My Vote

So my last and final setup post before the actual contest begins will be about how it is that I am coming to my decisions about films. While it appears that Batgirl will be applying the "How did it make me feel" mantra to her votes I felt that if I really wanted to do this right I had to put a little more thought into hw it was that I am coming to a decison on these films.

So will mulling it over I felt that it was important to put as much as effort as possible into discovering a way to make it so that no genre of film or era of film was signifigantly benefited or hindered by my decision. So my vote is going to be based on 5 catagories each with a ranking of 1-10 for a maximum score of 50 each film. Each director will then have 2 scores per round which will then be averaged for their average score for their films. The director with the higher average score moves on. This I think helps to promote those directors that consistently made excellent work rather than simply having a great film that get one or two amazing scores. Also as we move from round to round and new scores are brought in all the directors scores will be averaged to create their single average score for moving on or not.

Now the Five catagories I sill be using are ( each will be rated on a 1-10 scale per film) :

1. Genre- What genre was the film and how effective, influential, and creative was the film within that genre? This will benefit directors who shot exclusivley within a genre and make it possible to compare Teminator to The Maltese Falcon without signifigantly harming either.

2. Characters- Did the film craft full and complete characters? Were these chracters new and interesting and interact properly with themselves and plot the elements of the film? This is again possible to judge cross genre and eassily throughout time.

3. Mood, Theme, and Abience- How did the director utilize the non-plot driven elements of the film to complete the film? Again something that is going to be doable cross genre.

4. Inventiveness- In what ways was this film groundbreaking? This catagory is going to include both techinle achievements in film making as well as in new plot elements that then become standard or character interactions that become standard plot devices afterwards. This I think will help to benefit earlier films that may seem typical to a modern viewer that has seen the same plot elements over and over again in later films. But it will also to be possible to note which plot elements of new current films feel new and fresh.

5. Film Quality- How did the overall film fit together to make a singular statement or story? What wpic movie moments were created? Also did the director do at making a complete film?

Directors (cont.)

So the directors have been seeded as follows:
#1- Steven Spielberg, William Wyler, Billy Wilder, Martin Scorsese
#2- Woody Allen, Fred Zinneman, John Ford, Frank Capra,
#3- Alfred Hitchcok, John Huston, David Lean, Geroge Stevens,
#4- Elia Kazan, Sydney Lumet, Joseph Mankewikz, Mike Nichols,
#5- Francis Ford Coppolla, Geroge Cukor, Ridley Scott, Robert Wise,
#6- Oliver Stone, Robert Altman, Clarence Brown, Clint Eastwood,
#7- King Vidor, Michael Curtiz, Frank Lloyd, Stanley Kubrick,
#8- Milos Forman, Cecil B. Demile, Federico Fellini, Joel Schlesinger

These directors will have no oppenent in the first round.

Now the final 64 we broke into higher and lower group and then randomly paired them about the brackets:

Higher Group (in no particular order) Lower Group (again no order)
1. Charlie Chaplin 1. Michael Bay
2. Peter Weir 2. Leo McCarey
3. Ron Howard 3. John Woo
4. Peter Jackson 4. Tony Scott
5. Norman Jewison 5. Bob Fosse
6. Sydney Pollack 6. Wes Anderson
7. Roman Polanski 7. Paul Anderson
8. Carol Reed 8. Warren Beatty
9. Ingmar Bergman 9. Richard Brooks
10. David Lynch 10. Stephen Daldry
11. Steven Soderbergh 11. Barry Levinson
12. Frank Borzag 12. William Friedkin
13. Robert Zemeckis 13. Robert Benton
14. Robert Redford 14. Bernardo Bertolucci
15. James Cameron 15. Vincente Minelli
16. Mel Gibson 16. Geroge Hill
17. Howard Hawks 17. Norman Taurog
18. Ang Lee 18. Peter Yates
19. Spike Lee 19. Josef Von Sternberg
20. Michael Mann 20. Jim Sheridan
21. M. Night Shaymalan 21. Robert Rossen
22. Gus Van Sant 22. Mark Robson
23. Coen Bros. 23. Otto Preminger
24. Brian De Palma 24. Sam Wood
25. Mel Brooks 25. Arthur Penn
26. Buster Keaton 26. Ernst Lubitsch
27. George Lucas 27. Jamesd Ivory
28. Quentin Tarantino 28. Gore Verbinski
29. Orson Welles 29. Christopher Nolan
30. Tim Burton 30. Joel Cronenberg
31. John Hughes 31. Fritz Lang
32. Akira Kurosawa 32.

