Sorry Eddie, but I thought Keaton's and other nominees performance were more deserving for the Best Actor award

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2015)

I sometimes just don't get the Oscars voting procedure and periodically a winner is announced that I just sit there dumb founded and say What The? The Theory of Everything is a biography on the life and challenges of Stephen Hawking, the Theoretical Physicist who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's (ALS) disease and told he was not expected to live for any more than two years upon his diagnosis at age 21 in 1963. Eddie Redmayne is a good actor who this year walked away and won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance of Stephen Hawking but I really did not see how his performance was anything more than a cheaper imitation of John Hurt's performance in the Elephant Man. John Hurt did not win the 1981 Oscar that he was nominated for as the crippling and deformed figure of John Merrick.
I understand the difficulty in crumpling up your body for a disease that gradually eats away at the central nervous system and still being able to live a full life. But watching Eddie crawl up a flight of stairs with his debilitating disease does not warrant beating out fellow Oscar nominees Keaton, Cumberbatch, Carell or even Cooper for that matter does it? This is not an enjoyable film, nor in my opinion did it capture the known historical events in Stephen Hawking's life (so far). But what I really don't understand is how Redmayne was honored with the Best Actor award for his performance over so many other superior performances by the other 2015 Oscar nominees. In my opinion the Oscar voters have lowered the bar much lower than it has ever gone in the past for warranting the Best Actor award.
I have one question for the Oscar academy of voters. Did you actually see the other nominees performances? I give the film a 5 out of 10. As for the Best Actor award going to Eddie Redmayne for his performance? What The?