DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.

Repertory: Stranger Than Paradise
“You go to some place new and everything just looks the same,” says Eddie, one of the two hipster-slacker protagonists of Jim Jarmusch’s wickedly funny second feature. Press materials made a big deal of the origin of the film, pointedly calling it “A New American Film by a New American Director.” There’s no doubt Eddie (and Jarmusch) were saying something about a culture that seemed homogenized and stale. But the film also proved to be a stylistic landmark in American independent cinema. Jarmusch’s bleak landscapes and minimalist approach remain just as striking today, and his three-part tale of the restless wanderings of Eddie, Willie, and Willie’s Howlin’ WolfScreamin’ Jay Hawkins-obsessed Hungarian cousin Eva is as relevant and darkly hilarious as it was when it debuted nearly 25 years ago.

View the trailer.
Playing at the AFI Silver Theatre this Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, and next Thursday.

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Independent: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
Seth Gordon’s film about the quest of two men to be recognized as the best Donkey Kong player in the world is being hailed as a quirky masterpiece, one of those documentaries that takes on a subject so bizarre, it’s difficult to believe it’s not a joke. I’m thinking American Movie, but even geekier. Gordon mines his subject’s characters far deeper than one would expect in such an ostensibly goofy setup, and the result is apparently both hilarious and fascinating.

View the trailer.
Begins a one-week-only engagement at E Street Cinema starting on Friday, with appearances by producer Ed Cunningham at Saturday’s 8 & 10 p.m. screenings.