MOVIES TO SEE THIS AUGUST

Celeste and Jesse Forever

She loves him, he loves her, and they’re divorcing. Director Lee Toland Krieger (The Vicious Kind) lightens up with the help of co-writer/star Rashida Jones. As a thriving trend forecaster, Celeste calls it quits because of unemployed Jesse’s cloudy future. Sad, yes, but the dirty jokes will cheer you up.

2 Days in New York

Marion’s French family circus invades Manhattan, their clashing cultures testing the limits of her relationship with boyfriend Mingus. Julie Delpey's follow up to 2007’s lampoon in Paris drops Adam Goldberg, adds Chris Rock, and deserves a first-class seat next to Woody Allen and Larry David.

Little Birds

Suffocated by their Salton Sea hometown, two Jr. Thelma and Louise's (Juno Temple, Kay Panabaker) hatch a plan to hightail it to L.A., where reality bites — a truth debut director Elgin James knows firsthand. (He found himself homeless and in a gang before landing at the Sundance Institute to produce a gem indie fans flocked to.)

Compliance

Warning: This one’s creepy, but it deserves your attention. Based on actual events, Craig Zobel's controversial film stars up-and-comer Dreama Walker as a ChickWich cashier whose manager receives a call from a strange duck claiming he’s a policeman. He asks her to comply with his every demented, supersize request. And she does.

Chicken with Plums

Locomotive, suffocation, revolver — violinist Nasser-Ali is starved for love and looking for a way to end it all (elegantly, like Socrates, of course). Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi serve up a French dish that’s as inventive as Amélie and Micmacs; we’d expect nothing less from the Oscar-nominated duo behind Persepolis.

Cosmopolis

So there’s this guy — wait, a Gordon Gekko billionaire type — in a car — wait, a white stretch limo — heading to the hair salon — wait, his death. Or something. Adapted from Don DeLillo’s novel, David Cronenberg's bizarre odyssey through Manhattan’s gridlock stars a stoic Robert Pattinson, premiered at Cannes, and is a dose of weird you have to see to understand.

Teddy Bear

Tatted up Dennis looks like a muscle-bound monkey but is really a tender beast searching for his beauty (while caged by an overbearing mother). Mads Matthiesen’s use of nonactors in Thailand’s real-life sexual tourism scene won him the World Cinema Directing Award at Sundance; Kim Kold’s juiced-up gentle giant looking for love won a place in our heart.

Sleepwalk with Me

We all have a nighttime ritual. Matt’s includes taking gold in the Dustbuster Olympics and getting it on with oodles of marinara. Is a true story about a funnyman with REM behavioral disorder, and it’s one snooze fest you’ll want to see.

Lawless

We reckon them French got an eyeful at Cannes this year during John Hillcoat's true story about Virginia moonshiners. Working with Nick Cave (on story and music), Hillcoat concocts a brew of two parts feuding-gangster drama to one part tenderhearted romance. Tom Hardy growls, Shia LaBeouf cries (a lot), and Jessica Chastain glows.