Thank you, Larry, for re-posting your Sasha post, to which the only word is word.

And Libby is right: This has to be an Academy nightmare, and they've brought it on themselves. Media-conglomerate marketing to the median denominator, and AMPAS hasn't yet heard the lavender ranks roar.

All day long at the agency and computer, the phones and faxes and e-mails don't stop. The nicest ones point to marketing, the meanest ones call foul and fix, but all, from professionals in the industry (and a few of them AMPAS members who DIDN'T vote for the plate of Haggis), are staggered at what happened last night, and more than one brought up the eerie analogies to other disputed, non-cinematic contests.

Also, that Jack Nicholson voted for "Brokeback." Hey, I'll gladly follow Jack before anyone who actually believes that the standard-fare, over-schematic, faux-profound, simplistic and blatantly unrealistic "Crash," easily least of the nominated slate (yes, even less than "Munich," that Oscar-baiting honorable failure), was the best American film of 2005.

On the bright side, I don't have to prepare for Oscar night parties henceforth. It would take a simultaneous resurrection of Welles, Hitchcock, Chaplin and both Hepburns to even begin to pique interest after something this hollowly skewed and transparently orchestrated, not to mention the false imprimatur of authority it gives to Ebert and Roeper, who have been in on the take from Day One.

AMPAS is, as noted, now officially irrelevant, not to mention extra-co-opted. Actually, they did the public a big favor by making it so pronouncedly, painfully evident. However, I'm less inclined to thank them, than watch the foreign grosses for "Brokeback" continue to climb, and wait for the DVD to go through the roof.

Ethan wrote:

"This has got to do with homophobia. How can a movie that has swept all major awards up until the Oscar lose the best picture title to a movie that wasn't even nominated for a Globe!? "

Now that's a scientific argument. I didn't know the Globes were such a quality label - besides, Crash was indeed nominated for TWO Golden Globes - Supporting Actor and Screenplay. Your list of awards for Crash is by the way incomplete, you should take a look at Imdb as you forgot:

British Academy of Film & Television Artists: Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay (out of 9 nominations including Best Picture and David Lean Direction Award)
Broadcast Film Critics Association: Best Acting Ensemble, Best Writing
Casting Society of America: Best Feature Film Casting
Deauville Film Festival: Grand Special Prize
Independent Spirit Award: Best First Feature, Best Supporting Male
London Critics Circle Film Awards: Best British Supporting Actress of the Year, Screenwriter of the Year
Online Film Critics Award: Best Breakthrough Filmaker (also nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor)
Satellite Awards: Best Ensemble
Southern Film Critics Association Awards: Best Screenplay, Original
Vancouver Film Critics Circle: Best Supporting Actor
But I guess being complete (and honest) doesn't make your (alleged) point so strong...

I was stunned when "Crash" stole this trophy from "BBM," but in the long run, "BBM" might be better served by this setback. The film -- my personal favorite of the year, and one of my favorites of all time -- began by coasting on universal admiration, apparent in box office results and critical response. Thus came the backlash and the pop-culture parodies and jabs, because it's easy to tease the top dog. Now that it's been knocked down a bit, it's getting people passionately discussing it again. Just look at this page! And ultimately that will be best for the film because it will generate buzz.

Check out these stats ... Apparently, "Crash" has a 77% on RottenTomatoes.com, the lowest the lowest score of any of this year's Best Picture nominees, and the lowest score of any Best Picture winner of at least the past 15 years. It also made less money than any of the Best Picture winners in at least the past 15 years. So if critics don't love it, and audiences don't love it, what exactly does an Oscar mean??

"Brokeback Mountain" — 86%
"Capote" — 91%
"Good Night, and Good Luck" — 94%
"Munich" — 78%
"Million Dollar Baby" — 91%
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" — 95%
"Chicago" — 87%
"A Beautiful Mind" — 78%
"Gladiator" — 77%
"American Beauty" — 89%
"Shakespeare in Love" — 94%
"Titanic" — 86%
"The English Patient" — 90%
"Braveheart" — 79%
"Forrest Gump" — 79%
"Schindler’s List" — 95%
"Unforgiven" — 97%
"Silence of the Lambs" — 97%
"Dances with Wolves" — 81%

You're overlooking one thing: Crash won because it's a cinematic masterpiece, not because it's a realistic depiction of current racism in America. It won because it's an emotional, cinematic masterpiece mixing all the elements of filmmaking. It mixes various interlocking stories and creates a more complex and impressive film than Brokeback cinematically. You watch Crash and it offers so much, emotion, multiple stories, etc.

