The Hollywood Reporter released two more of their “brutally honest ballot” pieces yesterday. I have to admit, these two are sort of letdowns after the deliciously offensive bitchery of the first ballot, which we covered yesterday. To recap, every year THR sits down with various Oscar voters in various branches and the voters fill out their ballots in front of THR. The voters get to speak their mind under the condition of anonymity, which historically has revealed some amazing WTF-ery of petty grudges, racism and gossip. The two ballots released by THR yesterday were not all that gossipy though. There were some interesting insights, for sure. You can read Ballot #2 (a voter from short films and animation branch) here. You can read Ballot #3 (a voter from the screenwriters’ branch) here. Some highlights:

Ballot #2: the voter is an Oscar-nominated member of the animation/short film branch. Thoughts on Best Picture:

Whiplash is offensive — it’s a film about abuse and I don’t find that entertaining at all. My kid would have told me if he had an abusive teacher. I would have sat in on the class, talked to other kids in the class and then said, “This a–hole has to go.” [The Grand] Budapest [Hotel] is beautifully made, but its story just isn’t special. I didn’t think Selma was a particularly good film, apart from the main actor [David Oyelowo], and I think the outcry about the Academy being racists for not nominating it for more awards is offensive — we have a two-term president who is a black woman [Cheryl Boone Isaacs] and we give out awards to black people when they deserve them, just like any other group.

Birdman, I didn’t get it at all — I look around and it’s doing so well and I just don’t get it. American Sniper glosses over feelings — how do you feel when you kill 170 people? You just see him hesitating in the one scene with the boy who briefly picks up the rocket and then you see him sitting at a bar looking depressed; that’s not enough. As far as The Imitation Game, Alan Turing was very much defined by his repressed homosexuality, and I just don’t think the film deals with that very well. I admired Boyhood and it didn’t bore me, but it doesn’t totally work. But Theory [of Everything] I loved. It was the only one of the nominees that fully worked as a whole film — it was beautifully performed, nicely directed and it was about something — although Boyhood is pretty special for its own reasons. Just because the Academy gives you a preferential ballot with a bunch of lines doesn’t mean you have to fill them all out. Those are only two that I find worthy of the award. MY VOTE: (1) The Theory of Everything, (2) Boyhood

*This person voted for Richard Linklater for Best Director because “It’s not even close for me because I didn’t especially like the other nominees’ pictures.” The voter went with Eddie Redmayne for Best Actor because “it’s an amazing performance” and they also went for Felicity Jones for Best Actress (interesting). This voter thought Meryl Streep was “unbelievable” (in a good way) in Into the Woods and ended up voting for Meryl instead of Patricia Arquette.

[From THR]

And here are some highlights from Ballot #3, from a voter in the screenwriters’ branch.

*The voter had nothing but compliments for all of the Best Picture nominees, except they weren’t all that jazzed about Boyhood. This was their final vote: (1) The Imitation Game, (2) Birdman, (3) Whiplash, (4) The Theory of Everything, (5) American Sniper

*Best Director was between Richard Linklater and Alejandro G. Inarritu and the voter went with the crazy-ambition of Inarritu.

*Vote for Eddie Redmayne because his role was the most “transformative.” Same with Julianne Moore – this person voted for Moore because her role was the most transformative.

*Another vote for JK Simmons and Patricia Arquette even though “None of the [supporting actress nominees] blew my mind.”

[From THR]

As I said, these weren’t as gossipy as the first one. For Ballot #3, the closest we get to gossip is when this guy (??) talks about how he like American Sniper and he didn’t think the “attacks” on the film were “legitimate” because at the end of the day, it’s not a documentary. Blah. I thought Ballot #2 shows (yet again) how Selma really irritated Oscar voters and the Academy really doesn’t like to be called out on their racist BS. Too bad.

Photos courtesy of WENN.