Hey I’m Amelia, I make the Unofficial Movies Fantasy League Spreadsheet, and this is a movie blog where I write some other thoughts about Movies Fantasy League or awards season or whatever.
We’re still early enough in the season there’s not much happening so I will take this inaugural blog post to self-indulgently share the agonizing decision-making process that led me to my personal MFL roster:
- Hamnet
- One Battle After Another
- Sentimental Value
- KPop Demon Hunters
- The Testament of Ann Lee
- Sorry, Baby
- Weapons
- The Voice of Hind Rajab
I spent many days mentally debating, impatiently waiting for festival buzz to percolate, going back and forth in a special new spreadsheet I made specifically to look at possible rosters and eventually even price out possible points to compare dollar values. The end result is pretty close to movies I was leaning towards early on; with so much uncertainty I was forced to follow my heart or my gut or my random vibes.
Hamnet was the first sure thing on my roster with its good early buzz, plus I love to draft a woman director. One Battle After Another locked in pretty soon after that review embargo ended. Sentimental Value was an early pick that I went back and forth over endlessly about whether I thought it was worth the price tag. It seemed like it might have the juice, but should go for something like House of Dynamite which based on early reactions seem like it might also have the juice but would leave more money on the table for either one more mid-sized movie or some $5 bets. In the end the number of potential acting nominees plus the fact it seems win-competitive for International Feature (plus my love The Worst Person in the World) made me stick with Sentimental Value. And to be honest as I’m writing this, if sentimental value is the downfall of my roster that seems sort of fitting for myself as a person.
One thing I realized as I was gaming out different roster points possibilities is that nominations across the board only get you so far. The real points are in winning. It seems not out of the question for KPop Demon Hunters to sweep animated feature and/or song, either one of which would give it a solid points per dollar value.
I was intrigued by early buzz for The Testament of Ann Lee, then dropped it for a while when there were no distribution announced. I don’t want to know how many times I googled “testament of ann lee distribution” or scrolled through Deadline waiting for something that would give me permission to add this back into my picks. “Weird musical with Amanda Seyfried” seemed right up my alley and there was enough positive buzz that it seemed like it could end up as a big player. Finally after enough time spent refreshing reddit threads while walking around Berlin, I made the decision on the final day of drafting to go for it and trust the whispers that something would be announced. I’m very relieved it did, and now praying to Shaker Jesus that it’s good and gets a big awards push beyond Seyfried.
I also spent a lot of time looking at smaller dollar picks because they can be where the game is won and lost. My $3 picks are very different films but it seems like there’s a lot of love for both Sorry, Baby and Weapons. Either one could be a dark horse for screenplay nominations. I’m hoping Sorry, Baby shows up in various indie/first feature prizes. It seems like the various pundits really want Amy Madigan supporting actress to happen, which may or may not be enough to make anything happen, but the movie is well liked and it made money so maybe it shows up in at least hair and makeup.
Lastly, The Voice of Hind Rajab seemed like the most promising of $1 picks, it’s gotta show up in some International Feature lineups. (Though that field seems very strong this year and maybe it loses the discourse cycle or loses steam from its Venice momentum. Then again Ms. Rachel was posting a lot about it on Instagram and nothing but respect for my president.)
Honorable Mention to The Secret Agent which was on my lineup during the period where I thought about giving up on Ann Lee. I am worried dropping it might have been a mistake since people are saying Wagner Moura could be win-competitive but ultimately I had to follow my heart to go with Ann Lee and after some spreadsheet math I decided the combined potential of Weapons and Sorry, Baby was stronger than Secret Agent and another $1 buy. I also really think the Spongebob movie could make Money but similarly did not have room to make that bet.
Because none of my picks seem particularly out there I was very worried about the possibility of someone having the exact same roster as me. (Last year I feel like I had some more out there picks, maybe due partly to me being less insanely dialed in and partly that betting on Gladiator II meant a larger percentage of my roster was $5 buys and surely no one else went for The Outrun and The Fire Inside.) Once the Gotham nominations were on the leaderboard, I did click through everyone else tied for 3,460th place and as far as I can tell no one else has this exact combination.
In some ways my confidence in my roster made the selection process more stressful. Last year, my aforementioned drafting of Gladiator II mixed with the fact that it never even occurred to me to draft Wicked, meant that early on it was clear I was not going to be a contender, and for me tracking the various movie scores became the game itself, like a baseball fan keeping their own scorecard in the stands. I could be proud of the performance of my low dollar picks All We Imagine as Light and Flow without having to beat myself up for thinking about drafting The Substance but then convincing myself it didn’t have the juice. Only time will tell if I have a similar folly this year!
There are so many movies and lots of them seem good and I have seen almost none of them. A fun fact about me is I’m actually very bad at watching movies. For all my strong feelings at the time of drafting I had seen zero movies on my roster. To date I have only seen One Battle After Another. Time will tell whether I manage to watch my entire roster this year. Last year I finished my annual quest to watch every Oscar best picture nominee in record time but only managed to get 5/8 of my roster (only two films overlapped). Maybe this year I accomplish both! Or maybe the universe makes it easy and every movie on my roster will be nominated for best picture and I win the whole thing!
This has been a movie blog. As I wrote in my about:
I have decided to simply not disclaim or hand-wring about whether or not I presume that literally anyone is reading this. (Examining the extent to which literally everything I do online is or isn’t for attention is another blog post for another blog.) I’m happy with my movie blog diary. That said, I have comments turned on and I encourage anybody who has found their way here to chime in. Partly because I do constantly crave external validation, but mostly because rambling into the void is more fun if the void makes some conversation too.
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