"Crash" landing! Drama comes out of nowhere on Oscar night

Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times
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Every now and then, Oscar pulls off a surprise ending.
"Brokeback Mountain," Ang Lee's drama about two cowboys in love, appeared to have the momentum as the Academy Award ceremony approached the final award last night.
Lee had just won for best director, speaking movingly about making a film "about the greatness of love itself," and "Brokeback" had also won for its screenplay and score.
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Then a grinning Jack Nicholson read the best picture winner: "Crash."
Paul Haggis' film, a sprawling ensemble tale of racial tension in contemporary Los Angeles, was released to theaters back in May — an eternity, by usual Oscar standards.
But the film's distributor, Lionsgate, campaigned aggressively for the award, sending out more than 130,000 screener copies of the film and creating that all-important Oscar buzz.Appropriately, this was a year in which awards were spread out, with "Crash" and "Brokeback Mountain" winning three each.
("Crash" also won for original screenplay and editing.) And each acting award came from a different film, each representing that film's solo win.