Is it realistic, unpretentious, and subtle, hell no. When Bullock was yelling about the puerto rican I cringed, when the cop feels up the black woman I said "oh, come on" but for the academy that doesn't mean much because movies don't need to be realistic or subtle anymore. Brokeback was superior because it took two lives and depicted them in a realistic and believable way without overloading sentiment or creating false moments simply to trick your emotions. When I watched brokeback, I felt like I was actually watching real lives develop in front of me without the manipulation of a filmmaker, when Watching Crash, I knew it was the work of talented filmmaker trying to create a great film which ruined it's realism.

In conclusion, Brokeback is superior. It's realistic and subtle, it takes two lives and shows them without manipulation or pretentsion. Crash just got the votes people. The academy steered away from Brokeback and picked Crash. Crash is better cinematically and in complexity, but Brokeback actually says something about two lives.

Keep in mind that only Best Picture is voted on by the entire Academy. Ang Lee won because his directing peers believed he was the best director of 2005. Brockback's adapted screenplay and score won because professional writers and composers voted in those categories. The movie needed to win a majority of ALL Academy voters.

Brokeback's story and its characters make a lot of people uncomfortable exactly because they were not playing the stereotype -- the efete freak or funny sidekick/neighbor/friend. Two red-blooded, masculine men in love with each other is more difficult for many Americans to handle than a sissy freak like Truman Capote -- a character so foreign to most us -- even those of us who are gay. Ennis and Jack were too familiar and for a lot of straight people, that's just plain uncomfortable.

It is ironic that in a night when Jon Stewart and George Clooney openly talked about the so-called liberal Hollywood culture, that a true landmark film that told an honest story brilliantly was so difficult for Academy voters.

Shame on the Academy. Oscar has lost the respect of this loyal fan.

As soon as I saw "Crash" early in the year, I felt the rare internal buzz that makes me passionately wish for the movie to win, and other films have to beat that feeling. Sometimes the Academy agrees, as with "American Beauty", sometimes it doesn't, as in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I spoke with many Academy members over the months who DID see "Brokeback Mountain" and DID like it, but who also didn't "get" WHY it was so esteemed. Some would almost apologetically admit that they preferred "Crash", which gave me a bit of hope. It was NOT a matter of homophobia. Of course, there were also some who didn't like Crash. It actually seemed that it was easier for people to like "Brokeback Mountain", a simpler story that was easy to follow. I was haunted by BroMo, but am ecstatic that "Crash" won.

I firmly believe that Brokeback's loss is due to homophobia.. This is a sad day for film lovers.
This is the last Oscars that I'll be watching. What happen Sunday digusted me.

No disrespect to Crash, as it was an interesting movie that pushed the racism button to a full tilt. But it's become clear that a significant portion of the academy voters would not even view Brokeback Mountain and simply voted based upon an anti-Brokeback platform and not upon Crash's merits.

To those Academy voters who voted this way:
I'm sure that you’re feeling smug for voting for a movie that tackles racism. However, it does not absolve you from your own personal homophobia – whether direct or indirect – that negatively impacts other people’s lives. You missed a unique opportunity to honor a ground-breaking film that is both heartbreaking and haunting in its depiction of two gay men – many other organizations were brave enough to recognize its excellence.

Sometimes, great art cannot be appreciated by those closest to it. Thank you for also reminding us that homophobia was not only alive and well in 1963, but in 2006 as well.

