Seriously, you’re the first person I’ve heard not like Crash.

“Artistic” quality arguments are questionable. If movies are the art of telling a story, Crash’s story is stronger. Brokeback Mountain’s story lacked development in areas. If movies are a visual art, both were visually beautiful. If movies are a performance art, both were great. Some (like Arthur) found Heath rather flat and Jake coming through too much in Jack.

I am aware of Crash’s marketing campaign. It’s just show “business”.

When you compare the two films back to back, you simply can not ignore which film was artistically superior regardless of subject matter.

Brokeback was not entirely perfect, but at least the characters felt genuine. With the exception of Thandie Newton, the cast of “Crash” felt like caricatures acting out an implausible plot. It simply felt forced and hardly genuine.

But my biggest gripe of the Academy Awards is how heavy handed marketing has increasingly taken over the Awards over the years.

Crash was released from the same indie studio that hyped and distributed Farenheit 9/11. This year, they sent out over 115,000 copies of Crash to the Academy (more so than any other movie in history). This is mind blowing considering Academy membership is just under 6,000.

Heck, if I received free DVD’s to pass out to friends and family, they may have bought my vote as well.

My point is agressive marketing doesn’t make for a great movie. “Crash” was simply seen as a “good enough” alternative to Brokeback Mountain.

As movie historians debate what really happened Sunday, there’s always going to be the lingering question whether subject matter played a part.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad that a gay themed movie didn’t win, but I’m more concerned that the better movie lost due to its subject matter.

The unfortunate outcome is that a mediocre movie passed over a great one, not due to artistic merit, but through personal bias and aggressive marketing.

Nothing is original. Originality is a lame concept to judge greatness upon. I could make a movie of just bars and tone and call it original, but that wouldn’t make it good. Brokeback Mtn is a basic Romeo & Juliet love story, just with gay guys struggling with social norms. Sure, it’s the first to be done with good actors and excellent cinematography, but many independents have tried this similar story many times. Crash built upon the past, but definitely brought a new presentation to relevant socio-economic issues and did so to much greater distribution.

“Crash” is a decent movie, but not one that will be remembered as ground breaking. Crash was so contrived and forced, not to mention hardly original. In fact, the whole movie is just a patronizing hodgepodge of one happy ending after another.

“Brokeback” is the film people will remember 20 years from now when “Crash” has faded from sight. But, that’s often how the Oscars work: the real best efforts rarely win.

Crash winning best picture over Brokeback was the equivalent of “Shakespeare In Love” winning Best Picture over “Saving Private Ryan.” In both cases, studio marketing wins out over films that truly stand the test of time.

I work in the industry and live in L.A. Political correctness aside, “Crash” winning Best Picture is by far the worst mistake by the Academy in recent memory.