All is not so rosy for Crash team

The long-simmering dispute over production credits for Crash exploded Wednesday - which, not coincidentally, was the day after Oscar voting ended. Funny how the sainthood falls away the moment the ballots are in, huh? The conflict between producers Cathy Schulman and Tom Nunan and real estate mogul/denied producer Bob Yari is incredibly ugly, filled with lawsuits, accusations of theft, and personal attacks.

Yari is suing both the Producers Guild of America and the Academy, both of whom denied him production credit for the film - oh, and he also took out a full page ad in the trade papers yesterday, proclaiming that the Academy "abdicated its responsibility and impartiality and in so doing, put its reputation and the worldwide telecast of our industry's most anticipated award show at risk." Why, he's just interested in the Academy's reputation - really, the lawsuits are for the industry's own good. Poor, misunderstood mogul.

Schulman and Nunan, for their part, are suing Yari, "alleging that he withheld millions in profits, damaged their reputations and used their joint venture to promote his other interests." Supposedly the money man, after gaining a financial stake in Bull's Eye Entertainment (the home of Crash), used his position to quietly move projects and opportunities from that company over to "other interests" in which he was involved. In addition, he's accused of defaming Schulman, and hurting her career by not allowing her to promote other films she had produced.

The public nature of the whole thing is sort of embarrassing for all of us - it's like the worst American Idol auditions, where people horribly humiliate themselves, but you can't look away. My only hope here is that Crash wins best picture, and Yari tries to storm the stage with the production team.