Welcome back to more regular blog posts from Red Carpet Rosters! I am thrilled to be back in the writing chair after taking a long hiatus. The site was getting way too demanding, so I spent this off-season doing a complete revamp of the site. EVERYTHING is now easier to do, and I’d like to spend a few minutes writing about all the exciting changes and give you a little sneak peek behind the scenes of what it takes to get a full season of RCR ready to go. So in this first post after taking a LONG break (and appropriately after Week 1 of another albeit lesser fantasy sport…I’m of course talking about football…) I’ll give you a rundown of what happens in the off-season to get the site ready to go for the season and talk about some buzz at both Venice and Telluride.
Side note, I LOVE October for three reasons…. Halloween, NBA basketball, and film awards fantasy drafts. It’s too early for any Oscars betting advice, but future blog posts will always feature some betting advice. Right now, The Odyssey is the betting favorite, and that’s not surprising at all. I don’t like betting on favorites in general, and betting this early on one is a fool’s errand. Anyway, let’s get to it.
RCR Behind the Scenes
This off-season I’ve revamped the entire site. Everything, and I do mean everything, is now easier to use. You can join and create leagues in minutes. Customizing your league is easier now. However, if you’re an RCR veteran, you’ll find that the gameplay itself is relatively unchanged. So although everything is easier and looks a little different, it should feel pretty familiar. If you’re a new user, welcome! Happy to have you. At any rate, there are a few features I’m particularly excited about, including the new ladder playoff system that I mentioned in my last blog post.
Some Highlights of New Features
Honestly the thing I’m MOST excited about? Player photos are finally on the site! We now have faces to go along with the names! This also includes movie posters. Pretty much everywhere there is a player listing, there’s a corresponding photo. And in most places, that photo is clickable to bring up an even larger version along with information about that player including statistics, draft position, points, a link to their TMDB page, and their overall rank.
Did that catch your eye? Yes, the second most exciting thing added to the site is the player’s Overall Rank using a VORP-style calculation. If you’ve ever done fantasy sports seriously, you likely already know what VORP is. For the uninitiated, VORP stands for Value Over Replacement Player. The concept is fairly straightforward, and there are slightly different variations in calculating a VORP score, but the most standard way is also how RCR calculates this value. In fantasy sports, and RCR is no exception, just because a player has more points than another player doesn’t necessarily make that player more valuable. The reason for this is because of positional depth. It’s not about picking players who score the most points; it’s about picking players who score MORE points than other players at that position. PICTURES from top to bottom score the most points in RCR because there are a lot of categories at various ceremonies that can go to a picture along with the fact that most ceremonies, Oscars included, nominate more pictures than other categories. There are ten Best Picture nominees compared to five, say, Best Director nominees. However, the difference between the top PICTURE point-getter and the tenth PICTURE point-getter might be less than the top DIRECTOR point-getter compared to the tenth DIRECTOR point-getter. VORP takes into account the positional depth. Since this is the first year for introducing this overall rank, it’ll be the same for all leagues, which means the Overall Rank will be the same no matter what league settings you end up using in your own league. It’s still useful, but that’s just a caveat. Anyway, the default settings for starting lineups are 1 PICTURE, 1 DIRECTOR / SCREENWRITER, 1 ACTOR, 1 ACTRESS, 1 ANIMATED / INTERNATIONAL / DOCUMENTARY, 1 CINEMATOGRAPHER / EDITOR / CASTING DIRECTOR, 1 PRODUCTION DESIGNER / COSTUME DESIGNER / MAKEUP & HAIR TEAM, 1 SCORE COMPOSER / SOUND TEAM / SONGWRITER / VISUAL EFFECTS TEAM, and 2 FLEX, which can be anything. That’s a total of ten starters on any one team. Also, RCR is really optimized for ten teams in a league. There can be more. There can be less, of course, but ten is the number of teams I recommend and is the number of teams in my own league that I’ve been running since 2018. So that’s ten teams. Ten starters on each team. And that’s 100 starting players. With me so far? Good. So recall that VORP stands for Value Over Replacement Player. That’s the player that is the 11th best player at that position. That 11th best player scores points, and that is the number that ALL other players, whether they’re starters or not, are measured against. So if your director has, say, 50 points, and the 11th best director (i.e., the best replacement player) has 20 points, your director has a VORP of 30 points because 50 minus 20 equals 30. Maybe you’re thinking right now, “Yuck, math.” Well, if you want to be any good at fantasy sports, get used to