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| The Bracket (after first round) |
Round of 64 Reflections: West Region
For the first time in Movie Madness history, all 8 first round matches in a region went to the higher seed. So there’s not much to say. The 8-9 match between Field of Dreams and A Christmas Story was fun to watch, since there are so few matches that really go back and forth and come down to the wire. But the big story is that Star Wars is out of the tournament. Completely. I really thought The Force Awakens could make a run based on the strength of its lineage. The Star Wars movies are 14-2 in this tournament. Not too bad. And no, none of the prequels have made it. So I’m a little surprised that given A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back have been retired, that the Star Wars freaks didn’t just latch their wagons to the only movie they could in the tournament. Thank you, Toy Story.
Round of 64 Reflections: East Region
Much like the West Region, there weren’t really any surprises here. The only upset, if you can call it that, was the #9 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 beating #8 My Cousin Vinny by 2 points. I suppose that’s a compliment to our selection committee. There have only been 4 upsets so far in 24 matches. By this time last year, there were twice that many. For whatever that means.
The biggest surprise in this region came when it looked for a time that Schindler’s List might beat Dark Knight. I had my choice of all 8 matches to put up on Easter Sunday and picked the one I thought would be the biggest blowout (because I figured Facebook action would be lower than usual), and I was pleasantly surprised. Ultimately, Dark Knight won 41-35, but it gave me hope for Life Is Beautiful on the other side of that region (which ultimately scored a region-low 11 points in a blowout loss to The Usual Suspects). But it was nice to see a rather deep movie get some love in this tournament.
Round of 64 Reflections: South Region
#10 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King upset #7 Miracle, but the real story in this region was the redemption of The Sandlot over Office Space, the movie that knocked it out of the tournament last season in the second round. It is the first overtime match in three seasons. When I let it run to the requisite 24 hours for close matches, it was knotted up at 40. In all honesty, I didn’t really have a publicized overtime procedure. I had decided a long, long time ago – before there was even a group for this tournament – that in the rare event of a tie, the win would go to the higher seed. But that didn’t seem fair at all. So I decided to let it go until I checked back and the tie was broken. Which it was within minutes by one of Bobby’s minions. It was a fun ending to watch. Congrats to The Sandlot for the revenge victory and for making it two #12 seeds to advance to the second round (The Breakfast Club). Also, congrats to The Lion King for being the only movie to score in the 70s this entire tournament. Lastly, I am still amazed at how little love Die Hard gets in this group. This is the second time it has gone out in the first round of the three tournaments we’ve had. I understand Big Fish and Frequency aren’t going the distance, but Die Hard is always in the discussion of the best action movies of all time. I’d think it would be more popular. Oh well. I guess that’s why they call it madness.
Congratulations to Tamara Lords, Movie Madness rookie, for correctly picking 29 of the 32 first round matches. She still, in fact, has all but one of her remaining Sweet 16. Also, John Weatherley seems in a good position to repeat as champion (co-champion to be specific), having picked 27 of the first 32 correct, but with all of his Sweet 16 still in tact. Good luck to all of you in the back half of the tournament, and most of all, keep voting! And keep adding people against their will. (Note: I kinda messed up and nobody got credit for picking Monty Python correctly in the first round. I'm not proud, but it's been fixed, just not updated in the list below, so please settle down. Thank you.)
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| The Standings (after first round) |
