2021 Cup

[Holymanm]

As we (I) start to sit around and twitch and tremor and bounce off the walls more than ever before while waiting in the home stretch for some imminent, eventual world relief and need more distraction... on that positive note, who's interested in some cup action in the next months?! Can be any kind at all; whatever people are interested in or available for; but I have some random ideas that might make it more fun and feasible (for me):

- Cumulative scoring for all of a participant's movies (per round or total, whatever). So if voter X gives participant Y's three movies in a round 3/5, 4/5, and 2/5... they'll be giving them a 3/5 total. One advantage of this is that it works whether you watch all three of their movies, or only one or two.
- POSSIBLE sub-idea for this: you can pick movies that voters have already seen, but their score won't count for that movie. So if you pick a movie that two of your LBD friends have already given 4.5/5, then you can see it as an indication it might do well with other voters -- but you also can't just get easy points from them.

Together, I think these two things might be an elegant solution to the eternal picking-movies-other-people-have-already-seen problem! Right down the middle!
(- possible sub-sub idea: you can have more round robin situations -- not just 1 person vs 1 person, awkward competition, feuds and hatred and off-forum duels to the death, etc)



- Running time limit? 120-130 minutes at most? Optional of course!




- Allowing different participants to pick the SAME country/continent as one another if they want. It would be interesting to see how one person's "Asia" - or even "Japan" - might be wildly different from another's; and it would still provide a fun framework to help participants focus their selections into some group or other. Good balance of big, general group with some focus!



- Long voting period, so people have time to participate more? Or spread out the rounds with a month break in between, to let people focus on each period more at the time? Or...? Depends on whether people are available, of course -- but overall, I think requiring people to watch like 3 movies every week for 3-5 months is a bit too crazy, even if some people would be happy to do it. Up to people!

[Holymanm]

Overall, the usual cup stuff: it would be great to have everyone watching the same things, discussions, etc. And I love being told what to watch, because otherwise I can't choose what to watch/I never watch anything. There are so many people here who watch so many movies, and who like discovering new things - and aside from work/school/commitments, it blows my mind that we wouldn't be able to get something of a decent, simple cup going here. And *I* have a ton of movies that I love and which (almost) no one else here has seen, and I've seen like 50 movies in my life; I'm sure all of you have a million more.

[---]

Yeah good call I was meaning to post this soon

My thoughts

- would prefer features to shorts
- that being said the shorts cup last year had more activity than the couple years before that
- spreading out rounds might help mitigate burnout tho, that's a good idea
- there doesn't need to be a runtime limit, people just need to be reasonable. 120 minutes is reasonable. 240 is not. Numbers in between those two numbers? I dunno just be reasonable I'm pretty sure this has never been a problem
-doesn't need to be a rule regarding people having seen shit. You can pick something some people have seen. You cannot pick Vertigo or Seven Samurai. This has also never been a problem. If someone really wants to pick Movie X because three SCFZers have seen it and all gave it 5 and they want an edge, that's weird but who cares. I'm pretty sure everyone here is more interested in exposing the community to cool stuff they like, and maybe also cultivating a consistent and pleasing aesthetic in the whole body of their submissions, than they are about "winning"... One of the reasons we moved away from knockout to a straight Swiss system is so that everyone knows from the start that they will participate in every round and no one feels like they have to pick "winning" movies

Re: themes, I have some preferences:
- would be cool to do ""genre"" again. The community is like 80% different than it was when we did that in 2015 (holy crap guys we've been around that long?!). For those that don't know or remember, the genres we picked were not real genres. No "noir" or "war film". I, for example, picked "romance at da docks" (obviously the funnest part of this is picking the description of your genre). I think someone did Shakespearian adaptations, someone did neon colours, Jerry might've done lighthouses, wba did something pretty original/bizarre that included him picking Zoom In: Sex Apartments as his first movie
- otherwise I'd be interested in doing country+decade, e.g. Germany in the 70s

Obviously we will do this democratically, so I encourage everyone who's interested to chime in with their preferences/ideas, and also if you will, or even think you might, be a manager, please post so we can get an idea of the size/scope of the cup this year

For those who don't know or forgot, here's what we've done so far:

2015 "genre"
2016 director
2017 nation
2018 no cup we did movie club instead
2019 year
2020 director (short films only)

[brian d]

Jerry might've done lighthouses

ahem, "i wanna marry a lighthouse keeper" (that was mine)

i'd say i'd love to be involved with this, but if this year's movie watching experience has been any indication i'm probably not going to be very active. but if i was, genre is probably the way i'd want to go. nation or director would be my next choices.

[FLABREZU]

if its features maybe ill do it

[mesnalty]

I'm never too optimistic about the level of participation, but I'll participate as a manager and endeavor to watch all the movies no matter what the structure is. Genres was very fun last time!

