Sunday, March 23 at 8 p.m., ABC aired the 75th annual Academy Awards. Normally held at the Shrine Auditorium, this year’s festivities were celebrated at Hollywood’s new Kodak Theatre. The $94 million venue opened its doors on November 2001 and can accommodate 3,400 guests with three balcony levels. The Kodak will be starting a new Academy tradition as the perennial host to the industry’s biggest night.

Right now the award show is still six days away, but by the time you read this, history will have been made. It should be the end of Martin Scorsese’s long wait to join the many talented directors and take the Oscar home. Although he has been nominated several times for such great films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas, the acclaimed director has yet to meet the lustrous gold statuette face to face.

His latest film, Gangs of New York, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Cameron Diaz, has been honored with 10 nominations. Along with Best Picture and Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), Scorcese has again been nominated for Best Director, but this time his chances look quite good.

Brilliantly directed, the film is set in the mid-nineteenth century and tells the story of gang violence in New York between immigrants of different backgrounds. Exceptional performances by DiCaprio and Day-Lewis truly bring these characters to life.

Scorsese has worked for nearly 30 years in order to hear his name called after “…and the winner is…” This year should mark the end of his long wait.

Many great directors have never won Academy Awards: George Lucas, Rob Reiner, and Alfred Hitchcock just to name a few. Martin Scorsese, however, deserves to be on the more prestigious list of directors who have given Oscar a home.