Oscar voter slams Cate Blanchett and Leonardo DiCaprio

AN ANONYMOUS member of the Oscar executives branch has gone rogue to share their thoughts on this year’s nominees including Leo’s “ridiculous performance”.

THE Academy Awards voting process is somewhat mysterious to many of us, but one Oscar voter has gone rogue to give an insight into just how the process works — and some very frank opinions about this year’s field of nominees.

The Hollywood Reporter has spoken to a longtime voter in the 458-member executives branch, who gave their opinion on this year’s nominees under a veil of anonymity.

Here’s what they had to say about some of this year’s biggest contenders:

BEST PICTURE

Mad Max? Didn’t see it.

“I haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road — I just didn’t get to it. I dislike The Revenant intensely — it’s a beautifully shot Road Runner movie, in the sense that Leonardo DiCaprio keeps falling down and getting up, and who cares?”

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The voter said they loved The Martian, Room and Spotlight, but “my No. 1 vote goes to The Big Short, which is the most courageous film of the year. It deals with a subject that most people don’t understand in a highly creative and entertaining way without using sentimentality as a crutch.”

BEST ACTOR

Eddie Redmayne got this voter’s pick.

I rule out Leonardo immediately because it’s a ridiculous performance. They are running his campaign based on how hard it was to make the movie, right? I’m tired of hearing about it — that’s what he gets paid for! Give me a break. He got millions of dollars, and I would assume they had heaters. The fact that he’s never won before? He’s a young man, he still has time.”

The voter says they discounted Michael Fassbender’s turn as Steve Jobs because “he’s in a dopey movie,” and said they gave their vote to Eddie Redymayne in The Danish Girl: “Eddie broke my heart with the way he showed how painful it must have been to know something about himself that no one else seemed able to understand.”

BEST ACTRESS

Blanchett? Forget about it.

“Forget Cate Blanchett — her film [Carol] is more about decor and what everyone wears than anything of substance,” said the voter, who also didn’t think much of Jennifer Lawrence or Charlotte Rampling’s films.

Their pick? “[Room’s] Brie Larson had to play the hardest part imaginable — you can’t even compare them. It wasn’t close at all.”

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Brooklyn may have been critically acclaimed, but this voter wasn’t a fan.

The voter says Brooklyn “is just sentimental drivel,” and is similarly dismissive of Carol. “I’m not especially interested in or sympathetic to the problems of a rich white woman. I voted for The Big Short because the courage it took to try to tell that story as a movie, and the effectiveness with which its script did so, is unmatched by any other nominee.”

Perhaps the voter’s funniest and most telling response? When asked who they’d be voting for in the Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing categories, they responded:

“I don’t know the difference between the two. Nobody does. I just vote for the movie in the category that I liked the best.”

The Big Short could be a big winner.

So there you have it — based on this voter’s choices, Wall Street drama The Big Short might be a surprise frontrunner in a few categories and we shouldn’t be holding out for a Best Actress nod for Our Cate’s sterling work in Carol.

All will be revealed when the 88th Academy Awards take place next week — stay tuned to news.com.au on Monday for all the live Oscars coverage as it happens.

Originally published as Oscar voter slams Cate Blanchett and Leonardo DiCaprio