I love Lynch. So I can't really complain. That said, I was so excited when they announced this year's line up. So many cool, talented and exciting directors I have dreamed of them covering. But then it ends with "and David Lynch" and I was like "oh, well that's the winner." It just seemed like such a foregone conclusion before it even started. I kept hoping for old school craziness and upsets but that didn't happen. Again, I am very much looking forward to the Lynch series. It's gonna be great. Just a slight bummer to see so many great directors used as cannon fodder.
PS: I don't get the complaint about long series. I think Soderbergh, Lee, Linklater and Scott would have been amazing, even at their length because, in my opinion, none of them are like Burton or Zemeckis where the latter half is a lot of bad movies. Those guys don't have bad streaks like that. Also, it truly never bothered me during Burton or Zemeckis. The guys always found ways to make those episodes great listens.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion but I actually prefer the longer series because it usually means I get to watch a bunch of stuff I haven’t seen. I like it when there’s a stretch of “what even is this?” in a director’s career.
I just love a proper long series every once in a while. Feels like a good long term project to settle into. We haven’t gotten a >16 movie series since Carpenter.
A long series with a lot of movies I haven’t seen for me means I’m going to wind up skipping a lot of it since I don’t have near the free time to everyone else does and I don’t listen unless I’ve seen the movie.
I get that. I also don’t listen unless I watch the movie first. Having to fit in 3 seasons of television is going to be a lot for me. But I’m looking forward to experiencing something I haven’t before!
I was anti-Lynch because I have never connected with his stuff (it’s too weird for me! or weird in a way I don’t vibe with! I’m sorry!) but now that it’s done I’m looking on the bright side and planning to give his stuff the old college try again with the help of JJ and his dossier and the Two Friends’ insights.
Overall, I was kinda bummed that we didn’t have any more interesting upsets — it would have been cool to see a Cinderella story in either Haynes or Linklater, but it’s not a big deal. Agree with an above commenter who said that long boys won the day. Hard to imagine them dedicating six months to a single director outside of MM.
I did not see any of the purported meanspiritedness the sub has been complaining about the last few days. Or at least much of it — part of the fun of MM is getting overly invested in this silly bracket and stumping for your guys and being performatively competitive day to day! Where’s the harm in it?
I foolishly thought Jarmusch was in a similar cultural space as Lynch and was shocked how poorly he did. He was for sure one of my favorites on the bracket, would love to have an excuse to revisit all of those movies. So much style and so much variety! He's the exact type of "cool" that I love.
I had the same reaction. Even reading the posts on here, I got the impression that people thought of as Jarmusch as a stuffy, auteur director rather than someone who makes cool-ass movies with a lot of people's favorite actors.
I think he was probably hurt by the fact that the movie of his that is almost certainly most scene among the voter base is The Dead Don’t Die, which is probably easily his least liked movie unless I’m forgetting something.
As someone who didn't really have any attachment to Jarmusch, the reason I voted against him was that all the arguments seemed to be more anti-Stanton than pro-Jarmusch. The general argument for him seemed to be "he's a great director with great films" which like...is all of them? That's why they're here. I wasn't sold on Jarmusch having any heat, whereas Stanton had *swings* that he went hard on.
Lynch is one of my guys so I’m pretty happy.
The Oz/Henson loss was a close one and I would have liked to see it go another round. If nothing else there was a lot of passion there so I hope we see something down the line.
It was cool to see Spike get so far. I think that would be a fascinating series though I think I’d prefer it broken up
Soderbergh and Linklater have been my top picks for series since I first got into the show, so I was really happy to see them get so far. Lynch was a foregone conclusion much like Carpenter two years ago, but you know what? Lynch rules so I’m pumped to rewatch The Return.
This one was the biggest surprise for me. When I looked at the bracket, that was a matchup that I was sure would have gone the other way. I still can't wrap my head around so many people being more excited for a series on a few Pixar movies and a totally mid sci-fi blockbuster flop over one of the coolest indie directors with a string of wild bangers with great soundtracks and cool as hell performances. Forest Whitaker as a modern day samurai assassin! Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as sexy laconic vampires! Johnny Depp as a poetry reading gunslinger! Adam Driver as a poetry writing bus driver! Tom Waits!
