Oscar Results

They're thinking, damn "Japanese", lol.

Danish Poet wins? Best animated short? no way. :S

The departed doesn't deserve most of the oscars, but oh well.

yeah no kidding. i cant believe they announced during the best screenplay adaptation that infernal affairs was out of japan!

Is this the first "BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR" featuring a dildo? Just asking...

A joke. The flik was a total rip. I watched them back to back, almost scene for scene. The cast, texting, love interest, etc...The Departed is a good flik and all, but Infernal Affairs should have gotten some sort of real recognition. Did I mention some of the music was similar?
Boston and the Irish two of the few differences in the movies.

The Academy can't tell the difference between Hong Kong and Japan. Color me not surprised. To them, they're all a bunch of cute little yellow people who speak funny ching-chong languages and make movies for us inherently superior Americans to rip off. If we're feeling generous, we may even pay them for the honor. Wake me up when noted film preservationist Scorcese has word one to say about Asian films getting routinely gutted for American releases. I won't be holding my breath for that.

As for Lau and Mak, I imagine they're probably thinking "See, we TOLD you to submit our movie to the Oscars instead of THE TOUCH, but noooooooo. Wait, did they just call us Japanese? Typical." Then they probably went back to rolling around in piles of Warner Bros. cash.

(Wow, I probably deleted an entire paragraph's worth of profanity from the above.)

Best Picture Oscar winners with dildos? DEPARTED's not the first, RAIN MAN had Tom Cruise in it.

Well said, Rhythm-X.

None of this matters because Children of Men was nowhere to be seen.

Surprisingly I like most of the wins this year. The only thing that pisses me off is that fucking LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE won Original Screenplay and not PAN'S LABYRINTH. I mean... What were they thinking?!? Were they even thinking?

I'm so happy to see that people agree with me. I've been fighting with my friends over this Departed rip-off thing and it really pisses me off to no end.

Should've been Children of Men, United 93 or Little Children. Anything but the departed.

There was nothing REALLY outstanding this year except for Forrest Whitaker's performance. I suppose CHILDREN OF MEN was better by a hair, though it was as overrated as anything else. THE DEPARTED was kind of a mess; albeit a superbly acted mess. Too much Jack, though.

THE HOST is the best thing I saw last year.

I was just relieved Babel didn't nab Best Picture or Director although I figured they tossed 'em a bone with Best Original Score.

By the way, what clip from Little Children did they use for James Earle Haley?

I think Andrew Lau will be pleased that Scorsese thanked him in his speech. And praised Asian cinema. Plus Infernal Affairs got more attention than it did before, because of the remake.

My two major disappointments were:

1) The Lives of Others beating Pan's Labyrinth for best Foreign Language Film
2) Pan's Labyrinth beating Children of Men for Best Cinematography

evergreen: They used the 'community pool' scene (one of the best in the film).

RhythmX: I knew I was setting someone up for that joke. Well Said.

Josh: Agreed on both points. Children of Men should have gotten best director actually, even if it wasn't the best film of the year. It was a tour de force direction effort.

Hey, at least Marty had the sense to correct them and thank Andrew Lau and say that this film was from "Hong Kong". Plus he praised Asian cinema, which to my ears is very sweet. I guess he heard that Japanese statement as well, and the film geek in him got the better of him.

Thank you Michael Mann for that great montage.A montage about America from any other director would've been a fake,sappy piece of apple pie.It took balls to show images of the KKK,racial slurs,gangsters and dead soldiers.Thanks for keeping it real Mann.

Finally some good talkback here,I just love you guys at twitch and the readers. Don't worry guys the oscars sucks like every year, they don't even like film. Scorsese get's reconized for all his wrong films.
It's like oh he's getting old we have to give him some golden statues before he's gone.

Is it just me or is giving the oscar to The Departed the equivalent of going to Hong Kong to find the best burger joint?

Though I liked Pan's Labyrinth too, The Life Of Others is the better film and deserved to win. It should have been nomitated for best original sceenplay too.

p.s.: twitch reviews for the film reconfirm my opinion. An excellent radio interview with Donnersmarck can be found on NPR: Directing"The Life Of Others"

Do you people realize it's the first time ever a remake won best picture....
(in 1955 the film Marty won, also a remake but that was a teleplay)

Didn't watch the Oscars, was busy in another room but heard the supposed "tribute" to Morricone. Did I miss something? It sounded like they barely played any of the music of one of the best film composers ever and then Celine Dion came out and sang a song! Are you fucking kidding me? A Morricone song I'm sure, but little score and Celine Dion!! WTF?

Actually joey, quite a few reamkes have won Oscars and several more have been nominated. Technically, Chicago is a remake even.

Still, it's a load of shit that The Departed got it.

