Entertainment Desk :
Toni Erdmann
Released: December 25th
Cast: Peter Simonischek, Sandra Hüller, Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl
Director: Maren Ade (Everyone Else)
Why it’s great: Ines (Hüller) is a no-bullshit careerist who counters the hardships of work with drugs, alcohol, and anonymous sex. Her father, Winfried (Simonischek), is a footloose music teacher who loves a good prank — his preferred state of being involves fake teeth and a neanderthal wig. When his dog dies, Winfried flies to Bucharest to visit his daughter, who can’t be bothered. The trip becomes more of a haunting as the reeling father takes on the moniker of “Toni Erdmann,” lifestyle coach. Ade stews her broad comedy premise into profound drama; Toni Edrmann is a movie about aging and identity, finances and workplace inequality, goofy pranks and poignant stillness. It’s a character study for the ages, complete with Whitney Houston covers and the most awkward nude scene in movie history. You’ve never seen anything like it.
Paterson
Released: December 25th
Cast: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Henley, Method Man
Director: Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive)
Why it’s great: William Carlos Williams described his epic poem Paterson as an attempt to mirror “the resemblance between the mind of modern man and the city.” Jarmusch’s latest, which follows a guy named Paterson (Driver) who drives a bus around the city of Paterson, New Jersey and writes poetry like his hero William Carlos Williams during his breaks, strives for similar observation. Very little happens in Paterson (the movie), though within its trials of everyday life, even the slightest tremble of Earth feels cataclysmic (a broken-down bus prompts many to wonder if it’ll blow up into a fireball). Jarmusch finds poetry in the murmurs of a Thursday night bar crowd and the bouncing vistas out a bus window.
Weiner
Released: May 20th
Director: Josh Kriegman, Elyse Steinberg
Why it’s great: When disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner announced his bid in the 2013 New York mayoral race, the country wondered how the politician could bounce back from a scorching sexting scandal, while his former chief of staff grabbed a camera. Weiner is less fly-on-the-wall character study than compliant spywork. The camera goes everywhere, capturing wide shots of Weiner’s roaring personality at work — a drive that made him an irresistible media figure in Washington and an easy target come tabloid time — and gut-wrenching moments of nuclear failure. When “Carlos Danger” catches up with Weiner — and more tragically, his reluctant-but-determined wife Huma — a political comeback implodes in slow motion.
Sing Street
Released: April 15th
Cast: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor, Aidan Gillen
Director: John Carney (Once)
Why it’s great: “Rock ‘n’ roll is a risk,” Sing Street’s resident burnout declares. “You risk being ridiculed.” Same goes for taking in a sweet, spirited coming-of-age dramedy. From the director of Once, Sing Street follows a band of Irish high-schoolers who emerge into the world through ’80s pop-rock.
Krisha
Released: March 18th
Cast: Krisha Fairchild, Bill Wise, Robyn Fairchild
Director: Trey Edward Shults
Why it’s great: At Thanksgiving dinner, everything’s on the table: turkey, stuffing, dirty secrets, gravy, slow-boiled arguments, green bean casserole, pent-up rage, and dinner rolls (if you’re lucky). Krisha stages these typical festivities with the fury of battling gods. Shults, a first-time director, shot the indie in his mother’s home, casting his own non-actor family in the central roles. You’d never guess it. Fairchild allows her eponymous character, an estranged aunt suffering from addiction, to seep under her skin. Shults’ camera glides through the suburban colonial, honing in on agonizing misbehavior, like he’s Spielberg shooting World War II. A malicious soundtrack keeps the anxiety at a steady boil, even when Krisha escapes her sisters, brothers-in-law, and nephews for a smoke. Krisha is straight-up harrowing, and a vital look at how the closest people in our lives slip away in “normal” circumstances.
