Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton

238-8899, $6

Have you noticed people are really angry lately? Like to the point where they may kill somebody? Well, it's true. Someone almost killed me today on the way to work, and they didn't even care. Further proof of this phenomenon can be found on our "Letters to the Editor" page, where someone wants to kill us because of a dangling participle.

Instead of senselessly lashing back at these poor, angry, and obviously depressed individuals, the Mercury has decided to be a big, fat ray of sunshine by sponsoring a super-duper fun film series!

If you attended our summer film series at the Guild, then you already know it's a drunken, riotous good time with people plying themselves with alcohol and screaming vicious epithets at the screen.

Well! For the Winter Prozac Film Series™, we're setting up shop in the famous Clinton Street Theater, showing a cheery film every Friday night that's a laff RIOT, and serving more beer than ever before! HURRAH!!

And what better way to inaugurate our cinematic "cheer-up club" than with the always-inspirational The Karate Kid? In this classic from 1984, the sensitive and heart-throbby Ralph Macchio discovers that the ancient art of karate is more than just waxing cars and breaking the clavicle of some dickhead from another dojo. Handyman Pat Morita teaches young "Daniel-San" the road to inner peace begins with discipline and ends with a little booty from sexy Elisabeth Shue! Rrrrowwrrrr!

Admission is only six bucks, with a portion of the proceeds going to benefit Danzine, that wondrous magazine devoted to the health and happiness of Portland's sex workers (sure, it may not be crippled kids, but we're the Mercury, and our priorities lie in sex work). And to make sure you'll be happy for the rest of the winter, we'll continue the fun every Friday night with such cinematic gems as Parker Posey's Party Girl, the ganja-huffing joy of The Care Bears II, the boogie-riffic Xanadu, the cruel and inhuman Willy Wonka and a super-secret film that is not only a Portland premiere, but it will also make you crap your pants in joy. And as always, unlike other festivals, you are invited to yell, hoot and laugh as much as you like!

See, we feel it's our job at the Mercury to bring you happiness--and if we can't do it with our shitty paper, then goddammit! We'll do it with movies! WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY