Marty goes for gold

In more than 40 years of directing movies, there has only been the very rarely a title by the great Martin Scorsese that has eluded the attention of those nice people at Oscar.

Nominations and, more importantly, the little gold statuette itself, have decorated such notable Scorsese works as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, The Age of Innocence, The Aviator, Casino, Cape Fear, The Departed, The Color of Money and Gangs of New York.

A hot favourite to have joined the ranks of the awarded would surely have been last year's Scorsese effort, Shutter Island, an epic period tale of madness and murder, with Leo DiCaprio giving one of his best ever performances of an already distinguished career.

But, no. Not an award nor even a single 'nod' from either Oscar or even his British counterpart, BAFTA.

So the Scorsese camp will clearly be hoping for better things this year when, on December 2, his 21st full-length feature, Hugo, hits the cinemas. Based on the bestseller, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it marks a couple of firsts for the filmmaker, who will be 70 next year: his first family film and first in 3-D.

You could also add a third: it was, unlike most of his movies which have been firmly US-based, shot mostly in the UK.