In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan lifted restrictions on advertising, making it possible for Madison Avenue to directly target millions of little kids through commercials. An entire generation of consumer—emotionally unformed and highly susceptible to suggestion—was suddenly and wholly available for the exploiting. Why settle for 30-second spots during “educational” children’s programming when 30-minute […]
Bobby Roberts
Bobby Roberts is one of the Portland Mercury's calendar editors, as well as one of its film and pop-culture critics. His past career choices included joining corporate broadcast radio just in time for its death, and leaving the world of independent podcasting just before it blew up, but luckily for him there is nothing more stable in the 21st century than a career in alternative print media.
Posted inMovies & TV
Creed II Review: Sylvester Stallone Almost Ruins a Good Thing
There’s a very revealing line of dialogue Sylvester Stallone wrote for himself in Creed II. It comes late in the climax, when he tells Michael B. Jordan that the best way to fight with broken ribs is to just… let ’em get hit more, because “you can take it.” This is questionable advice, even for […]
Posted inMovies & TV
So Long, True Believers: Stan Lee, 1922-2018
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28th, 1922, in New York City. Over the course of his 95-years-long and amazingly eventful life, which ended in Los Angeles on November 12th, 2018, he came to inhabit many titles and many positions within the entertainment industry: Inkwell-filler. Proofer. Writer. Editor-in-Chief. Publisher. Chairman. The […]
Posted inVideo Games
The United States of Dunning-Kruger: How Russian Trolls Used Star Wars Fandom to Speed Us Towards Dystopia
DID YOU KNOW: Lonely, insecure men are phenomenally vulnerable to toxic propaganda? It’s true! Painfully true. And over the past few months, academia has been investigating the ways in which social media has been gamed to rally these men. The latest to make a significant impact is “Weaponizing the Haters: The Last Jedi and the […]
Posted inNews
The FBI Investigation of Brett Kavanaugh Will Not Save Us
McNamee/Getty Images We just love a good story, don’t we? We love rewarding creative, wonderful liars for crafting beautiful narratives, and in turn they reward us for surrendering to that story with a satisfying ending. In a courtroom drama—a political thriller of the kind Aaron Sorkin might dash off in a fevered weekend—a multi-layered scandal […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Forty Years After Its Premiere, John Carpenter’s Halloween Maintains Its Power
In the final trailer for David Gordon-Green’s upcoming sequel to this film, the voice of Jamie Lee Curtis dramatically intones through whispery reverb that “40 years ago, on Halloween night, Michael Myers murdered three people.” The statement comes off as oddly comical now, after four decades under the Shape’s hulking shadow, with thousands of bodies […]
Posted inSports
Heads Up, Blazers Fans: Fast Break Screens Tonight at the Hollywood
Hollywood Theatre In 1978, director Don Zavin gave unto thirsty Blazermaniacs a rambly, contemplative, slightly-stoned gift of a documentary, Fast Break. There is no real narrative arc, the closest thing to a through-line basically gets abandoned halfway through, and there’s nothing particularly insightful or profound to be gleaned from following the team through their quiet […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The Predator Is a Nonsensical, Ugly Misfire Full of Terrible Ideas
In 1987, writers Shane Black and Fred Dekker teamed up to create a nonsensical, ugly little adventure about a team of outcast misfits determined to kill monsters. The outcasts—and the film’s intended audience—were children. Unfortunately, Black’s unique talents (Lethal Weapon, The Nice Guys) don’t lend well to family movies, and the resulting mess, The Monster […]
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The Predator Review: A Janky Shot of Cosmic Slop
Olivia Munn deserves better. On a few different counts.
Posted inMovies & TV
Hulu’s Castle Rock Gets Stephen King Right. Sort Of.
You Might Be Better Off Rewatching Stranger Things
You might be better off rewatching Stranger Things.
Posted inMovies & TV
Incredibles 2: Now Even LESS Credible!
Writer/director Brad Bird’s The Incredibles was released in 2004—the same year as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, four years before Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight—and is the best superhero film ever made. Partly because it’s animated, and animation is easily the best medium for adapting superheroes, but mostly because Bird is perfectly suited for classic superhero […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Incredibles 2 Review: Brad Bird Gets This Close to a Classic
A Solid Sequel to the Best Superhero Movie Ever
A solid sequel to the best superhero movie ever.