2025 movie bracket: MAN v. MACHINE
the greatest event of the cinematic year is finally here
My goal with this newsletter is to write about new films as they reach general release, along with some seasonally appropriate commentary on other cinematic events and interests. I’m sort of taking a fall break this week, but not before releasing the 2025 MOVIE BRACKET: MAN // MACHINE. This newsletter comes out every Friday, which this week means Friday.
Since the dawn of time, MAN has been in combat with MACHINE. Whether it’s the vehicles that force us to move faster, or the contraptions that force us to work harder, or the robots who want to replace us, or the computers who want to control us, MACHINES have always been there to make life worse.
Cinema has been dealing with this conflict since the advent of film. “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station” said arguably all that ever needed to be said about industrialization in 1896. Georges Méliès was stuffing machines in men’s faces just a few years later. The silent era is filled with movies about the dangers of moving vehicles. Out-of-control contraptions define early slapstick and cartoons. Robots were showing up as early as 1921. Computers were being fictionalized as evil AI before the public knew they actually existed.
129 years later, it’s time to ask the question no one has dared to ask: what film best encapsulates the struggle of MAN vs. MACHINE? With that in mind . . behold, the 2025 movie bracket:
I watched a lot of crap to put this bracket together. There are obviously tons of omissions and probably a handful of major oversights. Ultimately I went with combinations that presented interesting match-ups. My hope is that the opening bracket addresses the theme from 32 different angles, and that each of those angles presents two conversing takes on how to understand what we’re looking at. I considered using various seeding systems (Metacritic scores, Letterboxd averages, box office credentials) but decided vibes were more fun. Hopefully I didn’t end up rigging anything.
WHAT TO DO
This is a two-phase event that combines two of America’s favorite pastimes: sports betting and voting.
PHASE 1: MAKE A BRACKET
Print out the paper bracket, or download the .xlsx file below. Fill it out1 and submit it here (click the button, PDF preferred), or email it to pitytherich@proton.me. Brackets are due Thursday 13 November at 11:59pm Central, so get started now.
The participant whose bracket most closely matches the official bracket wins 1.) a bottle of the beverage of their choice; 2.) the glory of their name being published on *life is disappointing*; and 3.) the honor of selecting one film to be featured on next year’s bracket. Last year’s winner was Gabriel Mathews of Portland, OR (check out his band SPARES, their new split EP, and their less new but still great s/t EP!). His selection for the 2025 bracket was Crank: High Voltage, and his beverage of choice was a fun rum.
Whether you align your ballot with what you think will win or what your heart says is up to you. There are some real logical fallacies with this event but I’m not going to indulge them. It’s something to do, and it’s fun.
Substack says the more buttons you include, the more likely people are to click them, so I’m going to add another one here:
PHASE 2: VOTING
Once brackets are submitted, voting commences. Every week, I’ll publish a ballot, beginning with the round of 64. You’ll be presented with an array of film v. film match-ups. Once again, how you vote is up to you: you can try to manipulate things in your bracket’s favor, you can vote for the better movie, or you can vote for the best representation of the struggle between man and machine. This is a free and reasonably fair election - do what you want.
I wanted to do voting through Substack but they’re making it difficult, so instead I’m trying it through Youform this year. Hopefully this is smoother than the Google Forms racket we’ve used in the past. There might be some kinks. We can work through them.
Voting begins Friday 14 November at 8am. Voting for each round closes the following Wednesday at 11:59pm. Here’s the schedule:
Round 1 (64): Friday 11/14 - Wednesday 11/19
Round 2 (32): Friday 11/21 - Wednesday 11/26 (Pre-Thanksgiving)
Sweet 16: Friday 11/28 - Wednesday 12/3
Elite 8: Friday 12/5 - Wednesday 12/10
Final 4: Friday 12/12 - Wednesday 12/17
Championship: Friday 12/19 - Wednesday 12/24 (Christmas Eve)
Winner announced: Friday 12/26
I’ll announce suggested double features over the course of the next few weeks to shed some light on the lesser-known films on the bracket. Obviously films like The Terminator and The Matrix need no introduction, but there’s a good chance you’ve never weighed the relative merits of Circuitry Man vs. Hardware. Now is finally the time.
Heading into Halloween season, this week’s double feature is Donald Cammell’s Demon Seed, a 1977 computer update of Rosemary’s Baby, vs. LeVar Burton(!)’s 1999 Disney Channel Original classic Smart House. Both films explore psychosexual relationships between computers, families, houses, and power - one in a pretty distressing way, the other in a way that is supposedly family friendly and comedic. Demon Seed is available on a variety of free streamers, including Tubi; you can find Smart House on Disney Plus.
Hopefully this is something fun to do as the year winds down and the holiday seasons ramp up. I suppose some of these movies are bleak and upsetting, but most of them are big and fun and generally optimistic about human endurance. Go watch something new or rewatch something you love, talk with someone about it, spend two minutes or too much time constructing a ballot, and get ready to fight.
Here are some buttons one last time:
Thanks for reading *life is disappointing.* If you found this newsletter slightly less disappointing than the rest of your life, consider liking, commenting, sending me money (thanks!) or subscribing. Subscribing will get you exactly what you get here but sent to your email inbox. We’ll be back with normal content next week, probably focused on After the Hunt or Roofman.
You *should* be able to edit the file in Google Sheets, Microsoft Xcel, Libre, and Apple Numbers. Regardless of the format you choose, save it as a PDF. Hopefully it will save as one page, but you might need to putz around a bit depending on your device/computer. If all of this makes you want to blow your brains out, print out the bracket image, fill it out by hand, take a picture, and submit it as an image file. I’ll figure it out.