What do you do when you’re a single mom whose son is about to be expelled from school and whose brother is locked away for aiding your fugitive husband? Such is Fay Grim’s tricky situation at the onset of the film that bears her name. Hal Hartley’s sequel to 1997’s Henry Fool (see I’m Staying […]
Kaitlyn Burch
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
White Power
With summer blockbuster season beginning (see this page for a review of a certain low-key character drama about a superheroic teenager), you might want to take in some films of a less-exhausting nature. Mike White’s Year of the Dog is in theaters now, but he’s also written a slew of smart, funny movies that you […]
Posted inMovies & TV
I’m Staying Home
T-U-R-T-L-E POWER!
“And with an old Renaissance art book I found in a storm drain, I gave them all names… Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo.” So speaketh mutated sewer rat Splinter, and thus, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were born, trained in the ways of martial arts by Splinter, then emerging from manholes to deliver justice, turtle-style. […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Oh Mandy!
I Have a Big Fat Lesbian Crush on Mandy Moore
I wish that someone would make a movie that was 120 minutes of Mandy Moore describing an orgasm. There’s a scene like that in Mandy’s new movie, Because I Said So, in which Mandy co-stars with Diane Keaton. But the scene is way too short, even though it’s the best one in the movie. It […]
Posted inFeature
The Mercury’s Back-to-School Guide to Portland!
Pullout: Passing Notes: The Mercury’s Back to School Issue
Posted inMovies & TV
Die, John Tucker, Die!
We Need More Mean Girls
Why is it when the “awkward” girl in teen movies is transformed into the “pretty,” “popular” girl, all she has to do to complete the transformation is simply take off her glasses or—as in the case of John Tucker Must Die—straighten her hair? I guess that’s what I love about teen movies—they’re all the same, […]