Welcome to Red Carpet Rosters Podcast, your hub for film awards fantasy advice, betting advice, some history, and the Academy Awards themselves. I am your host, John Richards of RedCarpetRosters.com.
The 95th Academy Awards were announced last night, and if you’re listening to this podcast, you already know who the winners are. C’mon, I’m not gonna waste too much of your time. I will say, though, that only three movies came away with multiple wins: Everything Everywhere All at Once not only won Best Picture, but won a total of 7 awards, more than the 5 that I predicted (more on that later.) All Quiet on the Western Front won 5 awards, and The Whale went 2 for 2, winning Best Actor and Best Makeup & Hairstyling. Top Gun: Maverick, Women Talking, and Avatar: The Way of Water were the other Best Picture nominees to win something, while five of the Best Picture nominees, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, The Fabelmans, Tar, and Triangle of Sadness, were completely shut out. Also, Ruth E. Carter became the first black woman to win two Oscars in any category while Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. I’m also excited for next year because we always watch the previous Best Picture winner the night before the Oscars, so looking forward to rewatching Everything Everywhere in a year.
As promised, I’m doing a post-mortem on my own predictions. I only went 18/23, but at least I hit on all the shorts categories. In my biggest surprise was Production Design going to Christian Goldbeck of All Quiet on the Western Front. I also missed on Hauschka of All Quiet on the Western Front winning Best Original Score (I predicted Justin Hurwitz of Babylon). I missed Ruth E. Carter for designing costumes for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and I should’ve known better because her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is literally across the street from the Dolby Theater. And I didn’t predict Paul Rogers or Daniels for winning Editing and Original Screenplay for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Despite only going 18/23, I also promised a post-mortem on betting picks. This podcast is only three episodes old, so the value in the picks during this podcast were really break even. However, if you had followed me from the very beginning in late January and if you were bold enough to bet the same amount on ALL the picks I suggested, even the longshots, you would’ve seen a 50% rate of return. That would’ve been even higher if you didn’t spend a whole unit on those longshots, like Tar winning Best Picture at +3300. Not too shabby for less than two months of investment. Here are the notable hits, and some of these will surprise you given what you know now.
I suggested Jamie Lee Curtis thrice, at +160, +450, and a whopping +1800 before the nominations even came out.
Daniels when it was paying +700.
Ruth E. Carter at +200.
Michelle Yeoh at 200, 190, 110, and -125.
Everything Everywhere All at Once to win Best Picture was something like -2000 before Oscar night. I suggested it at -165 and +150.
Top Gun Sound at +125.
Brendan Fraser at +120, +100, -150, -150, and -185.
An Irish Goodbye at +115 and +110.
And lastly, Ke Huy Quan was something like -3000, or something absolutely ridiculous like that. I got him at -275, above my -200 threshold, but I knew I could lock that one in early.
So I tell you all of that to tell you this. Follow me, subscribe, read the blog, whatever you have to do to get access to my betting picks. And I don’t make any suggestions that I’m not willing to do myself. And if I don’t feel too comfortable doing it, I tell you upfront to tread lightly.
I was in two Red Carpet Rosters fantasy leagues this year in addition to running the site, and I’m going to lose all credibility here, BUT I didn’t finish first in either of them. My original league who has been banging around for four seasons now (we took a break during 2020 season) are skilled film awards fantasy players, and I got fifth in my own league. The other league, with Paulo of the Oscars Death Race Podcast as commissioner, was a little more successful where I got second to the most active fantasy manager I’ve ever seen, Nico. Hope to see you back Nico, who also won in the public Citizen Kane League. If you want to sign up or even run your own league, it’s really easy to do. Just signup on the site, RedCarpetRosters.com, leave me a little note if you want, and you’ll be set up for next season. We begin drafting in October, so you have some time.
Who were the major fantasy film award contenders? You’re in luck, because I will now reveal THE ALL FANTASY TEAMS.
Just a reminder, default setting is fantasy teams have ten starters. The starters are a motion picture, an actor, an actress, a director/screenwriter, an animated/international/documentary feature, an editor/cinematographer, a production designer/costume designer/makeup & hairstyling team, a score composer/sound team/songwriter/visual effects team, and two flex, which can be any position. It’s just like fantasy sports, those are the positions and points are nominations and wins. Check out the FAQs if you’re interested in more details. Link in the show notes. Okay, without further ado, here is the FIRST-TEAM ALL FANTASY SQUAD
PICTURE – Everything Everywhere All at Once with 258. It’s unusual to see a picture atop the leaderboard in total points, but this film had virtually no competition at all the pre-cursor awards. It also got its fair share of genre points. Usually the points are more spread out for pictures, but not this year.
ACTOR – Ke Huy Quan with 159 points. He had little competition, even if he lost the BAFTA to Barry Keoghan.
ACTRESS – Michelle Yeoh with 138 points. The eventual Oscar winner was also popular with the precursors, pretty much getting at least a nomination at every ceremony.
DIR/SCRN – Daniel Kwan with 231 points. The most lovable director with imposter syndrome is on the 1st team. He got loads to points for BOTH directing and writing.
ANI/INT/DOC – Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio with 147 points. Early in the season, documentaries reigned supreme, but by the end, everyone threw their weight behind Pinocchio.