Dear Tom,

I have posted this commentary on Sasha Stone's OSCAR WATCH. I believe this is truly the end of AMPAS, and my reasons are as follows:

First and foremost, I want to commend Sasha and all that work on behalf of OSCAR WATCH for its ceaseless assimilation of facts and commentaries regarding the annual AMPAS awards. And I want to commend all who post comments and argue passionately about their choices in fine cinema, an artistic medium which is quite personal, even if witnessed collectively.
But something much more lethal occurred in last night's Oscar telecast. For in conferring to CRASH the best picture, AMPAS denied their imprimatur to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. The action itself, in which the most awarded motion picture of its year has not gone on to acquire an Oscar as best picture as well is without precedent in this regard: in all other circumstances, from "Shakespeare in Love" to "Chariots of Fire" to "Rocky" to even the unusually substandard "The Greatest Show on Earth," each film awarded Oscar's best also had other honors, in years in which accolades were divided. This time, the only award actually titled "best picture" conferred to the AMPAS winner was by the Chicago Film Critics, whose vociferous and esteemed veteran member Roger Ebert played a key role in a lethal subterfuge. Remember that the SAG award is to recognize an ensemble, and is not properly meaning a best picture. Remember also that such SAG ensemble awards have only a fifty- percent probability as presaging Oscar best picture wins. Thus, a gay themed film such as "The Birdcage," can be rendered the best ensemble, but it in no way suggests that it was the finest of its year. Thus, the conveying of best picture to CRASH, a film long ago on home video, and without much prospect in furthering a theatrical gross (and running contrary to the Academy's relentless insistence that one should witness a film theatrically), over BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, certainly one of the most awarded motion pictures ever, has a far greater significance.
Something more was amiss, and some grander mischief was afoot. If BROKEBACK had been conferred the high honor, it would have meant AMPAS imprimatur, and an entirely new way of depicting gay characters on screen. No longer stereotypical or palatable (such as Jack and Will on NBC's "Will & Grace") and no longer fey image acceptable (Truman Capote, in life, yet on video, and in Phillip Seymour Hoffman's interpretation), but rather in now that most majestic and indelible of American iconographies--the Western Cowboy. But this meant having to accept a whole new way of seeing, and that meant transcending both color and type. And it meant that both within and without AMPAS, prejudices would have to be pierced at last. This also meant that all ethnic and racial types would have to reexamine their thinking of gay men and women. And it even meant that even some gay men and women would have to reexamine their way of thinking. In other words, one can actually be gay and think as a homophobe, just as one can be African-American and think as a racist, or one can be Jewish and think as an anti-Semite. It is easier to accept the norm, rather than challenge it. That is why I am not surprised that many gay-friendly or gay themselves Hollywood insiders were turned off by BROKEBACK. It challenges their prejudices as well.
To have awarded BROKEBACK the AMPAS top prize would have meant not merely its imprimatur, but reprisals from both within and without the Industry. But it would have been the Industry's finest honor as well--a courageous move, as even the traditional USA TODAY earlier commented; a milestone far beyond the MIDNIGHT COWBOY win in 1969.
Instead, as several have posted, the Academy went the safest route: three awards each for BROKEBACK and CRASH, with CRASH cementing the highest accolade. It was the only way out, at least in the eyes of AMPAS potentates, to deal with BROKEBACK's astounding critical and box office success, while pacifying the comfortably situated, and waylaying the fears of homophobes both within and without the Industry. And so began the subterfuge, never subtle, so that pundits had long earlier revealed the CRASH "upset" win. This was no upset; the film editing nomination snub; the bowdlerizing of the SAG ensemble win, and the pontificating of Mr. Ebert and his Chicago company, with the grace of Oprah Winfrey, made CRASH the only possible winner.
Except that, the morning after, all is not right with the world once more. And those enraged, as the Academy potentates had predicted, will not ultimately accept. For what gave AMPAS its own imprimatur were those scores of left-leaning progressive types, and those legions of gay men and women who have long toiled in the performing arts. It is THEIR imprimatur for AMPAS which is now gone. And that is why the seventy-eight year old affair is over. AMPAS is now simply irrelevant.
Posted by: Larry at March 6, 2006 10:34 AM

