Pop Culture Bracketology: Film, Newbies(ish) Directors Region

With March Madness upon us, WEEKEND has gone a little bracket crazy. Over the next month, our staff will debate, discuss and argue their way through three 64-team pop culture-centric brackets to determine the best TV series on the air, the best active film director and the best music act of the moment. We will now post the pairings and starting next Monday, March 15, we'll begin weeding out the pretenders and celebrating the contenders. Posts will be updated accordingly.

For our film bracket, we are trying to figure out the best active, working director. The four regions are as follows: Veterans, Newbies(ish), Indie Darlings and Populist Pros. Below are the pairings in the Newbies(ish) Region. Other pairings can be found in the right sidebar.

1. Paul Greengrass ("Bourne," "United 93," "Green Zone") vs.
16. Jon Favreau ("Zathura," "Iron Man")

8. Judd Apatow ("Funny People," "Knocked Up") vs.
9. Marc Forster ("The Kite Runner," "Quantum of Solace")

5. Pedro Almodovar ("Volver," "Broken Embraces") vs.
12. Edgar Wright ("Hot Fuzz")

4. Guillermo Del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth," "Hellboy 2") vs.
13. Marc Webb ("(500) Days of Summer")

6. Jason Reitman ("Thank You For Smoking," "Juno," "Up in the Air") vs.
11. Noah Baumbach ("Squid and the Whale," "Greenberg")

3. Sam Mendes ("Jarhead," "Revolutionary Road," "Away We Go") vs.
14. Zach Snyder ("Dawn of the Dead," "300," "Watchmen")

7. Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu ("Babel") vs.
10. Sofia Coppola ("Marie Antoinette")

2. Alfonso Cuaron ("Children of Men") vs.
15. JJ Abrams ("Mission: Impossible III," "Star Trek"