Genital mutilation, you say? Here are 8 horrifying reminders of it in film. (Screenjunkies)

Nerve lists the 50 Greatest Love Songs of all time, and they won me over immediately by ranking Crowded House at #50. Bless. (Nerve)

Ummm. There's a game that exists on elementary playgrounds called rape tag, that's like freeze tag except, instead of unfreezing someone by touching them, you hump them. So, home schooling it is, then. (The Week)

Will 2012 be to Tom Hardy what 2011 was to Ryan Gosling, which is to say: A lot of great films, and not enough recognition. Also, I totally forgot that Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, and Gerard Butler shared a screen in RocknRolla. Butler should hang the picture above on his wall to remind him that he was once capable of working with great actors. (Unreality)

Look, AskMen: You can't write an article called 10 Subtle Ways to Tell Your Girlfriend She's Fat and then write up a list of 5 Great Neil Patrick Harris moments. Just because he plays a douchebag on TV does not give you the right to appropriate his cultural cachet for your sinister cabal of toolbags. (AskMen)

Here's a piece on religion and video games and how the next video game might just be a religion and ... ow, ow, ow. That hurts to think about. I'm still wrestling with my junior high idea of turning hackey sack into a religion. (Kotaku)

Don't watch this near meal times, but it's striking: An eye-opening look at Ramen actually being digested by the stomach. The lesson: Don't eat processed foods because body doesn't actually process them. (Geekosystem)

This list of 19 famous people who started out as extras includes Ayn Rand, and one day will hopefully include Brian Prisco. (MentalFloss)

Morphing GIFs. Watch David Tennant turn into Matt Smith before your very eyes. (Uproxx)

Awesome reader, Luke, would like to remind us that Netflix's first original series, Lilyhammer, is now available on Instant. We will have a review up soon. (Netflix)

I think it's great that our boy Joseph Gordon Levitt is going to direct his first film, which he will also star in. But why does he have to cast HER as his co-star? BOOOO. (Movieline)

The good news: Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are re-teaming for another comedy written by Vaughn himself. The bad news? Shawn Levy is directing. Still, decent premise. (Slashfilm)

Vince's headline: "Star Wars Episode I Set to Death Metal Surprisingly Tolerable." My headline: "Star Wars Episode I Set to Death Metal Just Gave My Nightmare a Nightmare." But I do love the idea of the two conflicting senses ripping TK in half. (FilmDrunk)

This is the sort of thing I like to imagine Steven Lloyd Wilson sits around and looks at on Saturday nights: Reimagining Art History as Science Fiction. (GammaSquad)

If you go to BYU and interview students in an effort to demonstrate how much race consciousness they lack, you completely ruin the point if you GO IN BLACKFACE. Idiot. (Buzzfeed)

Brokeback Mountain (2005): This is, without a doubt, one of the most deeply moving movies I've ever seen. Both the leads conveyed so much through the course of the movie; apprehension, affection, desire, frustration, self-loathing, love, hate, and despair. All of this in a movie with extremely sparse dialogue. The story is tragic but as I was watching I found it impossible not to become engrossed in a love story that I knew could not end happily. It was beautiful and it absolutely destroyed me. I walked out of the theater emotionally shattered and while I knew it was an incredible film, I never wanted to see it again. Since Heath Ledger has died, my resolve has only strengthened for fear of what I'll refer to as 'atomic weeping.' In fact, I won't even watch clips of it so here's the 30 second version as acted out by bunnies. (Uh, some spoilers.) --Genevieve Burgess

Buried (2010): I was blown away by Rodrigo Cortes' Buried. It's an amazing film for many reasons -- it's innovative, it's brilliantly directed, it's gripping, intelligent and fascinating. It proves that Ryan Reynolds is more than capable of turning in an intense and dramatic performance with none of his trademark smarm. It manages to deal with politics without judgment, to tackle international relations without xenophobia. From a technical standpoint, it's amazing -- an entire film focusing on one man in a wooden box with a cell phone, and nothing else. Which is also why I will never watch it again. I'll recommend it to everyone I know, but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to watch it with them. Buried is not a film to be enjoyed, it's a film to be endured. It's claustrophobic and nerve-wracking and it's one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen, and it's not even a horror movie. To make things even worse, Reynolds has a phone that does him almost no good -- he has to deal with automated call centers and bureaucrats and officious jackholes, all while TRAPPED IN A MOTHERFUCKING BOX AND BURIED UNDERGROUND. Even writing about it makes me short of breath, like the walls are closing in. If someone turned off the lights in this room right now, I'd punch them in the mouth, no joke. Kudos to Cortes for capturing it all with amazing deftness, but I can't imagine that the film is gonna make a dime on DVD. All I can say is, watch it in broad daylight with the windows open, because if you're even the least bit anxious about tight spaces, Buried is going to flat-out ruin your shit. But seriously, you should totally see it.--TK

