Fantasy Acting League – Round One

And the first week of point-scoring is in! I am playing around with how this article will be formatted, so today is a crash course in what works and what doesn’t. I am going to list the movies that were reviewed by Empire magazine and which films helped get the marks across. Then I will list the teams, so we can see how they scored, followed by a breaking down of which actors scored how many points. I am not going to list every actor who scored points, because that will just be unnecessarily long. I do have that list tucked away on my own computer though, so you will have to trust me when it comes to making sure we are not missing any actors. I will let you know which actor scored the highest this week, especially seeing as no one had the highest scoring actresses this time around. Then I am going to close the article on an analysis of what happened. I can already tell you that one player let quite a few sides down when it comes to the team (or maybe Empire’s review did, as I haven’t seen the guilty performance myself). Well, let’s carry on with the article.

This Round’s Movies

Inherent Vice
Blackhat
The Interview
It Follows
Big Hero 6
Trash
Love is Strange
Monsters: Dark Continent
The Duke of Burgundy
Coherence
Son of a Gun
Taken 3
The Turning
Selma
Cake
Predestination
Still Life

The Teams Scores

Where The Wild Things Are – 0
Emily Blunt – 0
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Julianne Moore – 0
Tom Hardy – 0
Benedict Cumberbatch – 0
Jake Gyllenhaal – 0

WordsOfWisTIM – 0
Shailene Woodley – 0
Zoe Saldana – 0
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Tom Cruise – 0
Jake Gyllenhaal – 0
Samuel L. Jackson – 0

Sporadic Chronicles of A Beginner Blogger – 0
Jessica Chastain – 0
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Scarlett Johannsson – 0
Benedict Cumberbatch – 0
Hugh Jackman – 0
Tom Hardy – 0

MovieRob – 0
Emma Stone – 0
Meg Ryan – 0
Natalie Portman – 0
Chris Pratt – 0
Tom Hanks – 0
Bradley Cooper – 0

Marked Movies – 0
Jessica Chastain – 0
Meryl Streep – 0
Naomi Watts – 0
Michael Fassbender – 0
Sam Rockwell – 0
Tom Hardy – 0

What About the Twinkie – 2
Britt Robertson – 0
Jessica Chastain – 0
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Oscar Isaacs – 0
Jeremy Renner – 0
Chris Hemsworth – 2

Oracle of Film – 2
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Scarlett Johannsson – 0
Emma Stone – 0
Tom Hardy – 0
Chris Hemsworth – 2
Oscar Isaac – 0

Debra Vega – 2
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Scarlett Johansson – 0
Elizabeth Banks – 0
Andy Serkis – 0
Jeremy Renner – 0
Chris Hemsworth – 2

Mr. Movie – 3
Sienna Miller – 0
Jennifer Lawrence – 0
Anna Kendrick – 3
Channing Tatum – 0
Samuel L. Jackson – 0
Tom Hardy – 0

Verbal Spew – 5
Anna Kendrick – 3
Helen Mirren – 0
Kate Mara – 0
Channing Tatum – 0
Tom Hardy – 0
Chris Hemsworth – 2

Drew – 7
Natalie Portman – 0
Melissa McCarthy – 0
Cate Blanchett – 5
Channing Tatum – 0
Chris Hemsworth – 2
Tom Hardy – 0

1ST PLACE
Cinema Parrot Disco – 8
Sienna Miller – 0
Anna Kendrick – 3
Cate Blanchette – 5
Tom Hardy – 0
Sam Rockwell – 0
Samuel L Jackson – 0

How the Actors Scored

Cate Blanchett – 5 (Lead role: 3; Four Star movie: 2)
Anna Kendrick – 3 (Supporting Role: 2; Three Star movie: 1)
Chris Hemsworth – 2 (Lead role: 3; Three star movie: 1; Empire criticises performance: -2)

Actor(s) of the Round

Sidse Babett Knudsen – 8 (Lead role: 3; Five star movie: 3; Empire compliments performance: 2)
Chiara D’Anna – 8 (Lead role: 3; Five star movie: 3; Empire compliments performance: 2)

Round Analysis

Wow, what an opening round! This is the part of the article, where I simply talk about how it all went and I think we all know where to start. Chris Hemsworth, man! What the hell happened?! A lot of us, understandably, banked quite a few hopes on the actor this year. As well as Avengers 2, he had the movie scored today Blackhat, and In The Heart of the Sea. However, as a rumour surfaces about how In The Heart of the Sea could be pushed back to January 2016 (it is slightly possible that Empire might manage to review it by the end of 2015 regardless), it could be that the teams that chose Hemsworth as their point-scorer could be the ones who suffer – this includes myself! The only upside here is that almost everyone went for him, so we are not struggling alone and hopefully can keep the competition equal a little while longer. This is where we all have to rely on Empire being a truthful source of reviews. The review states that “Hemsworth struggles as a kind of Jason Bourne with admin rights, an archetype cocktail vacillating improbably between code-prodigy and efficient killer.” It looks like a poor script was the cause of Hemsworth’s failures, but the review technically counts as a criticism towards the performance, so I was forced to knock Hemsworth’s first bout of point-scoring as a mere two points. As someone who hasn’t seen Blackhat, I am hoping that the review was accurate. Right now, I am just going to put it down to one of the unpredictable events that will hopefully make this Fantasy Acting game a great source of fun.

Of course, Empire’s unpredictability worked out for the Cate Blanchett fans. For some reasons, the issue of Empire decided to review ‘The Turning’, an Australian anthology movie that was made in 2013. Blanchett has a staggering five movies that could make it into the cinemas in time for this year of point scoring and as fate would have it, Empire have made that six. Those with the actress in their teams have not only scored five points using her, but five points that they were never expecting to get. On the downside, the review didn’t specifically mention Blanchett (or Anna Kendrick, the other point scorer this round), so I am unable to give her an additional two points.

Let’s discuss the two actresses who scored an incredible 8 points apiece, rated higher than anyone else. Sidse Babett Knudsen and Chiara d’Anna are the two actresses who have the lead roles for Romanian drama, the Duke of Burgundy, a movie that Empire rated five stars, complementing the two leads lavishly. Let’s not be too down-hearted that we didn’t select them in our team. We will probably never hear from them again all year, meaning that their grand total of 8 will probably remain 8 when the year ends. We should feel a little more gutted that we missed some of the more famous actors who scored 7 points, a long list that includes Joaquin Phoenix from Inherent Vice, Maika Monroe from It Follows and David Oyelowo from Selma.

But let’s end on a high note, especially to appease our two South African players who are swearing in Afrikaans at the rest of us. It’s the first week and there is still everything to play for. There are still some terrific actors who haven’t left the starting grid just yet and no one has a lead that is disastrously unbeatable. Let’s just applaud Cinema Parrot Disco for proving herself the most knowledgeable, when it comes to actor selecting and look forward to what next month will bring (the next round will hopefully be around February 26th.