I got up too late to make it to an 11 am movie, so I’ll assume you did too. I would have recommended you see Before the Rains, even though it’s opening next week, because if you listened to my advice yesterday you would’ve already seen Continental, a Film Without Guns, and All Will Be Well sounds way too depressing for a sunny Saturday morning.

The 1 o’clock slot is packed with sweet (if slight) movies without U.S. distribution. Try Mermaid, from Russia (1:15 pm at the Egyptian), or the French-Canadian The 3 Little Pigs (1:30 pm at Pacific Place).

Filmmaker Brillante Mendoza has a film at Cannes this year that I’m very curious about, so I think I’m going to head over to the Harvard Exit for double dose of his previous work: Foster Child at 1:30 pm and Slingshot at 4 pm.

Also worth seeing in that late afternoon slot: Ballast (has distribution, 4:30 pm at Pacific Place), The Red Awn (no distribution, 3:30 pm at SIFF Cinema), and Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (has distribution, 3:45 pm at the Egyptian). The SIFF website doesn’t mention it, but I know Gonzo’s director Alex Gibney is in town, so he might be doing a Q&A. If so, I recommend hijacking the conversation and asking questions about his last movie, Taxi to the Dark Side.

The evening slot has two great films with distribution: Chris & Don: A Love Story (6:30 pm at Harvard Exit), about the relationship between writer Christopher Isherwood and his much younger lover Don Bachardy; and Boy A (7 pm at Uptown), about a juvenile deliquent trying to adjust to life on the outside. They’re both getting brief week-long runs at the Varsity in August, so you may want to catch one or both even though they’re coming back to Seattle. Eat, for This Is My Body (7 pm at Northwest Film Forum), an experimental film about colonialism in Haiti, looks totally crazy. I might try to catch that. I mean, check out this trailer:

And for the late evening slot, you should obviously come to My Effortless Brilliance (9:30 pm at the Egyptian), the new film by Lynn Shelton (We Go Way Back). Former Stranger film editor Sean Nelson plays the main character, so we’re obviously biased. I sent the screener all the way to New York for something resembling an objective review. Here’s Michael Atkinson’s (starred) verdict:

Mumblecore cries out in the wilderness in this personality-rich, bare-bones ultra-indie, which follows a flabby, narcissistic middle-tier young novelist (ex-Stranger scribe Sean Nelson) as he haplessly seeks to reconnect with a wary and embittered college friend (Basil Harris) in and around a cabin in the forests of Eastern Washington. Any pro-am awkwardness is wittily absorbed by the scenario, but while the performances are all savvy and convincing, Shelton (who splits screenplay credit with her improvving cast) steers entirely clear of drama. Think of it as Old Joy without the seasoning.

I believe there’s a party after My Effortless Brilliance, which is good, because the midnight slot tonight is Epitaph. Thumbs down.