Top 10 Things That Are Genius

I love top 10 lists, and I love entertainment that is genius*. So here's a top 10 ten featuring things that absolutely blew me away.

* What's "genius"? I don't know for sure, but I know it when I see it.

1. The Wire (TV show): Brilliant characters, unflinching realism, and the best acting I've ever seen on television. If you haven't seen "The Wire," remedy this problem with a quickness.

2. The Hunger Games (novel): I don't normally read YA, but this? This ain't YA. This is brilliance personified.

3.  Rosemary's Baby (novel): Absolutely terrifying. You get inside this book and you think you've been hijacked by a demented mind and cannot for the life of you escape. A paranoid, terrifying dream.

4. Let's Scare Jessica to Death (movie): This bizarre cult film from the '70s hasn't aged as much as you think. One of the most inventive horror films ever made.

5. Slint, Spiderland (record): Alternative rock from right here in Louisville, KY. Made before alternative rock got cool.

6. The Ax (novel): Donald Westlake's thriller is plausibly, breathlessly real. A must-read in times like these.

7. Being John Malkovich (movie): This was big when it came out a decade ago, but it seems like everybody forgot how genius it actually is.

8. The Raw Shark Texts (book): Part sci-fi, part amnesia narrative, part chase thriller. Almost violently inventive, this is the one novel I kick myself for not writing.

9. David Cronenberg (director): To watch a Cronenberg film is to be thrown into a disturbing reality that is at once fascinating and difficult to watch. I recently watched his The Brood for the first time. Almost shockingly weird--and that's why I liked it.

10. Never Let Me Go (book): Not much more needs to be said about this but, "Read it. Now."