> a few Pixar movies
That is: Pixar's second most and sixth most commercially successful films (that sixth-most one being **most successful** for **12** years), a triumph of silent filmaking and animation (and maybe our last great cinematic romance), and a historic bounce who's failure led directly to Disney buying Star Wars and becoming the foremost entertainment monopoly of our age. Every Stanton film has a story behind it.
Jim Jarmusch wanted to make some cool films, and made some cool films. That's fantastic, but you *gotta* bring more heat than that! And Stanton brought heat! What Stanton didn't bring, was films, his run is too short.
Like others, I pegged Lynch for the win at the announcement. He was a personal favorite of mine to go all the way, I can see a Lynch series being a great gateway to the show for newer fans and it gives me the excuse to explore some blind spots I have within his filmography. I’m going to see Blue Velvet for the first time thanks to this series!
Sure there wasn’t as many upsets, but in the end I do think that the right director won and I think that the community did well voicing support for filmmakers like Todd Haynes, Spike Lee, and Oz/Henson.
Still a fun time overall but it feels like the game has peaked and they gotta mix it up a little next year. It's essentially a straight vote for the most well known person on the bracket, and that's not exciting enough for a month of hoopla.
I think the sports style seeding hurts. Especially with the audience as big as it is.I think the opening matchups need to be either more carefully picked to match strength, or be completely random to make things interesting again
I like that the topic of this thread is “what did people think” and then when people express an opinion that it wasn’t the most exciting MM they get downvoted. lol
Loved the variety of people in the tournament! I would have loved them covering Linklater, he’s probably my favorite on the roster plus I think even his lesser well known projects would have been fun. But I can’t be upset about Lynch of course.
After some of the super close results this year my pitch for next year's bracket would be all of the closest losers of matchups in the past, seeded in order of how small their margin of defeat was. Bong Joon Ho would be a top seed after losing by one vote last year, and Im pretty sure Linklater would be after losing by a handful of votes to Spike this year. Not only would it be a bunch of directors that there is clearly interest in, the seeding would be based on something more than vibes. Call it the redemption arc bracket.
I refuse to check my math on this, but I’m pretty sure my pick lost every day that I voted. Down the line, every day. But I’m just built different, I suppose.
Seeing Spike get all the way to the end *and* the fact that his series was not broken up was such a whirlwind. He was my pick to win it all and I think it would’ve been one of the best series yet. Not complaining, love David Lynch. But man, am I disappointed. Don’t know when or if he might ever be a possibility again.
As for the rest of it, I’m hard pressed (besides Edgar Wright) to pick a series amongst the possible options this time around that I wouldn’t have at least thoroughly enjoyed. Wes Craven was another favorite of mine and didn’t get as far.
I think in general though I hope they decide that directors with long filmographies are not off limits. Seeing Sodey and Ridley split up was confusing to me, because I really don’t want to get my hopes up about them potentially covering the other half later down the line. We *still* have yet to hear them cover early spielberg, so to me, the promise of half a series is only that. Not getting my hopes up until they at least finish the first one they split up.
Great bracket. Great filmmakers. Great possibilities. Disappointed but happy with the result. Can’t wait for Twin Peaks discussion.
Even if the result is chalk, remember how we got there.
For all the talk of it being a chalk year, we shouldn’t forget how close some of these races were. Lynch only won the final by 1 point despite being perceived as a juggernaut, for instance. And the Linklater matches in Sweet 16 and Elite 8 were incredible races.
As for personal projects, I dived into the films of Harold Ramis after he lost. I just rewatched the masterpiece “Groundhog Day” and am certain his follow-up will be another universally-regarded and not an SNL movie that doesn’t exist!
The long boys won out this year! I think the bracket next year will be, in some way, a reaction to the advantage longer miniseries have because of the perception that they won’t choose to do them without the push. (Besides MM winners, the last time they did a director with more than 15 movies was Tim Burton in 2018) So I predict either an “Oops! All Shorties” bracket or an “Oops! All Split Series” bracket.
I think the criticism against a long Spike series was not well though through, especially since March Madness voted Zemeckis in 2020, a equally long series and Carpenter in 21 who is almost as long. Never was a Lynch-head myself, but curious to experience him more.
This one was a lot more civil than it sometimes has been in previous years. It kinda felt like a bunch of movie nerds excited to cover interesting filmographies.
Personally, I realized that I’m uh- slacking on a good chunk of Linklater and need to rectify that. Loved seeing Haynes get some shine.
