5) Detention
Director Joseph Kahn is widely recognized for his work on music videos with the likes of Eminem, Katy Perry, Rihanna and many more. His first feature film, Torque, was a pleasantly strange movie released in the midst of The Fast and the Furious’ heyday, but audiences didn’t seem to respond to its creative departures from more conventional racing films. So he went and financed his next feature himself, an insane satire mixing comedy, horror, science fiction, and probably other genres I can’t even remember because there is simply too much going on to properly process it all consciously.
Detention may be an equally tough sell as Torque, but in its madness there is an earnest, deliberate artistic vision that thrives on manic energy and layer upon layer of cultural reference. It’s pleasantly self-conscious and generationally ambivalent, unafraid to take numerous absurd turns and, most importantly, absolutely one of a kind.