It’s hard to believe that the Best Picture of the year was really Crash, a series of vignettes of wildly varying quality that, as Matt Welch points out, takes place in an LA that doesn’t exist. There’s a whiff of Brokeback Mountain backlash in the choice: I must admit that part of the reason I haven’t seen Brokeback, thought to be the frontrunner, is that it seemed pitched as an eat-your-vegetables movie (see this if you’re tolerant!). Maybe Academy members had the same reaction.

Other notable things about the ceremony: The word “Bush” was never mentioned. Jesus was thanked — by “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” songsters Three Six Mafia. The Stephen Colbert-narrated “attack ads” were good for a laugh; so was Clooney’s acceptance speech (being “proud to be out of touch” implies an indifference to selling tickets, which the star of Ocean’s 12 plainly does not have). And the suicide bomber movie lost (Go Tsotsi!).