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"Rock-jawed, former teen hearthrob" Matt Dillon isn't going to squander his moment of Oscar-nominated glory by putting his head down, shyly considering the shine on his shoes, and mumbling some pullquote-ready nonsense soaked in false humility. No, now that his fine performance in the criminally overpraised Crash has been recognized by his peers, he's finally been afforded the opportunity to wax pretentious poetic about the glory of heavy-handed filmmaking:

AP: You had some disappointment about the backing "City of Ghosts" [which Dillon wrote and directed three years ago] received, didn't you?


Dillon: Yeah, it was disappointing the way it was released, but it doesn't matter in the end. What really disappoints me is that I'm not there (directing) right now. There's nothing that tops that. That's what I said to Haggis, "It's terrific all this stuff, these accolades and everything. But nothing beats when we were up there on the top of the hill in San Pedro, losing the light, Thandie (Newton) is upside down in the car, sliding around on broken glass, and I'm happy."

Despite our fear that Haggis is now writing absurd Oscar campaign copy for his actors, we'll give Dillon a pass. After all, it wasn't too long ago that he was down at the racetrack with Angela Robinson, with Lindsay Lohan right-side-up in the possessed Volkswagen, coughing last night's Grey Goose into a bucket, and he's thinking, "Please, God, fucking kill me right now."