Talk about good timing – I watched The Departed on DVD yesterday and then it won a slew of Oscars last night.  I had watched the original movie that this one was based on, Infernal Affairs, and had loved that version.  Not many directors can top an original but if anyone was capable of it, it was Martin Scorsese.  I was blown away by Marty’s version and couldn’t wait to watch the Oscars last night (delayed, of course, since I refuse to watch live TV).

Normally I could give a rat’s ass about any award for someone I don’t even know but after having seen The Departed I was totally obsessed for 12 hours for him to finally win his first Oscar.  What made this film for me was that Jack Nicholson, who I think is one of the coolest actors ever, actually impressed me the least out of the main players in this film.  Leonardo Dicaprio is getting better every year, Matt Damon is proving with each film that he is far superior to his buddy Ben Affleck, Mark Wahlberg was a tad over the top and his performance wasn’t worthy of an Oscar nomination but it showed what Marty can get out of an average actor.

The other point I wanted to make was that the soundtrack for this film was perfect too.  Every scene with music in it was perfect for that scene and it got me to thinking about another director who fuses music perfectly with his films - Quentin Tarantino.  From Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction to Kill Bill 1 & 2 to name a few, he manages to bring together the oddest collection of songs and make them work perfectly.  I half expected to see a credit in the film listing Tarantino as a musical consultant.

Anyway, it was refreshing to see the movie get its due.  Without giving away any spoilers, the last shot in the movie was a perfect symbol to summarize the entire plot.  Some might think it was contrived but I thought it was a perfect ending to one of the best movies I’ve seen in the past year.  Congrats