The Envelope Please...

In case you haven’t heard this anywhere else by now, here are the results of some of the Academy’s biggest awards:

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Forrest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Helen Mirren for The Queen
Best Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro for Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Director: Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Best Picture: The Departed

I am thrilled to death that Martin Scorsese was finally, finally recognized with an Academy Award. It has been so long overdue. He is one of my favorite directors and all of his films are at the top of my favorites list. The Departed was the only movie that I’ve seen so far that was up for an award this year, and I think it was well deserved. Definitely added to my list after last night were: Pan’s Labyrinth, The Queen, and Little Miss Sunshine. I was almost positive that Will Smith would win the best actor award for Pursuit of Happyness, which I have been anxious to see. However, Whitaker's acceptance speech was the most moving of them all. I actually got a little choked up myself, seeing his wife's tears and listening to Forrest try to hold back his.

In other highlights, Ennio Morricone won a Lifetime Achievement award for his work with musical scores. I can’t imagine not having seen a film that he worked on; there have been so many famous movies with his unique touch. Apparently, the Italian composer is not fluent in English, so Clint Eastwood provided the translation of his acceptance speech.

Hosting this year was Ellen DeGeneres. With all of the talk about the diversity of the nominees this year, I am actually surprised to hear nothing of Ellen being the first openly homosexual host of the Oscars (I could be wrong about that though). I also have a hunch that Al Gore was also the first former Vice President to be in attendance, let alone on stage. He, of course, was up for his movie An Inconvenient Truth.

As usual, there were musical numbers during the first half of the ceremony, to pad out the program until the big awards were announced. One such number was a song by Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly about how sad it is to be a comedic actor at the Oscars. Even though I found the segment to be monotonous and uninteresting, the point was valid. Comedies like Talladega Nights almost never win the golden statue. Another musical number was a song from the movie Cars. I was bored to tears by that one.

It may seem odd, but aside from Scorsese’s big win, my favorite part of Oscar night wasn’t even part of the program. During one of the commercial breaks, the network aired a commercial for American Express. Another of my top directors is Wes Anderson (director of The Royal Tannenbaums and Rushmore) and he was the star of the advertisement. I was giddey! Ever notice that, just like the Super Bowl and the Grammy’s, the commercials during these programs are definitely geared toward music, movie or football oriented ads?