About a potential next tournament

[Iwritecode]

As for filmographies, I meant doing every film an actor or director or anyone made.

Wouldn't that essentially be a best actor or director tourney?

Or are you talking about judging an actor based on the movies he's been in rather than the actor himself?

[mae]

Yes, for example, doing a tournament of Steven Spielberg films. Or Jack Nicholson films. Something like that.

[Girlystevedave]

Yes, for example, doing a tournament of Steven Spielberg films. Or Jack Nicholson films. Something like that.

I think that's a pretty cool idea.

[Iwritecode]

It’s an interesting idea but I think it might be difficult to separate the actors themselves from the films they’ve been in. There are movies that I like with actors that I don’t necessarily like. There are also actors that I really like that have made some bad movies.

It also might be difficult to credit one actor to a specific film. Say Dodgeball. Is that a Vince Vaughn film or a Ben Stiller film?

Or am I thinking about this all wrong?

[pathoftheturtle]

It’s an interesting idea but I think it might be difficult to separate the actors themselves from the films they’ve been in. There are movies that I like with actors that I don’t necessarily like. There are also actors that I really like that have made some bad movies.

It also might be difficult to credit one actor to a specific film. Say Dodgeball. Is that a Vince Vaughn film or a Ben Stiller film?

Or am I thinking about this all wrong?

It depends on what you're doing it for. In theory, we could do tourneys for everyone, just for the sake of doing a lot of tourneys. It would only take two or three poll threads to put the major works of even major players up for vote. In that case, you would have to wonder, "Should I vote for the best movie this actor has been in, or for the best performance by him in particular?" But it wouldn't really matter because the entire poll wouldn't really stand for anything. I've suggested we do some of these mini-tourneys preparatory to a larger category. One of the ways the nominating procedure might be used to manipulate the outcome of a tournament would be if someone thinks, "The Marx Brothers are great, but I don't know if anyone else thinks so. If I nominate half a dozen of their movies, there will be more chances later for one of them to win than there will be for some comedian who only has one film entered." To improve our selections, we could add an apparatus to narrow various fields ahead of time. This would need to be clearly intentional. If one person says, "Dodgeball was not the best Ben Stiller movie, I move we send it to a pre-nominating thread." and another person says, "But I liked Vince Vaughn in that." then it could be run both ways, and then if it wins either one, move on to face whatever film from the other that's found to be better alongside of all our other best choices. That would make the entire voting activity more informative, as it would show some indication of why we make the choices that we do, which is currently missing when you just look at the statistical results of blindly polling from lists thrown together out of whatever got mentioned first by whoever happened to come along.

[Mattrick]

Getting into filmographies is a little too OCD for my tastes lol.

[fernandito]

Yeah, that sounds very cumbersome tbh.

[pathoftheturtle]

The whole thing is to me, to be frank. What good does all the work of setting up a tournament and voting do? If it gets more people to come to this forum and talk about the movies, that is good, IMO, because it's the talk between people that I find interesting. If it has the opposite effect, though, where somebody says "Look, turned out the most popular winner is something I already knew about, so there's no reason left to hang out in here any more." then that's just silly, and I don't know why the membership of this forum does it to ourselves.

It's fine with me, though, anyway, if people don't want to use this or that idea. I appreciate you just hearing them out and giving it fair thought. Whatever suits the whole group, y'know?

[fernandito]

I'm thinking of the idiom about not being able to see the forest for the trees.

Like you I too enjoy the member interaction more than anything. Barring minor upsets we all have a fairly strong grasp of what films will end up in the latter stages of the tournament, and debating the strengths and weaknesses of the underdogs and those feel are more than deserving is part of the fun. My bottom line has always been discussing films, I can never tire of talking about movies. The craft, the conceptual, the execution. I love it. Even if I've seen a film a hundred times I love debating and discussing, there's always new ways to appreciate a film which comes via a different perspective. Many times I've gone back to revisit a film I might have watched and set down with nary a second thought because of the enthusiasm it's met with by other members on here.

New members joining the fun should be a byproduct of all the effort we put into these things, but it by no means should be used as a barometer for a tournament's success or validity.

If you build it, they will come.

[Still Servant]

Well, to begin with, one suggestion that I've floated before would be a Best Detective tourney. That would take us back toward the Best Character angle, (it would be kind of nice to again shift to looking at film crosswise rather than title-by-title) and allow us to embrace the action/thriller/suspense areas at once with no need to split hairs.

I'd be all for that. Then again a Best Detective Tournament is essentially a genre tournament. I know you want to move away from genre tournaments, but you stepped right into what I would consider a sub-genre.

There really aren't many females here anymore. Turtle and Emily used to be around a lot, but they're gone now. Maybe that's why we are at each others throats so much. We need more balance

I'm with, Feev. I love talking about film. I talk about movies in real life as much as I can. Unfortunately, there are limits to the conversations I can have with friends and family. This is my only other outlet, I avoid the IMDB message boards like the plague.

I too would love for some of the lurkers to join the discussion, but I also understand their reluctance. We have some strong personalities here, myself included. Perhaps we just intimidate some of the other posters.

