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Dom Sinacola

Dom Sinacola is a Portland-based writer and editor. He runs a blog about Werner Herzog movies, The Werner Herzblog, and he’s also on Letterboxd.
Posted inMovies & TV

The Christophers Is Another Small Masterwork by Steven Soderbergh

He says his next two movies will be made with AI, so enjoy it while it lasts.
Avatar photo by Dom Sinacola

Steven Soderbergh has directed 11 features since 2017—which was the year blue collar caper Logan Lucky sprung the director from a self-imposed retirement.  This bountiful run includes shot-in-secret-on-an-iPhone thriller Unsane (2018), thoughtful exotic dancer threequel Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023), bone-shaking ghost story Presence (2024), bone-dry spy story Black Bag (2025), and now The Christophers, […]

Posted inMovies & TV

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Is a Divine Act of Asset Management

A review born of both immense respect and ennui-ridden derision.
Avatar photo by Dom Sinacola

In 2023’s The Super Mario Bros Movie, audiences followed two Brooklyn plumber-brothers through a big green pipe to another dimension where anthropomorphic toadstool citizenry lived under the benevolent rule of a once-orphaned woman named Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy). Now in 2026, with the general conceit of the Mushroom Kingdom established, the sequel, The Super […]

Posted inMovies & TV

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie the Mercury Review

The latest entry in Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s high-spirited satire of their own lives is a funny big budget time travel misadventure.
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For nearly 20 years, Torontonian best friends Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have chronicled the everyday existences of Torontonian best friends Matt (Johnson) and Jay (McCarrol) as they attempt to book a show for their band, Nirvanna the Band, at local venue the Rivoli. Granted, they’ve never acknowledged that their band name might be a […]

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Bi Gan’s Resurrection Revives 100 Years of Movie-Making for One Long Dream

Dream logic takes over in the Chinese writer-director’s latest technical marvel.
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Chinese writer-director Bi Gan believes that filmmaking can capture his wildest dreams. Resurrection is his attempt to convince you that it can capture yours too. It’s ambitious to make a movie about how making movies is like harvesting dreams, projecting viewers’ inner lives back at them, often to visceral, abstract, and sometimes tummy-hurting ends. This is […]

Posted inMovies & TV

The Mercury’s 10 Favorite Movies of 2025

The best movies of 2025 are at war with the machine, data centers, and helplessness. What a relief.
Avatar photo Dom Sinacola

Of the many exceptional movies I saw in 2025—10 of which I have listed below—the majority of them were available to catch in a Portland theater. The thriving ecosystem of independently-owned cinemas spread across our city is near inimitable, especially given our glut of centenarian show houses. While monster studios continue to eat each other, […]

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