CRASH CRASHES THE OSCAR PARTY

Up to that point, the biggest upset was Three 6 Mafia's win in Best Song for Hustle and Flow's "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," which prompted a riotous, bleep-filled acceptance speech by the group's Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard. The soundtrack album to the movie is on Atlantic Records.

Jack Nicholson himself appeared surprised when he opened the envelope to announce that Crash was the winner, a decided underdog to Brokeback Mountain, which nabbed Oscars for Ang Lee as Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Score for Gustavo Santaolalla. The Brokeback Mountain soundtrack featuring his score is on Verve Forecast.

Crash also earned Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing honors.

Meanwhile, Brokeback Mountain nabbed top honors at Saturday night's Independent Spirit Awards, while Transamerica's Felicity Huffman and Capote's Hoffman took home acting awards, with Crash's Matt Dillon and Junebug's Amy Adams nailing supporting nods at the 21st annual indie fete.

As they have the last few years, the Academy spread the wealth around, giving Oscars to Capote's Philip Seymour Hoffman as Best Actor, Walk the Line's Reese Witherspoon as Best Actress, Syriana's George Clooney as Best Supporting Actor and The Constant Gardener's Rachel Weisz as Best Supporting Actress, all the pre-show favorites in their categories.

The show itself was pretty uneventful, and while Jon Stewart was a genial-enough host who avoided any "Oprah-Uma" type gaffes, he also took very few chances, proving he was no Billy Crystal. Best acceptance speeches of the evening go to Clooney for his witty, "All right, so I'm not winning Director" and Hattie McDaniel reference as well as Witherspoon's poised acknowledgement of her real-life inspiration for the role, the late June Carter Cash.