[flip]

i'll always at least consider managing in a cup, and while i usually want to watch all the films and participate throughout (whether managing or not), i know from history that i'll probably end up watching about half of the films unless they're shorts.

i wouldn't be able to decide about managing before knowing the format - i remember last time we did the 'invented genre' thing, i didn't get any ideas for it. so if we do that again, unless i get inspired, i might not take part (and it would probably be my last choice if we were ranking options).

[Mario Gaborovic]

Yeah I'm in. I'd love to show some documentaries now, it's no wonder the genre blossomed in recent decades as there's lots of inspiring stories as collective memory is richer than ever.

[---]

holymanm
sad_scrooge
mesnalty
mario gaborovic
brian d - MAYBE
flabrezu - MAYBE
flip - MAYBE

[MrCarmady]

I'm not sure I have the arsenal to compete in this, plus I still need to finish watching bure's recs from the pair up game, but if we need numbers, count me in. I would like a repeat of a nation based cup, think that has a lot of scope for making good lists and exploring new stuff. Maybe we can tie it into the Euros/Olympics.

[greennui]

Put me down as maybe as well.

[Holymanm]

holymanm
sad_scrooge
mesnalty
mario gaborovic
brian d - MAYBE
flabrezu - MAYBE
flip - MAYBE
MrCarmady - MAYBE
greennui - MAYBE

[Holymanm]

I'm not sure I have the arsenal to compete in this

such situations can be a very fun opportunity to watch a bunch of stuff - from some region, some director, some time period - that other people haven't explored so much, and see what you can find from that. watch 10-20 relatively high quality/prestigious pictures from that group, find a few 4/5s, and you're off. i've done this deliberately before, and it was tons of fun!

...as always, you'll be reminded there are 4320503455034593405934 movies out there and you can never come close to watching the whole 'canon', let alone the whole non-canon, so there are always more fantastic movies no one else (on this forum) has seen or ever will see. just a general suggestion though

[DT.]

Might be interested in a Genre Cup.

[---]

Jerry might've done lighthouses

ahem, "i wanna marry a lighthouse keeper" (that was mine)

i'd say i'd love to be involved with this, but if this year's movie watching experience has been any indication i'm probably not going to be very active. but if i was, genre is probably the way i'd want to go. nation or director would be my next choices.

right of course!! i forget what jerry's theme was. but i remember he beat me with that becker movie, rue de l'estrapade or w/e. he beat remorques somehow. then afterwards many ppl said that RUE was their fav movie of the cup, overall, and REMORQUES was their second. so i picked the second best movie and still lost EVERY round that time?

i came dead last that cup lol. no wins, and worst score differential. since then i have been a beast, getting 3rd once and 2nd three times... never a winner tho...

[---]

correct me if i'm wrong with these inferences folks, or if it's blank please state your preference, if u have any

(second part is preference for cup content)

YES:
holymanm ___ nation OR continent
sad_scrooge ___ genre 2.nation+decade
mesnalty ___ 1.genre
mario gaborovic ___ documentaries

MAYBE:
brian d ___ 1.genre 2.nation OR director
flabrezu ___ features
flip ___ 1.NOT genre 2. shorts
MrCarmady ___ nation
greennui
DT ___ genre

[---]

flabrezu is pro-features. flip is pro-shorts. no one else has spoken to this issue

4 ppl (scrooge, mesnalty, brian, DT) voted ""genres"" as their first choice. flip does not want that

2 ppl (holyman, carmady) voted nation as their first choice. two more ppl (scrooge, brian) voted it as second choice

mario voted documentaries (which he could maybe work into ""genre"" well?)

brian voted director as a second choice

greennui has not voted yet

============

looks like it's either:

1. ""genre"" - although we don't want to pick something that someone isn't interested in at all. flip, has anything come to mind? maybe as a group we can help u brainstorm? based on what i know about u, maybe u'd be interested in doing:

a) the first (or second? or third?) film in an auteur (non-narrative-wise) trilogy
b) english-language films that would be revered art films if they were made in europe
c) poker/gambling movies
d) lesser known works by famous filmmakers
e) noir B-movies

2. nation - possibly with some added rule, like holyman's "ppl can repeat countries" or my "also confined to a decade", we can discuss all that if we end up choosing this

only two ppl spoke to features vs shorts. i'm guessing most of the silent ppl were more interested in features?

it is POSSIBLE that we can have a TEENSY nations/shorts cup, lasting a couple months... then later in the yr have a 6-month or so ""genre""/features cup, if that won't lead to burnout?

everybody is welcome to contribute to this discussion, whether they plan on managing or not. the ppl who don't manage but view the selected films are just as important to the process!

[mesnalty]

I'd vote for no distinction between features and shorts - whether we do genre/nation/whatever else, I'm in favor of both features and shorts being allowed.