Earthlings (2005): Like everybody, I inhabit the world I do by the grace of cognitive dissonance. There are a good many things I believe in my heart to be true, but these realities are sufficiently remote that I'm able to ignore them and continue to behave in opposition to these principles. For instance, I believe that factory farming is wrong, but still, at my great remove, I love eating steak. Earthlings, a documentary made in 2005, is about the way that we as humans treat animals. It's political, I suppose and not what you'd call an objective presentation, but the moral weight of the images presented are inarguable. We see the truth written in the faces of the animals, and we see in factory farming a twisted, Medieval manifestation of hell. Peter Singer, the Australian Bioethicist and Philosopher said, "If I could make everyone in the world see one film, I'd make them see Earthlings." It's not an easy watch, but none of us who benefit from the harvesting of animals has a right to turn away.--Michael Murray

The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974): I watched the first two Godfather films all in one go, six straight hours on a Christmas Day when there was no family in town. They were enthralling, fantastic films that sucked me in like good books. When I got to the end of the first, there was absolutely no way that the second disc wasn't getting popped into the DVD player. By the time I got to the end of the second, I was worn out, done, finished. Ate an epic dinner and slept it off. It wasn't that the films weren't a couple of the best I'd ever seen, it's that their sheer size and scope dwarf other films. Watching them is like reading War and Peace. You've got to do it once, but after that the investment of time and energy for a second run never quite beats out watching something shorter that you haven't seen yet.--Steven Lloyd Wilson

Irréversible (2002): The direction is brilliant, with Gaspar Noé disorienting the viewer with blatant camera moves, as well as what lingers within the frame. The cast is stunning in more than one sense of the word, as real-life couple Monica Belucci and Vincent Cassel deliver the performances of their careers, and their physical perfections are only presented as such at the very end (or the beginning). The story is told backward more literally than Memento, and because it does follow an actual chronological order, that final shot after the Great Reveal is both hopeful, and ultimately, heartbreaking. The context of Irreversiblé's irreversible events comes into full relief, making the horrific violence and single-take rape scene even more sickening and depressing than they already were. There's a brief glimpse of what might have been, but it will always end (or start) the same and nothing can be changed. It's worth seeing, but I would never see it again, and I could never recommend it. Six people left the theater when I saw Irreversiblé. I can't say I blame them.--Rob Payne

Kids (1995): I remember seeing Kids when I was in college (at the stalwart indy Philly theater, what up Ritz?). I remember what it was about (a day in the life of young kids in NYC, consisting of copious amounts of sex and drugs and general inner-city scummary). I remember who was in it (it was the debut film for Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, among others). I vaguely remember the overall storyline (a sleazy kid named Terry bangs virgins to avoid getting STDs, but he unknowingly has and is spreading AIDS, and the film culminates with his friend raping a girl who got AIDS from Terry). I don't really remember any of the dialogue (though I do remember being by its very naturalistic feel). I remember a good soundtrack. But most importantly, I remember how I felt watching the film. Uncomfortable and dirty. And how I felt afterwards. Drained and sad. Kids was a good movie and even an important one for, among other things, introducing us to its writer Harmony Korine (for better or for worse) and for trying to present an eye-opening account of the AIDS epidemic in the 90s. It's possibly a very good movie, but I'd have to see it again to really make that assessment. And as uncomfortable as I was watching this when I was a relative contemporary of the kids being portrayed, how much worse will be it be now, a generation later? I'll leave that assessment for someone else. --Seth Freilich

Life is Beautiful (1997): This entry deviates from others on the list. No, Life is Beautiful doesn't contain harrowing drug or sex scenes, but Roberto Benigni's Academy Award-winning 1997 film can be just as difficult to watch. Like its title, the story -- first one of romantic love, then one of a Jewish man, Guido (Benigni), protecting his son from the horrors of their Nazi concentration camp life -- is beautiful, an inspiring ode to the human spirit. And it's heartbreaking. Most war films and those that deal with cruelty are, and even as they are important to view and consider and learn from, they can be just as difficult to revisit. Terry George's Hotel Rwanda is the same way -- an amazing story I don't ever want to relive again. Life is Beautiful just about broke me when I watched it almost a decade ago, Guido's final act leaving me sobbing. I'm glad I watched it, and I'm glad Benigni took to standing on the chairs of the Kodak Theatre when he won his Oscar for it. But I just can't go back to it. It's too, well, beautiful. -- Sarah Carlson

