Fosse/Verdon Pari Dukovic/FX Here at the Mercury, we watch stuff. Hey, we’re just like you! Here’s some of the television and streaming material we’ve been pointing our eyeballs at in recent weeks, so if you’ve been looking for something new to point your eyeballs at, we’ve got suggestions. I’m currently blazing though Fosse/Verdon, which is […]
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
TV Review: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Too Old to Die Young Is Long, Neon-Drenched, and Kind of Gross
Amazon Prime Video You are correct to be apprehensive about director Nicolas Winding Refn’s first foray into episodic television. A moody, neon-lit noir about a cop (Miles Teller) mucking his way through the crime world’s underbelly, Too Old to Die Young sounds daunting and dull—its 10 episodes, save one, all clock in between 60 and […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Men In Black International Review: Okay, Who Ordered Another Men in Black Movie?
Sony Pictures Entertainment Well, somebody must’ve wanted this. Men in Black: International is the fourth movie in the sci-fi comedy franchise, and yes, I’m counting correctly. There was a third Men in Black movie back in 2012, though our collective memories of that particular installment seem to have been erased by one of those neuralyzer […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Big Little Lies 2: The Streepening Is Ready for Us to Meme the Hell Out of It
Jennifer Clasen/HBO Did we need more Big Little Lies? Originally designed as a one-and-done, the glossy, juicy limited series from HBO, based on the book by Liane Moriarty, achieved huge success in 2017 in terms of both viewership and awards. So, needed or not, we’re getting more—more Reese, more Nicole, more windswept shots of the […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Portland Beer Week Starts Today! Our Guide to the Best Beer Events in Town
VECTOR FUN / GETTY IMAGES Portland doesn’t need much of an excuse to celebrate beer, and as summer keeps coming in, we’re entering peak suds season. July is Oregon Craft Beer Month, and will be stuffed to the gills with festivals, tastings, tappings, and all manner of beery things to do. But before then, make […]
Posted inFood and Drink
The First Huichica Walla Walla Festival Will Include Yo La Tengo, Waxahatchee, and More
Huichica Music Festival, the boutique music, wine, and food festival started in 2009 in Sonoma, California, by Gundlach Bundschu Winery’s Jeff Bundschu and Fruit Bats’ Eric D. Johnson, has announced the lineup for the fest’s first-ever installment in Walla Walla, Washington. In recent years, Huichica has partnered with (((folkYEAH!))) Promotions and expanded from its California […]
Posted inFood and Drink
Your Handy Planning Guide for Portland Beer Week
Tastings, pairings, and other fun beer-related events for Portland Beer Week.
Posted inMusic
A Fancy New Box Set Makes the Case for Traffic as One of the Best Bands of All Time
For me, the most exciting part of Avengers: Endgame wasn’t when our comic-book pals tumbled through time, or space-punched the bad guys, or saved the world from kingdom plum. For me, it came during the movie’s opening passages, when Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” blasted out of the speakers, its buzzing-bee guitars serving not just as […]
Posted inBooks
The Vinyl Frontier: The Time NASA Shot a Record into Outer Space
NASA / JPL – CALTECH In 1977, NASA sent two Voyager probes out into space, and during the next few decades each beamed back vital information about the outer reaches of our solar system. But while they were primarily meant to transmit data back to Earth, the Voyagers had a secondary purpose: sending information about […]
Posted inMusic
Oregon Record Store News: Beacon Sound, Little Axe, and Exiled Records
Little Axe Records Three morsels of local record-store news, bringing you up-to-date on Portland’s many excellent purveyors of used and new vinyl. • Beacon Sound will be moving late in the summer. The North Mississippi store is teaming up with the Nationale gallery to open a joint storefront at 15 SE 22nd (at the intersection […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Good Omens Review: Angels, Demons, and the End of the World
Sophie Mutevellan All the right ingredients are present for Good Omens to work marvelously. It’s based on a very funny 1990 book by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, with Gaiman writing the teleplay for the six-episode series, which is a co-production between the BBC and Amazon. Its Pythonesque tale of the apocalypse, as seen from […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Ten Canned Oregon Beers to Help You Beat the Heat
KATIE TURNER The craft-beer industry has been making a gradual pivot to canned beer for many years now, but it’s only recently that we noticed the clear majority of good beer comes in cans—sometimes, exclusively in cans. This is great news for your summer plans, because cans are the perfect vessel for summertime drinking. They’re […]