Although I generally look to bypass blockbusters and tend to want to focus on overlooked independent movies, but this week the blockbuster is almost overlooked and is also one of my favorites of the year. Despite some heavy promotion and starring Tom Cruise, still one of the biggest name actors in the world, Oblivion failed to even reach the $100 million box office status of a summer blockbuster. I suppose you could point out that Oblivion performed similarly to Jack Reacher and Knight & Day, but Oblivion's apocalyptic/alien sci-fi setting seems less "Cruise"-ish than usual, which may be part of the reason it fizzled after an okay opening weekend. That's too bad, because if you didn't see this in theaters you missed out on some fantastic landscape cinematography. That alone is a reason you should still rent this movie, but it also appealed to me because the tone of it felt like a late-1980s sci-fi action adventure.

I haven't seen the other movies this week, and there are two I really want to see. The Place Beyond The Pines appeals to me largely because it's in Ryan Gosling's quiet intensity wheelhouse. The movie's gotten strong reviews, though I'm a little hesitant about what I read about the time-elapsed story structure. The Place Beyond the Pines is Bradley Cooper's next movie following the critical success of Silver Linings Playbook. The other movie I'm most interested in is The Iceman which is also something that fits the lead actor (Shannon) well. I'm equally interested because the source character comes from my neck of New Jersey, and I'm always interested in hitmen movies. There are a few other strong candidates for good movies this week: Arthur Newman stars the always good Colin Firth, and pairs him with the lively Emily Blunt. From Up on Poppy Hill isn't the type of animation that appeals to me, but it's the type that appeals to Oscar voters, so heads up to award watchers.

The documentary Stories We Tell may seem on the service to be a little self-indulgent or overly navel-gazing, but the power of truth being stranger than fiction is compelling, and this movie has gotten very strong reviews. After that set of movies, I'd consider watching Empire State because I like Dwayne Johnson and heist movies, even though he's a supporting actor in this and I don't expect it to be much more interesting than Snitch, and I don't yet have a lot of faith in Hemsworth as a lead. The English Teacher looks like a nice light comedy for fans of Julianne Moore, but it just looks a little soft to me. The Lords of Salem will also probably appeal to core fans of Rob Zombie, but it doesn't look much different to me than standard horror genre, and reviews aren't great. Finally, the documentary Evocateur would be an interesting trip down memory lane about cultural history in New York in the late 1980s, but if Morton Downey Jr. was intolerable for more than a few minutes back then, I'm not sure I'd want to watch a full length movie about him now.

The Black Waters of Echo Pond, Love is All You Need, Star Trek Into Darkness, Tyler Perry Presents Peeples, Wish You Were Here