Battle of the Normans

The first competition of our director show-down will feature Norman Jewison and Norman Taurog. While initially I had never heard of either of these directors and they seemed to sprout from obscurity from my perspective of limited experience, they are actually incredibly influential, powerful directors with impressive carreers.

Norman Taurog was a director from the earliest days of American filmmaking in the 1920's. He primarily made short films in mass numbers. He became notable for the film Skippy, the adaptation of a comic strip involving impoverished children of the slums. This film won him his best director award in 1931. Unfortunately, we won't be able to watch his first big hit as it is not available on DVD. His next major film nomination came for the film Boys Town, which began Mickey Rooney's carreer. I'm very excited to see him as a teenager. From this point he became more known for comedies rather than hard-hitting dramatic films and his formula for easy-going, family films that involved elements of song was utilized when studios wished to bring Elvis Presley to the screen. Taurog and Presley teamed up for a number of films, all widely successful, including Jail House Rock and Blue Hawaii. Taurog's third most notable credit goes to uniting the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for the first of many highly successful films. We will be watching Pardners, which is considered by many to be the quintessential Martin-Lewis team-up.

Norman Jewison was a highly successful director in the 60's and 70's working in the genres of light comedy, hard-hitting socially concious films, and musicals. One of Jewison's most notable musicals was Jesus Christ Superstar, which managed to tackle a grand theatrical story and bring the essence of the 1960's to the screen. The musical genre and social consciousness came together in the widely successful Fiddler on the Roof. This film granted him a nomination for Best Director from the Academy. He won Best Picture and Best Director for one of the most important race relation films of all time: In the Heat of the Night, which dared to talk about the highly current issue of race relations amid the riots occurring in the late 1960's. His work with race relations and film has never truly ended; in the late 90's, he produced The Hurricane, a film starring Denzel Washington as a boxer who has been wrongfully convicted of a crime and spends life in prison.

I´m very excited to see how this match-up turns out, but seeing as the victor will be meeting up with Wyler, they probably will only see two rounds.

The Match-Ups

Just one more time for reference, the top 32 directors (listed in a previous post) are not competing at all in the first round. The rest of the directors were divided into two groups, "upper" and "lower" and then randomly drawn out of a hat, so that one "upper" director was paired with a "lower" director for the first round of matches. Whomever wins in the first round will then meet up with one of the top 32 directors in the second round. The first round match-ups are as follows:

1. Norman Jewison vs. Norman Taurog (winner faces William Wyler)
2. The Coen Brothers vs. William Friedkin (winner faces Milos Forman)
3. Steven Soderberg vs. John Woo (winner faces George Cukor)
4. Orson Wells vs. Tony Scott (winner faces Joseph Mankewitz)
5. Quintin Terantino vs. Michael Bay (winner faces John Huston)
6. Sidney Pollack vs. George Hill (winner faces Robert Altman)
7. Peter Jackson vs. Bob Fossi (winner faces King Vidor)
8. Buster Keaton vs. Robert Rossin (winner faces Frank Capra)
9. Charlie Chaplin vs. Wes Anderson (winner faces Woody Allen)
10. Frank Borzag vs. Joseph Von Straussberg (winner faces Michael Curtiz)
11. John Hughes vs. David Lynch (winner faces Clint Eastwood)
12. Roman Polanski vs. Sam Wood (winner faces David Lean)
13. Brian DePalma vs. Paul Anderson (winner faces Sydney Lumet)
14. Gus van Sant vs. Warren Beaty (winner faces Francis Ford Coppola)
15. M. Night Shymalan vs. Robert Benton (winner faces Stanley Kubrick)
16. Tim Burton vs. Fritz Lang (winner faces Billy Wilder)
17. Robert Redford vs. James Ivory (winner faces Martin Scorsese)
18. Spike Lee vs. Mark Robson (winner faces Federico Felini)
19. Robert Zemekis vs. Barry Levinson (winner faces Ridley Scott)
20. Ron Howard vs. David Cronenberg (winner faces Eli Kazan)
21. George Lucas vs. Ernst Lubitsch (winner faces George Stevens)
22. Peter Weir vs. Leo McCarey (winner faces Oliver Stone)
23. Mel Brooks vs. Peter Yates (winner faces Cecil B. Demille)
24. Akira Kurisawa vs. Christopher Nolan (winner faces John Ford)
25. Michael Mann vs. Jim Sheraton (winner faces Frank Zinneman)
26. Lewis Milestone vs. Bernardo Bertolucci (winner faces Frank Lloyd)
27. Mel Gibson vs. Richard Brooks (winner faces Clarence Brown)
28. James Cameron vs. Otto Preminger (winner faces Alfred Hitchcock)
29. Howard Hawkes vs. Steven Dawldry (winner faces Mike Nichols)
30. Ang Lee vs. Arthur Penn (winner faces Frank Wise)
31. Ingmar Bergman vs. Vencente Minelli (winner faces Joel Schlesinger)
32. Carol Reed vs. Gore Verbinski (winner faces Steven Spielberg)

So there it is, folks. This part alone will take us about a century to complete. Then comes round two. Hope you'll be along for the crazy ride.

Laura's "Hippie" Rating System

As it seems that in my absence Eirik has taken it upon himself to portray my rating system as a hippie, go-with-the-wind, flight of fancy, I thought I might post to clear things up. There is definitely an element of "just gonna see how it feels" in the way I plan to process the films we are watching during this epic contest, but I think the reasoning behind this system and a more complete description will make me sound like less of a lazy ass. Not that I am any less of one.

Anyhow, I was trying to determine how much research would be going into the watching of each film, especially since Eirik had revealed to me that he was planning on taking technological advancements and impact into consideration. I am of the opinion that a really high quality film should be impactful whether or not the viewer has done research on the film. Also, great directors can produce timeless work that brings the context along with all of the elements in the film, not requiring someone to research the time in which it takes place or the context of the film in order to fully experience it.

I am coming from the perspective of the everyday movie watcher, as someone who would like to experience the film rather than dissect it. I have no intention of guarding myself against information and will welcome input in general conversation and the processing of a film with others who have seen it; these are things that I do all the time when I see movies. Basically, I am going to include everything that Eirik has in his detailed rubric, but rather than researching and examining a film to determine scores in each category, I plan to let the movie wash over me and see how much it impacts me when I watch it for the sake of watching it.

Also, I'm about to have a bunch of homework so I don't need to add any on myself.

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.