‘Crash’ swerves past ‘Brokeback’ for top Oscar

LOS ANGELES – The ensemble drama “Crash” pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Academy Awards history, winning best picture Sunday over the cowboy romance “Brokeback Mountain,” which had been the front-runner.

“Crash,” featuring a huge cast in crisscrossing story lines over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles, rode a late surge of praise that lifted it past “Brokeback Mountain,” a film that had won most other key Hollywood honors.

Lead-acting prizes went to Philip Seymour Hoffman as author Truman Capote in “Capote” and Reese Witherspoon as country singer June Carter in “Walk the Line,” while corporate thrillers earned supporting-performer Oscars for George Clooney in “Syriana” and Rachel Weisz in “The Constant Gardener.”

“Brokeback Mountain” filmmaker Ang Lee did win the best-director prize for the tale of two old sheepherding pals who carry on a love affair they conceal from their families for years.

Lee, whose martial-arts epic “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” won the foreign-language Oscar five years ago, became the first Asian filmmaker to win Hollywood’s main filmmaking honor.

“I wish I knew how to quit you,” Lee told the audience crowd, reiterating the film’s most-quoted line.

Witherspoon won a close race over Felicity Huffman’s gender-bending performance as a transsexual in “Transamerica.”

“Oh, my goodness I never thought I’d be here in my whole life growing up in Tennessee,” said Witherspoon, who like co-star Joaquin Phoenix as Carter’s soul mate, country legend Johnny Cash, handled her own singing in “Walk the Line.”

Hoffman’s performance nimbly straddles the magnetic qualities of raconteur Capote and the effete, off-putting egoism of the gay author.

“Wow, I’m in a category with some great, great, great actors, fantastic actors, and I’m overwhelmed. Really overwhelmed,” said Hoffman, who asked the Oscar audience to congratulate his mother for bringing up four children alone.

Clooney’s win capped a remarkable year, during which he made Oscar history by becoming the first person nominated for acting in one movie and directing another.

Along with performing in “Syriana,” Clooney directed the Edward R. Murrow tale “Good Night, and Good Luck,” which earned him directing and writing nominations and was among the best-picture contenders.