Editors, Crash and The Academy

I have contemplated numerous posts on the Oscars:
My predictions, my reviews of the Best picture nominees, suggestions for Jon Stewart, analysis of the Editor nominees, a post show review of the entire extravaganza.

But, alas, I chose to hold off. Who cares. All of you out there in the land of the Filmcore Blog don't need to hear me bloviating about the Oscars. (Only those in the FCSF office are subjected that.)

With that said, I was sent a Hollywood Reporter article covering the post mortem on the surprise win of Crash. Go here to read the whole thing. Most of it we already know or have read in other places. However, growing up in Hollywood and considering myself a know-it-all regarding all things Oscar, the credit given to Editor Cabal is new to me.

Moreover, insiders are also pointing to a little known piece of Oscar trivia -- which I'm happy to say I pointed out here last Friday -- which is that not since 1980's "Ordinary People" has a film won the best picture Oscar without also having had a nomination for best film editing. As we now realize but weren't thinking about pre-Oscars, "Brokeback" wasn't a film editing nominee this year. "Crash" was. In fact, "Crash" film editor Hughes Winborne wound up taking home the Oscar for his work on the picture. Insiders claim that film editors don't vote for best picture nominees that aren't also best film editing nominees. There are 239 members of the Academy's Film Editors branch. If we add their votes to the 1,238 votes that quite possibly weren't cast at all, that's a total of 1,477 votes -- nearly 24% of the total Academy membership -- that didn't go to "Brokeback."

There you have it. Till next year.
(Hat tip to my father in-law Abbas for the Hollywood Reporter link.)