Coming soon, to a DVD player near you...

Movies are an awkward medium for entertainment, in my experience. You have only a couple hours to introduce characters, get people invested in them, setup a compelling plot, and wrap all of that up in a satisfactory manner. I'm not really sure how people do it, honestly. With that, I'm going to start getting into a handful of the more notable movies that I've seen. I'm gonna go ahead and throw in trailers for each of these recommendations, because you know, why not, but I don't think any of them actually do their respective movies justice.

...Okay, I know what you're thinking. Trashy romantic comedy. Well, yeah, a little bit, but Down With Love is a bafflingly engaging movie experience. Everyone I know that's seen it has walked away from it feeling completely and utterly confused at what just happened, but in a good way. Without giving away too much, this movie does a pretty good job of playing with your expectations in a way that isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it has a unique charm to it that I'm not sure many other movies that have come out in the past several years have.

I love horror movies. Well, no, that's not true. I love certain horror movies. A lot of them (The Final Destination series comes to mind) are mostly because they fall into that so bad it's good genre. The Scream franchise is something different, though. A lot like Down With Love, really, it's very self-aware and falls into that stealth parody genre. It highlights terrible horror movie tropes and then immediately turns around and enacts them. With the exception of the third one, which was cheap trash put out to cash in on a brand name, every entry in this series has managed to present an interesting spin on whatever the current trend in horror movies might be. Anyway, all of that aside, I'm highlighting the fourth movie because 1) a lot of people aren't even aware that it exists, making it excellent to recommend to people and 2) it shockingly manages to capture the same kind of energy as the original in a completely different context.

I have a soft spot for musicals. Rent is probably one of the best movie adaptations of a musical that I've seen, and it tells a fairly-predictable, but heartwarming story of a group of starving artists (and Joanne) in the early 90s. There's a DVD out there that has the final Broadway performance on it, and if you come across it, I highly recommend it over the movie. I don't think I know anyone that doesn't cry every single time they see it, and I know a lot of people that have seen it several times.

Okay, okay, okay. Just one more chick flick, I promise. He's Just Not That Into You manages to successfully weave together completely random and over-the-top relationship advice with a love dodecahedron. Unlike your typical romantic comedy, it doesn't necessarily end well for everyone involved, but it's probably one of the most satisfying experiences that you can have in this genre. Plus, as you've probably gathered, you know that I love incomplete deconstructions.

Finally, I present what is probably the most terrifying movie on this list. The Rugrats Movie. It was a pretty intense experience as a small child when it came out, and after watching it a few weeks ago with my sisters, I realized that it was even more terrifying when you took the time to think about what was actually happening in it as an adult. You have a group of toddlers lost in the woods, and some pretty downright evil behavior on some of their parts regarding Dil. A particular scene that sticks out to me is when Tommy is preparing to maliciously pour a container of banana flavored baby food onto his new brother in the hope that he'll be kidnapped by a group of (likely diseased) circus monkeys. And this shit is supposed to be for kids.

Anyway, I hope that at least one of the movies on this list has sparked your interest. If you've seen them all already, then go watch one of them again! You probably need a break from all that work if you're a student that's just recently started back to school.