February 26, 2007 @ 10:13 am

Jennifer Hudson, Forrest Whitaker Win Big at Oscars

Julianne Shepherd

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The Departed gets best pic - Hudson and Whitaker take Best Supporting Actress, Actor

In a tearful acceptance speech last night at the 79th Annual Oscars, Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Hudson thanked her grandmother and gushed, "Oh my God, I have to just take this moment in. I cannot believe this. Look what God can do. I didn't think I was going to win." It was a magical moment for the American Idol loser and first-time movie star, whose performance in Dreamgirls also garnered Golden Globe and Screen Actors' Guild awards. And for an Oscars ceremony, the night was surprisingly entertaining and democratic. No one movie dominated any category, and it was an evening of firsts. Alan Arkin won best supporting actor for critical fave Little Miss Sunshine (beating out both Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls and Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond), and Helen Mirren won for her performance in The Queen. The Departed took both Best Director and Best Picture, garnering longtime director Martin Scorsese his first Academy Awards - and effectively extinguishing the longtime joke surrounding "Marty"'s constant Oscar snub. Meanwhile, Vice President Al Gore won for An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary about global warming and the climate crisis. Not long after Hudson's win, Forest Whitaker won the Best Actor honor for his performance in The Last King of Scotland. "When I was a kid, the only way that I saw movies was from the backseat of my family's car. At the drive-in. And it wasn't my reality to think I would be acting in movies, so receiving this honor tonight tells me that it's possible," Whitaker said in his acceptance speech. "It is possible for a kid from east Texas, raised in South Central L.A. in Carson, who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them, and to have them happen." First-time host Ellen Degeneres presided over a surprisingly entertaining ceremony, owing in part to her casual, seemingly unscripted approach to the event. She made small talk with audience members, asked Steven Spielberg to snap a picture of her with Clint Eastwood for her myspace page, and played shadow puppets behind a screen - a succession of easy, unaffected gags that kept a nearly three-hour show from dragging too much. In an opening joke, the lesbian talk-show host quipped, "Such diversity in the room in a year where there's been so many negative things said about people's race, religion and sexual orientation. I want to put this out there: If there weren't blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars."

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