And the winner is . . . awful!
A cranky member of the Motion Picture Academy offered up a “brutally honest” peek at his Oscar ballot — rife with snarky commentary on nearly all the nominees.
On “Gravity,” “I have seen better things at the planetarium,” the industry veteran tells The Hollywood Reporter, likening the director to a computer “technician.”
The showbiz snob, who serves on the academy’s 377-member directors branch, also scoffs at bad editing, hokey plotlines and some of the industry’s most talented stars who are up for awards Sunday.
“Julia Roberts was horrendous in ‘August: Osage County,’ ” the catty critic slams, before zinging, “[I’d vote] for Matthew McConaughey . . . in ‘True Detective,’ ” a nod to the hit HBO show, which couldn’t possibly be nominated.
The Oscar voter also blasts Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting in “The Wolf of Wall Street” as “a popcorn performance” and says Meryl Streep gave a “bottom-drawer performance” in “August: Osage County.”
In the Best Editing category, the acclaimed thriller “Captain Phillips” is migraine-inducing and gimmicky, the voter adds, explaining:
“ ‘Captain Phillips’ is, to me, the chickens–t way of editing; it’s usually done because you’re terrified of boring the audience, so you keep cutting.
“[It] actually becomes unbelievably tedious and headache-inducing, and it’s not the way the mind perceives reality, either.”
And don’t even get the crabby critic started on screenwriting: “ ‘Before Midnight’ is a travesty of ineptitude and dreadful writing, like the other two in that horrible trilogy — if I was sitting next to those people, I would run in the opposite direction.”
Best Original Song isn’t even worthy of a vote, the academy member says: “To dignify any of them with a vote is to suggest that they’re worthy of a nomination, and they’re not; they’re just bad songs.”
Short films and animation also aren’t worth watching, the voter says:
“I don’t watch the shorts. And, if I don’t know anybody who made one of them — a friend or an enemy — I just don’t vote, which was the case this year.”
On animated films the voter sneers, “I have seen none of them. I have no interest . . . That ended when I was 6.”
The voter offered only a few words of praise, saying Cate Blanchett, of “Blue Jasmine,” merits for Best Actress: “She was just a revelation; she was spectacular.”
The academy member’s also likes Jennifer Lawrence for Best Supporting Actress in “American Hustle,” Bradley Cooper for Best Supporting Actor in “American Hustle,” and David O. Russell for Best Director for “American Hustle.”
“12 Years a Slave” easily wins Best Adapted Screenplay, and the makeup in “Dallas Buyers Club” “works unbelievably,” the voter says.
Other academy members plan to offer brutal criticism to the magazine on each day leading up to the Oscars.
Best Picture nominations include “American Hustle,” “Captain Phillips,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Gravity,” “Her,” “Nebraska,” “Philomena,” “12 Years a Slave” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”