{"id":3067,"date":"2025-07-03T14:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=3067"},"modified":"2025-07-03T14:58:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T18:58:31","slug":"craigs-movie-madness-a-tournament-of-our-favorite-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=3067","title":{"rendered":"Craig&#8217;s Movie Madness: A Tournament of Our Favorite Films"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Back in May 2024, I launched my own version of a March Madness-style tournament\u2014but instead of basketball teams, it was all about movies. The idea was inspired by my friend Craig, who had started something similar a few years ago, but his version never made it past the nomination round. I decided to take the concept and actually run with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The goal? To figure out what our favorite movies really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I invited a group of close friends, and to my surprise, nearly 30 people jumped in and submitted over&nbsp;<strong>900 movie nominations<\/strong>. To structure the tournament, I divided the entries into four broad genres:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Action \/ Adventure \/ Western<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Comedy \/ Musical \/ Animated<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Drama \/ Thriller \/ Mystery<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Sci-Fi \/ Horror \/ Fantasy<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Seeding was based on the number of nominations each film received, with ties broken by their critical reception. From there, it was a six-week head-to-head tournament, with each round determined by popular vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I built the whole thing using Google\u2019s free tools: a site on\u00a0<strong>Google Sites<\/strong>, the bracket designed with <strong>Google Sheets<\/strong>, nominations tracked in\u00a0<strong>Google Sheets<\/strong>, and voting handled through\u00a0<strong>Google Forms<\/strong>. It took a bit of work to get the voting process set up in a way that felt fair and manageable (Forms isn\u2019t exactly designed for tournaments), but with under 30 participants, it held up just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I run this again, I\u2019ll probably rethink how nominations and voting are collected\u2014but overall, it was a fun and engaging way to share our favorite films and discover new ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out the full project, including all nominated movies, voting rounds, and the final bracket here:\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/iamcraigmoviemadness\/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Craig\u2019s Movie Madness<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"509\" data-attachment-id=\"3068\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?attachment_id=3068#main\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?fit=1904%2C946&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1904,946\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"bracket\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?fit=1024%2C509&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=1024%2C509&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3068\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=1024%2C509&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=300%2C149&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=768%2C382&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?resize=1536%2C763&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/beckinabox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/bracket.png?w=1904&amp;ssl=1 1904w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in May 2024, I launched my own version of a March Madness-style tournament\u2014but instead of basketball teams, it was all about movies. The idea was inspired by my friend Craig, who had started something similar a few years ago, but his version never made it past the nomination round. I decided to take the &#8230; <a title=\"Craig&#8217;s Movie Madness: A Tournament of Our Favorite Films\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=3067\" aria-label=\"Read more about Craig&#8217;s Movie Madness: A Tournament of Our Favorite Films\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john_beck","wp-image-borders"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6XpZy-Nt","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":185,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=185","url_meta":{"origin":3067,"position":0},"title":"Favorite TV shows of the week: January 17th to January 23rd","author":"John Beck","date":"January 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"1) 24 - \u201cDay 8: 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM\u201d New2) 24 - \u201cDay 8: 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM\u201d New3) Fringe - \u201cWhat Lies Below\u201d -14) Caprica - \u201cPilot\" New5) 30 Rock - \u201cWinter Madness\u201d +16) Better Off Ted - \u201cLust in Translation\" -17) Modern Family - \u201cFifteen Percent\u201d\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Favorite TV Shows&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Favorite TV Shows","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=92","url_meta":{"origin":3067,"position":1},"title":"Happy New Year&#x21;","author":"John Beck","date":"January 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy New Year everyone! 2011 was another great year for music, movies and tv! Well, some good TV, some great movies and a whole lot of great music! Here's a wrap up of what I liked this year.First. Movies. My 2 favorite movies of 2011 are Midnight In Paris and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":348,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=348","url_meta":{"origin":3067,"position":2},"title":"The Mercy Seat","author":"John Beck","date":"December 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Mercy Seat is one of my favorite songs by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Click the link to learn more about the song. I assembled some links to YouTube videos of various people covering song. It\u2019s such an incredible song and nearly every version is fantastic. My favorite\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":194,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=194","url_meta":{"origin":3067,"position":3},"title":"Happy New Year&#x21;","author":"John Beck","date":"January 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy New Year! 2009 has come and gone and has left us with many great memories.My favorite film of the year was Inglorious Basterds. I also really enjoyed Moon. Sure I haven't gotten to the movies that much this year but those two were my favorite.I have watched a whole\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":203,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=203","url_meta":{"origin":3067,"position":4},"title":"Favorite TV shows of the week: November 29th to December 5th","author":"John Beck","date":"December 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"1) Dexter - \u201cLost Boys\" No Change2) It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - \u201cMac and Charlie Write a Movie\u201d Not Aired3) 30 Rock - \u201cDealbreakers Talk Show #0001\u201d Not Aired4) Fringe - \u201cSnakehead\u201d Not Aired5) The Office - \u201cScott's Tots\" Not Aired6) Family Guy - \u201cDog Gone\" No Change7) Super\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Favorite TV Shows&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Favorite TV Shows","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133,"url":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?p=133","url_meta":{"origin":3067,"position":5},"title":"Happy New Year&#x21;","author":"John Beck","date":"January 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy New Year! 2010 was a great year and here's a few of my favorite things that were released in movies, television and music!I haven't seen many new films this year. I still haven't seen Tron: Legacy which I have been wanting to see. My three favorites were Enter the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;John Beck&quot;","block_context":{"text":"John Beck","link":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/?cat=2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3069,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3067\/revisions\/3069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckinabox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}