[Mattrick]

Obviously the best detectives of all time are The Hardly Boys

[pathoftheturtle]

Not branching off too far right away was intentional. It's actually not hard to come up with ideas; what's hard is things that will interest the group. It's true Detective Fiction is a sub-genre of Suspense, but the character archetype does not have to be defined narrowly. As I said, certain action characters could be included, dramas, police, spies, reporters. If you want to be constructive, you could suggest an alternative yourself rather than just find fault. I'm not going to fight for nothing if the rest of you have faith.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

You know what I particularly enjoy about these tournaments? The discussion and debate.

Therefore, I thought it would be great to have the next tournament on the best films that are any dual genre. For instance, Action Adventure, Sci-Fi Horror, Romantic Comedy etc...

During the nominating process, participants would have to discuss the reasons why they are nominating a particular film and demonstrate how it fits into the category of dual genre. This should open up the discussion and debate much wider, which is always the most fun aspect of these tournaments.

I do not wish to hijack this section of the forum, so if forum members are happy with this suggestion for the next tournament, I would ask for support from either Pablo or Fernandito to run things.

So what does everyone here think of this idea?

[Still Servant]

It has potential. I guess my only question is that can't every film be put into a dual genre category? Maybe not all, but certainly a lot of them. Where would we draw the line?

[Merlin1958]

It has potential. I guess my only question is that can't every film be put into a dual genre category? Maybe not all, but certainly a lot of them. Where would we draw the line?

I think it is a good idea. Haven't we run into this same discussion in all the previous polls? Let's try and settle it here once and for all. Maybe, if we all make our arguments some rules will come of it for the future, I'm game to try.

[mae]

So this thread has meandered for a good while, but I suggest we take some time off now that this latest tournament is done and come back with some ideas on what our next tournament might be. I'm up for anything, be it another genre, a person- or decade- or year-based tournament, or something different altogether. I think someone previously said they wanted to run the Best Action tournament, and at a future point in time I'd love to run a Best Animated Film tournament. (Maybe have a poll as to what to have a tournament about? )

[Girlystevedave]

I would love it if we eventually did a Best Animated Film Tournament.

[Girlystevedave]

Wait, Pablo. Should we do a poll over whether or not we should do a poll?

[fernandito]

Switching gears a bit... what about a Best TV Drama tournament!?

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Switching gears a bit... what about a Best TV Drama tournament!?

The problem with TV is that not everyone here has access to the same shows. There are many US TV Dramas I have never seen because of limited access to what is available here in the UK, and likewise I expect there are many British TV Dramas that members in the US have never even heard of, let alone seen.

For instance if I was to nominate the British TV Drama, Z Cars would anyone here outside of the UK know what that is?

I do however, like the idea of having DRAMA movies as our next tournament though. A lot of films in the comedy tournament were rather low brow, so moving onto Drama, especially those within the foreign art house medium will allow some really poignant and classic films to be discussed and debated upon.

A Drama tournament could have films from Directors such as:

Chantal Akerman
Robert Altman
Darren Aronofsky
Ingmar Bergman
Bernardo Bertolucci
Luc Besson
Claude Chabrol
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Sergei Eisenstein
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Federico Fellini
Jean-Luc Godard
Alfred Hitchcock
Akira Kurosawa
Ang Lee
Terrence Malick
Martin Scorsese
Andrei Tarkovsky
François Truffaut
Zhang Yimou

[Merlin1958]

Switching gears a bit... what about a Best TV Drama tournament!?

The problem with TV is that not everyone here has access to the same shows. There are many US TV Dramas I have never seen because of limited access to what is available here in the UK, and likewise I expect there are many British TV Dramas that members in the US have never even heard of, let alone seen.

For instance if I was to nominate the British TV Drama, Z Cars would anyone here outside of the UK know what that is?

I do however, like the idea of having DRAMA movies as our next tournament though. A lot of films in the comedy tournament were rather low brow, so moving onto Drama, especially those within the foreign art house medium will allow some really poignant and classic films to be discussed and debated upon.

A Drama tournament could have films from Directors such as:

Chantal Akerman
Robert Altman
Darren Aronofsky
Ingmar Bergman
Bernardo Bertolucci
Luc Besson
Claude Chabrol
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Sergei Eisenstein
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Federico Fellini
Jean-Luc Godard
Alfred Hitchcock
Akira Kurosawa
Ang Lee
Terrence Malick
Martin Scorsese
Andrei Tarkovsky
François Truffaut
Zhang Yimou

Just a suggestion, but maybe you have a poll for the top five (10?) Directors all time and then another to determine their top five films of all time out of ten submissions? It would take a while, but maybe that's a good thing? At least you eliminate all the squabbling regarding what is and what isn't genre specific. Though I suppose you open another can of worms all together. Might be fun anyway. Theoretically it will cross genre rather nicely I would think.

[Still Servant]

Best movie quotes.

[T-Dogz_AK47]

Best movie quotes.

"One thing's sure: Inspector Clay is dead — murdered — and somebody's responsible!" - Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957).

[Odetta]

Best Superhero movie

[Girlystevedave]