Joss Whedon Takes Over PDX by Erik Henriksen There’s one thing you need to know about fans of Joss Whedon: They’re hardcore. So much more hardcore than you. They love Whedon’s creations—TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the sci-fi film Serenity, and Firefly, the TV series Serenity was based on—with an intensity most reserve for their […]
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
Best O’ Buffy
This weekend, Cinema 21 is hosting two nights of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sing-along style: The series’ musical episode, “Once More with Feeling,” will be screened with Rocky Horror-style audience participation. (See Film, pg. 44, for more info.) Watching all seven seasons of Buffy to prepare might be a bit much—so here are a few […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Comedy Apocalypse
Steve Carell Should Know Better
Evan Almighty—a film designed for those who love both animals doing wacky things and the fantastic fables of the Old Testament—is the latest film to star Steve Carell, the fortysomething actor from The Daily Show who shot to stardom with The 40-Year-Old Virgin. After Virgin, Carell signed on to NBC’s The Office; factor in his […]
Posted inBooks
Soon I Will Be Invincible
by Austin Grossman (Pantheon)
It’s hard to think of a more iconic representation of American pop culture than the superhero—comics’ characters and “KA-POW!” sound effects are familiar even to those who’ve never picked up a comic book. So if you’re going to write about superheroes, you’re guaranteed an audience—but you’d better have something new, clever, and interesting to say […]
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Bang! Bang! Zzzzzzzzzz….
How Boring Can Hong Kong Gangsters Be?
Pop quiz, hotshot! I’m going to name three things. One of them is awesome; the other two are not. Grab a pencil and circle the one that’s awesome. Ready? Go! THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME (A) Talking (B) More Talking (C) Ruthless Hong Kong Gangsters PENCILS DOWN! So unless you’re my grandmother, you should have circled […]
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The Sergio Leone Anthology
Watch, you sucker
Everyone worth knowing will agree: Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns kick some serious ass. And anyone who’s seen them twice—or three, or four, or more times—can attest that they hold up astonishingly well, even improving with age. Which leads us to one of the most enjoyable DVD collections in recent memory: MGM and 20th Century Fox’s […]
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Fantastisuck
Fantastic Four Is So Bad it Justifies Making up New Words to Describe its Suckiness
Tim Story is not a very good director. Indeed, one could even classify him as a “bad” director, or even a “godawful” one. Nevertheless, Story—whose resume includes the Oscar-winning Jimmy Fallon/Queen Latifah team-up comedy Taxi—has, bewilderingly, managed to talk/bribe/blackmail 20th Century Fox into letting him helm both Fantastic Four movies. But I have to give […]
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Getting Lucky
Kickin’ It Old School with Ocean’s Thirteen
“You’re analog players in a digital world,” one character tells Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan in Ocean’s Thirteen. And he’s right: In their planning of yet another heist, Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty (Brad Pitt) are relying on their same old tricks, figuring they’ll outwit their marks with cleverness and elbow grease. In knocking over […]
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Condoms Are Awesome
And Yet? Knocked Up is Funny!
Props to Ben. He spends his days smoking weed, sleeping, and scanning movies for nude scenes with his buddies. (They’re trying to build a website that catalogs actresses’ nudity, so that people can skip the boring talking and fast forward straight to Meg Ryan’s bush. It’s the closest thing to a job he’s ever had.) […]
Posted inBooks
Ed Brubaker
After writing a slew of indie comics, Ed Brubaker’s now writing Daredevil, Criminal, and Captain America (whose titular character was recently gunned down). His latest collection is Coward, an excellent crime story from the Eisner-nominated Criminal. MERCURY: What’s the appeal of writing crime fiction? ED BRUBAKER: Even as a kid, I always liked noir movies […]
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The End of the World as We Know It
Or the End of Pirates, At Least. Maybe. Probably Not.
Captain Jack Sparrow does a lot of crazy stuff in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Nary a moment passes in the nearly three-hour-long film that doesn’t feature Cap’n Jack getting thrown through the air or turning into a sea creature or crackin’ wise to various authority figures, which makes sense: The two prior […]
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Contemporary History
Blood, Truth, and Wind That Shakes the Barley
Historical cinema has a sheen. It’s almost always there: a melodramatic sepia tone, an overly tailored costume, a precisely enunciated snippet of old-timey talk. There’s a falseness to period films, usually. But then there’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Ken Loach’s drama that takes place in 1920s Ireland. Loach’s controversial film is stunning for […]