This week has been a week where things have happened that I wish had not happened, and I'm mostly writing this as a means to de-stress. But also to see if this conversation journal thing has any potential.

I saw a meme go by recently and it seems like a pretty good place to start. The text read:

• everyone should post their ten most CRUCIAL CRUCIAL CRUCIAL-ASS movies, like the movies that explain everything about yourselves in your current incarnations (not necessarily your ten favorite movies but the ten movies that you, as a person existing currently, feel would help people get to know you) (they can change later on obviously).

You don't have to list ten movies, or go by any of those rules really, but my picks would be as follows.

1. Cabin in the Woods (2012) satisfies on basically every level that I could possibly ask for from a movie. And maybe more levels than I ever knew one move was capable of delivering on. It effortlessly changes genres multiple times in the same scene, it works as two interrelated movies that come together into one bigger movie, it acts as a really meta meditation on the relationship between content creators and their audiences, and I've seen it dozens of times and the pacing is absolutely perfect, there's not a single scene that I would change. This is generally what I consider to be my single favorite movie of all time, for whatever value that designation actually holds.

2. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Yeah yeah Wes Anderson yeah yeah furries shut up this movie is a delight.

3. Brazil (1985) is a really unique take on the what now feels so oversaturated dystopian government genre. But the central joke here is that in the real world an all-controling government would be bloated and ineffectual to the point of comedy. It goes to some really dark places, but it's a beautiful film that more people need to see.

4. The Legend of Hell House (1973) suffers from having come out the same year as and thus competing with The Exorcist and also being rather similar to the another of the most well-regarded horror films in history, The Haunting. But in my opinion this movie is extremely underrated and should be considered a classic of the genre. Of the many cool things that it does, one of my personal favorites is that it does away with the need for relentless skepticism in the face of obvious supernatural events. The "scientific" characters are more than aware of psychic phenomenon, they just question whether or not it actually points to the preservation of a consciousness after death. Clever movie, pretty spooky.

5. Adaptation (2002) is a movie about Nicolas Cage struggling to write the script to the movie you're watching following his success on the Being John Malkovich screenplay while dealing with the antics of his brother, Nicolas Cage, who is a lot cooler than he is but possibly also imaginary, maybe. It has some cool things to say on the alleged "rules" of writing and really is just almost too clever for its own good. Almost.

6. There Will Be Blood (2007) stands in the shadow of No County For Old Men for similar reasons as Hell House and The Exorcist, but for me has always been the more interesting film by far. It's been years since I last watched this, but so many of the scenes and performances still stand out so vividly in my mind.

7. Evil Dead 2 (1987) stakes out a perfect sweet spot between the camp-but-creepy horror of the original and the camp-but-camp antics of Army of Darkness. If not for Cabin in the Woods I would consider it the best horror-comedy of all time, and I still find it to be endlessly watchable even today.

8. Hot Fuzz (2007) is like a meticulously constructed puzzle of comedy. Literally everything means something, and the comedic tone manages to permeate the entire film without ever feeling forced, or having jokes fall flat. It works almost intimidatingly well. The entire movie is the best part of the movie.

9. ParaNorman (2012) is pretty overlooked but it's not hard to see why. The movie was under-marketed, and the marketing that was there didn't provide a very accurate picture of the film. Which is less a bargin-bin children's animated comedy and more an austere meditation on the nature of death, forgiveness, and revenge. Yeah, this stuff is heavy for a kids movie, it's like a callback to the dark Disney/Don Bluth days.

10. The Addams Family Values (1993) is a movie I watched about a year ago for the first time since I was a kid, and I was shocked by how good it actually is. Like, an Addams Family movie, of all things. But it may well be one of my favorite comedies ever. There are like three storylines happening, and they're all funny. And of course the central reason for the Addam's Family working as a franchise is and always has been pretty poignant, even when things get silly. They operate as a family in a way that makes them seem preferable, if not downright normal, in comparison to the "normalized" society around them.

So those are my picks. Tell me what you think, share your own, say things totally unrelated to movies, ask me when I'm going to draw more porn of that one character that you like, what have you.