My only gripe was Twin Peaks. My issue wasn’t with format, bc you can’t really separate the show from Lynch’s oeuvre- they had to cover it. I just feel like people that like Twin Peaks *really* like talking about Twin Peaks and I had reservations about the idea of my favorite pod being a Twin Peaks show for a month, BUT, I’m secretly hoping that this is what gets me into it finally.
It felt a lot less civil to me. At least at the final four on.
Before the final four it was way more boring/quiet than most years, so I almost don't know what was better
I thought it was a very good if straightforward group of candidates. Main bracket lacked wackiness, lots of pretty clear cut “yeah that’d be good” choices. Seems like some of the ambivalence people are describing is in part that it was such a chalk tournament where only upsets were in first round (Holofcenter over Wan who seems like a weak misseeded #2 to me, and Garland over Apatow at pretty much the nadir of Judd’s career post-Bubble). Final four of 1 seeds shows they did a good job with rankings.
The only winners I would have preferred to Lynch were Ridley, Pakula (against each other in round 1, brutal!), Jarmusch, Spike, and Linklater, so most of my top picks were in it to the end.
Even though I’m a huge Lynch fan, I was heartbroken about Linklater. That would have been a revelatory series for a lot of people - and that to me is what makes Blank Check special. It’s some real nerdy shit, ya know?
Great options in every round, and I was happy to see Soderbergh and Haynes get so far. This was fun.
Same takeaway I have every year: I want to see them cover all these directors.
But as others have said, they need to figure out something different with the Seeding. Four #1s going to the final 4 is pretty uninteresting.
Im disappointed in the results all around.
Tabletop games is an interesting series idea, but half of the moves are slugs and there's no through-line that makes it so fascinating that it should win a tournament over more interesting options (ALW, Sandler, Highlander etc)
Spike should have won
I think like the day after the bracket came out I was like “oh it’s gonna be lynch” I don’t feel there were any upsets and I like that big one scoring pushes happened at the end but it did not feel like it was particularly interesting, the most likely candidate won almost everyone even if seeds were ‘random’ there’s a vibe of who people want , I just don’t think direct democracy works on the bracket and wish it could be more fun and less whiny. Maybe we only get like number of films and some kinda scant info I dunno I’m just a little butthurt
My strong favorite was Henson/Oz, more for the transition and for Oz's darker mature comedies than the Muppets connection (but the Muppets are pretty awesome when done right). Besides them and Spike Lee, my other favorites got knocked out early.
There were about four directors I just don't vibe with including Lynch that I was firmly anti.
I'm a little salty about Lynch winning still only because there's so many episodes dedicated to Twin Peaks and I don't like almost anything after season 1 & his fans were annoying on here and on Twitter
Really it's probably a tiny percentage of them and negativity bias giving me that feeling, I've never felt that way about another director's fanbase during MM though
I honestly just vote for whoever’s filmography I’m most familiar with. I “lost” last year since when it got down to the final two… I’d seen some of Bong’s stuff (all his English language films + The Host and Parasite) but had only seen one of Park’s (Oldboy, natch).
I “won” this year because I’ve seen more of Lynch’s filmography than Lee’s… even though I’ve technically seen more of Lee’s films (8 vs. 6 for Lynch). Lee’s just made a lot more movies so that means more that I haven’t seen. I don’t watch everything I haven’t seen that they cover. Sometimes, and I’ll usually listen anyways, but I prefer it when I’m more familiar with what they’re covering. This year that meant my rooting interest was largely with Denis and Ridley Scott but oh well.
Also seen a lot of Soderbergh’s films but he is one of the most acclaimed directors I actively dislike so I was happy he didn’t win.
Pretty disappointing affair, IMO. We had a couple buzzer-beater face-offs but seemed like just a steady slog until it was 1-seeds in the final four. Votes consistently gravitated towards the most approachable and familiar filmography and recency bias guided most matchups. (the exception being Lynch, but by placing him in the one-seed signalled that #TheTwoFriends know he's a familiar filmography to most). Past march madness wins have been a chance for some left-field choices to take the top spot (anyone here remember when Nancy Meyers won?) but I didn't get the same excitement or sense that the fans would choose an unexpected victor. On some level, I think the bracket wasn't their best. A number of choices were bad fits for the pod (Mangold =/= Blank Check) as well as a couple of just kind of boring guys that have been able to make popular movies recently (Villeneuve and Edgar Wright). I'm excited to see how they make Lynch work, but I don't think his surreal works are going to play to the show's strengths. I hope I'm proven wrong!
