Monday, March 30, 2020

Best 90s Movie Bracket - Sweet Sixteen!




We’ve made it to the Sweet Sixteen!  Round 2 is complete and we’ve narrowed the field to 16 of the best movies from the 90s.  A few takeaways from the second round of voting was the overall lack of upsets and lack of close results.  The only real upset from the second round was the 6 seed Fargo besting the 3 seed Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  And even though there are two double digit seeds in the Sweet 16, those two teams beat other double digit seeds to advance.  But after all the upsets in Round 1, there is only one region in which all the top four seeds advanced.  Aside from the lack of upsets, only one matchup was decided by less than 10 votes, so after the craziness of Round 1, the second round seemed to restore more consensus among voting.  Now looking ahead to the next round, I’m curious to see if the higher seeds will continue to advance or if we will see any more upsets.  Six of the eight matchups feature movies with seed differences of at least three spots, so this has the potential to be a very exciting round.  Looking at the remaining films, eight of the movies are drama/thrillers, six are family/comedies, and the last two are action movies.  Only one animated movie has been eliminated thus far in the bracket, but the majority of action movies have been.  It will be interesting moving forward to see where the favorites lie, and there are two matchups in this round that pit an animated classic against a popular drama.  So let’s get to it!  Cast your votes below and check out the entire bracket at the bottom of this post.



Monday, March 23, 2020

Best 90s Movie Bracket - Round 2




Voting in Round 1 of the Best 90s Movie bracket is complete!  There were a few surprises, but most of the top seeds advanced, creating even harder matchups in Round 2.  Here are some things we’ve learned after the first round.  Mrs. Doubtfire is a lot more popular than I ever would have guessed, whereas JFK may as well have been forgotten.  Of the upsets that occurred, Mrs. Doubtfire taking out Goodfellas was probably the biggest surprise.  Going into the tournament, I would have pegged Goodfellas as one of the favorites to win, but perhaps that movie hasn’t aged as well as I thought.  I also feel bad for L.A. Confidential after it made a shockingly early exit.  Not only did it lose Best Picture to Titanic in 1997, it had to watch Scream sneak by for the upset in this bracket.  It really is a phenomenal film that doesn’t get the credit it deserves.  But, also, I had no idea people liked Scream that much.  Another interesting note is that of the ten Best Picture winners in the bracket, only 4 made it to the second round.  But enough with these useless facts.  Let’s get to Round 2!  There really are some intriguing matchups, including an all Tom Hanks showdown.  I can’t even begin to make predictions after seeing how the first round went down, but we are guaranteed at least two double digit seeds in the Sweet Sixteen, so that's exciting.  Vote for your favorites below, and then you can check out the entire bracket at the end of this post.



Monday, March 16, 2020

Best 90s Movie Bracket!!!




It’s time for March Madness!  No, no, sports aren’t back, but my special brand of brackets is.  So for those of you looking to get your bracket fix, welcome to the Best 90s Movie bracket!  That’s right, this year, I’m trying to determine the best movie of the 90s by pitting 64 movies from the greatest decade against each other to try and determine the ultimate winner.

I know you’re all probably wondering how I managed to narrow down a decade’s worth of films to a 64 team bracket.  Well, let me tell you it was not that easy.  It has actually taken me two years to put this bracket together, because, as you might expect, a lot of movies came out in the 90s.  I tried to make the selections as objective as possible by looking at as many data points as possible.  My initial plan was to rank movies based on the following criteria and then average the ranks into a composite list.

Box office gross (domestic)
IMDB rating
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score
Metacritic Score
Awards Nominated and Won
Facebook Likes
Google Results
Times referenced in other movies/TV
Placement on ‘Best of the Decade Lists’

