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In the end, Lionsgate's plan to buy themselves a SAG award by sending out an unprecedented 130,000 Crash screeners to every living SAG member (last paying gig Thug #3 on Magnum P.I.? You get a screener!) proved to be a winning strategy, as the movie took a best film ensemble trophy at yesterday's SAG awards. Shut out of the proceedings was Brokeback Mountain, a clear message from voters that it requires more actorly skill to pretend to be racist than it does to pretend to be gay. Other winners included Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote, Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, the cast of Lost for best ensemble TV drama and, in a turn of events sure to have resulted in Ari Emanuel launching a plate of Chinese food at his plasma screen, the cast of Desperate Housewives for best ensemble TV comedy.

Saturday night's DGA awards stuck to the Brokeback-loving script, however, awarding the film best feature honors, which elicited a gushy acceptance speech from director Ang Lee:

"This is just lovely, thank you," Lee said Saturday to the audience of 1,100 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel. "This is the only award I put on my desk. Thank you, it means so much to me."

A dejected Steven Spielberg, who saw the director's awards as his best shot at picking up a trophy for Munich, was seen shifting uncomfortably in his seat during Lee's turn at the podium, at one point scribbling a note to himself on the back cover of his program: "Next project back to the Holocaust."