Monster Road dir. Ingram Opens Fri July 2 Clinton Street Theater A documentary about quirky claymation animator Bruce Bickford, Monster Road is a subtle, understated film that somehow manages to encompass themes of life, death, happiness, art, and why Bill Gates has yet to turn his mansion into a major claymation studio. Following Bickford as […]
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
Now 100 Percent Less Crappy
Surprise! Spider-Man 2 Doesn’t Suck!
Spider-Man 2 dir. Raimi Now Playing Various Theaters In 1982, 22-year-old director Sam Raimi emerged from suburban Detroit with Evil Dead, a giddy, gory horror film he’d made with his friends. Dead reshaped the horror genre and inspired countless low-budget fright fests, but its schlocky appeal was largely due to Raimi’s unique style, which boasted […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Man In Suit! Man In Suit!
Godzilla Destroys Tokyo! Again!
Godzilla dir. Honda Opens Fri June 25 Cinema 21 How do you stop Godzilla? Missiles? Torpedoes? Yeah, right. Tanks and airplanes? Useless! Bullets, you say? Please. An atomic bomb? Perhaps… but since the prehistoric motherfucker was brought back to life because of radioactive experiments, it’d probably just make him stronger! Much like its city-trashing star, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Mercury Video Picks
Get to Work! Chances are, you hate your job. Then again, maybe you enjoy being a mere cog in the capitalist machine, slaving away for rent and booze money while deluding yourself that you’ll eventually qualify for a meager pension. Regardless, maybe these work-related DVDs can help distract you from your mind-numbing nine to five […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Mercury Video Picks
Them animals is so gay! “Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do itÉ Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.” AhhhÉ gay lovin’. Ain’t it sweet? Especially when it’s gay lovin’ between two cute huggable animals! Let’s all salute these brave pioneering queer critters on filmÉ – Legally Blonde 2: Red, White, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Mercury Video Picks
Twentieth Century Fox, Part II Fact! As established last week with “Twentieth Century Fox, Part I,” Michael J. Fox is the greatest actor of this–or any–generation, and can kick your ass in 20 million different ways! Not convinced? Try these! – Doc Hollywood (1991)–In a film that my girlfriend characterizes as “lighthearted escapism” and I […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Enter the Hype
Bruce Lee Backs Up His Rep
Enter the Dragon dir. Clouse Opens Fri April 9 Clinton Street Theater The irony of Bruce Lee is that his films are always awesome because he’s in them–and they always suffer for the same reason. It’s not that he does anything wrong; Lee is, and will likely always remain, the king of kung fu films. […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Hellman
The Comic Book Movie Grows Up
Hellboy dir. del Toro Opens Fri April 2 Various Theaters After the success of Men In Black and X-Men, Hollywood’s modus operandi couldn’t have been clearer: cash in on comic books. And cash in it has, but with an unforeseen twist: in its rush for comic properties, Hollywood somehow snatched up Hellboy, possibly the most […]
Posted inMovies & TV
And the Dead Will Sing
Takashi Miike Directs a Killer Musical
Happiness of the Katakuris dir. Miike Opens Sat March 27 Clinton Street Theater Of the approximately 50 billion films that Asian cult cinema icon Takashi Miike has directed, Happiness of the Katakuris is the only one I’ve seen–but it won’t be the last. Simultaneously refreshing and jarring, Happiness takes Asian cinema–a schizophrenic genre to begin […]
Posted inNews
I Hunt the Giant Man-Ape
Another Thrilling True-Life Adventure Starring Erik Henriksen, Sasquatch Slayer
Another thrilling true-life adventure starring Erik Henriksen, Sasquatch Slayer.
Posted inArt
The Art of PacMan
Backspace: Portland’s New Art/Videogame Gallery
PORTLAND IS A CLIQUEY TOWN. There are the hipsters, the hippies, the trustafarians, the bike riders, and the coffeehouse crowd. Things are easily decipherable, in a cliquey, district-centric way, and it feels sort of like a John Hughesian high school: simple, defined categories of jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, rebels, weirdos. Until recently, each of these collectives […]
Posted inNews
My Mother, The Inferno
It begins, like all true horror stories, in the suburbs of Salt Lake City. It’s a mid-1950s Fourth of July, and my mother–adorable, maybe four- or five years old–has a sparkler. She’s also wearing a nightgown, and with a wayward spark and a darkly comic whoosh, she goes up like a mushroom cloud. I’m told […]