Before we get started with the voting, I just want to say a big thank you to everyone who nominated their favorite scenes. We ended up with exactly 128 eligible musical numbers! Which means–I’m just doing a 64-seat bracket. A double-size bracket would be crazy, right? …right?

So, the top 64 vote-getters in the nomination round have been seeded, sorted, and arranged into a standard single-elimination bracket, and now we’ll put the pairs head to head and vote for which one should move on. Unfortunately, that means a lot of great musical sequences are being left out. I just want to highlight a few of those here, because these scenes deserve to be watched even if they can’t be winners.

First, I unfortunately had to rule the opera scene from The Shawshank Redemption to be ineligible, despite earning 16 upvotes, since it did not fit the definition of a ‘musical number’ that I spelled out. That is, no one in the scene sings and/or dances. But it is a stand-out scene in what is arguably one of the best movies of all time. I’m sure most everyone has seen it already, but here it is again.

The magic number to win a spot on the bracket ended up being 11, but that did leave me with one too many scenes. Therefore I had to make a hard call and eliminate one of the six scenes that had 11 upvotes. After some deliberation, I decided that the Funeral of Theodred from the The Two Towers would be cut, only because it was featured only in the extended edition, not the theatrical release. That being said, I am of the opinion that everything in the Extended edition is worth seeing, so here’s the funeral scene for you.

Because I won’t get another chance to stump for one of my personal favorites among the nominees, I’d also like to highlight the Salve Regina scene from Sister Act. Not only does the jazzed up arrangement of the hymn totally rock, the scene itself tells a complete story with little to no dialogue aside from the music. The movie around it is fine, but this scene is top notch.

Finally, this last one is from a movie I know nothing about. I’d never even heard of After Yang, but the opening credit sequence featuring multiple groups of 4 people staring into the camera and dancing in sync really drew me in. The robotic voice calling out dance moves and letting us know that 3,000 families have been ‘eliminated’ adds a sense of impending doom that I can only hope the rest of the movie pays off.

Anyway, thanks for indulging my long-winded and embed-heavy header! Now let’s get on to the voting! I plan to leave voting open through the weekend and post the next round on Monday, but since I’m on vacation next week, there may be some delay.