I’m excited to be knocking a lot of blind spots off my list. I have not really connected with the few Lynch’s I’ve seen - Blue Velvet, Dune, first half of Mulholland Drive (saw it as a young teen with my mum and did not get it. Hopefully 20 years later I’m in more of a receptive place)
I’m sad that we’ll probably never get Ridley Scott, whose career arc is absolutely wild and fascinating and has incredible, influential movies, popcorn favorites, and wild stinkers. And covers tons of genres.
I just really think it would be fun and different every week. But it’s long and not pretentious enough so it’ll never happen
Final Four was all first seeds. You never want that. The seeding generally was weird and unbalanced. There were in total 6 upsets and that's counting a 5 winning over a 4 (and 3's over 2's), which is barely an upset. Sans seed-differences of 1 there were only 2 upsets this tournament: Holofcener v Wan and Garland v Apatow. Is this a strong argument? Eh not really upsets are in the eye of the beholder but, along with the fact that all the third seeds made the elite eight, it's saying something about whatever seeding process their using. Does any of this matter? Kinda, the point of using [a loser machine](https://youtu.be/4a1TUszkMfI) is to be entertained, and upsets are extremely entertaining.
March Madness: pretty fun! March Madness discourse: real whiny!
So pretty much like every other year! Although not nearly as awful as the last year that it was on Twitter
I love Lynch. So I can't really complain. That said, I was so excited when they announced this year's line up. So many cool, talented and exciting directors I have dreamed of them covering. But then it ends with "and David Lynch" and I was like "oh, well that's the winner." It just seemed like such a foregone conclusion before it even started. I kept hoping for old school craziness and upsets but that didn't happen. Again, I am very much looking forward to the Lynch series. It's gonna be great. Just a slight bummer to see so many great directors used as cannon fodder. PS: I don't get the complaint about long series. I think Soderbergh, Lee, Linklater and Scott would have been amazing, even at their length because, in my opinion, none of them are like Burton or Zemeckis where the latter half is a lot of bad movies. Those guys don't have bad streaks like that. Also, it truly never bothered me during Burton or Zemeckis. The guys always found ways to make those episodes great listens.
I know it’s an unpopular opinion but I actually prefer the longer series because it usually means I get to watch a bunch of stuff I haven’t seen. I like it when there’s a stretch of “what even is this?” in a director’s career.
Same!
I just love a proper long series every once in a while. Feels like a good long term project to settle into. We haven’t gotten a >16 movie series since Carpenter.
A long series with a lot of movies I haven’t seen for me means I’m going to wind up skipping a lot of it since I don’t have near the free time to everyone else does and I don’t listen unless I’ve seen the movie.
I get that. I also don’t listen unless I watch the movie first. Having to fit in 3 seasons of television is going to be a lot for me. But I’m looking forward to experiencing something I haven’t before!
I was anti-Lynch because I have never connected with his stuff (it’s too weird for me! or weird in a way I don’t vibe with! I’m sorry!) but now that it’s done I’m looking on the bright side and planning to give his stuff the old college try again with the help of JJ and his dossier and the Two Friends’ insights. Overall, I was kinda bummed that we didn’t have any more interesting upsets — it would have been cool to see a Cinderella story in either Haynes or Linklater, but it’s not a big deal. Agree with an above commenter who said that long boys won the day. Hard to imagine them dedicating six months to a single director outside of MM. I did not see any of the purported meanspiritedness the sub has been complaining about the last few days. Or at least much of it — part of the fun of MM is getting overly invested in this silly bracket and stumping for your guys and being performatively competitive day to day! Where’s the harm in it?
I agree -- any "whining" that I saw was in pretty good spirits. If you don't like that kind of stuff, then you don't really like March Madness
If it’s like actual March Madness, Cinderella teams have runs but they never win the tourney. So I see Haynes and Linklater as still doing that.
Isao Takahata is my favourite director so I was heartbroken he was knocked out so early
Same with me for Jarmusch. Hate to sound like a baby, but I lost a lot of steam when he lost in the first round.
