Not looking beyond this week

Usually at this time of the year, I get visions of old movies or beloved rewatches dancing in my head, just as little children in "The Night Before Christmas" get visions of sugar plums doing the same. In other words, I cannot wait to be done with movies from the current year so I can again start watching whatever movies I damn please.

For some reason, that's not happening this year.

And from this I draw two possible conclusions:

1) I am not sick of ranking movies this year. I could go on ranking them for another month and see more than 200 movies and be perfectly fine with that. That speaks well to my overall engagement with movies at this point in time, early in the year of our lord, 2025.

2) I may be sick of ranking movies this year, but I am not particularly starved for some sort of alternative of watching old movies or movies I've already seen. In fact, I could be ready for some sort of long break. That does not speak well to my overall engagement with movies at this point in time, early in the year of our lord, 2025. 

I guess I won't know which one is the case until after I finish this up on Friday. 

The earlier deadline this year could have something to do with it. The Oscar nominations are being announced nearly a week earlier than they were last year, when they were revealed on Thursday, January 23rd. That meant I was basically already up against it in terms of the approaching end of January, having to watch a movie for two different monthly series, as well as my annual movie in celebration of Australia Day, right quick. That also meant I couldn't take more than a single night off from watching movies after I posted my list. 

This year, the amount of remaining January time is closer to two weeks. So I don't have to think ahead. 

But there should still be movies clambering their way to the top of my list of wants and needs, whether that is revisiting an old favorite or finally seeing some movie from the year 2023 or earlier that I have never seen. Events in our normal lives conspire to bring these movies to the front of our cerebral cortex. 

In 2025, there are no movies in that spot, meaning that when I do watch my first movie after Friday, the thing I watch may result from something so arbitrary as going to one of my streamers and seeing what's on.

So really, it was a bit of a straw man argument to suggest I might not be engaged with movies anymore and might be ready for a long break. I think I prefer to interpret it that I'm enjoying movies enough right now that I am not impatient to get on to the next thing, and am just appreciating the thing that's happening as it's happening.

Now, if you had asked me after I finished a sleepless night of watching five mediocre movies on one of my recent plane rides, I might have told you a different story.