1. Although it did deplete from my woeful prediction score , I’m glad Martin Scorsese was vindicated by the Academy , winning four Oscars including Best Picture and Director, unlike Robert Altman who had to content himself with the Lifetime Achievment award and a posthumous round of applause. Nonetheless, the most poignant moment in the show for me was Scorsese looking on from the wings as producer Graham King accepted the Best Picture award for the passable "The Departed."

Last night I was watching the film “The Situation” (it opens March 2 at the Kendall) on DVD, a love triangle set in the Sunni Triangle directed by Philip Haas and starring Connie Nielsen, and by the time it got to the third IED explosion and the fifth sectarian assassination I thought, this is entertainment? I might as well be watching the news.

The prestigious 57th Berlinale, or Berlin International Film Festival, came to a close a couple of days ago and its jury, headed by American writer/director (and former film critic) Paul Schrader, awarded its top prize, The Golden Bear, to Chinese director Wang Quan’an’s “Tuya’s Wedding.”

Set in Mongolia, it’s the story of a woman who pursues a suitor to take care of herself and her handicapped spouse.

Kudoes to Globe film critic Ty Burr for his entertaining and illuminating new book, The Best Old Movies for Families. It fills a yawning gap in film criticism. No, not what films to show your kids and how to introduce them to the pleasures of cinema, though it accomplishes that much needed task charmingly. I’m talking about the ugly secret of how traumatic early movie experience contributes to the formation of a critical sensibility.

Aside from the prospect of Al Gore annoucing his presidential candidacy after winning the Best Documentary Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth," the only thing I’m looking forward to in next week’s Academy Awards is finding out whether Martin Scorsese will be the only director to go 0 in 6 in nominations. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if he lost out — if only to grant him that distinction.