"**The Departed" **absolutely deserved to win Best Picture. An amazing film. I recommend it to everyone. Actually, I was rooting for "Babel" too. An excellent movie. But it was slightly spoiled by that eternal American obsession with political correctness and "messages": Americans have to be at least a little bad, while minorities have to be at least a little better (or at least inspire more sympathy). The powerful, with their helicopters, ambassadors, borders, and swagger, have to look immoral against the backdrop of an Arab village or suffering Latin Americans who work for them as servants. There also has to be some white bastard who unfairly insults a good woman by telling her, "thank God you were even allowed to work in our country." In other words, those little touches that make a film seem like it's "addressing urgent social issues." Still, if you haven't seen "Babel," watch it. The scene with the gray-haired, crying Brad Pitt on the phone is something else. It's very hard not to cry along with him.