Happenstance dir. Firode Opens Fri April 12 Hollywood The self-explanatory subject matter of Laurent Firode’s Happenstance is familiar territory: A study in coincidence toying with fate and the power of seemingly insignificant acts to alter people’s lives. However, Happenstance does so without the onslaught of schlock found in last year’s similarly aimed Serendipity. The film […]
Marjorie Skinner
Marjorie Skinner is the Portland Mercury's Managing Editor, author of the weekly Sold Out column chronicling the area's independent fashion and retail industry, and a frequent contributor to the film and other arts and feature sections of the paper. She has been writing about Portland life and culture for the Mercury since 2001, produces one of Portland's largest annual spring fashion shows, and occasionally answers emails.
Posted inMovies & TV
Mercury Video Picks
Swingers! In the face of high divorce rates and a plethora of fantastically effective birth control methods, these days it seems more and more folks are scrapping the idea of marriage and monogamy altogether. The streets are teeming with youngsters acting just like their free-loving hippie parents, except with cleaner hair and better clothes. But […]
Posted inNews
REALITY REJECT
Hey, Who’s that Asshole on elimiDATE? Oh… it’s Me.
In my backyard, there’s a stack of ten televisions piled up in the mud. None of them work except for one, which gets two black-and-white channels if you run an extension cord from the house. For now, I don’t watch it and I don’t want to. But someday soon, I’ll be able to pull up […]
Posted inMusic
A Release of the Base
Everybody Loves GWAR
GWAR Mon Feb 11 Roseland Explain this: GWAR have been around for well over a decade now, and their music is absolute garbage. So why do you want to go every time? Why do you pick out grungies to wear in the eager anticipation of getting covered in green and red blood or cum shooting […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Africa 101
A Festival for Smarty Pantses
Twelfth Annual Cascade Festival of African Films dir. Various Starts Fri Feb 1 Kennedy School Any self-respecting film buff is familiar with the virtues of a foreign film festival. Especially stimulating are festivals that include films as rare as the ones featured in the Twelfth Annual Cascade Festival of African Films. Held in honor of […]
Posted inMovies & TV
But I’m Catholic!
How the Right Accessories Can Change Your Life
Focus dir. Slavin Opens Fri Nov 16 Fox Tower There is a mantra within the film community, necessary to maintaining the “magic of Hollywood,” known as the “suspension of disbelief.” This state of being is crucial to the enjoyment of Focus, director Neil Slavin’s adaptation of Arthur Miller’s novel. The basic premise of the plot […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Housewives and Socialists
How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship
Together dir. Moodysson Opens Fri Sept 14 Fox Tower Together is a compassionate Swedish film set in 1970s Stockholm and centered around a communal household that lends its namesake to the title. It is inhabited by a group of chaotic, young, hothead radicals who bicker with equal vehemence about socialism, homosexuality, and whose turn it […]
Posted inUncategorized
Are We Happy Yet?
YOUR CLIP-‘N’-SAVE GUIDE TO PORTLAND’S HAPPIEST HAPPY HOURS
It’s true, being broke sucks, but not as much as having your arm mangled in a piece of farm equipment–at least that’s our motto here at the Portland Mercury. And with that mantra in mind, we decided to come up with some positives about being a poor, penniless slob. Unfortunately, we couldn’t think of any […]