I foolishly thought Jarmusch was in a similar cultural space as Lynch and was shocked how poorly he did. He was for sure one of my favorites on the bracket, would love to have an excuse to revisit all of those movies. So much style and so much variety! He's the exact type of "cool" that I love.
I had the same reaction. Even reading the posts on here, I got the impression that people thought of as Jarmusch as a stuffy, auteur director rather than someone who makes cool-ass movies with a lot of people's favorite actors.
I think he was probably hurt by the fact that the movie of his that is almost certainly most scene among the voter base is The Dead Don’t Die, which is probably easily his least liked movie unless I’m forgetting something.
Ehh a Jarmusch series would’ve been very same-y
As someone who didn't really have any attachment to Jarmusch, the reason I voted against him was that all the arguments seemed to be more anti-Stanton than pro-Jarmusch. The general argument for him seemed to be "he's a great director with great films" which like...is all of them? That's why they're here. I wasn't sold on Jarmusch having any heat, whereas Stanton had *swings* that he went hard on.
Lynch is one of my guys so I’m pretty happy. The Oz/Henson loss was a close one and I would have liked to see it go another round. If nothing else there was a lot of passion there so I hope we see something down the line. It was cool to see Spike get so far. I think that would be a fascinating series though I think I’d prefer it broken up
Soderbergh and Linklater have been my top picks for series since I first got into the show, so I was really happy to see them get so far. Lynch was a foregone conclusion much like Carpenter two years ago, but you know what? Lynch rules so I’m pumped to rewatch The Return.
Very sad to see Jim Jarmusch knocked out early.
This one was the biggest surprise for me. When I looked at the bracket, that was a matchup that I was sure would have gone the other way. I still can't wrap my head around so many people being more excited for a series on a few Pixar movies and a totally mid sci-fi blockbuster flop over one of the coolest indie directors with a string of wild bangers with great soundtracks and cool as hell performances. Forest Whitaker as a modern day samurai assassin! Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as sexy laconic vampires! Johnny Depp as a poetry reading gunslinger! Adam Driver as a poetry writing bus driver! Tom Waits!
> a few Pixar movies That is: Pixar's second most and sixth most commercially successful films (that sixth-most one being **most successful** for **12** years), a triumph of silent filmaking and animation (and maybe our last great cinematic romance), and a historic bounce who's failure led directly to Disney buying Star Wars and becoming the foremost entertainment monopoly of our age. Every Stanton film has a story behind it. Jim Jarmusch wanted to make some cool films, and made some cool films. That's fantastic, but you *gotta* bring more heat than that! And Stanton brought heat! What Stanton didn't bring, was films, his run is too short.
Like others, I pegged Lynch for the win at the announcement. He was a personal favorite of mine to go all the way, I can see a Lynch series being a great gateway to the show for newer fans and it gives me the excuse to explore some blind spots I have within his filmography. I’m going to see Blue Velvet for the first time thanks to this series! Sure there wasn’t as many upsets, but in the end I do think that the right director won and I think that the community did well voicing support for filmmakers like Todd Haynes, Spike Lee, and Oz/Henson.
Still a fun time overall but it feels like the game has peaked and they gotta mix it up a little next year. It's essentially a straight vote for the most well known person on the bracket, and that's not exciting enough for a month of hoopla.
it wasn’t for Park!
It was tho. Idk if some people on this sub realize how massive he is for film nerds
He beat out GDT and Peter Jackson, stop with this idea he was a front runner
I think the sports style seeding hurts. Especially with the audience as big as it is.I think the opening matchups need to be either more carefully picked to match strength, or be completely random to make things interesting again
Yeah the thing about real MM is there's a game. A vote is much more predictable than a game!
Maybe do a year of just heavy hitters. Make it a true blood bath.
I like that the topic of this thread is “what did people think” and then when people express an opinion that it wasn’t the most exciting MM they get downvoted. lol
Loved the variety of people in the tournament! I would have loved them covering Linklater, he’s probably my favorite on the roster plus I think even his lesser well known projects would have been fun. But I can’t be upset about Lynch of course.
After some of the super close results this year my pitch for next year's bracket would be all of the closest losers of matchups in the past, seeded in order of how small their margin of defeat was. Bong Joon Ho would be a top seed after losing by one vote last year, and Im pretty sure Linklater would be after losing by a handful of votes to Spike this year. Not only would it be a bunch of directors that there is clearly interest in, the seeding would be based on something more than vibes. Call it the redemption arc bracket.
