Talk about unexpected. Crash pulled off a huge upset last night by winning the Oscar for Best Picture over preshow favorite Brokeback Mountain. A true upset in the Best Picture category is rare, so I'm savoring this one. (The last time the favorite failed to win was 1999, when Saving Private Ryan lost to Shakespeare in Love.) That said, I have to admit feeling a bit disappointed for everyone associated with Brokeback. While losing the big award does nothing to tarnish its cultural significance or impact, the film's historical legacy might now be diminished somewhat. Time will tell. The unexpected win for Crash was especially shocking coming at the end of a ceremony in which there were few surprises. The favorites all won in the directing, writing, and acting categories, making it one of the most predictable shows in recent memory -- until Jack Nicholson took the stage to present Best Picture and promptly blew everyone's minds, that is. As for the Pop Culture Psychic...

• The upset win by Crash hurt my stats slightly, but I still managed to correctly predict 18 of the night's 24 winners, going 7 for 8 in the major categories. In comparison, I only managed 15 of 24 last year.
• I surprised myself by outperforming the pundits over at Entertainment Weekly magazine. They usually do significantly better than me in this game, but they only managed to pick 16 winners this year.
• Four movies tied for the distinction of winning the most awards this year: Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Memoirs of a Geisha, and King Kong. I correctly predicted that Crash, Kong, and Memoirs would come away with 3 awards, but Brokeback failed to live up to my prediction that it would take home 4 statues.

Below is a complete list of the night's winners. Those I predicted correctly are preceded by a , while the six I missed are preceded by an .

✘ Picture: Crash
✔ Actress: Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
✔ Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
✔ Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz - The Constant Gardener
✔ Supporting Actor: George Clooney - Syriana
✔ Director: Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
✔ Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain
✔ Original Screenplay: Crash
✘ Cinematography: Memoirs of a Geisha
✔ Editing: Crash
✔ Art Direction: Memoirs of a Geisha
✔ Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
✘ Original Score: Brokeback Mountain
✘ Original Song: "Hard Out Here for a Pimp" - Hustle & Flow
✔ Makeup: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
✔ Sound: King Kong
✔ Sound Editing: King Kong
✔ Visual Effects: King Kong
✔ Animated Feature: Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
✔ Foreign Language Film: Tsotsi
✔ Documentary Feature: March of the Penguins
✘ Documentary Short: A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age or Norman Corwin
✘ Animated Short Film: The Moon and the Son
✔ Live Action Short Film: Six Shooter