A Director Draft

There are a few things that I am obsessed with. Movies, soccer, and Philadelphia Phillies baseball. That's more or less the list. I visit mesage boards on each of those three a few times a day to read up on rumors, news, and other peoples opinions. In a beautiful twist of fate the soccer message board I visit also has it's fair share of cinephiles. I would say over the past year or so, some of the more interesting suggestions and conversations I have had on film have come from a soccer message board.

Last year around this time on that board we held a "Movie Draft." I posted a little bit about it here, and included my final ten round roster. A year on many of those picks would be different. In part because of the films that were brought to my attention by other posters in the movie draft.

This year, many of the same guys are participating in an arranged directors draft. 16 people, 10 rounds. That would be 160 directors. That's plenty of directors, but that is the point, I guess. I look forward to learning about more directors to check out, to add to a Netflix queue that is already spiraling out of control.

We are into the third round right now. Being the tenth pick, I was unable to pick what would have been my first pick, Jean-Luc Godard. But that's okay. The #1 drafter chose him and in a later post mentioned he had to pick him #1, because he knew I would snatch him up if he didn't. The picks so far have been somewhat predctable, all directors that have been cannonized already. But some have gone higher than expected like Terrence Malick at 6 which I applaud as I was actually considering him as a first round sleeper with my #10 pick. But, even with 160 picks, several of us acknowledge that there will be many great directors left of the list.

Perhaps, I will continue to update this post as I fill out a roster of draftees. So far, I consider myself lucky to have gotten not only two greats, but two of my very favorites at picks 10 and 20.





Round 1. Robert Bresson
Round 2. Yasijuro Ozu
Round 3. Nicholas Ray
Round 4. Robert Wise
Round 5. Wim Wenders
Round 6. Otto Preminger
Round 7. David Gordon Green
Round 8. Jaques Tourneur
Round 9. Edgar G. Ulmer
Round 10. Ed Wood