There's not much you can count on in this uncertain world,

[Lautremont]

but here's one absolute surety: Martin Scorsese will not win the Best Director Oscar this year. It wouldn't make any sense: he's been nominated so many times, for movies like Raging Bull and Goodfellas, and now he wins one for what's basically an extended episode of Hill Street Blues? Make no mistake, I really enjoyed The Departed, but it's a genre film through and through. This is a good thing to all of us but the Academy. No, it just wouldn't make any sense to give it to Scorsese this year, and he probably won't ever win one until they shuffle him out like Antonioni for his Honorary Oscar. I'm hoping his acceptance speech is even more concise: instead of a mumbled "grazzi," a single middle finger sticking straight up in the air.