And what's up with having Clint Eastwood translate for Maestro Morricone's acceptance speech? A) Does Eastwood really know the Italian language? B) Did he read his comments in advance of his presentation, thus paraphrasing? (C Why not just subtitle Morricone's words!!!!!

I have to agree with Douglas Roy and Arch Stanton, the Morricone "tribute" (if you can call it that) was a fucking disgrace. In the stupid montage they failed to even reference any of his best work (Once Upon a Time in America etc.) plus, I hate Celine Dion - she is the antichrist. They made the guy seem stupid because he was speaking Italian. Clint couldn't be bothered to wear his glasses so he could sound somewhat coherent.

To Douglas Ray,

Yes, Clint Eastwood does speak Italian, its a side-effect from the years he spent in Italy filming spaghetti westerns. Although why he translated as opposed to, say, a professional translator I have no idea...

And of course they wouldn't use subtitles, its an American show, and Americans don't like to read when they are watching TV (hence "The Departed")

Also it was live so no time to throw in subtitles. Unless the closed captioning.

I find it funny and heart-warming that there's two people with screen names derived from Philp K. Dick books posting in this talkback.

I actually like The Departed and it's about time that Marty got an Oscar. But, giving Little Miss Sunshine Best Original Screenplay is the biggest travesty of the evening. In the words of Gob Bluth, Come on!

i don't think anybody can say The Departed is a bad film. I just think it would be nice if the directors that we know can do better, like Scorsese and Speilberg, release something original rather than contribute to the glut of remakes plaguing hollywood.

you are a voice of reason Hernan, Cheers!

This makes me laugh out loud. When a remake is being done, people whine and bitch and moan that "they'll never do it right" or "it'll suck" or crap like that...

but...

When a masterpiece like The Departed gets made, people still bitch and whine and cry "It was a rip off" or "it wasn't original". I guess people just like to cry.

The Departed was by far the best picture of the year (IMO) I still slightly prefer Infernal Afarirs... but The Departed was nothing short of pure art and a brilliant adaptation to the North American context. It really is beyond me how some people can't recognize that (Then again... i'm the guy who liked Aramggeddon... so take that with a grain of salt).

its never necessarily the same people saying any two things you might ahve read in response to the idea of an upcoming remake before / after it has been made, that "it'll suck" or/and "it was a rip off", and it's very easy to see people contradicting themselves when they're doing what you might expect - applying hope, a little bit of prejudice (a flip side to the excitement of expectation), past experience and the general track record for remakes (apalling - i feel that's a given, bar few examples), before ultimately seeing the film and comparing it (something many wont realise they have the opportunity to do) - sure, people like to moan, but people also like to see issues resolved and clearly or fairly dealt with so i prefer people to speak up and at least attempt to resolve things rather than leave it as the preserve of those who choose to do something similar on a regular basis as an individual, lone voice, ableit one that people can respond too but no effectively converse with.

'infernal affairs' is, as a piece of filmmaking, head-and-shoulders above 'the departed', i think, and i've seen better films by scorcese - i consider it an 'about time' award, a 'consolation prize' for a decent career of films from within a system that seems to work against such ideas these days and still hankers for its better times, more than individual recognition of this particular films merits.

and i suppose it also depends on if you think the label "masterpiece" is an infallable unremoveable one, no matter who applies it... i don't think it's more than it should be used as, or seen to be : an opinion, nothing more. a "masterpiece" isn't also, as a result, something to be recognised and never doubted or questioned. it's more important to give room to varying, fresh views that differ than it is to believe in one and attempt to persuade others to also hold it, otherwise films are being unfairly treated - for the apparent better or worse. somehow i find the label hard to apply to something that's so heavily based upon something else, no matter how many new elements, differing qualities it might bring to the table.

as for 'the departed' being film of the year, IMO it was good and better than expected, but far from being the best film of the year in either 'oscar terms' or in terms of what has been out there this year from hollywood or america, but then i am choosing what i like according to if i like it and not whether others happen to or in order to show some aligned, commonly-held taste.

the oscars, just a promotional tool to either reward films or recognise talent in return for money, but nice to win one if you've shown you have world-class skills, as is sometimes the case.

I remember when I heard Scorsese was making a North American remake of Infernal Affairs, I was like, if there was one director who would give it justice it would be Scorsese. I thought he would give his own Scorsese spin on it and it would stand alone. Like the way Ocean's 11 had nothing to do with original except for the concept. What we got was more or less a shot by shot remake of the original with just Irish gangsters (do they even exist?) instead of Chinese triad.

It's too bad. It would've been nice if Scorsese got to play with the script more.

The Departed is one of Scorsese's movies that is easiest to digest, which is probably why the Academy finally "got it" this time.

It was still a fun Oscars though.