If movies about benignly dysfunctional families are a fast-track to crying for you, prepare yourself appropriately for Gillian Robespierre’s Landline, which stars Edie Falco and Jenny Slate as a mother and daughter in a family where everyone is doing their (shitty) best. This thing reduced me to a puddle—but as any enthusiastic movie crier can […]
Megan Burbank
Posted inComedy
Stumptown Improv Festival, Day 1: Bloody Marys, Bigfoot, & Ghost Stories with Jed Arkley
Bloody Marys Bloody Marys The Stumptown Improv Festival is back for its fourth year, and it’s really coming into its own in its still-sorta-new location at Artists Repertory Theatre. Logistically, things seem to be flowing a lot better—the floor-sitting and overcrowded shows of past years are long gone, and absent one lighting hiccup (which didn’t […]
Posted inBooks
Sherman Alexie Canceled His Book Tour. You Should Still Read His New Memoir
AUTHOR PHOTO BY LEE TOWNDROW In July, Sherman Alexie canceled his book tour for You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, his new multigenre memoir about his mother, Lillian, who died in 2015. In a statement posted to his website, he described a sense of being haunted by his mother on tour stops for […]
Posted inArts
Sherman Alexie Canceled His Book Tour. You Should Still Read His Book.
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me Is a Powerful Work of Witness and Experimentation
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me Is a Powerful Work of Witness and Experimentation
Posted inMovies & TV
Gillian Robespierre’s Landline Is a Worthy Follow-Up to Obvious Child
Please Join Me in Happily Crying.
Please join me in happily crying.
Posted inMovies & TV
Lady Macbeth Review: Where’s the Real Lady Macbeth When You Need Her?
If you’re a Janeite (Austen or Eyre), you might be tempted by Lady Macbeth, the tale of a child bride on some desolate heath. But don’t bother. Because while the most disturbing event in Austen’s work typically involves sexist inheritance laws or someone getting pneumonia FROM GOING OUTSIDE, and while Jane Eyre’s weirdness doesn’t extend […]
Posted inNational Politics
If the GOP Made Any Sense, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski Would Be Its Future
Later days, Skinny Repeal! MPHILLIPS007 / GETTY Once again, the GOP’s attempt to wrest health care from millions has been thwarted, with the failure of the Skinny Repeal in the Senate. (Petty sidebar: Is this not the dumbest name for legislation you’ve ever heard? It sounds like the worst Starbucks drink.) Three Republicans and 48 […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Lady Macbeth: Oh Great, It’s Ted Bundy in a Hoopskirt
Where’s the Real Lady Macbeth When You Need Her?
Where’s the real Lady Macbeth when you need her?
Posted inArts
At Elizabeth Leach Gallery, No More Boring Art
John Baldessari’s Picaresque Conceptual Work Comes to Portland
John Baldessari’s Picaresque Conceptual Work Comes to Portland
Posted inNational Politics
Here Are Some Reasons to Maybe Not Totally Panic About Health Care Just Yet
Hear me out. Getty/PeopleImages If you’re panicking about today’s Senate vote to open debate on Trumpcare, here are two important reminders before you permanently clench your jaw and take to picking at your fingernails until they bleed: The first is that today’s vote was a procedural vote. It was the first step in the Senate […]
Posted inNews
Several Trumpcare Provisions Now Need 60 Votes to Pass—Including Defunding Planned Parenthood
POLITICS HAS RULES. mphillips007 / Getty We thought they didn’t have the votes, but it turns out they really don’t have the votes. Today, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that several of Trumpcare’s provisions are in violation of the Byrd Rule, which means that they now require 60 votes—rather than a simple majority—to pass. Among them? […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning News: Turkeys, Owls, Wolves, and Keeping Crisis Pregnancy Centers Honest
Aren’t you glad this is a photo of an owl and not a Trump? Oktay Ortakcioglu / Getty Your corrupt president continues to be corrupt. He’s now enlisting lawyers to dig up dirt on investigators working with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III on investigating the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in order to weaken […]