海角大神

Director Martin Scorsese鈥檚 film 鈥淪ilence鈥� may become another awards season favorite for the director, as the movie is set to be released this December in time for the Oscars.聽

Mr. Scorsese鈥檚 film, which will be released on Dec. 23, stars Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, Tadanobu Asano, Adam Driver, and Shin鈥檡a Tsukamoto. The movie tells the story of missionaries working in Japan.聽

Having the film come out in December keeps it as a potential contender for Oscars nominations. The director is a perennial Oscars favorite. His last two movies, 鈥淭he Wolf of Wall Street鈥� and 鈥淗ugo,鈥� both received Best Picture nominations. Others that have received Academy Award nominations include 鈥淭he Departed,鈥� 鈥淭he Aviator,鈥� 鈥淕angs of New York,鈥� and 鈥淕oodfellas,鈥� among others.聽

Until 2007, however, Scorsese had never won the best director Oscar despite having helmed such film classics as 鈥淭axi Driver鈥� and 鈥淩aging Bull.鈥� That year, he won the award for the 2006 film 鈥淭he Departed.鈥� (He had been nominated for the award five times previously.) In addition, 鈥淒eparted鈥� became the first movie directed by Scorsese to win Best Picture.聽

What made 鈥淒eparted鈥� become the movie that would break these losing streaks?

wrote in their Oscars predictions for the year that the box office success of 鈥淒eparted鈥� would matter to voters as much as Scorsese's many nominations.

鈥淣ever mind that Scorsese has never won the Best Director award in all his years of service to Hollywood ... or that his only real competition this year is from 鈥楿nited 93鈥�'s Paul Greengrass, whose film has reportedly been mostly ignored by the Academy members,鈥� staff wrote. 鈥淥r that the Directors Guild of America gave Scorsese the directing award earlier this month, and that the Oscars almost always follow in kind. Never mind all that, and focus on the film at hand: 鈥楾he Departed.鈥� Often described as a return to form for the helmer, with its bloody crime world underpinnings, 鈥楾he Departed鈥� has also been a box office hit, Scorsese's biggest, in fact. And that's something Hollywood loves to reward as much as, if not more than, creativity.鈥澛�

Meanwhile, wrote that it was studio Warner Bros.鈥檚 marketing strategy as much as anything else that won 鈥淒eparted鈥� its statuettes.聽

鈥溾�橳he Departed鈥�'s quadruple triumph at the 79th Academy Awards owes as much to the astute planning behind its Oscar campaign as to the fact that this wasn't a vintage year for best picture nominees,鈥� Mr. Kay wrote. 鈥溾��Warner Bros' campaign specialists felt they had a winner on their hands and set about reminding people that this was not just a 鈥榖loody steak of a movie,鈥� as Variety's critic famously wrote, but a big crowd-pleaser packed with talent.鈥