it. Anyway, those VORP scores basically standardize every player’s unique value accounting for how they compare to other players who can be in that specific starting slot. Default settings have so-called “mini-flexes” because a CINEMATOGRAPHER or an EDITOR can occupy the same slot in your lineup. We also have 2 FLEX positions, which complicates the VORP calculation slightly, because they can be literally anything. But this is easy to account for and is how other fantasy sports calculate their VORP scores based on their presence of FLEX position. In RCR, there are 8 starting lineup slots that have rules on which players can occupy those slots. The two FLEX can be anything, so you want to fill that FLEX with whatever player can score the most points no matter what. So after the 11th player in each of the other 8 positions are identified, the system will go on to identify the next 20 players that score the most points REGARDLESS of position. Then the system looks at the positions of those 20 players, puts them in their respective position groups, and then sees which replacement player is most appropriate to compare the other players in that position to. So for example, if 3 more actors are in that group of 20, then the FOURTEENTH ACTOR’s points are used to calculate the VORP score because 13 actors are good enough to be starters and the best replacement actor is the 14th actor. Clear as mud? Good. If that didn’t make any sense to you, that’s fine, the take away message is this: the Overall Rank displayed in the site accounts for that player’s position so you can make better decisions on whom to start and whom to pick up on the waiver wire. So anyone with a rank of 100 or better is worthy of being a starter and anyone with a rank of 160 or better is worthy of at least a bench spot on your team because default settings has ten starters and 6 bench spots.
And speaking of waiver wires, all leagues now follow some form of a waiver process where you can request players from pretty much any player listing screen while also setting your waiver priority for each of those players you want. Waivers are processed the night before EACH matchup. Then in that window in between waiver processing and the start of the next matchup the next day, unowned players are first-come, first-serve.
Brand new this year is a database backed Ceremony page that has results and a calendar. This is HUGE for me, and quite convenient for you. Now I can display the dates of the ceremonies along with the results of those ceremonies directly in the site. And because it’s now database-backed, you can see which ceremonies are in the matchup right from your starting lineup page. No more going back and forth. If you notice that a particular matchup is heavy for one particular category while setting your starting lineup for that matchup, go ahead and use that information to gain an edge. Like I said, EVERYTHING is easier on the site, including strategizing your starting lineup based on what ceremonies are actually scheduled for that matchup.
I’m also very excited about the live draft module, which now has a queue feature where you can place players in the queue so that you don’t have to search for them when the timer is counting down. Private leagues still have the option to do untimed drafts, but public leagues have a draft timer where if you don’t make a pick when the timer runs, the autodrafter selects the best available player according to your starting lineup needs and your pre-draft rankings.
Getting a Season Ready
Speaking of pre-draft rankings, let’s go behind the scenes a little bit in how those rankings are determined. I try to remain somewhat objective when I make those pre-draft rankings, but I can’t help my own biases. I’m only human after all. There are at minimum five different sources I use from various Oscars prognosticators. The five or more sources are a proprietary secret, but I compile all that data into one tool. Then I use those rankings and insights to run a huge mock draft of my own, and wherever a player lands in that draft, after weighing things like debut directors, young/breakthrough actors and actresses, genre films, stunts, and more, that’s the pre-draft rank you see on the site. And now that Overall Rank exists as a live, in-season alternative to my own pre-draft picks, that’s especially useful if you’re joining RCR late in the season. My pre-season rankings are locked in from early October and only get staler as the season goes on, but Overall Rank keeps updating with real points as things actually unfold. So if you’re drafting late, lean on Overall Rank instead of my preseason guesses. And if you think I’m off my rocker with some of these rankings, you can set your own dang rankings using the site and those rankings will get pulled into the draft module so you can select the players you want to select. Just like with other fantasy sports, there are sleepers and busts and surprises and snubs, and the Overall Rank at the end of the season will undoubtedly be different than the pre-draft rankings. If they were the same, this wouldn’t even be a game……. So take the pre-draft rankings with a grain of salt, but do know that a LOT of care and thought are put into them.
