After years of waiting, one of the greatest American Filmmakers of all time has FINALLY taken home an Oscar. The Departed has taken Best Picture and Scorsese has taken Best Director.

The fact that such a critically praised and highly respected director had never won an Oscar has been an oft-debated subject for many years amongst the film faithful. The oddity of this fact became such a bone of contention that many have cited (myself included) that this trend is one of many factors that damages the entire reputation of the Academy Awards. I could go into the other reasons, but I'll stick to the subject at hand for now.

Scorsese's first nomination came for 1976's Taxi Driver, which lost to Rocky. 1980's Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People. 1990's GoodFellas lost to Dances With Wolves. In my opinion, each one of those Scorsese works was a far superior film to the winner of that year's statuette. Scorsese also scored recent nominations for Gangs of New York and The Aviator.

At last year's Oscars, John Stewart made an amusing reference to the director's 0 for 5 run when Three 6 Mafia won best song for Hustle & Flow by stating, "For those of you who are keeping score at home, I just want to make something very clear: Martin Scorsese, zero. Three 6 Mafia, one.

But tonight, although Scorsese's 1 for 6 average wouldn't make for much of a career in baseball, the man we all know should already have a few of those gold naked men in his closet has finally received one for real.

The Departed was my favorite movie of 2006 and Scorsese is the filmmaker whose movies made me want to get into this business in the first place. I've scoffed at many year's awards (Crash, anyone?), but this one is fitting.

Now Scorsese is tied with Three 6 Mafia. It's anybody's guess who will take the tie-breaker.