The Machinist (2004): Thanks to an insanely brilliant performance by Christian Bale, I was completely sucked into The Machinist and in between trying to figure out what the hell was going on, positively horrified by his appearance and demeanor. Gotta hand it to the dude for taking method acting to a new level. Never mind the weight loss, Bale looked utterly haunted and desperate and hollow. Brad Anderson gave the film a beautiful look and feel that matched Bale's physique, with everything pared down to a bare minimum...color, lights, sets, with cleverly planted clues everywhere we looked--we just had to wake up and see them. And at the end, I couldn't decide if I despised or felt sorry for Trevor Reznik--all I could do was say, "well done." But The Machinist is so damned dark and sad and soul-crushing, I really can't imagine watching it again. Once you know what happened, well--it can't unhappen--and why would you want to watch that shell of a man go through it all again?--Cindy Davis

Mouth to Mouth (2005): Ellen Page stars in this little indie flick about a cult with the stated objective of "chang[ing] the world." Her character gets sucked in by a charismatic leader played by August Diehl, and soon her dream of entering the "perfect world" transforms into an environment filled with brainwashed drones, slave labor, harrowing punishments, and broken promises. As Page's character begins to see through the cult's nefarious practices, she begins to rebel only to be confronted with mental and physical abuse. While it is a painstakingly gorgeous film from a cinematic and acting standpoint, it's difficult to watch the characters endure days at the bottom of a dried-up well to earn shaved heads as a sign of solidarity and commitment. Spoiler Alert: When members of the cult begin to die off from the leaders' negligence and willful disregard for human life, Page's talent goes into high gear. It's a great film, but I'll never be able to stomach it again. -- Agent Bedhead

Requiem For A Dream (2000): Stories of addiction have always unnerved me. There's a terrifying aura of rot and decay that inevitably cling to these kinds of films. Director Darren Aronofsky is a mad genius of nightmares. You need only look at his CV to know that an Aronofsky film will likely make you cringe. He never shies from the grimy, gritty reality. And while he portrays it oh-so-artistically, the harrowing images he presents are hard enough to watch the first time. This film is one of its finest and he wrings absolutely stunning performances from his cast. (Marlon Wayans? I never dreamed you had that in you.) But, if I'm being perfectly frank, I've never been able to think of Jennifer Connelly the same way again and just looking at Ellen Burstyn gives me chills. The altered states of his protagonists gave Aronofsky the perfect excuse to go grotesque carnival with his camera and design choices. It's scarier than Black Swan and more tragic than The Wrestler. It's a gut-wrenching b*tch of a film and I never ever want to see it again.--Joanna Robinson

Tyrannosaur (2011): Oohf. I'm tempted to call this last year's Blue Valentine, but to perfectly honest Paddy Considine's film makes that look like a fucking Care Bears movie. I'm accustomed to Considine being a jester, a capering monkey who pretended to be a rapper and does wacky zaniness. But like Martin McDonagh, behind that laughter is an incredible amount of searing pain. Tyrannosaur is a film about a horrible lonely bastard -- the fucking brilliant Peter Mullan -- who sits around his homestead basically waiting to die. How big a bastard? The title Tyrannosaur comes from a term of endearment he used on his dead wife, who gained an enormous amount of weight. When she walked, water glasses would vibrate like the scene in Jurassic Park. Hence, Tyrannosaur. Sunshine and fucking lollipops, friends. Like some infectious leper of despair, he spreads misery and scorn on whomever he touches. He takes the sweet proprietress of the local thrift shop (Olivia Colman, also just fucking spectacular) and basically grinds her and her faith down. It's a brutal tale of violence and woe, not just a gut punch, but getting shot in the liver and then being punched repeatedly in the gunshot wound. It's astounding and bleak, and I was stunned at the performances, but I don't think I could endure the wistfulness and pain. Considine compared the making of this film to an exorcism, and those demons have fucking claws.--Brian Prisco

"Inside Nature's Giants" on PBS at 10:00pm ET. So last week's shark episode was pretty awesome, and I loved the moment where they brought the kid up close to the partially hacked up shark corpse so they could point out how you tell boy sharks from girl sharks. This week might be a little harder on some people, since they're going to be dissecting big cats. Specifically a lion and a tiger.

"The Real World/Road Rules Challenge" on MTV at 10:00pm ET. I know there's several of you that follow this series religiously. I don't understand it, but I won't condemn it either; MTV is at least fairly honest regarding the motivations of the people they feature in their reality series. Namely, that they really enjoy being on TV. Whether or not they deserve to be on TV is not actually a consideration, but at least we're not forced to listen to people claim how they're looking for true love or some other similar line of bullshit.

"Revenge" on ABC at 10:00pm ET.

"The Soup" on E at 10:00pm ET.

Genevieve Burgess is an under-employed, double-degreed 25 year old who knows more about music copyright, licensing, and contracts than is strictly healthy. You can find her online at her twitter account, her blog, or her brand spanking new Facebook page.

