SIFF 2013 Picks (Week 2)

Keep track of all The SunBreak’s festival coverage on our SIFF 2013 page.

Here we are in the second full week of the Seattle International Film Festival, and things are starting to get a little bleary for the passholder completists running hither and yon to take advantage of their all-you-can-screen status. For the rest of us, the steady, soothing flow of movies at SIFF represents a chance to hook a few films that might otherwise slip past us. So let’s take a closer look at what’s showing the next few days.

The week’s special event is “A Tribute to the Music of Muscle Shoals with Patterson and David Hood,” happening this Thursday, May 30, at the Triple Door. As a documentary, Muscle Shoals seems to be hopping on the “immortalize an iconic recording studio” bandwagon (or is part of a shared zeitgeist) that Dave Grohl started with his Sound City doc.

After a big Memorial Day weekend, this mid-festival week is slimmer pickings.

The Human Scale: This afternoon is the last screening of this Danish documentary about the rise of the megacity and its impact on genuine human interaction. “The Human Scale looks at the necessity of re-evaluating urban design in five chapters. Each chapter focuses on a city — including New York, Copenhagen, Dhaka, Chongqing, and Christchurch — and looks at how each city has adapted or failed to adapt realistically to the demands of its growing population,” says Cinemablographer.

• May 29, 2013 4:30 PM Egyptian Theatre

Computer Chess is Andrew Bujalski’s latest, in which sees his previous mumblecore aesthetic and raises it by shooting only on 1980s equipment (and partly crowdfunding it). “There are a lot of rambling philosophical conversations in hotel rooms. There’s a boring panel discussion about programming strategies. There’s some pill-popping and dope-smoking and possible LSD-dropping,” says Wired, adding that the movie is “never dull and often quite funny.”

• May 30, 2013 7:00 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
• May 31, 2013 4:30 PM Harvard Exit

Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer: See it on a big screen before it comes to HBO on June 10. Director Mike Lerner couldn’t swing an interview with the imprisoned artists themselves, so the film talks to just about everyone they know instead, pro and con, while their trial drags on.

• May 29, 2013 9:30 PM Egyptian Theatre
• June 2, 2013 3:00 PM Kirkland Performance Center
• June 9, 2013 7:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

The Kings of Summer is all sold out for the Wednesday night screening, with only standby tickets available. You’ll have better luck catching this coming-of-age comedy crowd-pleaser at the early show on Thursday. It stars three kids who go full-Thoreau one summer, planning to build a house in the woods. Oh, and there’s Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally.

• May 29, 2013 7:00 PM AMC Pacific Place 11
• May 30, 2013 4:00 PM AMC Pacific Place 11

Camion: This film-festival award-winner depicts how the world of a Quebec truck driver changes after a crash. “Je me suis embarqué sur un terrain assez personnel: un village, un père, deux fils. Ce n’est pas un film autobiographique,” says director Rafaël Ouellet, whose father was a truck driver, “mais ça fait partie de moi.” (“I set off on a landscape fairly personal to me: a town, a father, two sons. It’s not an autobiographical film, but it is part of me.”)

• May 29, 2013 6:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
• May 30, 2013 4:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Terms and Conditions May Apply: Let’s all think a little about what exactly we’re agreeing to as part of using the internet

• May 30, 2013 6:30 PM AMC Pacific Place 11
• May 31, 2013 3:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Papadopoulos and Sons: “There’s always money in the fish-and-chip stand.” This broad British immigrant comedy, about an over-leveraged Greek Londoner forced to work with his estranged brother selling fish and chips, kicks off SIFF in Kirkland, but no advance tickets are available for either screening, so see you in the standby line.

• May 30, 2013 8:00 PM Kirkland Performance Center
• May 31, 2013 7:00 PM Harvard Exit

The Almost Man: Norwegians have a failure to launch problem, too. Henrik Rafaelsen plays Henrik, a 35-year-old manchild who is caught between the moon and New York City  his pregnant girlfriend’s interest in their future and, you know, hanging out drinking with the guys.

• May 29, 2013 9:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
• May 31, 2013 11:00 AM AMC Pacific Place 11

It’s All So Quiet: Did you know the Dutch have lonely ranchers? Get your middle-aged angst on: Jeroen Willems plays a man dealing with a lifetime of foregone desires bubbling up again. It’s based on a bestseller by Gerbrand Bakker, and directed by Nanouk Leopold.

• May 30, 2013 9:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
• May 31, 2013 1:00 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Finding Hillywood: Documentaries that shine a light on filmmaking in exotic countries are always welcome at SIFF, and the subject of Finding Hillywood — the burgeoning Rwandan film industry–should be especially intriguing. Plus, director Leah Warshawski (probably no relation) lives in West Seattle.

• May 29, 2013 7:00 PM Egyptian Theatre
• June 5, 2013 4:00 PM Egyptian Theatre

Unfinished Song: When the phrase, “hilarious and heartwarming comedy-drama” is used to describe a feature, it’s normally a big red flag o’ treacle for most thinking humans. But when said heart-warmer gives woefully-underrated and all-around awesome English acting god Terence Stamp his meatiest role in ages, it may be at least worth a peek. Also starring someone named Vanessa Redgrave and a guy who looks like Doctor Who.

• May 30, 2013 7:00 PM Egyptian Theatre
• June 1, 2013 12:30 PM Egyptian Theatre

Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story: Children’s book illustrator, erotic artist, and survivor of a childhood in Nazi Germany, Tomi Ungerer’s lived one hell of a life. If this documentary does that life (and the artwork it inspired) any kind of justice, the end result should be unmissable.

• May 30, 2013 9:30 PM Harvard Exit
• June 3, 2013 9:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown