Helen Sloan/HBO HBO’s obscure, low-budget television program Game of Thrones aired the first episode of its final season last night, to little media fanfare and a virtually non-existent viewership. Nevertheless, we’ve decided to champion this overlooked, off-the-radar gem! We’ve assembled a crack team of Stranger and Portland Mercury contributors who’ve been obsessing over Game of […]
Ned Lannamann
Ned Lannamann is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. He writes about film, music, TV, books, travel, tech, food, drink, outdoors, and other things.
Posted inMovies & TV
High Life Review: Movie Black Holes Are No Match for a Real One
ALCATRAZ FILMS / WILD BUNCH / ARTE FRANCE CINEMA / PANDORA PRODUKTION This week, scientists provided the human race with its first-ever photograph of a black hole. It was a simultaneously terrifying and inspiring thing to see, and evidence of how much we still don’t know about the universe. It also served as a reminder […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Film Review: The Aftermath Is Pure, Uncut Keira Knightley
Fox Searchlight Let me summarize The Aftermath for you as briefly I can: Keira. Knightley. There. In two simple words, you already have all the background info you need. You have immediately intuited that The Aftermath is a period drama, in which succulent costumes and lavish sets do most of the visual work. You also […]
Posted inFood and Drink
First Look at the New Vern
The famous “Steaks for Your Enjoyment” once adorned the roof of the now-demolished Club 21 Portland Mercury Cherished longtime Belmont dive bar the Vern has reopened, following its sale to local bar owners Warren Boothby and Marcus Archambeault. The team—also owners of the Elvis Room, Sandy Hut, Lay Low, the Alibi, Double Barrel, and Gold […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Dumbo Review: Tim Burton’s Bizarre Remake Is Deeply Weird
Disney On March 20, the Walt Disney Company completed its acquisition of 20th Century Fox, thus making Disney the biggest, most powerful, most unkillable behemoth in the media landscape, and strategically positioning it for the upcoming launch of Disney+, a Netflix-rivaling subscription streaming service. Eight days later, the newly engorged corporation released Dumbo, a live-action […]
Posted inSports
Jusuf Nurkic Is Expected to Make a Full Recovery, Thank Goodness
Get well soon, big guy. BRUCE ELY/TRAILBLAZERS.COM Jusuf Nurkic, center for the Portland Trail Blazers, suffered a serious injury to his left leg last night, in overtime during a game with the Brooklyn Nets. With the compound fracturing of Nurkic’s tibia and fibula, so broke the collective hearts of Rip City. It was a horrible, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Birds of Passage Is the Anti-Narcos: A Drugs ’n’ Crime Epic Like You’ve Never Seen
Whatever you’re expecting from a drug epic set in Colombia in the 1960s and ’70s, Birds of Passage isn’t it. There’s no villainous kingpin along the lines of Pablo Escobar, no seedily unshaven DEA operative, no bacchanalian celebration of massive wealth and mind-numbing white powder. How Birds of Passage plays with and against familiar drug-crime […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Woman at War Review: A Fun, Funny Movie About Icelandic Eco-Terrorism
A chorus teacher, Halla (Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir), is also Iceland’s most notorious eco-terrorist, and we follow her skulking around the countryside and taking out the country’s power lines, in protest of the government’s alignment with the foreign interests that are plundering Iceland’s natural resources. It’s a fun, funny movie whose two extended sequences of Halla in […]
Posted inNews
It’s the First Day of Spring and It’s Already Wildfire Season in Oregon
Oregon’s Taylor Creek and Klondike Fires, August 2018. U.S. Forest Service – Pacific NW Oregon’s first notable wildfire of 2019 is currently burning. Yesterday, it was still officially winter. The Santiam Park Fire started yesterday at the North Santiam State Recreation Area, a fishing and camping spot located to the south of Highway 22, just […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Northeast Portland Burger Joint Stanich’s Has Reopened, with Limited Hours
Portland Mercury After closing in January 2018 and several months of controversy and speculation, Northeast Fremont hamburger spot Stanich’s has reopened, with limited hours. Today, a handwritten sign is posted on Stanich’s front door stating the following: “Open for Stanich Patrons, AKA ‘Regular Customers.’ All Welcome.” Today’s limited hours—6:30 pm to 9:30 pm, with the […]
Posted inMovies & TV
PIFF Takes! Quick Film Reviews for Friday, March 15 to Thursday, March 21
Shadow Well Go USA As the Portland International Film Festival (PIFF) heads into its final week, here are some brief impressions of stuff I’ve seen that’ll be screening over the next few days. (For our previous coverage of this year’s PIFF, see here, here, and here.) THE WILD PEAR TREEAt three-plus hours, Turkish director Nuri […]
Posted inMusic
Swedish Psychedelic Legends Träd, Gräs och Stenar Are Coming to Portland
Bandcamp A lot of big-ticket concerts were announced this week, including Built to Spill’s four-night celebration of their 1999 album Keep It Like a Secret at the Doug Fir on October 30-November 2, and the Black Keys, Modest Mouse, and Shannon and the Clams hitting Moda Center on November 22. But the single most exciting […]