So, yeah, I landed a press pass to this year's Portland International Film Festival (link). I've got the festival guide sitting here on my desk and I've been flipping through it. There's just no way I could do this thing justice. By my count, seventy-eight feature-length films will screen over the next few weeks, in addition to numerous short films. I wonder how many of them I'll get through between now and closing night on the 21st. So far I've seen 5.5.

Yeah, so I kinda, sorta walked out on one of them when the film broke at the halfway point during a press screening this afternoon. I decided I'd rather be running around outside in the sun. A desire to expose myself to natural light on a day off? Pfffft. Some online movie critic I'm turning out to be.

Anyway, I'll be running reviews on the blog over the next few weeks and I wanted to come up with something that none of the other blogs and publications in Portland are going to offer. Something straight-forward, honest and, yeah, more than a bit snarky. I give you, THE PIFF PRETENTIOUSNESS METER.

I wish I could have found a more impressive GIF, and a better name for the meter, but maybe this fits. The PIFF Pretentiousness Meter doesn't need to be big and flashy with a huge budget and a catchy title, ok? It subsists outside the Hollywood mainstream. It's the sort of meter you're not going find at your average shopping mall chain cinema. Go back to suburbs and watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop with actual mall cops if you don't like it.

Anyway, in addition to trailers, upcoming screening times and reviews, I'm going to rate each movie I see on how overwhelmingly snotty and art house-y it is. A "1" rating on the scale means that a movie is as mainstream and accessible as something like Kung-Fu Panda. A "10" rating means it's as unbearable and highfalutin' as the smuggest student art movie ever made or, say, the worst five minutes of Inland Empire.

As with any film festival of this scale, this year's PIFF is sure to offer plenty of gems and lots n' lots of pap. So far I've seen more of the former than the later.

Labels: PIFF