The Portland International Film Festival started last night, and jesusfuckingchrist have we got a ton of coverage on it. Marjorie's big write-up on the fest is here, and if you go to our Film Shorts, you'll find our bite-sized takes on the 800 kajillion movies PIFF has to offer this week. A few highlights: Hipsters, Sweetgrass, The Art of the Steal, For the Love of Movies*, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird. Here's a kickass trailer for that last one:

Hate subtitles? Not a problem! You've got some other options this week:

The Wolfman: Courtney says it huffs and it puffs and it blows.

The Last Station: Yet another zany sex comedy featuring Leo Tolstoy and his wife!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: I kinda liked it, but then, I also kinda like Xena and Hercules—the goofy charms of which, intentionally or not, Percy Jackson kinda captures. I just used "kinda" three times in one sentence. I have a degree in creative writing.

Valentine's Day: I warned Marjorie before she went to see this that it would likely be "a hastily-slapped together compilation of nauseating clichés aimed at brainless women and their dickless boyfriends"... and then she liked it! (I should probably note that Marjorie may have been on pain medication when she saw it.)

The Beer and Movie Fest: A new film festival "celebrating Portland, Oregon's theater pub culture"—which, as Ned points out, is the culture you already celebrate every weekend. Still, BAM has some good stuff that might be fun to see on the big screen, including Alien and Big Trouble in Little China. Fuck it, I'm gonna put the trailer for that one on here, too:

Also: Tonight at the Bagdad there's a rare showing of Sam Raimi's personal print of The Evil Dead; tomorrow night Creepers is at Cinema 21; Kill Bill, Vol. 2 runs through Thursday at the Laurelhurst; and, because what Portland really needs this week is another goddamn film festival, the Cascade Festival of African Films continues at PCC Cascade.

More, as ever, in those Film Shorts and our Movie Times.

*NARCISSISM ALERT! Along with some other Portland film writers, I'll be taking part in a panel following the Sunday screening of For the Love of Movies. Come by and listen as I attempt to justify my presence onstage and pontificate about a profession I've been half-assing my way through for years!