I turn 39 this month on May 28th (EDITOR’S NOTE: happy birthday, Gabe, you angel), and the odds are pretty good that I’m going to celebrate my birthday by going to the movies. This has been the routine for most of my life, going back to seeing What About Bob? in 1991 with my mom. There’s nothing inherently special about going to the movies for your birthday. Lots of people do it. But it’s still a ritual I look forward to, and it’s one of the few things I’ve truly kept up for almost my entire existence. With only a couple of exceptions, I’ve seen a movie on my birthday every year for nearly four decades.
That covers a weird range of movie history, and there’s always something to be said about a ritual that stays the same, even as literally everything around you shifts, changes, dies, evolves, or whatever the case is. Even the movies themselves are a whole different beast from 1991.
Looking at all of the movies I’ve seen to celebrate my birthday, I find myself with a strange collection of obvious choices, surprisingly good or bad films, random picks because nothing else was playing, and stuff I saw with friends or alone. My movie birthday ritual was mostly a lonely thing in my 20s. That certainly isn’t the case anymore, what with being married and all.
So, happy birthday to me, I guess. I’m not sure what I’ll be seeing this year, but as I’m going through the movies for this month’s Make the Case, ranking the 7 best movies I’ve ever seen in a theater on my birthday, I’m sure it won’t be more disappointing than Super Mario Bros, released on May 28th, 1993.
7. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Director: Steven Spielberg
Release Date: May 22nd, 2008
For several years over Memorial Day Weekend, I worked on staff at a science fiction-fantasy convention in Maryland. There was a movie theater within walking distance to the hotel, so it was easy to find some time in the evening to stop drinking bourbon just long enough to see whatever was playing at what’s traditionally roughly the start of the summer blockbuster season. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was heavily anticipated, being Indy’s first cinematic adventure in almost 20 years. Certainly, it was one of the movies I was the most excited to see in 2008.
And then I saw it, and unlike some people, such as those overdramatic weirdos at South Park, I had a really good time with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the most part. No, Shia Lebouf isn’t great, to put it as kindly as possible, and elements like the CGI in the climax felt a little flat then as now. However, where it counts, at least to me, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is roughly as entertaining as The Last Crusade. Ford is fantastic as Dr. Jones, and it’s a blast to reunite him with Marion (Karen Allen). Our villains are fun.
The action sequences are generally entertaining, including the so-silly-it’s-impossible-for-me-to-get-mad nuke-the-fridge scene. It’s not a masterpiece, but I also didn’t expect it to be. I’ve seen Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pretty recently, and it’s still a good time.
6. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Director: Michael Dougherty
Release Date: May 31st, 2019
It’s not hard to make me happy, guys. Just release an extremely fun Godzilla movie every year on my birthday. Simple.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters took its sweet time getting to us, with five years between the 2014 Godzilla and this one. King of the Monsters decided to mostly ignore the characters of the previous film, with Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, and Kyle Chandler doing their best with some of the dumbest human characters in the entire history of Toho’s iconic creation. But at least they move things along, giving us a Legendary Godzilla film that took full advantage of being able to play with more of Toho’s most famous kaiju.
And that’s really all it comes down to for King of the Monsters. Some Godzilla movies have deep or at least entertaining people running around the monsters we came to see. King of the Monsters settles for something that more or less qualifies as entertaining, with a sincerely moving performance by Ken Watanabe being a surprising emotional highlight. It could most certainly be worse, and at least they don’t distract us from some excellent kaiju brawls.
5. Johnny Mnemonic
Director: Robert Longo
Release Date: May 26th, 1995
Johnny Mnemonic won out as my birthday movie for two reasons. I had already seen Die Hard with a Vengeance, which had opened earlier that month. Casper was also opening the same weekend as Johnny Mnemonic, but I was much too edgy and cool a 10-year-old for friendly ghosts and Christina Ricci.
I’ve obviously seen Casper, and comparing it to a cyberpunk freakshow starring Keanu Reeves from a William Gibson screenplay, I think I made the right call for my 10th birthday. It’s also important to introduce children to Takeshi Kitano as early as possible.
Johnny Mnemonic proved to be another one of those movies where I genuinely couldn’t understand why people thought it was bad. Loving movies like Johnny Mnemonic, which benefits from an underrated Reeves performance, some excellent pacing and tension, and an awesome ensemble cast, is one of the reasons why I started writing film reviews later on. I was tired of arguing with the movie reviews I was simply reading.
