Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the biggest event on TSR since the website decided to try and break the record for longest birthday celebrations, or that time the man from the Government came to tell us all about his favourite type of ice cream. Indeed, a spectacle not to be missed. I present to you... Movie Madness.
What is it?
Movie Madness is a knockout competition for films. Think of Wimbledon, but with all of the walking Nike adverts and grunters replaced with moments of celluloid perfection. 64 films have been seeded and placed into a bracket, and the contest will proceed through with one film progressing from each match-up onto the next round until only one remains to be declared the victor. A TSR poll will decide the outcome of each match-up.
What films are involved?
It was debated long and hard as to which films should be included, and ultimately it was decided that the fairest way was to use the top 64 films as decided by IMDB. This was favourable over just having me pick a list as it wouldn't be much fun for you all to choose between documentaries you'd never heard of, and opening it up for the entire forum to decide as that would result in lots of films with just one or two votes, so it would still be a case of me picking them (as well as ruining the surprise), and once those options have been ruled out there's little other available options left. Now, I expect this selection will generate some contention and questions, so let me try and pre-empt those. No, I do not think that the IMDB list is a list of the best films. No, I don't think this contest will find the "best" film, as I don't believe that's possible. Yes, there are better films than some of those included. I'm sorry your favourite one isn't here. No, I've never seen M either.
The films taking part, with their rankings
How long will this last?
We aim to start next Wednesday. We're going to put up the voting rounds in batches initially so as not to overload everyone with polls. You will be able to vote on each pairing for three days, which should hopefully be enough time for everyone who wants to take part to visit the site without dragging on too long. You can see the expected tournament timeline in the spoiler below:
Spoiler
Predictions
No good bracket would be complete without an element of competition, and that's precisely what this will offer. You'll notice I've attached the starting bracket to the bottom of this post - you can take this and fill it out with your predictions of how the competition will turn out until next Wednesday. During the course of the tournament they will then be scored (according to the scoring points guide, see below) and there will be a leaderboard of members taking part. In the rare event that two people submit the same predictions bracket, only the first submitted will be counted (this is to prevent duplication and confusion).
There may even be some prizes available to the winners. I am currently in the process of trying to finalise this, so keep an eye out for more announcements about this!
I am going to keep a record of everyone who has entered a bracket in the first post under this one. You can see my completed bracket in the third post as an example of how to enter (simply upload your new spreadsheet with your username in the title onto a post).
Scoring chart
How can I get involved?
At the minute, the main goal is to let as many people know about what we are doing ahead of the start of the competition starting next Wednesday. This has taken a not-insignificant amount of time for us to organise, and that workload is only going to increase over the next month, so we want to see this be as big as it possibly can be. So fill out your predictions, discuss the match-ups you're most looking forwards to, and tell everyone on other parts of the site about this event that may not have heard to get as many people interested as there can be (perhaps even put the slogan or logo in your sig). Any questions you have about it, let me know.
64 films. 31 days. 1 winner. 828,205 members. 1 vote each. Make it count.