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The Predator (2018)
The meta is strong in this one
It's a parody of a Predator movie and by extension of all action movies, and Shane Black would know. I think this is exactly the point, a tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top, metafilm, but at the same time a highly entertaining action flick. If you fail to see the cinematic qualities of such an idea, I feel sorry for you.
The Quiet Hour (2014)
Moody piece on the psychology of survival
As often, reviews and ratings on IMDb are completely wrong, as I found The Quiet Hour vastly underrated.
In gloom and at slow pace, accompanied by a very rich and touching score by Carlos José Alvarez, following Sarah and Tom through the hardships of survival is an intimate journey.
By avoiding an excess of action-driven plot points, as you would expect from your average alien invasion film, this one comes across far more evocative and tense.
It reminded me a bit of Testament by Lynne Littman, but The Quiet Hour is the better cinematic experience of the two, and I guess somewhat more positive. (Not that any of them could really be called cheerful to the slightest.)
I Origins (2014)
Continuously kept surprising
I did hint content elements from Pi (Aronofsky, 1998) and a bit of aesthetics from Her (Jonze, 2013) but this movie is entirely in its own category regarding story. It is one of the most surprising pieces of screen writing I've seen in a long time. Not in the sense of there being dramatic revelations and aha- moments, but rather the twists and turns that keep happening throughout that transform the entire story, its premise, and in some sense even its genre several times.
I'm sure it's not for everyone, and that said script dynamics to some are only confusing, but I'm just happy that what I expected to be yet another small-setting science fiction story continuously kept surprising. Thanks to great casting, cinematography and music, this was all in all a very enjoyable experience and I think anyone even remotely into science fiction should see it.
Some themes of science vs. religion, logic vs. intuition, etc. can be a bit tiresome in this as well as in any movie, but I still think I Origins plays in the clever league with movies such as Primer and Coherence rather than your average mainstream.