...at least at the big chain theaters. It's been a while since we've had a theater listing like this one, for Lloyd Cinemas, where our "recommended" star is next to only one of the seven movies playing at the theater today.

Granted, a couple of things factor in there: The time of year we're in (BLOCKBUSTER SEASON), current trends in Hollywood toward rehashes, rehashes, and franchises no matter what time of year it is (Godzilla, Maleficent, X-Men), and fewer films showing than Lloyd's 10 auditoriums would imply (Lloyd, above, has no fewer than four films playing in both 3D and 2D; a theater that could be showing at least 10 movies is only showing seven). And one of the movies above—The Fault in Our Stars—was right on the cusp of getting a recommendation star, but didn't quite get it. We tend to only give stars out for movies we feel great about recommending to people.

But while the state of first-run theaters is pretty dismal, look at what's happening today at, say, the Hollywood and the Laurelhurst:

Haha, fuck you, Divergent and Monuments Men! Other than those two movies, though, your chances are pretty great of seeing something good at one of Portland's indie or second-run theaters (the Academy, too, has a pretty solid line-up at the moment). Granted, that's frequently the case, but it's rare to see it illustrated so starkly.

This has been your daily installment of "Erik spends too much time thinking about Portland's theater bookings." As always, all of the Mercury's movie times can be found right here.