Friday Night at the PIFFies

WW's picks for the Portland International Film Festival February 19.

If quiet Norwegian biopics about sheep haven't shot your tolerance for PIFF, you get rewarded with lucid dives like Evolution, slow burns like Schneider vs. Bax and Italian bad-assery in Don't Be Bad.

Don't put away your beret yet, here's what to watch tonight:

photo from Northwest Film Center photo from Northwest Film Center

Don't Be Bad

[ITALY] Two 20-somethings—Vittorio and Casaere—deal drugs, troll night clubs and race cars in a hedonistic tailspin on the border of Rome. But when love-interest Linda enters, their brotherhood starts to deteriorate in this Italian Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film. Fox Tower. 8:30 pm Friday, Feb. 19.

WW pickEvolution

A [FRANCE] Set on an island populated by only mothers and young sons, this eerie film holds its cards close until you're nearly weak with tension. The women are cold to their sons, spending their time silently among the tidepools and performing mysterious medical treatments on the boys with detached necessity. The stunning wide shots of the rocky beach and stark village create an otherworldly isolation that magnifies the feeling that something very shady is at hand. LAUREN TERRY. Cinema 21. 11 am Friday, February 19.

Klown Forever

B [DENMARK] From the opening score that sounds like the theme from The Odd Couple, you know you're in for a derivative comedy. Klown Forever never strays far from the cliché story of a henpecked husband trying to save his friendship with a hard-partying old buddy, but it does get a good deal raunchier. There is plenty of humor in this tried-and-true story. Klown Forever just never knows when to pull back. JOHN LOCANTHI NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium; 8:30 pm Friday, Feb. 19. Fox Tower; 8:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 23.

Schneider vs. Bax

Schneider vs. Bax Schneider vs. Bax

B [NETHERLANDS] This slow-burning hitman drama about two rival killers tasked with taking each other out is backed gorgeously by immaculate white apartments with white wardrobes and then, suddenly, a dirty and remote swampland. Maria Kraakman shines as the daughter of drug-addicted Bax, played with perfect seediness by director Alex van Warmerdam. After a mostly quiet film, tension kicks into high gear in the third act, but it ultimately raises more questions than it answers. MERYL WILLIAMS. World Trade Center; 8:30 pm Friday, Feb. 19. Cinema 21; 8:30 pm Tuesday, Feb. 22.

The Throne

C- [SOUTH KOREA] This emotional drama recounts the 16th-century execution of Crown Prince Sado, of Korea's Yi Dynasty, who was deemed insane by his father and locked up in a rice chest to die of starvation. The story is shocking enough without the excess scenes of melodramatic rage from every character, but the breathtaking sets inside the palace and its bordering forests make for a beautiful look into the spider web of royal conduct and ancient superstition. LAUREN TERRY. NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium. 5:45 pm Friday, Feb. 19.

Willamette Week

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.