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Director Martin Scorsese's crime thriller The Departed has won
the Oscar for best film in a show that turned Hollywood's biggest
night into a showcase for environmental activism.
The Departed, about corrupt cops and gang members battling in the
streets of Boston, earned four Oscars overall, including one for
Scorsese as best director. It was the first Academy Award for the
veteran director of classic films like Raging Bull after five
previous best director nominations.
"Could you double check the envelope?" Scorsese joked onstage after
receiving a standing ovation.
The other two Oscars for The Departed were best adapted screenplay
and best editing.
Britain's Helen Mirren was named best actress for her spot-on
portrayal of the ruling Queen Elizabeth in The Queen, a tale about
the British royal family in a time of crisis at the death of
Princess Diana.
Forest Whitaker won best actor playing ruthless dictator Idi Amin
in drama The Last King of Scotland.
Mirren held her Oscar high in the air and said, "Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you the Queen."
"My sister told me 'all kids love to get gold stars,' and this is
the biggest and best gold star I've ever had in my life," Mirren
said.
Whitaker had to take a moment to calm himself, then with his voice
breaking, he remembered a time when he was a young kid watching
movies in the backseat of his family's car at the local drive-in
theater. He said that for kids who believe in dreams, he was proof
they can come true.
Oscar goes green
The Oscars are given out annually by the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences and are the world's top film honours.
While all the winners walk off the with a golden Oscar statuette
clutched in their hands, it was a troupe of environmentalists led
by global warming advocate and former US Vice President Al Gore who
painted the Oscars green.
An Inconvenient Truth, which tells of Gore's 30-year campaign to
warn people about global warming, was named the year's best
documentary, and singer Melissa Etheridge was given the Academy
Award for original song with "I Need to Wake Up."
"I have to thank Al Gore for inspiring us, inspiring me and showing
that caring about the earth is not Republican or Democrat. It's not
red or blue. We are all green," Etheridge said.
Backstage, Gore told reporters: "The Academy has gone green this
year."
Meanwhile, newcomer Jennifer Hudson won best supporting actress for
her role as spurned singer Effie White in musical "Dreamgirls," and
veteran Alan Arkin, 72, won the Oscar for best supporting actor in
"Little Miss Sunshine."
"Oh my God, I just have to take this moment in, I can't believe
this. Look what God can do," Hudson said fighting back tears while
holding her Oscar onstage.
While Hudson had been a frontrunner heading into the Oscars,
Arkin's was a clear surprise over Eddie Murphy, who had won several
other major Hollywood awards this year for his role as a soul
singer with a drug habit in musical Dreamgirls.
In fact, Dreamgirls, which came into the night with more
nominations, eight, than any other film walked away with only two
honors: one for Hudson and one for sound mixing.
Overall, another top movie, Little Miss Sunshine, won best original
screenplay for writer Michael Arndt.
Among other surprises, computer animated Happy Feet, about a bunch
of dancing penguins with a love of their chilly Antarctic
environment, took the Oscar for best animated movie over favorite
Cars.
Mexican film Pan's Labyrinth, a fantasy about a young girl who
discovers a violent world in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil
War, earned three Oscars for art direction, makeup and
cinematography.
Yet, in another surprise it lost the foreign language trophy to
Germany's The Lives of Others, which tells of a conflicted Stasi
police officer in the old East
Germany.
