The summer movie season has officially begun, which means you, the moviegoer, will be forced to make some tough decisions over the next three months: Do you go see the new Seth Rogen raunch-comedy or the latest superhero blockbuster? Are you more in the mood for transforming robots or evolved apes? A cackling Angelina Jolie or a riotous Melissa McCarthy? Channing Tatum's bulging pectorals or Dwayne Johnson's bulging pectorals?
Naturally, we have your back when it comes to breaking down the big-budget blockbusters and big-name studio releases that will be taking over your multiplexes from Memorial Day until Labor Day — but what if you're looking for something besides the latest pop-franchise installment or A-list star vehicle to see?
Check out the best indie movies here >
Man can not live on cheeseburgers alone, and the same goes for the movies: occasionally, you crave something without giant lizards and blue-skinned mutants.
So we've put together a list of 20 off-the-beaten-path films coming out between now and the end of August that will satisfy your alternative-viewing needs — the documentaries, indies, foreign-language flicks and a few straight-up unclassifiable projects that will also be coming to a theater near you soon. Some have recognizable names attached, while others are the cinematic equivalent of a blind date. All of them will offer you a break from the blockbuster blues.
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'Night Moves' (May 30)
A young environmentalist ("The Social Network's" Jesse Eisenberg) and his female companion (Dakota Fanning) meet up with a reclusive, off-the-grid ex-Marine (Peter Sarsgaard).
Identities are assigned, "ingredients" are procured, maps are consulted regarding some sort of locale — but what exactly is their goal here? Anyone familiar with filmmaker Kelly Reichardt's work ("Wendy and Lucy,""Meek's Cutoff") knows to expect atmosphere over easy answers, but the bigger questions she brings up in this slowburn thriller — at what point does activism become terrorism? Do the ends always justify the means? — leave a banquet's worth of food for thought.
'We Are the Best' (May 30)
A sheer blast of punk-rock giddiness, this tribute to grrrl power from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson (Together) takes you back to early-Eighties Stockholm, when liberty-spike mohawks and screaming about the status quo were already culturally passé.
That doesn't stop two disaffected young women from recruiting the school's guitar virtuoso and starting an all-girl punk band — never mind that only one of them has talent. It's a valentine to a bygone era of Euro-rock rebellion, an affectionate look at female bonding and one of the single best movies about punk as an empowering force ever made.
'Borgman' (June 6)
Have you heard the one about the vagrant who enters a well-to-do family's ecosphere and completely changes everyone's lives? Of course you have — Dutch filmmaker Alex van Warmerdam is banking on the fact that people know this narrative, all the better to f--- with audiences' heads.
After the titular character (played by Belgian actor Jan Bijvoet, in a star-making turn) shows up, bearded and filthy, on the doorstep of an upper-middle-class couple, you expect a certain amount of uncomfortability. Instead, you get a bona fide creepfest and the kind of assault on bourgeois values that would make Buñuel beam. Unless Michael Haneke releases a film in the next six months, this will be the feel-bad movie of the year.
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