4. The Fifth Element
Director: Luc Besson
Release Date: May 9th, 1997
It was either The Fifth Element or The Lost World: Jurassic Park for my birthday, and once again, I think I made the right decision. Nothing against Jeff Goldblum and dinosaurs, but I was a pretty big Bruce Willis at this point in my life, and The Fifth Element seemed unlike anything I had seen him in before. It’s the sort of movie I miss seeing in theaters, without a major IP attached to the proceedings. No one is going to pretend The Fifth Element is sophisticated, but it found its own balance of weird and action movie fun.
While Bruce Willis is definitely part of my love of The Fifth Element, you really need to mention Ian Holm, Milla Jovovich, Tony Lister, and of course Gary Oldman in a role he isn’t particularly fond of (which is fair because he’s pretty mediocre in it). The plot, visuals, and set pieces are all excellent, and all of it holds up as entertainment, but the cast is really for me the biggest reason why this movie is still worth my time over 25 years later.
3. Insomnia
Director: Christopher Nolan
Release Date: May 24th, 2002
Insomnia was high on my list of anticipated 2002 films for no other reason than it suggested an excellent against-type performance from Robin Williams. I didn’t know it was a remake to a 1997 Norwegian film directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg, and I didn’t particularly care about Christopher Nolan, despite seeing and enjoying Memento a couple of years prior. I just wanted to see Robin Williams play a character with the potential to be pretty frightening, matching wits with Al Pacino’s corrupt L.A. Police detective in the middle of Alaska during its period of perpetual daylight. That was enough to get me in the theater on my birthday.
Obviously, there’s a lot more to like about Insomnia than just formidable chemistry between Robin Williams and Al Pacino at the top of their game. Insomnia is a brooding, tense, and unsettling neo noir that isn’t afraid to force its characters to do awful things. It’s a story about the death of innocence and the cost of redemption. It’s still one of my favorites from Nolan.
2. What About Bob?
Director: Frank Oz
Release Date: May 17th, 1991
It’s kind of amazing to look back on May 1991 alone and see just how many different sorts of movies were opening in that period. Backdraft, Only the Lonely, and Hudson Hawk are just a few of the films that were released in the same month as What About Bob? This was a birthday movie my mom took me to see, knowing how much I loved Bill Murray even by the fairly young age of 7, but What About Bob? was definitely in her wheelhouse, too. This is a movie we would quote to each other for the rest of her life.
What About Bob? is of course powered by a manic, surprisingly endearing Bill Murray as a mentally ill man who won’t leave his jerkass shrink alone (Richard Dreyfuss). But as I get older, and I still enjoy this movie, my appreciation for its qualities covers the entire cast, particularly Dreyfuss as an actor whose character must remain antagonistic and sympathetic in equal measures.
What About Bob? is an odd premise that works because it clearly appeals to director Frank Oz, whose best movies focus on charming misfits who are also probably sociopaths. The tone and atmosphere of this movie is endearingly breezy, even as it veers into surreal, even dark territory. It’s a bizarre film with opposing elements that manage to come together far more successfully than it would in the hands of almost any other director. This is one of my ultimate comfort movies.
1. Moonrise Kingdom
Director: Wes Anderson
Release Date: May 25th, 2012
Seeing Moonrise Kingdom for my birthday proved to be a special occasion sort of thing, since I saw the film in New York City near the beginning of its limited release. I was visiting someone, so the timing just happened to be pretty good. It was a nice birthday gift to myself to see another Wes Anderson on the big screen, since I wasn’t sure I would ever get another chance if and when the movie expanded beyond New York and Los Angeles.
Which it did, but I still like that I saw Moonrise Kingdom in a smaller movie theater with an audience that was particularly excited to see Anderson’s coming-of-age period piece about a kid named Sam (Jared Gilman) who escapes from scout camp to be with his pen pal and love interest Suzy (Kara Hayward). The kids are likable, and the whole movie moves along at that brisk Wes Anderson pace where it feels like nothing is happening even as quite a bit is in fact happening.
Moonrise Kingdom is packed with oddballs and good performances by everyone from Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton, to Bruce Willis in one of the sweetest portrayals of his long career. It plays to that Wes Anderson aesthetic we’re all expecting, but like most of his movies, Moonrise Kingdom offers genuine surprises in how the story plays out, and what we go through with these characters. This is to date the best theatrical movie I’ve ever seen on my birthday.
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