Sequel To The Burn-A-Ment, Part 5

The round-up of the Next Goal Wins Spot-Fill Tournament is now complete, as a series of moves were/have been made to ensure that every movie in this field is equally deserving, especially since “6 Month Rule” and two subpar Natalie Martinez movies (The Land, Reminiscence) were all undeserving filler in the Saltburn Spot-Fill Tournament. But thank goodness for “Scream ’22” winning that tournament outright. And speaking of “Scream ’22”, its sequel (Scream VI) takes its place in this tournament, along with joining the six movies (The Last Ride, Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Silent Night, Richard Jewell, Fantasia, War) that are holdovers from that last tournament. And of course, that’s just the beginning, as two of the three undeserving movies were replaced by “The Man With The Iron Fists 2” and “Shark Night”, due to the former having a plotline with a bit of a better follow through than a similar one in “A Good Day To Die Hard”, and the latter for A] A brief smoke show tandem scene involving Katharine McPhee and Alyssa Diaz and B] The dog surviving. Now let’s delve into phase one of expanding the field from 10 to 16, as the format for this tournament will be College Basketball Invitation style.

Alright, so phase one of expansion involved A] Both “Ride Along” movies getting pardoned from the Movie-Ocrity/Dishonorable Mention page, on the basis of both the second one having the potential queen of The Flickuum Project in Nadine Velazquez and the fact that that movie can’t be in the Project without its predecessor, and B] “Within” being spared from the Movie-Ocrity/Dishonorable Mention page, as it was deemed competent enough to meet the minimum quota of 10 Nadine Velazquez movies in the Project. Now let’s jump right back to replacing.

Alright, so “The Land” was straggling in the tournament field, as that was the undeserving movie that wasn’t removed from the Sixteen Movies For One Spot page. However, the right movie had to come about for that seven through nine range as a good first round opponent for “Shark Night”. And sure enough, that problem was solved via the recent thoughts of “Woman Walks Ahead” giving off vibes of both “3:10 To Yuma” and “Hostiles”, thus the Jessica Chastain-led movie being put in reserve as the replacement for “The Land”. Now that’s go to phase two of expansion, which had three open tournament spots remaining.

Alright, so it’s been no secret that Nadine Velazquez is Tiffani-Amber Thiessen’s biggest challenger to throne of Flickuum queen. As a matter of fact, there’s been a New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox style arms race of which actress will amass more Flickuum movies. And as to what that score was prior to Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2024, well it was 12-10, in favor of Kelly Kapowski. The score then increased to 13-10 for Zack Morris’ eventual wife via the movie “The Stranger Beside Me” being deemed a conjoined triple along with the two 1996 movies “Sweet Dreams” and “Buried Secrets”. However, Catalina Aruca cut her deficit to two again via the movie “All’s Faire In Love” having a grow on effect that’s similar to “Anyone But You”, thus the 14th spot in the field going to that movie. Oh yes, and before I continue with phase two of expansion, I want to point out that “The Stranger Beside Me” will be a part of a different selection protocol, which I’ll be blogging about next month. Now let’s resume phase two of expansion.

So, tournament spots 15 and 16 remained open, only for efforts of filling them out to yield nothing but movies that were/ likely are unworthy of being in The Flickuum Project. However, that all changed via A] “Goodbye Christopher Robin” being way more enjoyable this time around and B] “The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift” being surprisingly good during its assessment, even it was originally chosen as the movie needed for both “The Last Ride” and “Biker Boyz” to break even with the Fast franchise in The Flickuum rankings.

Alright, the field is now confirmed, with “Scream VI” getting the number one overall seed and a first round matchup against the number sixteen seed “The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift”, followed by the winner of that game facing the winner of number eight “Fantasia” and number nine “The Man With The Iron Fists 2”. And that’s not quite it for the top half of that first round bracket because in addition, number five “Goodbye Christopher Robin” will face number twelve “Ride Along 2”, followed by that winner taking on the winner of number four “Silent Night” and number thirteen “Ride Along”. 

Now let’s take a look at the bottom half of that first round bracket, which is number six “Richard Jewell” taking on number eleven “War”, followed by that winner taking on the winner of number three “Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas” and number fourteen “All’s Faire In Love”. And just like the top half of that first round bracket, the bottom half of it will also have two more matchups, with them being number seven “Woman Walks Ahead” taking on number ten “Shark Night”, followed by that winner taking on the winner of number two “The Last Ride” and number fifteen “Within”.

The first round and quarterfinals of this upcoming tournament are straight forward. However, the semifinals come with a twist, which is the highest remaining seed will play the lowest remaining seed, while the two other remaining seeds in between them face each other. And of course, these three rounds are all single-elimination, followed by another twist. And as to what that other twist is, well the two movies that advance to the final round face off in a best two out of three, meaning that the first one to two wins gets the Flickuum spot that was vacated by Next Goal Wins. 

Yes, this tournament will guarantee the end of one movie’s moratorium, while prolonging the moratoriums of the other 15 for an unspecified amount of time. And those high stakes, this tournament will be fascinating throughout.

Tune in sometime between today’s Nog Report and the 01-30-24 Nog Report to find out which movie won.