Time to get things started. Today we begin with the First Round, obviously. 64 films enter today, 32 move on to Monday’s Round of 32. Let’s begin with the region named after a fella from the Shire.
The Baggins Region is headlined by American Sniper, which was up for 6 Oscars in 2015. It only won one of those in Sound Editing. It’s good enough here to take the Millers though. The Emma Bear Matchup of the Round in the region is the 8/9 matchup between the second Hobbit movie and the second movie of the rebooted X-Men run. Desolation of Smaug might be my favorite of the trilogy, but it isn’t as good as Wolverine’s trip back to the 70s to stop the creation of the Sentinals. Upsets in this region are Godzilla over Gru, and Django Unchained beating the overrated reboot of my favorite movie.
Now, put your three-finger salute up the air. We are heading to Panem.
When three of the four movies in the series end up in the same region, they get the naming rights. Best matchup here in the Everdeen Region goes to Man of Steel vs Wreck-it Ralph. Neither are great films, but they both are rewatchable for different reasons. For Steel, it’s to watch Michael Shannon chew the scenery, and for us to have a decent Superman movie after a run of awful to mediocre ones. Wreck-it Ralph has just so many video game references and jokes that make it more rewatchable, so it moves on here. We see our second Hobbit film here and this time it’s not close. Rogue Nation is great, like almost all the M:I film, and Five Armies is the worst of the trilogy and pretty awful overall. The “home team” of the region gets two of three parts of the series through to the Round of 32, with the finale losing to Baymax in the 7/10 match.
The MCU really started cooking around this time, and one man in a hat is responsible for that run.
I’m just going cut to the chase here. The matchup of the round here in the Feige Region is Inside Out vs Lincoln. I spent so much time picking this one. When I set the tournament, I was earmarking films that could win it all. These were both on that shortlist. By happenstance, they meet in Round One. I have watched both of these at least a dozen times. Day-Lewis capital-G Great as Lincoln, and Spielberg was robbed of Best Director for the film. However, Inside Out is near the top of the list of Pixar films, and Bing Bong still makes me cry. Inside Out advances. Elsewhere in the region, we see at least one part of The Hobbit trilogy advance, Gravity advancing solely because of what it was like watching that in IMAX, and Oz advancing because someone had the win that matchup. Finally, Feige would be pleased at how this region played out, as all three MCU movies advance.
One region left to go through, and it’s the one where we are all Family.
Sometimes just because a film makes a lot of money, it doesn’t mean it is the best movie. The good ones usually make a lot less. You kind of saw that up above with Django winning as the 15 seed, and you will really see it here with Nolan winning the space battle. Interstellar isn’t a great film, but it is pretty good. Force Awakens just kind of gets worse the more I watch it. You can really see that Abrams is just copying A New Hope. It also looks worse after watching the next two episodes and seeing they really did nothing of note with any of the new characters. It was just a waste. Matchup of the round in the Toretto Region is Winter Soldier and The Revenant. Leo finally got an Oscar for playing Hugh Glass, and the entire film is a rough, but great watch. Winter Soldier, however, is the MCU at its best. The franchise’s version of a spy thriller, everything in this one just works. It moves on to face the Family on Monday. Overall, this is weakest region for me, and the path is cleared for Captain Rogers to make a run.
So, that is the Round of 64. There are some interesting matchups next round after today’s happenings. Will we see another top seed go down? Did I eliminate a film that you thought should have gone further? Then leave a comment below if so. Who will advance to the Round of 16 will be revealed on Monday? See you then!
Mitten Film Nerd 
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