But why not set these soap operas in the cubicle farms that are so much more familiar to us? I used to think that it was a simple matter of the exotic being interesting. When death is on the line, the stories must be more dramatic. But I don't think that's quite it anymore. I think that we watch these endless iterations because we need to see the characters of the week, we need to see people dying over and over again, on the streets in legal shows and in intensive care units on medical shows. Medical shows aren't about the doctors, legal shows aren't about the cops and lawyers. They're all about the patients, the accused, the victims. They're really about the things that terrify us.

Sure, there are the petty dramas, who is screwing who, promotions and bickering, but these don't just serve as soap opera titillation. Those little dramas serve to convince us that the arbiters of our fates, those figures who appear when bad things happen like angels of death or mercy, are people too. The main characters of these shows are almost beside the point, they are there in order to offer constancy in the face of the constant stream of dead and dying that pass through their doors.

Stories have never been just entertainment, and not just because of their power at tying us together with common understandings, common memes. They are also our first form of instruction. It's the iron law of storytelling to show not tell. Textbooks excel in the telling, in delineating exactly what is and is not with the precision of ten thousand years of language sculpted for exactly this purpose. Purely educational texts contain more information per unit of measure than anything else that is human readable. They can convey raw information in staggering quantities. But they are ill-suited to making us feel, to teaching us on an emotional level. That's what stories are, underneath the entertainment, they are vehicles for emotional instruction.

And that's why we are so forgiving in our stories, why with the exception of our own peculiarities of pedantry, we see past all of the informational problems with so many stories. It isn't because we are necessarily ignorant, or too lazy to bother, it's because getting the literal truth right matters less than getting the emotional truth right, so long as the errors aren't so jarring that they allow our brains to overrule our hearts.

We seek instruction on an instinctual level in the things that scare us. Generation after generation we watch the same procedurals, soaking up hundreds of dying patients and murder victims, who all hope they manage to get a last word in so they might get a SAG card.

It's not perfect, it's not real, almost everything we learn on a factual level is wrong, but it isn't entirely about that. It's about the emotional practice for the biggest moments of our lives. So that when the doctor comes in and says that it's time, we don't stare blankly, we don't have the freight train that's already hitting us loaded down with extra cars of incomprehension.

When the terrible things come, the things that have terrified us in the backs of our minds for all of our lives, we're not caught completely by surprise. When the monitor cries out with the flatline whine, when the cuffs we didn't see coming click tight, when there's the phone call at three AM, we're not ready, you can never be ready for the end of your world, but at least we have something like an emotional script. We've watched it like voyeurs enough times to have a hint of what's coming, so that even if we can't ride the wave of grief, maybe on numb autopilot we can manage at least not to drown.

Steven Lloyd Wilson is a hopeless romantic and the last scion of Norse warriors and the forbidden elder gods. His novel, ramblings, and assorted fictions coalesce at www.burningviolin.com. You can email him here.

There's been some trepidation over the idea behind The Bourne Legacy, the next entry in the Bourne films that, well, won't feature Jason Bourne. Instead, it features Jeremy Renner as another soldier in the Treadstone program, with a whole new set of problems. Yet the fact remains that the cast for this is absolutely top-notch, featuring some returning from the original trilogy -- namely Joan Allen and Albert Finney. Add in Edward Norton and Rachel Weisz, and good god -- that's a hell of a cast.

And the teaser trailer below is a nice one. It's moody, atmospheric, and sets a strong tone for the film, which comes out this summer. No, Jeremy Renner isn't Jason Bourne, but he might be the next best thing.

At the time of publication, this weekend's Safe House was not eligible for inclusion to this list. From the looks of the trailer, it could've been a contender.

The Book Of Eli: This movie had great atmosphere but an execution that turned it into post-apocalyptic nonsense.

Heart Condition: Here's an action comedy with very little action and really awful comedic stylings from Denzel himself.

The Bone Collector: Yet another adaptation of a bearable book that's been turned into a formulaic cliché.

Fallen: (SPOILER ALERT) Deus Ex Machina in the form of a cat? Really.

The Preacher's Wife: This one was sort of charming but still crappy in terms of Denzel's career.

Deja Vu: Sometimes, a pretty good sci-fi/thriller story gets Bruckheimered to death. This would be one of those times.

John Q: Such propaganda.

The Pelican Brief: Julia Roberts' character should've just looked up her info on Lexis-Nexis and spared us this adaptation.

The Taking Of Pelham 123: Here's an entry for the "Terrible, Pointless Remakes" file.

Virtuosity: This campy movie might be a guilty pleasure for some, but Denzel can do better.

And a little unexpected bonus number for you...

Man On Fire: Yes, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie and have mentioned it elsewhere on a few occasions. Still, it's pretty damn crappy in spite of ol' Creasy Bear.

Agent Bedhead lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She and her little black heart can be found at Celebitchy.