All along, I'd been convinced that the talk about a "Crash" upset was just wishful thinking on the part of people desperate to make the race more interesting. "Brokeback Mountain" did seem as if it might be vulnerable — but not to the other films in contention this year, not after all the previous awards it had swept, and not after it won a trio of acting nominations as compared to a single acting nod for "Crash," which was being touted as the presumed favorite of the actors branch.
Because of that — and, let's face it, because I happen to believe that "Brokeback" is a very good movie and "Crash" is not a very good movie — I ignored the omens. I shrugged off reports that "Brokeback" was not playing well at its final academy screenings, rationalizing that members who waited until late February to see it probably weren't going to vote for it anyway.
http://oscarbeat.latimes.com/
