Pop Culture Bracketology: Film, Veteran 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 Veterans Region. Other pairings can be found in the right sidebar.

1. Martin Scoresese ("The Departed," "Shine a Light," "Shutter Island") vs.
16. Edward Zwick ("Blood Diamond," "Defiance")

8. Woody Allen ("Cassandra's Dream," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," "Whatever Works") vs.
9. Terrence Malik ( "The New World")

5. Clint Eastwood ("Changeling," "Gran Torino," "Invictus") vs.
12. Mike Nichols ("Charlie Wilson's War")

4. Roman Polanski ("The Ghost Writer") vs.
13. Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire," "Sunshine")

6. Sidney Lumet ("Find Me Guilty," "Before the Devil Knows Your Dead") vs.
11. Oliver Stone ("World Trade Center," "W.")

3. The Coen Brothers ("No Country For Old Men," "Burn After Reading," "A Serious Man") vs.
14. David Cronenberg ("Eastern Promises," "A History of Violence"

7. Spike Lee ("Inside Man," "When the Levee Broke," "Miracle at St. Anna") vs.
10. Michael Mann ("Miami Vice," "Public Enemies")

2. "Steven Spielberg ("Munich," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull") vs.
15. George Romero ("Diary of the Dead," "Survival of the Dead")