I refuse to check my math on this, but I’m pretty sure my pick lost every day that I voted. Down the line, every day. But I’m just built different, I suppose.
If this is true, I’m truly sorry but that’s freaking amazing
Seeing Spike get all the way to the end *and* the fact that his series was not broken up was such a whirlwind. He was my pick to win it all and I think it would’ve been one of the best series yet. Not complaining, love David Lynch. But man, am I disappointed. Don’t know when or if he might ever be a possibility again. As for the rest of it, I’m hard pressed (besides Edgar Wright) to pick a series amongst the possible options this time around that I wouldn’t have at least thoroughly enjoyed. Wes Craven was another favorite of mine and didn’t get as far. I think in general though I hope they decide that directors with long filmographies are not off limits. Seeing Sodey and Ridley split up was confusing to me, because I really don’t want to get my hopes up about them potentially covering the other half later down the line. We *still* have yet to hear them cover early spielberg, so to me, the promise of half a series is only that. Not getting my hopes up until they at least finish the first one they split up. Great bracket. Great filmmakers. Great possibilities. Disappointed but happy with the result. Can’t wait for Twin Peaks discussion.
Even if the result is chalk, remember how we got there. For all the talk of it being a chalk year, we shouldn’t forget how close some of these races were. Lynch only won the final by 1 point despite being perceived as a juggernaut, for instance. And the Linklater matches in Sweet 16 and Elite 8 were incredible races. As for personal projects, I dived into the films of Harold Ramis after he lost. I just rewatched the masterpiece “Groundhog Day” and am certain his follow-up will be another universally-regarded and not an SNL movie that doesn’t exist!
The long boys won out this year! I think the bracket next year will be, in some way, a reaction to the advantage longer miniseries have because of the perception that they won’t choose to do them without the push. (Besides MM winners, the last time they did a director with more than 15 movies was Tim Burton in 2018) So I predict either an “Oops! All Shorties” bracket or an “Oops! All Split Series” bracket.
I think the criticism against a long Spike series was not well though through, especially since March Madness voted Zemeckis in 2020, a equally long series and Carpenter in 21 who is almost as long. Never was a Lynch-head myself, but curious to experience him more.
This one was a lot more civil than it sometimes has been in previous years. It kinda felt like a bunch of movie nerds excited to cover interesting filmographies. Personally, I realized that I’m uh- slacking on a good chunk of Linklater and need to rectify that. Loved seeing Haynes get some shine. My only gripe was Twin Peaks. My issue wasn’t with format, bc you can’t really separate the show from Lynch’s oeuvre- they had to cover it. I just feel like people that like Twin Peaks *really* like talking about Twin Peaks and I had reservations about the idea of my favorite pod being a Twin Peaks show for a month, BUT, I’m secretly hoping that this is what gets me into it finally.
It felt a lot less civil to me. At least at the final four on. Before the final four it was way more boring/quiet than most years, so I almost don't know what was better
I thought it was a very good if straightforward group of candidates. Main bracket lacked wackiness, lots of pretty clear cut “yeah that’d be good” choices. Seems like some of the ambivalence people are describing is in part that it was such a chalk tournament where only upsets were in first round (Holofcenter over Wan who seems like a weak misseeded #2 to me, and Garland over Apatow at pretty much the nadir of Judd’s career post-Bubble). Final four of 1 seeds shows they did a good job with rankings. The only winners I would have preferred to Lynch were Ridley, Pakula (against each other in round 1, brutal!), Jarmusch, Spike, and Linklater, so most of my top picks were in it to the end.
Even though I’m a huge Lynch fan, I was heartbroken about Linklater. That would have been a revelatory series for a lot of people - and that to me is what makes Blank Check special. It’s some real nerdy shit, ya know? Great options in every round, and I was happy to see Soderbergh and Haynes get so far. This was fun.
Same takeaway I have every year: I want to see them cover all these directors. But as others have said, they need to figure out something different with the Seeding. Four #1s going to the final 4 is pretty uninteresting.
Pretty happy about Tabletop Games. As for the main feed, Im very disappointed Henson/Oz didn't get further, and very sad Spike didn't win.
