PopcornTreeCt

I thought it was good that Scorsese didn't win for The Aviator. Just look at Clint as a director: last year he directed Penn and Robbins to Oscar wins and this year he directs Freeman and Swank both to Oscar wins. Clint deserved to win. Sorry Marty, maybe you should team up with De Niro and Pesci again and make something gritty.

Drop

I've seen that move twice, no need for him to do it again. I'm glad he is doing different things. I haven't seen Aviator or MDB, so I can't saw which was better directed. I love both of the directors, so I'm happy that one of them one.

I'm sure Scorsese will get an Oscar someday, and it'll undoubtly be for sympathy no matter how much he really deserves it or doesn't.

Jericho

Well I really didn't think Scorsese had much of a short, despite what some people believed. Clint was winning all the major awards (i.e. Golden Globes, DGA) except the BAFTA's where he was ineligible. And Scorsese still didn't even win that (Mike Leigh did). So it looked strongly like an Eastwood win, which it was. I suspect Marty will win it soon, however.

Geofferson

Alfred Hitchcock: 5 nominations, 0 wins
Robert Altman: 5 nominations, 0 wins
Stanley Kubrick: 4 nominations, 0 wins
Federico Fellini: 4 nominations, 0 wins

Marty was nominated for Gangs of NY, Goodfellas, The Last Temptation of Christ and Raging Bull. Having not won for any of those, he simply did not deserve the award for The Aviator, IMO and if he had won, it simply would have been out of sympathy.

scott shelton

You seem to be implying the AVIATOR was of low quality because it didn't win an Oscar.

IMO, I disagree.

PopcornTreeCt

No, The Aviator was of low-quality because it lacked depth and a single scene that could be considered "memorable". I don't think The Aviator should have even been nominated.

Bugg

So what exactly is better, to win an Oscar or to now be listed along side those guys? I'd take the latter.

Frankly I prefer to see Scorsese branch out and take on different types of films like Age of Innocence, Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead, and now The Aviator. His last two gangster films (Gangs of NY & Casino) seemed kind of tired.

William Fuld

Fifty years from now Scorsese will be remembered as one of the great American directors, while Eastwood will be remembered as "That guy who was in the cowboy movies. No, not John Wayne, the other one."

Patman

Wow, Scorsese would turn into the Susan Lucci of the Oscars!

Jericho

I'm gonna have to disagree with that assessment of Eastwood. With movies like Unforgiven, Mystic River, and Million Dollar Baby among a nice list of directorial efforts, he'll be remembered for both being a great director and as an actor. The guy is much more than some actor turned director.

Troy Stiffler

Maybe if Eastwood ...uhhh... died after making Blood Work. But with Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, I have do disagree with your statement.

That being said, I think Scorcese is already considered "a great american director". I wouldn't call Eastwood that. But at the same time, he's not "just that guy". And for that matter, Dirty Harry and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly aren't "just cowboy movies". Unless by that, you mean "staples in American cinema".

chanster

Scorsese should have won for Raging Bull or Goodfellas IMHO he was nominated for Gangs of New York and Aviator because of his name. His work in the last 10 years is nowhere close to where it had been.

Damfino

add:
Ingmar Bergman: 3 nominations 0 wins
Akira Kurosawa: 1 nomination 0 wins

Eventually the Academy will have to give Scorsese an honorary award and it won't be out of sympathy it will be to save face.

Geofferson

Jack Elam?

NatrlBornThrllr

Martin Scorsese doesn't need an Oscar as much as the Academy needs to give him one.

-JP

Flynn

Wow, I can't disagree with you more. I truly believe Eastwood is one of the finest directors in the history of show business. It's amazing that for someone with such a seemingly grizzled exterior, his films can convey such an incredibly refined, wondrous quality. "Mystic River", "Million Dollar Baby", "Unforgiven" and "A Perfect World" rank up on my list of greatest films.

Gil Jawetz

That's ridiculous. Eastwood has been directing for almost exactly as long as Scorsese and has made many fine films.

And Gangs of New York was NOT a gangster film like Casino and Goodfellas. It was flawed but it was certainly a bold, new direction.

Some of these comments sound like they were made by people who have never seen a movie.

Eastwood's filmography as a feature film director:

# Million Dollar Baby (2004)
# Mystic River (2003)
# Blood Work (2002)
# Space Cowboys (2000)
# True Crime (1999)
# Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
# Absolute Power (1997)
# The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
# A Perfect World (1993)
# Unforgiven (1992)
# The Rookie (1990)
# White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
# Bird (1988)
# Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
# Pale Rider (1985)
# Sudden Impact (1983)
# Honkytonk Man (1982)
# Firefox (1982)
# Bronco Billy (1980)
# The Gauntlet (1977)
# The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
# The Eiger Sanction (1975)
# Breezy (1973)
# High Plains Drifter (1973)
# Play Misty for Me (1971)


I count at least 11 very highly regarded films in there. Not too bad. (Plus, apparently, he's directed 5 more features than Scorsese... not that that means anything other than that he's not some johnny-come-lately actor turned director and that he didn't lose five years being a coke-fiend.)