Directors

I have decided to combine two posts into one to sort of speed this setup process along. So therefore I am going to include both who the directors are and how they were seeded in this post.

Seeding for those that don’t know is a tool for tournament makers to attempt to ensure that the teams most likely to win meet in the championship match. Basically instead of randomly picking names out of a hat and possibly having the two top directors meet in the first round you rank the directors based on how you think they are going to do and put them at different places in the bracket to ensure that if they win your top matches will be towards the end of the tournament.

For this tournament we broke directors into groups of four and then randomly pulled them out of a hat for the top spots to still give some spontaneity to it. This would be very similar to how March Madness NCAA Championship Tournament is done.

Normally seeding is based on a team record or ranking but we don’t really have that when it comes to directors so I’ve again decided to base this on awards won and other distinctions. So basically directors received ranking points for the following: 3 points for a film that won either best picture or director in the Academy Awards. 2 points for a film wining either best director or best picture in the Golden Globes or is on the AFI top 100 movies list. And Finally 1 point for each film that that otherwise did not get the director a point but I feel is of noteworthy significance.

The Rules

Each Round two directors will face off.

We will watch 2 new films from each director per round and then based on that information determine who will move on in the tournament. In each successive round the director’s previous films watched will be considered as well as the films watched for that round.

If a director runs out of movies only the films watched in previous rounds will be considered. But the lack of film material will can be considered towards whether or not they move on in the tournament.

Director’s films will be selected for viewing in order from most hyped to least hyped. Films will first be selected where the director won the academy award for best director. Next films in which the director did not win best director but won best picture. Following that films that did not win the Academy Award for either award but won the Best Directing Category in the Golden Globes. Following that films that won the Best Picture in the Golden Globes. Following winning films will be films that were nominated for the above awards and did not win also following the same order of importance. Following that we will defer to the highest films that the director has on the AFI top 100 movies of all time. Once that list has been exhausted films will be selected based on whichever film the director is most known for amongst their remaining films. At this point it will likely be subjective but I will attempt to consult as many notable sources as possible. If there are ever films that are tied the films highest on the AFI top 100 will be the tie breaker. If that fails to work we will select the films that we most want to see.

If a film is inaccessible (i.e. not on DVD and therefore not retrievable via Netflix) then it cannot be considered in the tournament.

Both I and batgirl reserve the right to go back and adjust our reviews or picks based on the viewing of more material or changing of our mind. All reasons for adjustments though will be noted in the individual review.

Decisions of which director moves on in the tournament will be made based on whatever system the individual reviewer has decided to use. I believe that Batgirl has chosen to use some sort of hippie power whatever feels best system. While I on the other hand have determined a far more rigorous scoring system that I will blog about in the future.

Project Overview

I have started this blog to chronicle what is easily the most ambitious, likely longest, and certainly unnecessary projects of my life. Determining whom is my all time favorite film director. Now I understand that most people when confronted with a task like this normally rack their brain remembering favorite films and usually pick the first director they come across twice or perhaps dig a little deeper and watch a few films by some of the greats and then make a choice and call it a day.

But (unfortunately for me and anyone subjected to the future of this blog) that’s not my style. I have instead created the first (at least to my knowledge and I am sure as hell not going to look into whether it’s true or not) There Can Be Only One March (starting in July) Madness Director Showdown To The Death!!!...(not to the death).

We (and by we I mean me and my unfortunate co-blogger and girlfriend Batgirl who didn’t tell me to stop) have selected the 96 all time most recognizable/decorated/hyped directors of all time, placed them in a giant Tournament Seeded Bracket where they will face off 1-1 placing their best 2 films against one another and the winner moving on until a champion has been crowned.

Now a quick math breakdown has shown that with an 2 movie minimum per round per director and assuming an average running time of 2 hours per film were looking at a minimum of 760 hours of movie watching and I’m pretty sure that’s conservative.

Now I’m sure you have tons of questions: What Are the Rules? What Director’s Were Picked? Where Can I Complain About What Director’s Were Picked? What Qualifications Did You Use For Seeding The Tournament? What The Hell Is Seeding? Did You Make Some Sort of Giant Tournament Bracket For This And Hang It In Your Living Room? All these Questions and more, in fact many more, in fact far too many more questions to be answered in the posts to come. So tune in next week (or whenever I next post) Same Completely Under-Qualified Movie Critic Time, Same Completely Under-Qualified Movie Critic Channel.