The Movies You Should Watch Today.

This list is completely arbitrary, mostly inspired by the soundtrack music on iTunes that keeps popping up today while I'm chilling out and not cleaning my room. But I love recommending movies, even if it is to the thankless faceless internet and nobody reads this.

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

If I had to choose one film to take with me to a desert island, this would be the one. Out of all the films I've watched, and all the things I love about movies, this one is the one that still surprises me, shocks me, and makes me cry every single time I watch it. Jim Carrey defies all expectations to play the boring and passive Joel, who finds out that his wild girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet, in the role she should have won her first Oscar for) has had him erased from her memory. He decides to also go through with the procedure too, but as he travels back through each memory, he begins to rediscover the earlier passion he shared with Clementine. From deep within his brain, Joel attempts to escape the process in an effort to grasp just one last whisp of the girl he loves.
Brilliantly written, gorgeously directed using only old-fashioned camera tricks--no green screens--and frighteningly well acted, Eternal Sunshine is my example of perfect filmmaking. It's absolutely guranteed you'll have to watch it twice, because you won't understand everything the first time, but the second time is better anyway. Eternal Sunshine proves that filmmaking can be smart, detailed and intricately artistic, and still tell a highly entertaining story.

2. Moulin Rouge!

"This story is about a love." That's how Moulin Rouge! begins, and that's essentially what it is; a love story between a penniless writer and a courtesan. But it's also probably one of the weirdest love stories ever put to screen, not because of the characters, but because of the situation. Baz Luhrmann's world is all sparkle, colour, and anachronistic musical numbers--everything from Queen to The Sound of Music to Meat Loaf (!)--and it's overwhelming at first, but absolutely worth it. The first act is notoriously strange, and many people (including myself) are initially turned off by it, but stick with it; the love story, once it begins, recalls the sort of passion we all wish we've known. Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are both fantastic, and the film never loses the sense of gentle parody, which keeps it from being too silly and allows the villian to literally tent his fingers and snicker evilly and still hold dramatic tension. Give it a chance, because you really won't see anything like it again--oh, and the Elephant Love Medley is the strangest amalgamation of pop songs ever, but it WORKS, dammit.

3. Sunshine

I have this love affair with Danny Boyle right now; I honestly think he's one of the best directors of our time, and his massive range of films--the man who did Trainspotting and 28 Days Later just won several Oscars for a Bollywood-inspired underdog love story--shows me that he's got the balls to take on pretty much any genre that pleases him. This is a guy who has explored everything from children's movies to zombies, and Sunshine is his version of an action-adventure-space-thriller. 50 years into our future, the sun is dying, and a crew is in a spaceship going to deliver a massive nuclear bomb into the heart of the star in hopes of restarting it and saving all life on earth--except, of course, things go wrong and someone ends up sabotaging the mission. For a thriller, Sunshine ends up being exceptionally philosophical and psychological, focusing less on tired stereotypes being killed in various ways and more on the effects that such an important mission to the freakin SUN might have on the people who must accomplish it. You will either love or hate the last half of it--I personally loved it, but like I said, I'm biased--but I think it's one of the smarter action films you can find out there, and I have only good things to say about it.

Now, with that out there on the internet, I'm off to put on those films and clean things. Hooray!