Splice Is An Appropriately Unnerving Creature Feature

For the weekend of June 4, 2010, you had a couple of options in terms of new release movies. You could watch Killers, a Katherine Heigl/Ashton Kutcher romantic-comedy. You could also partake in Marmaduke, the newest attempt by Hollywood to make that Alvin and the Chipmunks lightning strike twice. Then there was Get Him to the Greek, starring Russell Brand (man, the movie stars of 2010 are such distant memories they might as well be the movie stars of 1920). Or you could watch Splice, an original horror film from Vincenzo Natali that goes in some...let's say strange directions. It's certainly not an ordinary film but I found it consistently engaging, even if only on a "What will they do next?" level.

Predators Has Creativity To Spare But Struggles To Use Said Creativity Properly

Nearly twenty years after Predator 2, the Predator franchise came back to life (though these aliens had appeared in the two Alien vs. Predator movies) in 2010 under the eye of producer Robert Rodriguez for a movie whose tone couldn't have been farther away from the cornball nature of Predator 2 unless it had maybe been Cabaret But With Predators. Predators was intended to be a grim n' gritty tale that took the Predator series into outer space and followed a wholly new cast (though, like Predator 2, there's a brief verbal reference to the events of the very first Predator movie) of characters trying to survive being hunted by these extra-terrestrial creatures.

A Great Cast And Confident Directing Make The Brothers Bloom A Delight

The occasionally wacky humor of Star Wars: The Last Jedi was a surprise to many viewers of that space opera, but thinking on it, that sort of humor feels like trademark Rian Johnson, especially in regards to his 2009 feature The Brothers Bloom, which is chock full of stylized gags that feel heavily reminiscent of Monty Python or perhaps Wes Anderson. It takes a little while to get into the heavily ridiculous aesthetic of The Brothers Bloom, but taken as a whole, it's easy to see why Rian Johnson decided to go full-on silly since he's doing an extended homage to the caper subgenre with this project and that's a section of cinema that's well-known for its heightened tendencies.

The Darjeeling Limited Is Sometimes Tonally Disjointed But Still Entertaining Wes Anderson Cinema

In every Wes Anderson film, the elements of whimsy and reality are always prevalent, with the whimsy usually coming in the form of the sets and dialogue while reality rears its head in the character arcs, plot points and overall themes of the stories. In his three most recent movies, Anderson has found phenomenal success going for more heightened stylized tendencies while also exploring fresh new dramatic terrain that's more complex and mature, helping him solidify his place as a truly remarkable artist. Just before that trio of masterpieces, Anderson created The Darjeeling Limited, which, interestingly, leaned on realism more heavily than a number of other movies in his filmography.

Some Thoughts On Benedict Cumberbatch As Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange, as depicted in the comics

Speculation over who would be playing Marvels Supreme Sorcerer has been running rampant for years. For a two month period starting around this years Comic-Con, Joaquin Phoenix was in heavy discussions for the role that went nowhere. Tons of actors were rumored for the role during the month, including Tom Hardy, Adrien Brody and Collin Farrell. One name that had come up numerous times, even during a Q&A session at Comic-Con with the actor, was Benedict Cumberbatch, who seems to the be the one who Marvel will get to play Doctor Strange.