It was more than Brokeback Mountain that crashed on Sunday night, at the most surprising Oscar ceremony in years. Along with it crashed the conventional thinking of the annual awards race.

Brokeback Mountain did exactly everything right. It debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, which all Oscar hopefuls are supposed to do. It opened in limited release, created buzz and garnered headlines thanks to its sold-out screenings in select cities. It leveraged that buzz into Golden Globe nominations, into various awards from other critics and organizations, walked out of the Golden Globes with awards in hand and swung right into Oscar nominations before opening wider across the country.

It did everything right.

But on Sunday night it fell, and it fell hard. And left standing was Crash, a film that was released nearly a year ago, that has been available on DVD for 10 months, and that has enjoyed a resurgence of interest rather than the dismissals most year-old movies would suffer from.

As an Oscar’s observer, it just doesn't make any sense.

The only possible explanation, besides the fact that Crash is an impressive film that has found a wider audience on DVD than in the theaters, and has enjoyed the passionate support of influential film critic Roger Ebert, is that the awards season has reached a breaking point.

There are now so many awards and ceremonies and speeches and headlines, that, well, everyone kinda got sick of Brokeback. We got sick of the late night jokes, sick of the cliché the film had become. And I think as Oscar voters sat down to choose their films this year - in a year that celebrated outsider thinking more than most - they felt as if Brokeback had already won enough.

So does this shocking upset translate to a change in the future? Only time will tell, but it very well may. Maybe studios will start to push their films differently in hopes of avoiding Brokeback-like overkill. Or maybe studios will be more receptive to releasing brilliant films earlier in the year, with the knowledge that the Academy has now started looking back further and further on the calendar as it chooses titles to nominate.

Still, any way you slice it, Crash will go down in the annals of the Oscars as one of the great upsets of all time. It's just too bad that it couldn't have occurred with a better film.

While entertaining in concept, Crash is also a film of extreme hyperbole and simplicity. It creates a world of extreme characters in extreme situations, acting and reacting and provoking in extreme ways. With racism - a subject that demands a high degree of empathy and subtlety - Crash is about the least subtle film imaginable.

Still, its triumph fell in line with the tone of the ceremony we saw Sunday night.

It was a night of serious sentiments, led by George Clooney's refreshingly brazen declaration that yes, Hollywood may be out of step with the mainstream, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It was also a year of intelligent speeches and smart sass, as host Jon Stewart proved he has the skills to work the moment and ad-lib with the best of them. In his reaction to the surprisingly passionate and out-of-place-in-a-good-way performance by rap crew Three 6 Mafia, who performed "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" from Hustle & Flow, Stewart brought down the house, noting that the grand Oscar total was Three 6 Mafia one, Martin Scorsese nothing,.  

As seriously as it should consider eliminating the sappy acceptance speech music, Oscar should seriously think about bringing Stewart back in '07 – not only for his quick wit and intelligent asides, but also for his willingness to go all out. As evidenced by his fake political ads, and his sublime montage of hilarious, homoerotic cowboy clips, he was about more than just a punch line. He made the Oscars a bit of his own.

As for other awards Sunday evening, there was a surprising lack of surprises. Even at best documentary, the safe, sweet and bland March of the Penguins, which has grossed more money that any of the best picture nominees, won out over an impressive list of superior titles.

The happiest speech of the night was that of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who took the stage as a great actor finally getting the recognition he deserved, and spent his speech paying tribute to his mother before exiting stage right. The weakest award was the Oscar for best cinematography, which went to the least deserving nominee in the obvious, flat and clichéd Memoirs of a Geisha. In the process, it left both the brilliant Robert Elswit, and his juicy black-and-white treatment of Good Night, and Good Luck, behind.

Something serious could even be felt in the president's address, as Sid Ganis spoke to the controversy raging over theatrical movie presentation and DVD windows - though he forgot to mention how bad the modern moviegoing experience can be.

It was an interesting night at the Oscars – perhaps even more interesting than ultimately entertaining. But all things must end, and as the Oscars fade into memory, they take with them all the hype and press and headlines of the hysterical awards season.

And the closing thought I'm left with is this: The only film that resonates strongly with me today, four days after the awards, is Good Night, and Good Luck. It is the only film out of the best picture nominees that I believe will endure, stand the test of time, and emerge as a potential classic. And it is also one of the nominees that walked away empty handed Sunday night.

Despite how vigorously we follow the Oscars here at Collider, it is worth remembering that they are far too seldom a barometer of real quality. Don’t believe me? Then just ask the virtuoso Robert Altman, who was finally given a long-overdue Oscar (though an "honorary" one) Sunday night.