After looking at all those data points I had a top 64.  But something was missing from that list.  It didn’t allow for movies that gained in esteem over the years, like Office Space and Fight Club.  There were a lot of movies that were highly regarded at the time, but have largely been forgotten, like Howard’s End and Remains of the Day.  I needed a way to quantify cultural relevancy.  I tried to assign a cultural relevancy score, but it still didn’t capture the essence of 90s movies.  So I ended up having to make adjustments myself.  There are certain movies that just belong in a bracket of greatest 90s movies whether the data says so or not, and I tried to fit some of those movies in, while still attempting to maintain the integrity of the bracket.  While you may think this invalidates the bracket, I say, this is just for fun anyway so go with it.  And you may be upset that some of your favorite movies didn’t make the list, so let me know which movies you think were snubbed.  Because, you know what, there are some of my favorites that, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find a way to get in either.  And others, that against my better judgement, I left in the bracket.  For example, I made sure all ten Best Picture Oscar winners remained in the bracket.  And I also tried to create a balance of various genres even though drama was by far the most popular based on the data.  But at the end of the day, I made some judgement calls based on competitive balance and decided to go with what I had for the sake of getting a bracket to the people.  So here it is in all its glory, the Best 90s Movie bracket! 




Voting for Round 1 starts today and will last one week.  Each successive round of voting will open after a week until a winner is crowned.  You can determine your own criteria for picking the winners, whether you want to vote for your favorites or the movies you feel best represent the decade.  But make your choices and be sure to come back each week to see the winners and vote in the next round.


Sunday, March 8, 2020

2020 Golden Adam Award Winners!

As some of you may have seen, the Golden Adam Award winners were announced live on Facebook in a thrilling and emotional awards ceremony.  For those who may have missed it, here are the winners!

Drama

Best Picture



Much like the Oscars, Parasite took home the big prize at the Golden Adams just beating out 1917, Ford v Ferrari, and Bombshell.  It is a most deserving winner as it is one of the most original scripts I've seen in years.  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, and if you're anything like me, you will be thinking about it long after the final credits roll.

Best Actor

The winner here is Adam Driver for his powerhouse performance in Marriage Story.  He was really good and very deserving.

Best Actress

Saoirse Ronan wins for Little Women in a bit of a surprise.  I actually enjoyed this movie more than I thought I would, mostly because of Ronan's performance, which is fantastic.

Best Supporting Actor

It's official, Brad Pitt has now swept all the major awards.  He was the best part of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Best Supporting Actress

This was a really close vote and Margot Robbie narrowly beat out Jennifer Lopez and So-Dam Park for her role in Bombshell.  The movie was excellent and featured outstanding performances by all involved, so it's nice to see Robbie get recognized.

Comedy

Best Picture



In one of the closer races, Knives Out beat Jojo Rabbit by one vote to take the prize.  Both movies were excellent and would be deserving winners, but Knives Out was probably the most fun I had in a theater all year.

Best Actor

Daniel Craig wins for Knives Out.  He was great!

Best Actress

In an absolute runaway vote, Ana de Armas wins for her performance in Knives Out. 

Best Supporting Actor

Continuing the Knives Out dominance in this category, Chris Evans takes home the prize.  He was excellent, but if you haven't seen Jumanji: The Next Level, you should if only for Kevin Hart's hilarious performance.

Best Supporting Actress

Knives Out couldn't quite pull off the sweep, as Scarlett Johansson wins for her amazing performance in Jojo Rabbit.  She was absolutely wonderful in this film and I really wanted her to win the Oscar, so I'm glad she won the Golden Adam.

Action

Best Picture



Avengers Assemble!!  Endgame was one of my favorite movies of the year, and now it is a Golden Adam winner.

Best Actor

The Avengers wouldn't be the Avengers without Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Robert Downey Jr. had the perfect send off in Endgame.  Now he gets to call himself a Golden Adam award winner.

Best Actress

While some Star Wars fans may not have liked The Rise of Skywalker, I loved it.  Mostly because of Daisy Ridley as Rey.  She was great and a deserving winner for Best Actress.

Best Supporting Actor

In probably the least surprising vote of all, Paul Rudd is the runaway winner for Avengers: Endgame.  Everyone loves Paul Rudd and was fantastic and hilarious as usual, despite playing Ant-Man.

Best Supporting Actress

Carrie Fisher.  Enough said.

Thank you to all who voted this year.  It's always fun for me to see which movies are liked by everyone else.  Congrats to the winners and make sure you all tune in next year to vote again!