[Phalanges]

The voting forum can be found here: Movie Madness


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

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
6. 12 Angry Men (1957)
7. Schindler's List (1993)
8. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
9. Inception (2010)
10. The Dark Knight (2008)
11. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
12. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
13. Seven Samurai (1954)
14. Fight Club (1999)
15. Goodfellas (1990)
16. Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
17. Casablanca (1942)
18. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
19. City of God (2002)
20. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
21. Rear Window (1954)
22. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
23. The Matrix (1999)
24. The Usual Suspects (1995)
25. Psycho (1960)
26. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
27. Se7en (1995)
28. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
29. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
30. Memento (2000)
31. Forrest Gump (1994)
32. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
33. Leon (1994)
34. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
35. Toy Story 3 (2010)
36. Apocalypse Now (1979)
37. Citizen Kane (1941)
38. American History X (1998)
39. North by Northwest (1959)
40. American Beauty (1999)
41. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
42. Taxi Driver (1976)
43. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
44. Alien (1979)
45. Vertigo (1958)
46. Amelie (2001)
47. Spirited Away (2001)
48. The Shining (1980)
49. Paths of Glory (1957)
50. City Lights (1931)
51. WALL·E (2008)
52. The Pianist (2002)
53. Double Indemnity (1944)
54. M (1931)
55. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
58. The Departed (2006)
59. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
60. Aliens (1986)
61. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
62. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
63. Das Boot (1981)
64. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

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:

Show

There are 64 films, which means there will be:
Round of 64 - 32 matches
Round of 32 - 16 matches
Round of 16 - 8 matches
Round of 8 - 4 matches
Round of 4 - 2 matches
Round of 2 - final.
As you can see that means there will be a bottleneck at the start, but the higher interest will probably be in the later rounds when the more favoured entries are paired together.
On top of this the bracket is split into 4 divisions of 16 teams, (so 8 matches -> 4 matches -> 2 matches -> 1 match -> combined with another division -> grand final). I think this makes it relatively easy to organise in terms of a timeline:
Day 1: First sixteen rounds of 64 (from Div A and B)
Day 4: Second sixteen rounds of 64 (from Div C and D)
Day 7: First eight rounds of 32 (from Div A and B)
Day 10: Final eight round of 32 (from Div C and D)
Day 13: First four rounds of 16 (from Div A and B)
Day 16: Final four rounds of 16 (from Div C and D)
Day 19: First two rounds of 8 (from Div A and B)
Day 22: Final two rounds of 8 (from Div C and D)
Day 25: Semi finals
Day 28: Final
Day 31: Grand Champion Unveiled

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

Correct prediction in round of 64: 1 point
Correct prediction in round of 32: 2 points
Correct prediction in round of 16: 3 points
Correct prediction in quarter-final: 4 points
Correct prediction in semi-final: 6 points
Correct prediction in final: 10 points

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.

[Phalanges]

List of prediction brackets:

aeterno
Ape Gone Insane
arched_pigeon
Beska
Brotherhood
cadaeibfeceh
cambo21
Champagne Supernova
chocothunder
Cll_ws
Circadian_Rhythm
Davott
Ice_Queen
Illusionary
Kagutsuchi
kflynn
kuks
letsdothetimewarpagain
Madjackismad
MHorman
Mo-Amin
paddy_power
Phalanges
Piggy's Galsses
rich2606
RK
skipp
soulofanewmachine
Stricof
Teaddict
The Cornerstone
TobeTheHero

Edit: Updated to include brackets submitted up to 2:00am 13/07/2011 (post #83)

[Phalanges]

Here's my attached prediction bracket.

[cambo211]

Intriguing

[Phalanges]

(Original post by cambo211)
Intriguing

I refuse to believe you read it all that quickly.

[Ape Gone Insane]

Like i09 Movie Madness, I shall add to the list of thoughts:

Intriguing.

[cambo211]

(Original post by Phalanges)
I refuse to believe you read it all that quickly.

Skim read. Got the jist of it sorting my predictions out now

[Ape Gone Insane]

How are people going to vote for so many match-ups? A whole forum dedicated to this?

[Phalanges]

(Original post by Ape Gone Insane)
How are people going to vote for so many match-ups? A whole forum dedicated to this?

The plan is that there will be a new forum created specifically for this (like there was for the TSR awards, with closed voting threads), yes.

[Obadetona]

Resevoir Dogs just got bumped out of the top 64

[cambo211]

Some of the brackets are just evil.

You can't ask me to choose between Forrest Gump and Toy Story

[Ape Gone Insane]

Exact thing I got stuck on.

[Phalanges]

(Original post by Obadetona)
Resevoir Dogs just got bumped out of the top 64

Unfortunately I couldn't be doing it all in real-time, so the list was accurate when I started finalising everything a couple of weeks back.

[cambo211]

(Original post by Phalanges)
Unfortunately I couldn't be doing it all in real-time, so the list was accurate when I started finalising everything a couple of weeks back.

Last time i checked it wasn't called 'Raiders Of The Last Ark'

[UniversityLAD]

How very exciting.

[ByronicHero]

I've seen a majority from the list I think so may as well do this.

[Jace Falco]

(Original post by Phalanges)
Unfortunately I couldn't be doing it all in real-time, so the list was accurate when I started finalising everything a couple of weeks back.

Also, Reservoir Dogs is fantastic

I will definitely do this.

At some point.

[ByronicHero]

Some of those choices are really hard.

Eternal Sunshine and TSSR are both excellent films.

[ByronicHero]

It's a wonderful life is such a good film, I may have to vote for it above American Beauty

[cadaeibfeceh]

My predictions (love the idea btw)