Setting the default pre-draft rankings is just one thing I do to get ready for a full season, but there are quite a few other near-Sysiphean tasks that have to happen before leagues are ready to draft in October. The biggest one is easily curating the player pool. You know, all the films, cast, and crew that you can search for on the Players listing on the site. They all come from TMDB, and there is a degree of automation to pull all the cast and crew; however, the list of movies itself is hand-picked. A typical year will have around 10,000 players in the player pool from approximately 1,000 different movies. Most of these movies won’t get any awards love, but it’s impossible to predict which movies will or won’t get at least one recognition at a ceremony or two. It’s more than you think, let’s put it that way. So how do I curate the list? I rely heavily on NextBestPicture.com, which I always rely heavily on for the ceremony results themselves. So if they review a movie, it’s on the list. I also look at major film festivals lineups, like Sundance, South by Southwest, and the fall festivals like Telluride, Toronto, Venice, Berlin, New York, etc. There are always three blindspots — songwriters, foreign films, and documentaries — and there will inevitably be movies that fall through the cracks that I have to add later. Then again, if it hasn’t crossed my radar, I’m fairly confident in saying it probably hasn’t crossed your radar either in any meaningful way that would affect your draft strategy. Nevertheless, I’m adding movies every single week even early in the regular season as documentary-centric and independent-centric ceremonies announce their nominations. Songwriters, especially, are hard to track down, but there is one silver lining. The Hollywood Music in Media Awards nominations happen early in the season, and they recognize a LOT of songwriters. So that’s usually a good list-building ceremony.
The other big task is setting the matchup schedule. All other fantasy sports have two distinct reasons why they can have their matchups as weeks: their games are all scheduled WELL in advance, and each week has a similar amount of games. Awards ceremonies on the other hand? Forget about it. The Gotham Awards nominations happen in late October. Then there is a smattering of mostly documentary- and independent-centric ceremonies along with other quirky ceremonies like the Hollywood Music in Media awards in November. Then it really picks up in December with a lull over the holidays and then picks up even more in January until the Oscar nominations in late January. Then we’re left with a whole bunch of guild award winners over the next 6-7 weeks until the Oscars in mid-March. So there is NOT a similar number of ceremonies in any given week. Also, many ceremonies, especially regional critics bodies, don’t bother announcing when…ahem…they announce their nominations or wins, so there goes the whole all-ceremonies-are-scheduled-well-in-advance idea. So because of that, each matchup can last anywhere from 3 days to a few weeks depending on where we are in the season calendar. I have to manually set those dates. By the time early October rolls around, I scour all the awards bodies to see if I can get a date. Then for the ones that I can’t find, I reach out to the awards body, and many are more than happy to let me know when their dates are. For all others, I just copy over what day they announced last year and make sure it’s the same day of the week. If they announced on a Monday last year, I assume they’re going to announce on a Monday this year. I then take all of that information and try to divvy up the ceremonies such that each matchup has fairly equitable point potential. There are some other things I try to be mindful of, including making sure that I try not to schedule any late-night ceremonies on the last day of a matchup so that waivers can get processed in a timely manner. I also try to make sure that some of the more flaky awards bodies don’t end up the last day, because then I’m left waiting for them to announce all night only to realize that they made mistakes or don’t really feel like letting the public know what they’re up to. I won’t name names. You know who you are. One year, one of the regional critics had to reschedule because the hotel double-booked their conference room. Hey, things like that happen. But all in all, it’s an imperfect system setting these matchup dates, and some matchups will see a lot more points than others, but I just don’t have the luxury of consistency when it comes to awards ceremonies. And honestly, that’s just the kind of quirkiness about this whole film awards fantasy stuff I’ve come to find quite endearing.
So that’s what I do in the off-season in a nutshell. And I didn’t even mention that all the points have to be entered by hand because it’s not like there’s some API out there that can sync up to the North Texas Film Critics Association.
