Links and FMWL News! - Hitchcock, Flickchart, and FMWL's March Midnight Madness BEGINS!

Aloha, Midnight Warriors!  Nothing too big to post today, but I wanted to let you in on some fantastic stuff going on right about now.  Let's get to it!

• First of all, I wanted to offer a couple of reminders.  My Movies to See Before You Die columns at Flickchart: The Blog are still rolling out on occasion, and last week I presented a sci-fi classic that could have graced the pages of FMWL - Forbidden Planet.  If you haven't been over there to check out these posts, and all the other good stuff there, you should.

• Also, don't forget to vote for the Rondo Awards!  Yes, FMWL is nominated for Best Blog, but the point is that you should vote for WHATVER YOU LIKE!  If you like classic horror, and you should, this is where you vote!  Click the link on the side, click this link right here, click something.  Just vote.  (And don't feel bad, I didn't vote for me either.)

• Speaking of great blogs, I'm honored to have had a chance to participate in the Hitch on the Hump series over at The Lightning Bug's Lair.  If the cards had shook differently, y'all might not have ever gotten a FMWL, because I may have started an all Hitchcock blog.  So, go over there to see what I have to say about my favorite director, as I discuss the legacy of Hitch's early masterpiece The 39 Steps.  And make sure to check out the rest of Mr. Bugg's stuff, because he should be talking Rondo Awards right now in my place.

And now, let's talk about what's coming to FMWL soon.  As you should know by now, the 64th Midnight Movie of the Week is now posted at FMWL, and it is March.  To many, March is synonymous with a certain collegiate basketball tournament which traditionally offered 64 teams.  If you thought The Mike wasn't gonna take advantage of that correlation...you're crazier than those who get Madness every March.

So, I present FMWL's MARCH MIDNIGHT MADNESS tournament.  Here's what's up:

• All 64 Midnight Movies of the Week, from #1 The Devil Rides Out to #64 Evil Dead II have been broken up into four brackets of 16 films.  
• To create an impartial set of seedings, the IMDB rating of each film was used to determine its seed in the tournament.  Thus, the four highest rated films earned the #1 seeds, the next four earned the #2 seeds, and so on. (Ties were broken by the number of voters giving the film its rating, with a higher vote total equaling a higher seed.)
• Once the bracket was set, I had to figure out how to get results.  Though it would be fun for me to go ahead and pick my favorites, I wanted to do something else.  So, I went out and found myself a selection committee.  About 20 of FMWL's favorite bloggers and genre fans have kindly volunteered to offer opinions on the brackets, which will allow me to simply count the votes (and use my tiebreaking hammer, as is needed) while they decide which films will move on while providing their own unique insights.

There're probably some kinks to be worked out that I haven't thought of yet, but in a week or two or three we'll have one grand champion standing tall as a grand champion.   And that excites me.

So, keep your eyes open for the MARCH MIDNIGHT MADNESS tournament, which will begin Thursday night with the first bracket and an introduction to the kind folks who'll be turning in their votes regarding the winners.

Until then, enjoy this video.  And be well.