No, that is not a typo. We recommend Bad Boys for Life.
Erik Henriksen
With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.
Posted inMovies & TV
Star Trek: Picard Review: On Earth and in the Stars, an Old Captain Finds New Life
James Dimmock/CBS The last time we saw Jean-Luc Picard was in 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, a not-particularly-great film that ended with the legendary Starfleet captain striding through the corridors of the Enterprise with Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” swelling optimistically over the soundtrack. In CBS All Access’ ambitious new series Star Trek: Picard, “Blue Skies” is […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The Best Movies and TV Shows to Watch in Portland: Fri Jan 17-Thurs Jan 30
January’s usually a terrrrible month for movies, but January 2020 is slightly less terrible than usual!
Posted inMovies & TV
The Cage Uncaged Film Series: In These Dark Times, Let Us All Cherish Nicolas Cage
Ethan Miller / Getty Images We live in dark times. We must find light where we can. Look above. That is light. That is joy. That is Nicolas Cage, in 2014, at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. That is Nicolas Cage, introducing Guns N’ Roses’ Hard Rock residency, which was titled […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The 36 Best Movies & TV Shows to Watch in Portland: Fri Jan 3-Thurs Jan 16
What? Sometimes good movies come out in January! (No they don’t.)
Posted inMovies & TV
All the Movies and TV We’re Already Excited to Watch in 2020
As if you didn’t have enough to watch in 2019, 2020 is coming at you even harder with more stuff you’ll be excited to watch, more stuff you’ll feel obligated to watch, and more stuff that everyone you know won’t shut up about until you finally just lie and say you watched it too and […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Here Are the Mercury’s Favorite Movie and TV Soundtracks of 2019
Artwork for Tiana Major9 and Earthgang’s “Collide” from the Queen & Slim soundtrack. In 2019, there were far more great music projects than I can count, and an abundance of fantastic movies and TV shows as well, but some of the music compilations and original scores behind these onscreen stories are worthy of some serious […]
Posted inBooks
The Mercury’s Favorite Books of 2019
It’s that time of year: there’s clouds and rain, and now I’ve got “Books of the Decade” lists all over my shoes. But are we really gonna do 2019 like that? No, we are not. We’re doing a 2019 books list like usual: short, spicy, and summing up the favorite books our staff read this […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Uncut Gems Review: Adam Sandler Teams Up with the Safdie Brothers for an Exhausting, Lurid Ride
A24 Howard Ratner is an asshole. He’s an asshole to his wife, Dinah (Idina Menzel). He’s an asshole to his girlfriend, Julia (Julia Fox). He’s an asshole to his kids (who he, and we, hardly ever see). He’s an asshole to his employees, including Demany (Lakeith Stanfield), as he sells diamond-encrusted baubles out of a […]
Posted inMovies & TV
The First Half of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life Is Great
Reiner Bajo The first half of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life stacks up with some of the best work the legendary filmmaker has ever done—right up there with Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, and Tree of Life. The second half, though, feels a lot more like… uh, what’s the term for Malick’s […]
Posted inArts
The Mercury’s Favorite Books of 2019: Cultural Commentary, Environmental Pragmatism, Vegan Cooking, and Graphic Novels
This is a short list, but we feel strongly about it!
Posted inMovies & TV
The 45 Best Movies & TV Shows to Watch in Portland: Fri Dec 20-Thurs Jan 2
Including Star Wars, Cats, Little Women, and oh god, Cats.