After a certain point—we're going to say it's this Saturday, Feb. 18—the trickiest part of navigating the Portland International Film Festival is summoning the will to get out of bed.
Don't take this the wrong way: The second week of PIFF offers some very good movies, and even a couple of great ones. (It also promises the first weekend of the PIFF After Dark genre-film showcase, a recent fest high point, but neither Headhunters nor Let the Bullets Fly were screened by WW press deadlines.)
It's just hard to read the program clearly when you're helplessly weeping.
No way around it: PIFF 2012 is hellbent on selecting movies so gloomy they'll make you long for the sweet release of Mayan apocalypse. But we continue, undaunted, on our quixotic and pissy quest to identify how each of these pictures might be slightly improved. Chin up. We have a lot of stages of grief to get through.
It'd be better if: Father Guido Sarducci was among the reporters covering the story from outside the Vatican. AP KRYZA. LT, 6 pm Wednesday, Feb. 15. C21, 6 pm Friday, Feb. 17.
It'd be better if: The women had fully developed personalities—though if they did, they would not be sleeping with this guy. AARON MESH. LM, 6:15 pm Wednesday and 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 15 & 18.
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It'd be better if: We maybe
got to smile once in a while, just a little. But if it's all a bit
weighty, what's the director gonna do? He's Samoan. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. LM, 8:45 pm Wednesday and 2:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 15 & 18. PP, 2:30 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
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It'd be better if: Oedipus were less complex. AARON MESH. WH, 8:45 pm Wednesday, Feb. 15.
Trailer:
THURSDAY, FEB. 16
It'd be better if: The viewer didn't nonetheless see it all coming. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. CM, 6 pm Thursday, Feb. 16.
Trailer:
Postcard
It'd be better if: It contained more of the elemental flair Shindo brings to his best films. MATTHEW SINGER. LT, 6 pm Thursday, Feb. 16. C21, 5:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 18.
It'd be better if: Having shattered the record for most graphic rapes in a motion picture, the director had decided 40 was enough. Overachiever. AP KRYZA. WH, 6:15 pm Thursday and 7:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 16 & 19.
Trailer:
It'd be better if: …Oh, who cares? Quality is an almost unethical consideration here. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. WH, 8:45 pm Thursday, Feb. 16. LM, 5:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 18. PP, 8 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
FRIDAY, FEB. 17
It'd be better if: It were a bit longer. These are characters you want to spend more than 80-something minutes with. MATTHEW SINGER. WH, 6:15 pm Friday, Feb. 17. LM, 7:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 19.
Trailer:
Woman in the Septic Tank
It'd be better if: Anything progressed beyond the initial joke. AARON MESH. WTC, 6:15 pm Friday, Feb. 17. WH, 8 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
Trailer:
The Silver Cliff
It'd be better if: One of Violeta's sob sessions became the most dour episode of Cash Cab ever. AP KRYZA. CM, 8:45 pm Friday, Feb. 17. C21, 2:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 19.
Trailer:
SATURDAY, FEB. 18
It'd be better if: It were at all possible to capture the textural qualities of Richter's painting—especially the side-to-side trompe l'oeil of his black-and-white portraits—in film. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. WH, 3 pm Saturday, Feb. 18.
It'd be better if: We got to see some chinks in the shiningly heroic armor. What is public here was already public, no matter how beautifully captured. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. WTC, 6 pm Saturday, Feb. 18. C21, 3 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
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It'd be better if: You wanted to watch a movie where everything is just dying. AARON MESH. C21, 8:15 pm Saturday and 7 pm Tuesday, Feb. 18 & 21.
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It'd be better if: Cedar had remembered to write a third act. The anticlimax here rivals that of the Torah. AARON MESH. WH, 8:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 18. C21, 5 pm Sunday, Feb. 19.
Trailer:
SUNDAY, FEB. 19
It'd be better if: It delved more into the subjects' daily lives. Poverty is the backdrop, but it should be in the foreground. MATTHEW SINGER. WH, 2:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 19.
It'd be better if: The hit man and his college buddies decided to lay down their guns and finally take that spring-break trip to Cancun. AP KRYZA. LM, 2:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 19.
It'd be better if: The subtitles offered more nuanced summary of the night's stream of conversation. AARON MESH. C21, 7:30 pm Sunday, Feb. 19.
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MONDAY, FEB. 20
It'd be better if: It weren't real. AP KRYZA. C21, 12:45 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
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It'd be better if: Philip Glass' stabbing, Bernard Herrmann-inspired score was more present. AP KRYZA. CM, 5:15 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
Trailer:
Aurora
It'd be better if: It were 140 minutes shorter. AP KRYZA. LM, 6 pm Monday, Feb. 20.
Trailer:
TUESDAY, FEB. 21
It'd be better if: The soundtrack was all synth and Mario dying sounds. AARON MESH. LM, 6:15 pm Tuesday, Feb. 21.
Trailer:
WWeek 2015