Buzz from Telluride and Venice
Let’s talk about some buzz at Telluride and Venice. Before I get into it, I love the secrecy at Telluride. They don’t announce their lineup very far in advance, and there are secret screenings for other movies. As someone who avoids movie trailers as much as I possibly can, this appeals to me. However, I did watch one particular teaser trailer because of Telluride. I think you know which one…
You Can See Everything
Yes, I’m talking about the documentary You Can See Everything. It’s been a minute since something like this has generated so much buzz. Some people have even rushed to say that A24 wants to make this the first documentary to break into the Oscars Best Picture lineup. Now I’m a HUGE fan of Nathan Fielder, and I’m even secretly hopeful that the third season of The Rehearsal is the band Boy Throb. Documentaries are ridiculously hard to predict. The documentary branch at the Oscars march to their own beat, and some documentaries that were considered frontrunners don’t even get nominated. And lately, American documentaries have had trouble getting the eventual win. The last three documentaries have been foreign (Mr. Nobody Against Putin, No Other Land, and 20 Days in Mariupol). The one before that was Navalny, about a Russian dissident. Questlove’s Summer of Soul was the last truly American winner. However, an Oscar win is not really an easy predictor for points across the whole season. The Perfect Neighbor dominated the points in the documentary race while also securing an Oscar nomination. So even if the documentary branch at the Oscars snub their nose at You Can See Everything, I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a set it and forget it documentary for the regular season. However, and this is my general advice for ANYONE who drafts a documentary, you need a backup plan with another international or animated film. And there are plenty of documentaries that are also getting buzz.
NAZA
One of which just broke the record for ovation duration. That’s the documentary NAZA about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. NAZA received a 25-minute standing ovation at Venice, breaking the record that another film about the Israeli occupation of Gaza set a year ago. That was the gut-wrenching drama and eventual Oscar nominee The Voice of Hind Rajab. I don’t have any data of how ovations at Venice translate to fantasy points, but I recognize buzz when I see it. Now remember, RCR isn’t just about the Oscars, and The Voice of Hind Rajab did get nominated for one in Best International Feature. However, from a fantasy points perspective, it was a bust scoring only 17 points for the season. Last year’s crop of International films ran deep with other films such as Best Picture nominees The Secret Agent and Sentimental Value along with It Was Just an Accident, Sirat, and No Other Choice. But NAZA is a documentary AND an international film, so it’s already a dual-threat. And the plight of Palestinian citizens is really striking a chord with the populace. It also has two Israeli directors, one of whom already won an Oscar for another documentary examining the Israeli-Palestine conflict: No Other Land. I would guess that NAZA has a higher floor than You Can See Everything, and would be a much safer draft pick for an eventual playoff run.
Musk
Another Venice documentary is the four-hour long documentary Musk about Elon Musk. Overall, the reception has been positive except for one notable person, Elon Musk himself. But given Elon’s self-insertion into pretty much everything, including American government processes with his disastrous DOGE policies, I imagine many awards bodies will want to recognize this documentary with a nomination, including the documentary branch of the Academy. I’m not sure how many wins it can nail down, but given the buzz from Venice, it has a pretty high floor, I assume.
The Debut
Okay, ENOUGH about documentaries, what about some buzzy narrative films coming out of Telluride and Venice? Let’s start with Jesse Eisenberg’s original musical The Debut. Telluride movie goers didn’t seem to be disappointed with it, and this appears to be a safe pick in a variety of categories. Let’s start with The Debut itself. Being a musical, it’ll get some valuable genre bonus points. It’s also a favorite to get a Best Picture nomination. If I end up with The Debut as my PIC after other contenders have been drafted then that assumes two things: I have a bona fide Oscar winner contender in my lineup, and I was able to wait on Picture in a later draft round. Jesse Eisenberg, though, will likely become the biggest point-getter of anything in The Debut because he has that coveted hyphenate of ACTR-DIR-SCRN-SONG, meaning he can occupy not one, not two, but three starting lineup slots. He’ll likely be a first round draft pick simply because he can camp out in that SCORE/SONG/SOUND/VFX slot and rack up points for directing, writing, and/or songwriting for an original musical. And he carries with him that ACTR designation because he lends his voice talents to Minions & Monsters, for which I’m confident he won’t get any points, but points follow the player, not the position.
