Sydney Pollack is dead, so feel free to stay home and rent Tootsie if you must.

But SIFF continues! The early slot is something of a crapshoot today. We didn’t like either of the films we saw (Breakfast with Scot, The Greening of Southie), and the others—none of which has U.S. distribution—haven’t gotten much attention elsewhere. So would you prefer a political drama about a Congolese travel writer living in Belgium (Juju Factory, 4:30 pm at Pacific Place), a melodrama about the healing love shared by an Australian farmer and an abused Afghani refugee (Unfinished Sky, 4:30 pm at SIFF Cinema), or a Gérard Depardieu vehicle about trying to make your Algerian adopted son pass as French (Michou d’Auber, 4 pm at Uptown)?

The middle slot is much more competitive. Our top picks are the experimental doc Loos Ornamental (7 pm at Northwest Film Forum), the Uruguayan film The Pope’s Toilet (7 pm at Pacific Place), and Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, introduced by Seattle Shakespeare Company A.D. Stephanie Shine (6:45 pm at SIFF Cinema). Mongol (6:30 pm at the Egyptian) is pretty exciting too, though it’ll open in Seattle later this month.

In the late slot, we recommend the somber All Will Be Well (9:30 pm at the Harvard Exit).