Well, friends, we’ve just passed the halfway point of this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. Over the weekend, the festival celebrated short film, awarding jury prizes to Cedric Ido’s Twaaga (live action), Amanda Harryman’s Maikaru (documentary), and Erik Schmitt’s Rhino Full Throttle (animated). Hope you’ve been pacing yourself, because even though we’re halfway through, there are still nearly two weeks of film-watching left. Note, In addition to all of the in-city action, on Thursday SIFF celebrates their stint in Kirkland with a party and screening of the Grand Seduction (Brendan Gleeson tries to woo, Northern Exposure-style, Taylor Kitsch); films run at the Kirkland Performance Center through June 1st. Below, some suggestions for your mid-week watches:
I Am Big Bird: the Caroll Spinney Story the behind-the-feathers documentary of the person who’s played iconic and beloved Sesame Street avian for the last forty years has one last screening tonight with the director in attendance.
- May 27, 2014 Tuesday 7:00 PM AMC Pacific Place 11
Attila Marcel Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) jumps from animation to live action with this charmer about a mute pianist unlocking memories through music. Overbearing aunts, flashbacks, and festival buzz ensue.
- May 27, 2014 Tuesday 7:00 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
Jealousy Philippe Garrel’s long-running collaboration directing his son Louis continues, this time with the son in the role of an actor shuffling between lovers. Shot by Willy Kurant (Godard’s Masculin Féminin), Variety calls it “charming in a new New Wave sort of way, particularly for vocal fans of his 2005 effort Regular Lovers (among which I count myself).
- May 27, 2014 Tuesday 9:30 PM AMC Pacific Place
Razing the Bar Ryan Worsley’s valentine to Seattle’s The Funhouse, filmed in the final days before the Seattle punk club was demolished to make way for density.
- May 27, 2014 Tuesday 9:00 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
Mood Indigo Michel Gondry’s adaptation of Boris Vian’s novel L’écume des jours finds Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou falling in love in an alternate-reality Paris that’s overstocked with handcrafted whimsy and bizarre tragedy. Maybe intentionally, the onslaught of unchecked eye-candy, hyperactive inventiveness, and litany of precociousness quickly began to feel more oppressive than delightful. I wanted to love this much more than I did, but can’t entirely write it off: if you go, expect bucketloads of striking images, not substantial character development.
- May 28, 2014 Wednesday 7:00 PM Harvard Exit
- May 31, 2014 Saturday 11:00 AM SIFF Cinema Uptown
Fly Colt Fly: the Legend of the Barefoot Bandit Locally-launched true crime gets the big screen animated treatment, as directors Adam and Andrew Gray tell the story of Camano Island teenager Colton Harris-Moore and his two year international crime spree that ended with a stolen airplane, the Bahamas, and a federal prison.
- May 29, 2014 Thursday 6:30 PM SIFF Cinema Uptown
- May 31, 2014 Saturday 11:00 AM Egyptian Theatre
- June 8, 2014 Sunday 11:00 AM SIFF Cinema Uptown
Keep track of the SunBreak’s SIFF coverage on our SIFF 2014 page, plus news updates and micro-reviews on Twitter @theSunBreak.
