So he's finally done it. Martin Scorsese has won the Oscar he's been denied on five previous occasions for The Departed. The film itself scooped a further three awards (Best Editing, Adapted Screenplay and Picture), but the emphasis was most definitely on Scorsese.

He was handed the award by friends and filmmaking peers Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, given a standing ovation from the Kodak Theatre audience and even received a giant bear-hug from the back stage (and oddly bald) Jack Nicholson.

The Departed may not be Scorsese's best work, but it typifies what makes him such a vital, energetic film-maker and his speech and post-ceremony interviews spoke of a man brimming with intelligence, wit and, perhaps most pointedly, ambition to not rest on his laurels but continue his unique brand of stark but entertaining filmmaking.

The film's four gongs were the closest we got to a clear, out and out winner in a ceremony marked mostly for its diversity and, it has to be said, predictability, despite this blog’s own rubbish forecast. Helen Mirren was always going to claim Best Actress and the same can be said for Forest Whitaker for Last King of Scotland and Jennifer Hudson for her Beyonce-beating turn in Dreamgirls.

Perhaps the only big surprise came for Pan's Labyrinth which was told that it looks good (winning Best Cinematography, Art Direction and Make-Up) but not quite good enough to be Best Foreign Language Film which went to German picture The Lives of Others.

Indeed, the ceremony produced neither the British nor Latin invasion that many had expected, with Mirren being the only big Brit winner and Alejandro Inarriatu Gonzalaz (Babel) and Penelope Cruz (Volver) losing out for the Hispanic community. At least their nominations prove that the Academy now knows there is life outside of the English-speaking world and, perhaps, in a few years time films like Pan's Labyrinth will be in for Best Picture, rather than just Best Foreign Film.

So, the only outstanding message from this year's ceremony is that Hollywood has now gone completely green with the dancing, ecologically-aware penguins of Happy Feet winning Best Animated Feature and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth being voted Best Song (weirdly beating three from Dreamgirls) and Best Documentary. Gladly for him, the Academy doesn’t do recounts...