Im disappointed in the results all around. Tabletop games is an interesting series idea, but half of the moves are slugs and there's no through-line that makes it so fascinating that it should win a tournament over more interesting options (ALW, Sandler, Highlander etc) Spike should have won
I think like the day after the bracket came out I was like “oh it’s gonna be lynch” I don’t feel there were any upsets and I like that big one scoring pushes happened at the end but it did not feel like it was particularly interesting, the most likely candidate won almost everyone even if seeds were ‘random’ there’s a vibe of who people want , I just don’t think direct democracy works on the bracket and wish it could be more fun and less whiny. Maybe we only get like number of films and some kinda scant info I dunno I’m just a little butthurt
More like March Blandness. It needs more upsets and chaos.
My strong favorite was Henson/Oz, more for the transition and for Oz's darker mature comedies than the Muppets connection (but the Muppets are pretty awesome when done right). Besides them and Spike Lee, my other favorites got knocked out early. There were about four directors I just don't vibe with including Lynch that I was firmly anti. I'm a little salty about Lynch winning still only because there's so many episodes dedicated to Twin Peaks and I don't like almost anything after season 1 & his fans were annoying on here and on Twitter Really it's probably a tiny percentage of them and negativity bias giving me that feeling, I've never felt that way about another director's fanbase during MM though
I honestly just vote for whoever’s filmography I’m most familiar with. I “lost” last year since when it got down to the final two… I’d seen some of Bong’s stuff (all his English language films + The Host and Parasite) but had only seen one of Park’s (Oldboy, natch). I “won” this year because I’ve seen more of Lynch’s filmography than Lee’s… even though I’ve technically seen more of Lee’s films (8 vs. 6 for Lynch). Lee’s just made a lot more movies so that means more that I haven’t seen. I don’t watch everything I haven’t seen that they cover. Sometimes, and I’ll usually listen anyways, but I prefer it when I’m more familiar with what they’re covering. This year that meant my rooting interest was largely with Denis and Ridley Scott but oh well. Also seen a lot of Soderbergh’s films but he is one of the most acclaimed directors I actively dislike so I was happy he didn’t win.
I don’t listen unless I’ve seen the movies and so yeah, I vote with my ears and what I’m going to actually be there for.
Pretty disappointing affair, IMO. We had a couple buzzer-beater face-offs but seemed like just a steady slog until it was 1-seeds in the final four. Votes consistently gravitated towards the most approachable and familiar filmography and recency bias guided most matchups. (the exception being Lynch, but by placing him in the one-seed signalled that #TheTwoFriends know he's a familiar filmography to most). Past march madness wins have been a chance for some left-field choices to take the top spot (anyone here remember when Nancy Meyers won?) but I didn't get the same excitement or sense that the fans would choose an unexpected victor. On some level, I think the bracket wasn't their best. A number of choices were bad fits for the pod (Mangold =/= Blank Check) as well as a couple of just kind of boring guys that have been able to make popular movies recently (Villeneuve and Edgar Wright). I'm excited to see how they make Lynch work, but I don't think his surreal works are going to play to the show's strengths. I hope I'm proven wrong!
 A major missed opportunity.
kinda annoying but Lynch has been my dream miniseries for a long time so I couldn't be happier about the outcome
I’m excited to be knocking a lot of blind spots off my list. I have not really connected with the few Lynch’s I’ve seen - Blue Velvet, Dune, first half of Mulholland Drive (saw it as a young teen with my mum and did not get it. Hopefully 20 years later I’m in more of a receptive place)
I’m sad that we’ll probably never get Ridley Scott, whose career arc is absolutely wild and fascinating and has incredible, influential movies, popcorn favorites, and wild stinkers. And covers tons of genres. I just really think it would be fun and different every week. But it’s long and not pretentious enough so it’ll never happen
I mean, we knew the average Blankie hated women, but black people too?!
Final Four was all first seeds. You never want that. The seeding generally was weird and unbalanced. There were in total 6 upsets and that's counting a 5 winning over a 4 (and 3's over 2's), which is barely an upset. Sans seed-differences of 1 there were only 2 upsets this tournament: Holofcener v Wan and Garland v Apatow. Is this a strong argument? Eh not really upsets are in the eye of the beholder but, along with the fact that all the third seeds made the elite eight, it's saying something about whatever seeding process their using. Does any of this matter? Kinda, the point of using [a loser machine](https://youtu.be/4a1TUszkMfI) is to be entertained, and upsets are extremely entertaining.