Dont miss Lamb: 9:45om tonight at SIFF Cinema Uptown, 11am tomorrow at Harvard Exit
Don't miss Lamb: 9:45om tonight at SIFF Cinema Uptown, 11am tomorrow at Harvard Exit

Look, it's fine if you want to lie to me. Just don't lie to yourself. I know it's sunny. I know it's warm. I know what happens to Seattle when these things happen. But I also know that after a few minutes of vitamin D-dappled rapture, you're going to want to find a big, dark, cool space to take shelter in. My vote: the 41st annual Seattle International Film Festival, now officially hurtling headlong into its final week. You already know that our massively searchable festival guide—trailers, synopses, reviews, schedules, tickets, the lot—right here in our online calendar, Things To Do, so I won't repeat myself. Here are our picks for the weekend:

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution

MUST SEE:

Being Evel
See a man jump a motorcycle over a box of rattlesnakes! (Well, mostly, anyway.) Although produced by the Jackass gang, this is far from a hagiography, refusing to sugarcoat Knievel’s ever-widening mean streak. (The stories surrounding the Snake River fiasco are shuddery and wild.) Very entertaining, and occasionally sublimely ridiculous. WARNING: some of the wardrobe displayed may cause hysterical blindness. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Sat May 30, 2:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown


The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Originally produced for PBS, this impressively comprehensive film never really deviates from the standard historical template. (You could guess the majority of the song cues beforehand.) The combination of archival footage and modern day interviews is both fascinating and enraging, especially when delving into the tragic oratory genius of Fred Hampton. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Fri May 29, 9:30pm at Pacific Place
Mon June 1, 4pm at Pacific Place

Lamb
A gorgeously made film about a verrrrry delicate subject—the secret relationship between a grown man and a young girl thrown together by—not quite circumstance (it's not as easy as that), but some strange sense of kinship. The film is ropelled by a very creepy tension which, in the wrong hands, could have been exploitative or far, far worse. However, as both director and actor, Ross Partridge seems determined to mine the tension for drama without milking the suspense. It's comforting to know that he's just as wary as we are of a worst-case scenario. But once you strip away all the dread and supense, the dynamic that emerges between him and his young costar becomes all the more disarming and unexpected. It’s an audacious strategy, because what’s at stake is something precious in real life. That also makes the film’s success doubly impressive. (SEAN NELSON)
Fri May 29, 9:45 pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown
Sat May 30, 11am at Harvard Exit

Wet Bum
Wet Bum: Great movie, maybe not the greatest name

RECOMMENDED

54: The Director’s Cut
The 1998 release of this movie was such a weird botch that news of a director’s cut seemed silly at first. (Like what else is getting one, Krippendorf’s Tribe?) And yet, the 54 that could have been, the gay one, has been circulating for years. It’s a totally different story. Still a little wiggly at times (hair is an issue), but worthy of reappraisal. Bonus: It preserves the best bit from the original, Mike Myers’s immortal “I wanna suck ya cock,” delivered in Steve Rubell’s Brooklyn brogue to a timid Ryan Phillippe. (SEAN NELSON)
Fri May 29, 7pm at SIFF Cinema Egyptian

I Am the People
We’ve all seen images and heard stories from the Cairo uprising, but filmmaker Anna Roussillon documented the chaos from a southern farming village, where debate about regime change jostled elbow to elbow with births, deaths, anxiety over cooking-gas shortages, and farming machines that barely work. People’s rawest and most human moments come when Roussillon tries to draw out farmer Farraj Abdelwahid, who is alternately jubilant and irritated by the rise and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood—and when village women tease her (but with claws out) for being unmarried and childless. (BRENDAN KILEY)
Sat May 30, 8:30pm at Lincoln Square

Itsi Bitsi
The '60s hippie dream of political activism, plentiful sex and drugs, world travel, and acoustic-guitar picking plays itself out among attractive Scandinavians in Ole Christian Madsen's sporadically inspirational Itsi Bitsi. Based on the exploits of Eik Skaløe, frontman for important Danish psychedelic-folk group Steppeulvene (the Steppe Wolves, Hesse homage noted), the film follows Eik's transformation from earnest anti-nuclear-arms protester to struggling novelist to full-blown rock star. Along the way, he gets busted for possession a few times and competes with other men for his beautiful muse, Iben. Ultimately, Eik loses that battle and exits this mortal coil in a most romantic, stoic manner. (DAVE SEGAL)
Sun May 31, 9:30pm at Pacific Place


Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains
This film has the feeling of a 19th-century Central Asian soap opera. You’ve got men wearing big furry hats and women in titanic head wraps; there are yurts and fighters on horseback and swords. It tells the political story of a shrewd female leader and the Kyrgyz people’s fight for survival. It’s a historical pageant. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
Fri May 29, 9:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown

Mr. Holmes
Bill Condon and Ian McKellen (Gods and Monsters) make such a good team that it’s almost possible to overlook the director’s desultory entries in the Twilight series. In this affecting three-hander, which draws from the 2005 novel by Mitch Cullen, McKellen plays Sherlock Holmes as a 93-year-old retiree working on his memoir, struggling with memory loss, reliving a troubling case, and mentoring an impressionable boy named Roger (Milo Parker). The relationship between Sherlock and Roger reflects, in ways both positive and negative, the storied detective's previous dealings with partner Watson, nemesis Moriarty, and enigmatic brother Mycroft. Laura Linney plays Roger's housekeeper mother, who calls Sherlock on his bullshit. (KATHY FENNESSY)
Fri May 29, 7pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown
Sun May 31, 4pm at Pacific Place

Next Time I’ll Aim For The Heart
Directed by a former Cahiers du Cinema critic, Cedric Anger, Next Time I’ll Aim for the Heart, a French film set in the 70s in a small town, has all of the elements that we can identify as cinema. The cinematography is constantly surprising us, the score swells, and the killer at the center of its plot, which has many twists, is perfectly and even predictably psycho. Though a little long, Next Time is clearly made a person who really has a strong idea of what filmmaking is about. (CHARLES MUDEDE)
Sun May 31, 9:45pm at SIFF Cinema Egyptian

Phoenix
What would it be like to get out of a concentration camp and return to regular life? To be back in Berlin, not knowing who around you supported the Nazis. As Nelly tries to reconnect with parts of her old life, things take a very strange turn. This is a wonderfully riveting film. (GILLIAN ANDERSON)
Sun May 31, 7:15pm at SIFF Cinema Egyptian

Rebel Without a Cause
Okay, some of James Dean’s method moments can be a bit much. And then there’s the slang. Neither of these matter a whit, really. Nicholas Ray’s 1955 masterwork remains an unbelievably vital movie, with colors you could scratch off of the screen. Rock and roll is firmly in its soul. (ANDREW WRIGHT)
Sun May 31, 4pm at SIFF Cinema Egyptian

Wet Bum
This movie is quiet the way it’s quiet underwater—slow and with its own special noise, sparkling and cool. It’s a not-terribly-unusual coming of age story (with a satisfying ending) written, shot, and played beautifully, about a 14-year-old girl who loves to swim and wears her wet swimsuit under her clothes everywhere. Hence the title: Wet Bum, hands-down the worst title for the best movie this year. (JEN GRAVES)
Sat May 30, 11am at Pacific Place
Sun May 31, 5:30pm at SIFF Cinema Uptown