Is This Martin Scorsese's Year to Call Oscar His Own?

As a worst case scenarios go, Martin Scorsese's for this years Academy Awards could be worse. If he somehow manages to get edged out again for a Best Director award, at least he still has the late great Alfred Hitchcock to keep him company.

Both of these marvelous directorial talents to date have received five nominations as Best Director, and neither to date, as you all well know have manged to win the coveted Oscar yet, although Hitchcock did receive an Honorary Award, which sort of is like a "make up" foul call by a sports official for the home team. Sometimes it just serves to draw more attention the bad call, draw or decision made in the first place. To make matters worse for Scorsese, he has also lost out on another two possible Oscars in the Best Adapted Screenplay category when he co-wrote GoodFellas in 1990 and for 1993's Age of Innocence. Not that something like that might not be in the back of his mind as Oscar night approaches.

At any rate, If I may weigh in on this years race, since of course Scorsese is nominated again for the gritty Boston crime drama, The Departed, this should be the year he leaves Mr. Hitchcock behind, as I believe that this may very well be the one picture of Scorsese's that has every possible element that add up to way too much for the Academy to ignore.

Star power (Nicholson, DiCaprio, Damon and Wahlberg) and a gripping story line are tied together to make this in my opinion his most complete picture to date. Scorsese, if he is at all nervous or bitter about the past snubs does not show it, at least publicly by saying that timing has worked against in th past, and perhaps the nasty and rough story lines were not what the Academy was looking for at those particular points in time.