[Holymanm]

I don't want to sound like a spoilsport, but I would probably be out if it were only shorts - because I hate them - but yeah nothing wrong with picking a short for a round if you want!

[Mauries]

I will be in for a genre cup if most of the activity will be after half february

[greennui]

I'm fine with "genre".

I'm with mesnalty on features/shorts, though I'd def be interested in a shorts cup as well at some point.

[flip]

just to clarify - i wasn't suggesting another shorts cup, i was just saying that even though i'm going to have ambitious intentions when a cup starts, unless the films are shorts, i'll probably only end up watching half of the entries, based on past cups. i watched almost all of the short cup films tho.

and i think i'll probably participate no matter what format we go with - i have to defend my title! i forgot that i won the last cup it was the first time i didn't come in last i think

the one thing i find weird about a genre cup (but i wouldn't want my objection to stop us doing one, if it's what most people want) is just that the competition format doesn't make much sense to me. like australia vs sri lanka makes sense in a nation cup because it's like a cricket match, and amir naderi vs glauber rocha makes sense in a director cup because it's like we're choosing our community's favourite director. but i'm not sure what the rationale is behind voting between "films where people fall off ladders" and "post-structuralist christmas movies" or whatever genres people pick.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Back in the Mubi days I feel like we combined both shorts and features for a director's cup. If I remember correctly it kind of proved to be a tough strategy because the shorts usually lost against the feature (with exception of Abuladze.) But I personally liked getting to see a few shorts intermixed with all the features.

[flip]

yeah one thing i'd be opposed to is a format that expressly excludes shorts, but i don't think anyone has suggested that

[---]

the one thing i find weird about a genre cup (but i wouldn't want my objection to stop us doing one, if it's what most people want) is just that the competition format doesn't make much sense to me. like australia vs sri lanka makes sense in a nation cup because it's like a cricket match, and amir naderi vs glauber rocha makes sense in a director cup because it's like we're choosing our community's favourite director. but i'm not sure what the rationale is behind voting between "films where people fall off ladders" and "post-structuralist christmas movies" or whatever genres people pick.

i guess it's different in two ways, a) there's no rationale really, in fact i think it's sorta emblematic of the eccentricity of scfz, from the forum's names to all the crazy characters we have here, b) it's more manager focused than other cups, both in that, like, you can basically do w/e you want as long as you can articulate your justification for grouping the films together, but also like, if you win with japan, wow, u won by picking japanese movies aren't you just a PROGRAMMING DARLING, whereas if you win with "The Sands of Time: Films in Which Playground Sandboxes Symbolize the Fleeting Nature of Youth", i mean, that's a lot more of a "personal" of a win imo

[---]

ok looks like genre has the most support... let's tentatively say we'll do something involving nations (or at least regions) next yr, as that had a fair bit of support as well

RULEZ:
- pick a genre of films you want to represent. a genre can mean whatever you want, except it can't be an actual genre
LINK: genres picked when we last did this in 2015
- there will be either 4 of 5 rounds (please discuss and state preferences!!). everyone will participate in every round. THERE IS NO ELIMINATION IN THIS "TOURNAMENT"
- we are in no rush. you have until sometime in january or february to decide on your genre and films
- BUT, if you want to participate, please let us know as soon as possible. likely some ppl will be "maybes" and we will make sure there are an even number of people so everyone gets to play either round (although 3 groups of 3 could be interesting to pair 0______o)
- no runtime restrictions. you can pick any length of movie you want
- the films either need to be generally accessible (including through online cinephile networks), or you must be able to provide a copy of the film


THIS IS WHAT I HAVE INFERRED ABOUT PARTICIPATION. PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG!!!

holymanm --- IN --- no genre selected
sad_scrooge --- IN --- no genre selected
mesnalty --- IN --- no genre selected
mario gaborovic --- IN --- no genre selected
brian d --- IN --- no genre selected
DT --- IN --- no genre selected
MAURIES --- IN --- no genre selected
flabrezu - MAYBE
flip - MAYBE
MrCarmady - MAYBE
greennui - MAYBE

7 in
4 maybes

[---]

my genre will most likely be "LIFESTYLEZ OV DA ORPHANZ OV DA STORM"

if not, will still definitely be something involving youths & maidens

[nrh]

i always hesitate to say i'm in since my wretched movie watching habits mean i never end up keeping up with everyone else's choices, but if you need an extra to round things out i can manage for sure

[Holymanm]

Wheels on Feels has joined the competition

[Holymanm]

reminder/request for everyone who might be participating, or watching: provide your letterboxd info if you haven't already (wasn't there a thread with everyone's before? the site doesn't let me search for "letterboxd" because the word is too common), so we can see what ya've seen already or not