The 78th annual Academy Awards had some laughs, some yawns and ended with a Crash no one saw coming. The Paul Haggis-directed film stunned the audience and critics when it was chosen over Brokeback Mountain as the year's top film. Aside from the surprise ending, these Oscars were mostly a bland affair, with the typically tedious speeches and categories meaningless to most people outside the biz (try asking the average moviegoer about the difference between sound editing and sound mixing). A number of major films were shut out entirely, such as the political dramas Good Night and Good Luck as well as Munich.

Host Jon Stewart opened the show with a hilarious monologue in which he struck a balance between self-referential Oscar humor and the topical jokes that have made his Daily Show such a success. At one point, he quipped, "Bjork couldn't be here tonight; she was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

George Clooney maintained the evening's class, delivering a funny and thoughtful speech after his win as Best Supporting Actor for Syriana. He responded to complaints that Hollywood is too out of touch with the mainstream by quipping: "It's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered. And we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular." His awards speech was the first of the night, and it would be one of a few not to put the audience to sleep. There are, after all, only so many times one can hear someone thank their colleagues before it becomes monotonous.

In the other major acting categories, Rachel Weisz won Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Constant Gardener, Phillip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for Capote and Reese Witherspoon won for Walk the Line. All were heavily favored to win and provided no big surprises.

The technical awards were dominated by two films: King Kong, which won Best Sound, Sound Editing and Visual Effects; and Memoirs of a Geisha, which won Best Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design.

As the night drew to a close, only two awards were left to give out, Best Director and Best Picture. When filmmaker Ang Lee won for Brokeback Mountain, the story of two gay cowboys and their forbidden love for each other, it seemed almost given that the controversial film would also take home the evening's final award. Despite its controversy, or perhaps because of it, Brokeback Mountain had leapt to the forefront of the Oscars race for Best Picture, winning numerous critics' awards along the way.

In stark contrast, when Crash came out in May, critics were extremely divided. The film chronicles the intersecting lives of several characters in Los Angeles, and how issues of racism affect them all. While some called it an important and powerful film, many felt the movie's treatment of racism was too heavy-handed. Indeed, when presenter Jack Nicholson announced Crash as the winner, even he seemed surprised. Nevertheless, Crash overcame its negative buzz, and can now officially call itself the Best Picture of 2005-at least, according to Oscar.