Michel Gondry

The buzz around The Green Hornet comes from the collision of weird talents involved: Seth Rogen plays the crime-fighting hero and writes the movie with his Superbad bud Evan Goldberg; pop star Jay Chou plays Kato; and the whimsy-headed Michel Gondry directs. Toss in Inglourious Basterds Oscar winner Christoph Waltz as a super-villain highly self-conscious about his brand, and you've got a blockbuster that definitely isn't going for the normal.

Screenwriters rarely develop a distinctive voice that can be recognized from movie to movie, but the ornate imagination of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) has made him a unique and much-needed cinematic presence. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a guy decides to have the memories of his ex-girlfriend erased after she's had him erased from her own memory--but midway through the procedure, he changes his mind and struggles to hang on to their experiences together.