragments has moments of pure cinematic poetry within it.

However, climate change is the issue du jour, and this was a nice, safe political statement for Hollywood to make.

Now, Helen Mirren as best actress for The Queen; Forest Whitaker as best actor for The Last King of Scotland? Saw both films, can't argue with either choice. Both have been fine actors throughout their careers, and both deserve some recognition.

Alan Arkin as best supporting actor? I dunno. Best supporting over-actor, maybe.

As far as the speeches go, I left work about 11:30 p.m., but I think they have to cut them down to 30 seconds. Still w-a-a-a-a-y too much mumbling about thanking everybody and their dog and not enough about anything that is of the slightest interest to people outside the business. These people are supposed to be the cream of show biz, for God's sake! Captivate us!! :)

For the purely technical categories (sound editing), why bother? Why not televise the Plumbies, the plumbing industry's (fictional) annual awards show? Could that be less dull?

Ellen DeGeneres as host? Not bad, but too low-key.  The show, from what I saw, could have used a few more amps in its energy level.

Anyway, enough from me. Here's a link to CTV.ca's Oscar's coverage, for a full, heapin' helpin' of Oscar-tality.