Who Is Sydney Pollack?

Welcome March Madness participants (and random surfers of the inter-webs)!
It's my first blog post of the spring, and I can promise you I've been studying up for the coming tournament...

Not by looking at college basketball stats, though. I've been busy creating statistics of my own, and I've focused my attention on the competition - YOU!
After 12 years of running the Player's Club Invitational, the Commish has collected quite a few numbers on player performance (except for 2002 and 2003). Now it's time to break them down, and see who's been maximizing their bracket potential on a consistent basis. (Hint: It's not Robert)

A quick discussion of my methodology:
For each player, I tabulated results on (a) annual finish i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd place, (b) annual total points, and (c) annual percentile rank (because the amount of participants changes each year). I averaged all of these numbers over the last 9 years. In order to make these numbers easy to understand, I assigned players an actor or actress name. The average percentile rank corresponds with a thespian in the 2013 Commishtical Index of Acting (CIA). The CIA rankings were partly determined by data from the AMC Movie Database, Box Office Mojo, and the Golden Raspberry Awards and partly determined by my personal judgment.
As an example, if you usually finish in the 92nd percentile, you're on par with Paul Newman or Grace Kelly. However, if you usually place in the 3rd percentile, you're a regular Pauly Shore or Elizabeth Berkley, making bad choices year after year (or you're no longer getting work).
In addition, I provided the last good movie of each actor/actress (6.8 rating or better of a film (not animated or TV movie) on IMDB).

(By the way, I currently only have results for people who played in last year's pool.
The Commishtical Index of Acting 2013 is available upon request.)

Look below to see if you're an Oscar contender, or if you're getting ripped by Rotten Tomatoes.
Let's start with the five rookies from last year:


Sharon (stepmom)
2012 Finish : 2
2012 Points : 137
2012 Percentile : 93
Actor/Actress Rank : Elizabeth Taylor
Last Good Movie : Reflections In a Golden Eye (1967)

Brett
2012 Finish : 14
2012 Points : 80
2012 Percentile : 53
Actor/Actress Rank : Jesse Eisenberg
Last Good Movie : The Social Network (2010)


Colin
2012 Finish : 23
2012 Points : 59
2012 Percentile : 23
Actor/Actress Rank : Sylvester Stallone
Last Good Movie : Rocky Balboa (2006)


Greg
2012 Finish : 4
2012 Points : 109
2012 Percentile : 87
Actor/Actress Rank : Humphrey Bogart
Last Good Movie : The Harder They Fall (1956)

Tim D.
2012 Finish : 5
2012 Points : 109
2012 Percentile : 83
Actor/Actress Rank : James Stewart
Last Good Movie : The Shootist (1976)

As you can tell, some of our rookies are quite talented, but they need to keep honing their craft if they want to be relevant a few years from now.  Here's a look at the pool veterans, starting with yours truly.  For the record, I think Casey Affleck is a better actor than Ben Affleck:


The Commish
Average Finish : 12
Average Points : 87
Average Percentile : 55
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Ben Affleck
Last Good Movie : Argo (2012)

Brock
Average Finish : 14
Average Points : 82
Average Percentile : 48
Experience : 8 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Topher Grace
Last Good Movie : Traffic (2000)

Bill Butler
Average Finish : 5
Average Points : 100
Average Percentile : 82
Experience : 4 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Christoph Waltz
Last Good Movie : Django Unchained (2012)

Tom
Average Finish : 11
Average Points : 85
Average Percentile : 59
Experience : 8 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Frank Langella
Last Good Movie : Robot and Frank (2012)

Rick (brother)
Average Finish : 13
Average Points : 77
Average Percentile : 49
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Luke Wilson
Last Good Movie : 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Nancy (Mom)
Average Finish : 15
Average Points : 76
Average Percentile : 38
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Chloe Moretz
Last Good Movie : Hugo (2011)

Tina (sister-in-law)
Average Finish : 9
Average Points : 91
Average Percentile : 64
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Anne Bancroft
Last Good Movie : Torch Song Trilogy (1988)






Jim (Dad)
Average Finish : 9
Average Points : 90
Average Percentile : 64
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Casey Affleck
Last Good Movie : Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Peter L.
Average Finish : 9
Average Points : 87
Average Percentile : 65
Experience : 7 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Jake Gyllenhaal
Last Good Movie End of Watch (2012)

Aunt Pat
Average Finish : 14
Average Points : 73
Average Percentile : 47
Experience : 7 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Kristen Bell
Last Good Movie : Stuck in Love (2012)

Charles (The Chuckman)
Average Finish : 13
Average Points : 80
Average Percentile : 47
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Eddie Murphy
Last Good Movie : Coming to America (1988)

Paula (cousin)
Average Finish : 14
Average Points : 81
Average Percentile : 48
Experience : 8 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Sarah Michelle Gellar
Last Good Movie : The Air I Breathe (2007)

Michael B.
Average Finish : 17
Average Points : 65
Average Percentile : 35
Experience : 7 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Chris Hemsworth
Last Good Movie : The Avengers (2012)

Brian (Showcase)
Average Finish : 12
Average Points : 81
Average Percentile : 53
Experience : 8 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Jesse Eisenberg
Last Good Movie : The Social Network (2010)

Michael H. (son of Alison)
Average Finish : 14
Average Points : 78
Average Percentile : 46
Experience : 8 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Rob Lowe
Last Good Movie : Thank You For Smoking (2005)

Alison (cousin)
Average Finish : 17
Average Points : 71
Average Percentile : 35
Experience : 9 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Michelle Monaghan
Last Good Movie : Machine Gun Preacher (2011)

Robert
Average Finish : 20
Average Points : 65
Average Percentile : 24
Experience : 7 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Macaulay Culkin
Last Good Movie : Saved! (2004)

Bill Bowman
Average Finish : 14
Average Points : 81
Average Percentile : 43
Experience : 5 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Sydney Pollack
Last Good Movie : Michael Clayton (2007)

Sue Bowman
Average Finish : 12
Average Points : 81
Average Percentile : 54
Experience : 5 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Katie Holmes
Last Good Movie : Thank You For Smoking (2005)

Kim
Average Finish : 13
Average Points : 79
Average Percentile : 52
Experience : 5 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Ethan Hawke
Last Good Movie : Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)


Uncle Bill
Average Finish : 10
Average Points : 92
Average Percentile : 61
Experience : 6 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Timothy Olyphant
Last Good Movie : Live Free or Die Hard (2007)


Jamie DiFranco
Average Finish : 24
Average Points : 57
Average Percentile : 14
Experience : 3 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Tom Arnold
Last Good Movie : Gardens of the Night (2008)

Bruce
Average Finish : 18
Average Points : 58
Average Percentile : 31
Experience : 3 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Robert Pattinson
Last Good Movie : Water for Elephants (2011)


And the best for last...

Missy
Average Finish : 17
Average Points : 59
Average Percentile : 37
Experience : 2 years
Actor/Actress Rank : Zhang Ziyi
Last Good Movie : Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)



To answer my original question, Sydney Pollack is an actor from such films as "Eyes Wide Shut" and " Tootsie" AND an Oscar-winning director ("Out of Africa").
He is pictured above with Meryl Streep. She's been in a few good movies, but I can't think of one off the top of my head...