What is there to say?

I've been disappointed in the past (like when Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love), I've been prepared for disappointment (like when Jack Nicholson beat Peter Fonda, or Traffic and Crouching Tiger both lost to Gladiator), I've been slightly appalled by surprise choices (like when Adrien Brody beat Jack Nicholson, or Paul Haggis' Million Dollar Baby script lost to Lord of the freakin' Rings) but I've never been AS DISGUSTED as when I heard Jack Nicholson announce Crash as the Academy Award winner for Best Picture of 2005.

Best Picture. Crash.

As someone who likes movies, loves movies, really cares about movies, I am dumbfounded by such blatant stupidity. Such cluelessness. Such utter disregard for movies as an art.

To single out such mediocrity in what was a pretty damn good year for filmmaking (and for Oscar nominations) is beyond absurd. It's pathetic.

And here's the thing. Mediocre is the key word when it comes to this "Best" Picture. I don't consider Crash to be a terrible film. I don't think it's an abomination. It has some good qualities and it's impossible to say it's not well intentioned. I understand why people like it.

But liking it is completely different from calling it the best film of the year, or choosing it as the best film when your other choices are Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night and Good Luck and Munich. That is what I simply can not wrap my head around, and never will.

There are a lot of people (and organizations) to fault for this ridiculous victory. But I'm confident about how this will play in the record books. A "controversial" choice at best, an all-time Oscar low point at the worst.

As I mentioned in my predictions post, Brokeback Mountain has won the top awards from BAFTA, the Directors Guild, the Producers Guild, the Writers Guild, the Golden Globes, the Venice Film Festival and the Broadcast, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Southeastern U.S. and Vancouver critics groups. It has the highest ranking among Best Picture nominees on both the Village Voice critics poll and the Film Comment critics poll and it's the highest grossing nominee as well.

Add to that list Brokeback's victory over the weekend at the Independent Spirit Awards (where Crash was relegated to Best First Feature, not allowed to play with the big boys, although it could've been nominated as Best Feature if it had the support: Tommy Lee Jones' debut film The Three Burials of Melqiuades Estrada was nominated in the Best Feature category this year). And throw in critics groups from Florida, Iowa and St. Louis that I neglected to mention (probably others as well).

So yes, it will look like a mistake. It already does. But let's not kid ourselves, the Best Picture Oscar is the big one. It's the one award that Brokeback deserved more than anything else. For it to have lost to a good film would be unfortunate, for it to have lost to a film that didn't even deserve a nomination is...disgusting.

I never hated Crash.

I do now.