Look, I'm a huge Scorsese fan and he was clearly robbed for Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver, as well as Last Temptation of Christ and maybe more. But that doesn't mean that (A) he deserves to win this year on the basis of those and (B) that Eastwood doesn't deserve a shot based on his own outstanding work in the passionate MDB. Eastwood is not Kevin Costner and he's not Robert Redford (as of Ordinary People). He's a real filmmaker. Plus, he's doing some of the best work of his career today, unlike Scorsese:

# The Aviator (2004)
# Gangs of New York (2002)
# Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
# Kundun (1997)
# Casino (1995)
# The Age of Innocence (1993)
# Cape Fear (1991)
# Goodfellas (1990)
# The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
# The Color of Money (1986)
# After Hours (1985)
# The King of Comedy (1983)
# Raging Bull (1980)
# The Last Waltz (1978)
# New York, New York (1977)
# Taxi Driver (1976)
# Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
# Mean Streets (1973)
# Boxcar Bertha (1972)
# Who's That Knocking at My Door? (1967)

marty888

Anyone who thinks that Eastwood's "maturity" as a director has only happened with his last two films needs to take a look at A PERFECT WORLD (1993) to see a great filmmaker's work.

Gil Jawetz

And Unforgiven, of course.

Gil Jawetz

And let's talk next projects for a moment here:

Scorsese: The Departed (2006) "A mobster goes undercover as a cop while a cop infiltrates the mafia, with both men intent on flushing the other one out as a mole. Cast includes Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg"

Eastwood: Flags of Our Fathers (2006) "A personal take on the Battle of Iwo Jima, one of the turning points of WWII, where a combined total of nearly 50,000 Japanese and American troops died during the winter of 1945. No cast on imdb yet."

marty888

That's a remake of the HK hit INFERNAL AFFAIRS.

Sid Yobbo

What utter rubbish. If anyone's in danger of being sidelined it's Scorsese - a man whose reputation rests on a handful of movies made 25 years ago. Eastwood, by contrast, has only gotten better and better as the years have gone by. He made a tremendous impression in the spaghetti westerns of the 60's, then he took that screen image and transformed it into Dirty Harry - thereby defying those critics - chief amongst them the viciously spiteful Pauline Kael - who argued that any impact he made was due solely to Segio Leone's direction. He twisted it again with the Every Which Way But Loose movies and experimented again and again with his image throughout the 80's.

Eastwood's interest in doing different things, in stretching his screen persona, was evident from the moment he made The Beguiled for Don Siegel in 1971. High Plains Drifter, even though it owed a debt to Leone in Eastwood's mysterious stranger, successfully established an identity of its own under Eastwood's direction (a feat that Ted Post, the director of Hang 'em High - Eastwood's first US western after the Leone trilogy - was unable to achieve).

As director and star Eastwood topped this in 1976 with The Outlaw Josey Wales, surely one of the great American westerns, whilst at the same time broadening his character from the one-dimensional killer of Leone's westerns to that of a tough yet sensitive family man who regains his humanity from the stragglers who come to rely on him for protection.

Sometimes Eastwood's choices have paid off artistically, often financially and occasionally not at all, but at least he's kept trying, shrewdly juxtaposing mainstream fare with personal, arthouse efforts. But what is really impressive is the way the quality of Eastwood's output has ratcheted up over the last 15 years or so. Bird, White Hunter Black Heart, Unforgiven, In the Line of Fire, A Perfect World, Bridges of Madison County, Space Cowboys, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby - as good a selection of entertaining/mainstream/mature and intelligent work as anything produced by any other American director working today.

You know what's interesting about the Clint/Marty comparison? It's this - with M$B, which is a dark, grim and powerful character-based movie, Clint is making the kind of movie that Marty used to specialise in when he was at the height of his creative powers back in the 70's. Marty, for whatever reason, has turned his back on those kind of movies and pursued big-budget epics that, entertaining as they may be, could have been directed to the same affect by a dozen different directors. It's a deeply ironic situation and I'm sure it isn't lost on poor old Marty.

matome

Nice post

thematahara

I really wish marty would stop casting leo in his movies, i just cant bring myself to watch his movies. Is it just me or does anyone else have a hard time believing him in mature roles? To me he still looks like he's 20 years old and when he grows his little peach fuzz facial hair it makes it worse. He may be a good actor, but I cant bring myself to believe in any of his roles since What's Eating Gilbert Grape and maybe Titanic.

Back on topic, I was glad Clint won, he deserved it. Marty was robbed before but that is no reason to give out pity oscars, because if we give marty one this year than 5 years down the road they're still trying to make good on all the other people that were 'robbed'.

Dah-Dee