BBM won the DGA and the Golden Globe for best picture (drama) and received the most Oscar nominations. And, in the last 57 years, each and every movie (and there have been 26 of them) that meets these criteria has gone on to win the Oscar for best picture, except for BBM. Crash did not win the DGA, did not win one of the Golden Globe best picture awards (and, indeed, did not win any Golden Globes and was not even nominated for the GG for best pic drama) and did not lead the Oscar noms; since the DGA began in 1948, no movie with this precursor record has ever won the Oscar for best picture, except for Crash. (And, yes, I do know about "An American in Paris” (won the Golden Globe for best picture, musical or comedy); "The Sting" (won the DGA); “Chariots of Fire” (won the Golden Globe for best foreign film; it was produced in the UK); “Braveheart” (received the most Oscar noms); “Shakespeare in Love” (won the Golden Globe for best pic, musical or comedy, and received the most Oscar noms); and “Million Dollar Baby” (won the DGA).)

Given this record (and all of the other precursors that BBM has won), what else could explain BBM's loss but homophobia in AMPAS? Before the Oscars, I read Mr. O’Neil’s pieces and articles by many others (including David Carr, the NY Times movie blogger) suggesting that disgusted AMPAS members were refusing to see “that movie.” And I dismissed the rumors as antecdotal and implausible--after all, BBM had already won the DGA, the PGA, the WGA, and four BAFTAS, which are all presented by industry groups. But as of last night, I see that the rumors were absolutely spot on.

I do have sympathy for Paul Haggis and the other Crash film makers; this situation is not their fault. But the irony is that while Crash’s message is tolerance for people who are different, it is very likely that Crash won the Oscar for best picture because of intolerance.

I had the same thoughts as Marcos, but the same argument can be made in favor of a "homophobia" theory. The very fact that "Brokeback" DID win virtually every other major Hollywood award begs the question: Why didn't it win the Oscar? Were members of the Academy actually voting for "Crash" or simply voting against "Brokeback Mountain." I think Ang Lee won for Best Director because of a well-respected and incredibly diverse body of work ("The Hulk" notwithstanding), and anyway, he's not gay. Both "Brokeback" and "Crash" won their respective screenplay categories, but when "Brokeback" lost for Cinematography, I knew it was in trouble for the top prize. I think some critics feel that "Crash" is a better film (at least, Ebert and Roeper do); however, one can't help but wonder if "Brokeback" was a victim of its own success, and that the backlash against it was just too strong. Frankly, I don't even remember when "Crash" played in my hometown. I don't remember anyone buzzing about it when it was in theaters. It wasn't until it won the SAG that its momentum really began to grow, and you could almost hear Academy voters like Tony Curtis breathing a sigh of relief that they could vote for something other than "Brokeback Mountain." Congratulations to "Crash." It will go down in history as the Best Picture of 2005. "Brokeback Mountain," though, will always remain a groundbreaking, multi-award winning film, even if it lost the biggest prize in Hollywood.

They gave Ang Lee an award not just because he did a great job, but there would be accusations about being anti-chinese. Only gays don't have the right to be considered a minority. They think they are doing us a favor by awarding a freakish portrayal of Capote as an asexual, evil, conniving demon, or Tom Hanks as an Asexual dying man or
William Hurt as a effeminate, apolitical idiot. What images. Non normal. Who would want a child to be like any of them. Not saying that they want them to end up as Ennis or Jack, but at least they were normal human beings--not the giganto fag freaks from hell that Hollywood likes to stereotype us as. Hollywood is the great creator of stereotypes.

I didn't expect them to honor the actors, even though I thought they deserved honor as much as Ang Lee, or the writing team that converted the perfect Proux story. Jake and Heath gave two of the best performances of all time. I know that Harry Hamlin thinks that Making Love ruined his career. I have no doubt that these two fine actor run the same risk. There are people in Hollywood (who think they are liberal) who really don't appreciate that this was made and don't respect the actors that would play these types of characters. We really have not gone that far in 20 years. Not with a majority of Hollywood.

If there was homophobia, how could you explain how Brokeback still won the prestigious Best Directed and Best Adapted Screenplay awards? If homophobia were that rampant, how could it win such high profile awards? Moroever, since a lot of people voting at DGA and PGA are the same people voting at the Oscar's how do you explain Brokeback's sweep of virtually every other award? Are you saying they were ONLY homophobic about Best Picture yet voted for Brokeback for other big awards?