Another potential first rounder from The Debut is Julianne Moore, who is currently the frontrunner for Best Lead Actress. Sure there are contenders in the Best Actress race, but none are as safe or as clear as Julianne Moore. If I have a later first round draft pick and end up with Julianne Moore, that’s a win. Paul Giamatti, who has been twice nominated for an Oscar and has never won, will return to his The Holdovers form in that he’s going to get quite a few points. Could this be his first Oscar win? Maybe, because the Best Supporting Actor race is absolutely deep and stacked with names like John Goodman (Digger), John Leguizamo (The Odyssey), Sam Rockwell (Wild Horse Nine), and even Colman Domingo (Michael). Because the Best Supporting Actor race is stacked, that means those points will be spread around a little more, but if Paul Giamatti is my own third pick, I’m happy about it.
Other categories seem to favor SOUND, just because it’s a musical, but with so many blockbuster movies this year, it’s going to be hard for other movies of a similar scale such as The Debut to get much technical love. So my advice when it comes to The Debut would be to target, in order, Julianne Moore, Jesse Eisenberg, Paul Giamatti, and the PICTURE itself.
Club Kid
This was a bit of a surprise and as of this writing, 29 critics have given it a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Why is it on this list? Jordan Firstman is making his debut, and it couldn’t have happened to a better name. I’m always looking for debut directors because although there is not an Oscar category for “debut,” MANY ceremonies, the Directors Guild included, honor a debut director enough to the point that debut directors have legitimate value. New this year on the site, such debut directors are indicated by a “(d)” by their name so you can see if those directors can pull some of those points. Debut points, though, have a lot of mouths to feed because Jordan Firstman isn’t the only debut director this year of other buzzy movies. We also have Kane Parsons (Backrooms), Curry Barker (Obsession) who also has EDIT eligibility, and Aleshea Harris (Is God Is) joined by a slew of debut directors of official international submissions and other actors-turned-directors such as John Early (Maddie’s Secret) and James McAvoy (California Schemin’). As of now, I see 177 debut directors, and most of them won’t score any points. However, somebody will get those points, and you could do worse than Jordan Firstman as a late-round flier.
La bola negra
This one has contender written all over it. The duo that makes up Los Javis (Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo) will get you a lot of points, and they could very well be first- or second-rounders by the time drafts happen. They also won Best Director at Cannes, so it’s not like the buzz surrounding this movie is new. However, the true strength is the PICTURE itself because it’s the clearest dual-threat film with either an ANI, DOC, or INT as its position. Many have this as a Best Picture nominee and also claims it’s a frontrunner for Best International Feature. I don’t disagree, but given that the Oscars and, by extension, every other ceremony out there have become more international, I don’t want to put it in frontrunner status immediately because of other films like Fjord and All of a Sudden. But the floor is VERY high for La bola negra.
I wrote earlier about debut points, and there is also value in chasing breakthrough/youth actors and actresses. I don’t put any special indicator on the site like I do for debut directors because “breakthrough” and “youth” mean slightly different things to different people, but there is an actor that is a cut-and-dry breakthrough candidate because he’s making his feature debut. That’s, of course, Guitarricadelafuente. He also has SONG eligibility because he co-wrote an Oscar contending song along with the film’s score composer, Raül Refree. He will likely be a critics’ darling, but saying he’s a shoo-in for an acting Oscar nomination is a stretch. I’m not saying it won’t or can’t happen, but both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor races are pretty stacked. However, the song “La nieve” seems like a safe bet to get in as an Oscar nominated song, which would give Guitarricadelafuente an Oscar nomination. So getting some acting points, some breakthrough points, and some songwriting points puts Guitarricadelafuente into triple-threat category. That means he has significant upside.
La bola negra also figures into being contenders in pretty much all other categories too. Penelope Cruz is a fringe contender for her roles in all three of La bola negra, The Invite, and Bunker. She’s going to end up with some sort of points for all three. And the below-the-line categories seem to all be pretty high-floor players too. In fact, selecting technicals from The Odyssey, Dune: Part Three, and La bola negra wouldn’t be a bad strategy at all. Throw in Project Hail Mary, and you can probably just select the next best available from either of those four movies. There is a caveat, though. The only prior Oscar nominations of people working on this film come from Penelope Cruz and Glenn Close.
