14 DAY TRIAL // This Sunday, on March 2, 2014, the Oscars will take place, honoring achievements in film and officially wrapping this year’s awards season. The Oscarcast is the most anticipated event in film, which explains why, for weeks, people couldn’t stop talking about it. The same applies, it seems, to an anonymous member of the AMPAS.
This stands for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organizers of the Oscars. The AMPAS is comprised of roughly 6,000 voting members divided into different branches, depending on which discipline in film production they represent.
One of these 6,000 members sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for a special interview, as he was casting his ballot for this year’s awards gala. He is, of course, speaking under the condition of anonymity: in fact, the identities of the members of the AMPAS have never been made public, to ensure fairness to all nominees in the voting process.
THR only says that this anonymous person is a member of the directors branch and, while his choices are not necessarily the choices of the majority, the piece does offer a very interesting insight into how the voting process goes.
It might also help you win a wager or two, in case you were thinking of trying out your luck with picking the winners of the nominees.
If that’s the case, you should know that this AMPAS member’s choice for Best Film is “American Hustle.” His second vote goes to “12 Years a Slave,” while “The Wolf of Wall Street” comes in third in his list of preferences.
He compares the nominees and explains why he didn’t like some of them; apparently, “Dallas Buyers Club” was ok but not surprising, “Her” was too dull and uninteresting, though it did have a certain novelty factor, while “Captain Phillips” was just an overacted action movie.
David O. Russell will also take home an Oscar for Best Director for his work on “American Hustle.” The AMPAS member agrees that Steve McQueen did a superb job on “12 Years a Slave” but, he believes, it was undermined by his previous film “Shame,” which was even better.
Cate Blanchett gets her vote for Best Actress, while Christian Bale should win Best Actor, as far as he’s concerned. The voter has already managed to infuriate Meryl Streep’s legions of fans for saying her performance in “August Osage County” was “bottom drawer,” while Sandra Bullock was “just OK” in “Gravity.”
“Ejiofor was good. DiCaprio has been better; this is a popcorn performance. McConaughey was very good; he’s really doing some great stuff now, and I would give it to him for True Detective. Dern is a great guy and a friend and is excellent in the movie, and if I were not as taken by Bale’s performance as I am, I would have voted for him. But Bale had a much juicier role — Dern’s role is very contained, whereas Bale is all over the place — so I had to go with him. It’s the role of a lifetime,” the voter says.
As he sees it, “American Hustle” should pretty much clean the awards, because Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence would also win in his respective Best Supporting categories.
The full interview is available over at The Hollywood Reporter.