This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation with an Academy member who is not associated with any of this year's nominees about his/her ballot. A conversation with a different member will post each day leading up to the Oscars ceremony on Feb. 22.

On Selma:

First, let me say that I'm tired of all of this talk about "snubs" — I thought for every one of [the snubs] there was a justifiable reason. What no one wants to say out loud is that Selma is a well-crafted movie, but there's no art to it. If the movie had been directed by a 60-year-old white male, I don't think that people would have been carrying on about it to the level that they were.

I've got to tell you, having the cast show up in T-shirts saying "I can't breathe" [at their New York premiere] — I thought that stuff was offensive. Did they want to be known for making the best movie of the year or for stirring up shit?

On American Sniper:

American Sniper is the winner of the year, whether or not it gets a single statuette, because for all of us in the movie industry — I don't care what your politics are — it is literally the answer to a prayer for a midrange budget movie directed by an 84-year-old guy [Clint Eastwood] to do this kind of business.

On Boyhood:

If you told me when I saw Boyhood that it would win best picture — or even be in the running — I would have told you that you were insane. Watching it, I thought it was ambitious and a directorial triumph, but the kid was uneven and Patricia Arquette probably was sorry she agreed to let them film her age over 12 years. I never thought, "Wow, this is the one!"

On The Imitation Game:

On paper, The Imitation Game seemed to be the one to me. It's a great story, well-crafted, [Benedict Cumberbatch] is really good and it's been a big success. It's what you call "prestige filmmaking." So why isn't it receiving more recognition? I'd like to believe it's karma for Harvey [Weinstein]. But I'm going to hold my nose and vote for it anyway because when you vote for best picture, what you should try to do is vote for the movie that, years from now, people will still watch and talk about.

^^^ lololol

On Inherent Vice:

I put in the Inherent Vice screener, and it became apparent that it's a terrible, incoherent movie, so I turned it off. I thought it was not possible for me to hate something more than I hated The Master, but I hated this more.

Other notable opinions: voting for Boyhood for editing because "cutting 12 years of crap down to a decent length can't be easy", Guardians of the Galaxy should have been nominated for Best Picture, and lots of abstaining from voting because they have no fucking clue what sound editing is or they haven't seen any/enough foreign films, animated shorts, documentary shorts, or live action shorts.

the_red_ninja wrote:Eish, it's this weekend right. I'm really hoping that Birdman or The Imitation Game win the big ones (BP/Director), and that Interstellar gets some technicals. Oh and Big Hero 6 and The Feast for animation please.

I will be watching live, because NPH guarantees a good show yo.

Nomis1700 wrote:Just saw Boyhood, one thing is clear, Birdman definitely has to win over it if it's really going down between those two.

MeLVaNoaTe wrote:

Nomis1700 wrote:Just saw Boyhood, one thing is clear, Birdman definitely has to win over it if it's really going down between those two.

It's more of a win-win for me. I'll be happy with a Birdman win since I prefer it to Boyhood and I think it's also the best among the other BP nominees or Boyhood can win and then join a long list of BP winners that still get backlash for their win.