Elsinore / Wild Horse Nine
I combined these two for one simple fact: I would not be surprised in the least bit if this turns into a two-horse race for Best Actor between Andrew Scott for Elsinore and John Malkovich for Wild Horse Nine. This isn’t a commentary on “due” status or “legacy” status or “career win” status for veteran actors to get a so-called lifetime achievement Oscar because they haven’t gotten an Oscar before. I think that kind of framing is lazy. Sure, to an objective observer, a “he’s due” narrative might look like it’s part of the equation, but there’s a lot more nuance to how these races actually play out than that simple explanation gives credit for. At any rate, from an Oscars-only perspective, the rest of the film awards season seems like it’s a coronation for John Malkovich to finally win his Oscar for Best Actor. I’m just not seeing a third actor that is a threat for an Oscar win here. Having said that, I also wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew Scott ends up with more fantasy points in the regular season, and maybe even the full season, even if John Malkovich ends up winning Best Actor at the Oscars. I’m most reminded of the race between two other actors a few years ago, and coincidentally features an actor from another Martin McDonagh film: Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Brendan Fraser (The Whale). Colin Farrell was stealing so many wins in the regular season that by the time the Oscars rolled around, many were thinking that he could pull the upset against Brendan Fraser, even becoming the betting favorite at one point in the season. Brendan Fraser, of course, eventually won, but I’m getting a feeling that Andrew Scott can do the same here. Both actors, though, will be gone by the time the second round is done. But if I’m left with a decision between the two, I’m picking John Malkovich because winning late in the season is better than winning early in the season.
As for the rest of the film’s players from these two movies, Elsinore as a Best Picture nomination contender is worth a later round draft pick plus maybe a crew player here and there. Wild Horse Nine, on the other hand, is a contender for all above-the-line categories and a few below-the-line categories too. Martin McDonagh is a dual-threat as a DIR-SCRN player. Sam Rockwell is always a strong contender. Mariana di Girolamo is getting buzz for Best Supporting Actress. And then there’s Ben Davis, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen, Carter Burwell, and Sarah Finn, for CIN, EDIT, SCORE, and CAST, respectively, although until there’s an RCR rule change regarding CAST players, the newest Oscar category, I never recommend drafting a casting director for any purpose other than to stash on your bench until the actual Oscar nominations.
Woman Unknown / Possible Love / DAU / A Good Little Soldier
Full Venice award winners list
These four films were awarded top prizes at the Venice Film Festival. Woman Unknown took the top prize, the Golden Lion. This was a bit of a surprise. I had a strong feeling that Woman Unknown would end up with at least a special jury prize (NAZA and Possible Love got the grand jury and special jury prizes, respectively) because it was the only film directed solely by a woman, May el-Toukhy, and was specifically called out as such by jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal. I’m not saying that the only reason that Woman Unknown won the Golden Lion is because it was helmed by a woman, but I am saying that some signs were there beforehand that this film would be recognized at Venice. Mathilde Arcel also took home the Volpi Cup for Best Actress from Woman Unknown. As for DAU and A Good Little Soldier, I don’t expect either to register at the ceremonies that actually translate into fantasy points, so consider them festival trivia rather than draft-day considerations. I never like to overreact to film festival accolades, especially from Venice, because a win at Venice doesn’t usually translate to an Oscar Best Picture nomination, let alone a win. Sure, Woman Unknown will get some points somewhere, but I’m fading it everywhere. There are just too many other contenders that are getting more buzz than this. And that’s really the story with Venice. It’s not about the prizes. Those don’t correlate much at all with fantasy point performance, and this is no exception.
That’s the read right now. Default pre-draft rankings will all be done and uploaded to the site in early October. Until then, we have the Toronto Film Festival with its highly anticipated Audience Choice winner which, unlike the Venice Golden Lion, DOES usually result in an Oscar Best Picture nomination. See you next time!
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