2025 Birthday Party: Annual Movie Bracket

Boy, oh boy, did I screw this up.

My only consolation is that I had a really good time, and it was never really about the results. Which is a great consolation, but the fact that it works really well in almost any situation gives me pause. Anyhow, back to thing we did.

In many homes, Thanksgiving means football is on the TV. No one's expected to sit there, start to finish, and consume all 9 hours of content, but it's nice to have something on in the other room, even if you only plan to catch 5min at a time. Whether you like football or not, it exists as a shared experience, easy conversation, or perhaps consistent grievance.

But my house didn't watch football. For me, growing up, it was Band of Brothers, The Godfather, or some movie marathon on cable. Something I'd seen before, but didn't mind seeing again. Any five minutes is either fine or great, and you're not going to have missed anything crucial if you need to move a car or mash the potatoes.

I want that for every month. I started trying to make a lineup of my own, but I realized that a big part of the experience was the collaborative nature of it- It should be something everyone feels this way about. So why not ask everyone? (Spoilers: Because it's a poorly formed question that no person, let alone group, can come up with a cohesive answer for.)

So I asked my party guests what movie or season fit for each month, to which they collectively responded "what?" and demanded a bracket for "best movie that everyone should see at least twice". I was not disappointed in the eventual answer:

But as good as The Mummy is, it's only one movie (actually it's eleven movies, if you want to be pedantic). So we went back and plotted the other candidates on my goofy 13-month calendar. To be entirely honest, I think the time I would spend watching all thirteen might be better spent re-evaluating my process, but since talk is cheap I might as well agree to do both.

Maybe what I really need is to run a separate bracket for each month. But OTOH, I kind of want to hear people make strong arguments for each candidate. Maybe I can get both. 🤷‍♂️ Only time will tell.