The Departed: Know Which Motorola Phones Played Cameo Roles?

This sounds like a lame excuse to talk about my favorite film of the year. The answer of course is the v600 and v710. It wasn’t exactly the best product placement spot for Motorola. Users tend to associate their mobile phones with glamor rather than gritty reality. Nominated for this year’s Academy Awards, the Scorsese masterpiece has already won a Golden Globe for Mr. Scorsese as director, the most likely scenario being Scorsese’s first Oscar come February 25. Kevin Smith, writer and director of Clerks II, who comes out with a Top Ten Films every year puts The Departed at the top spot ahead of his own film and says he’s seen it eight times. David Denby of The New Yorker wasn’t too impressed, though, calling The Departed murderous fun, but it’s too shallow to be the kind of movie that haunts your sleep. Denby had better things to say about Little Children, a suburban thriller starring Kate Winslet and Kevin Smith’s number 2 best film of the year. The Departed also has Rotten Tomatoes rooting for it, becoming the best reviewed wide release film of the website. While the money for Best Director goes to Scorsese, the Academy Awards is expected to go with the multi-narrative drama Brad-Pitt-starrer Babel. My opinion? While I like Babel, and I think it deserves to be nominated, with Crash winning in 2006 it’s only good taste for The Academy to steer itself clear from another film with a multi-narrative structure.