EDIT/CIN – Paul Rogers, Editor for Everything Everywhere All at Once with 89 points. It’s rare for an editor to be on the first team, especially because more ceremonies award cinematography than they do editing. This is a testament to how loved Everything Everywhere is.
PD/CD/MUAH – Catherine Martin, Production and Costume Designer for Elvis with 75 points. The fact that she was a dual threat to double dip points for being both production designer and costume designer made her a shoo-in for the first team.
SCORE/SOUND/SONG/VFX – Daniel Scheinert, the other Daniel, of Everything Everywhere All at Once with 231 points. But wait?? Why is Daniel Scheinert in this category? He didn’t even earn any points for the song he wrote for Everything Everywhere. You’re right, he didn’t. But because he wrote an original song, just not the original song that got points, This Is a Life, that gave him eligibility to be in the Score/Sound/Song/VFX starting slot. It’s like Tom Brady rushing for a touchdown. Doesn’t happen often, but points are points.
And in the two FLEX spots are Martin McDonagh, writer director of The Banshees of Inisherin with 152 points and RRR with 138 points, despite it not being eligible for the Oscars because India chose to submit The Last Film Show instead of RRR, limiting its upside. However RRR got nominated a lot at the other ceremonies that don’t require submissions from their respective countries.
IN the SECOND ALL FANTASY TEAM we have the following:
In the Picture slot, The Banshees of Inisherin with 126 points.
ACTOR Colin Farrell with 124 because he was the critics darling for The Banshees of Inisherin despite losing the Oscar to Brendan Fraser.
ACTRESS Cate Blanchett with 112, who was ahead of Michelle Yeoh earlier in the season.
Director-Writer Todd Field with 128 instead of Martin McDonagh who got a flex spot on the first team instead.
In the Animated/International/Documentary slot is Documentary Fire of Love instead of RRR who got a flex spot on the first team.
In the EDIT/CIN slot, Claudio Mirando of Top Gun: Maverick did enough during the regular season to be on the second team with 89 points. If you were listening very closely, that’s a tie with Paul Rogers on the first team, but because Miranda got ruthlessly snubbed for an Oscar nomination, the edge went to Paul Rogers.
Production Designer Florencia Martin of Babylon is in the PD/CD/MUAH slot with 57 points.
In the SCORE/SOUND/SONG/VFX slot is the VFX of Avatar: The Way of Water with 76 points. It’s rare to see a VFX in here, but Avatar: The Way of Water is a rare film. Usually these all-star teams include a score composer, but not one clear frontrunner emerged from the field.
FLEX spots go to Charlotte Wells for her debut feature Aftersun with 124 points. She pretty much won ALL the breakthrough awards, and was the biggest sleeper pick of the season, except for maybe RRR.
And the final flex spot is Top Gun: Maverick with 118 points, who got nominated everywhere and won most of the genre awards for the ceremonies that had them.
And those are your two all-fantasy teams. If you recognized those names, then a Red Carpet Rosters League is FOR YOU. SIGN UP ALREADY!
So what’s next? The 2022-2023 season is over, but that doesn’t mean the podcast is over until October! Oh no no no. I will be releasing episodes nearly weekly talking about some history of the Oscars, the films that have been released this year that you should be paying attention to for next awards season, and other features including interviews with other film awards fantasy nerds, film nerds, and just plain nerds. There’s plenty to discuss as we make a list of films, cast, and crew eligible to be on your team next season. When I saw Everything Everywhere All at Once in April, I thought, “That Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh could totally win an Oscar for this.” That was in April, folks!
I will also spend the offseason making improvements to the site and the gameplay. Again, check the FAQs in the show notes for more rules of film awards fantasy leagues. Some rules that will be considered for change include how to handle documentaries at documentary-centric awards, taking a deeper dive into the guild awards to make sure they are equitable (like the Annie Awards and the Visual Effects Society Awards have a LOT of categories, unlike, say, the American Cinematographers Society Awards), more flexible waiver rules, BAFTA longlists, what to do with runners-up for the ceremonies that have them since there is currently no points for these if nominations were previously announced, and lastly nailing down criteria for including ceremonies or excluding ceremonies because a lot of entities give film awards and some of those entities are not included in Red Carpet Rosters Leagues. There is almost a one-to-one relationship to a site that I rely on called Next Best Picture, but I don’t want to limit points.
And I will end this episode with some betting picks. Just kidding! However, Bovada does have live betting lines right now for the 96th Academy Awards. All this is doing is just alerting you to some films to look forward to. I'm not touching any of these, but some films to look forward to have some film, cast, and crew for your fantasy team is Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon from Martin Scorsese, Beau is Afraid which is Ari Aster, The Color Purple, Barbie, Maestro, Asteroid city is on there, The Killer, Dune: Part 2 is coming out this year, so a lot of preparations need to be made for next season, and who knows, all of these films will probably be represented on some fantasy team somewhere or Everything Everywhere.
So stay tuned! Turn on notification for future episodes of this podcast. Thank you to Patrick Richards for writing the show music exclusively for Red Carpet Rosters Podcast. This is John. Thanks for listening. See you next time.