The Oscar Winners: Surprises and Then Some

There were a number of surprises and upsets at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony, but the biggest news of the night is that Martin Scorsese, one of American cinema's greatest directors, was finally recognized by his peers. With a Best Director win for The Departed, he leaves behind the company of such masters as Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick, directors never honored with a statuette, and joins contemporaries and icons from the past, labeled as "the best." And the most satisfactory part of the win: it wasn't a sympathy or sentimental vote, he deserved it.

The Departed winning Best Picture, once the front-runner and the last few weeks looking to lose steam to Little Miss Sunshine, is icing on the cake and a sign that sometimes Academy voters can take their heads out of their asses and make the right choices.

As they did with quite a few categories.

It would have been easy to honor Peter O'Toole with a Best Actor win for Venus. Giving the legendary actor, nominated seven times before but never a winner, an award would have been a great sentimental choice and the presumed prolonged standing ovation he would have received would have been amazing TV. But they chose the deserving Forest Whitaker for his dynamic portrayal of ruthless dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. A tough choice, to be sure, but the right one.

As were some of the evening’s foregone conclusions. Helen Mirren winning Best Actress in The Queen; ex-"American Idol" contestant Jennifer Hudson winning Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls (take that Simon Cowell); Best Screenplay awards for The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine; and An Inconvenient Truth winning Best Documentary – come on, how could they pass up having Al Gore standing on stage winning an Oscar! They were all predictable and yet all deserving.

But the surprises were often jaw-dropping. The biggest upset of the evening was Eddie Murphy losing Best Supporting Actor for Dreamgirls. Talk had been circulating for weeks prior to the big night that Murphy wasn't particularly liked by many of Hollywood's voting block – his arrogance well beyond the usual Hollywood decimals – and with his current release Norbit receiving negative publicity for its poking fun of overweight black women, there appeared to be a Murphy backlash building. Whatever the reason, a great performance, the kind that the Academy usually likes to honor, has gone unrewarded. Personally, I thought that Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond and Jack Nicholson in The Departed (who wasn’t even nominated!) were stronger, but there would have been no complaints had this arrogant, yes; gifted, certainly; actor won the award.

It was gratifying to see the fantastic Mexican film Pan’s Labyrinth win three technical awards: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Makeup. Many thought it winning Best Foreign-Language Film was another sure thing. Another jaw-dropper. Unlike most categories, Foreign-Language Film, like Documentary, isn't voted upon by the entire Academy, but rather by a committee who signed affidavits they had seen all the nominees. And these committees can always be relied upon to produce a surprise, such as the German film The Lives of Others beating out this popular box-office hit. The now-Oscar winner is a powerful, stunning story of complicity and oppression in East Germany just before the wall came down, but its win is still a sock in the jaw.

A few other minor surprises, such as recognizing Happy Feet winning over Cars for Best Animation and Best Song going to An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up" rather than "Listen" from Dreamgirls, kept the evening interesting. As did Ellen DeGeneres as host, who provided little controversy with safe but genuine laughs. And to see such diversity and international flavoring among the nominees and winners is a great step in building confidence and legitimacy in the Academy's voting.

But at the end of the day, it was Marty’s night, and that's the way it should have been.

– David Bleiler

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