I was having a rotten day before I watched CHIPS, but its explosion-heavy, progressive-bro comedy motored my frown upside down. That’s a dumb thing to say, but this is a dumb movie.
Suzette Smith
Suzette Smith is the arts & culture editor of the Portland Mercury. Go ahead and tell her about all your food, art, and culture gripes: suzette@portlandmercury.com. Follow her on Twitter, Bluesky, and Letterboxd.
Posted inMovies & TV
Welcome to CHIPS World
Population: Dax Shepard, Michael Peña, and You
Oh my god! What a stupid, beautiful movie.
Posted inComedy
The McElroy Boys Are Coming to Town
“I think that the usage of the word “boy” has increased roughly 300 percent,” Griffin says. Maximumfun.org “We always underestimate it,” Justin McElroy says of his upcoming Portland show—a live recording of the popular advice podcast he performs with his brothers, Griffin and Travis, called My Brother, My Brother and Me. They’re all a little […]
Posted inComedy
My Brother, My Brother and Me IRL
The McElroy Brothers Take on Television and Portland
The McElroy Brothers Take on Television and Portland
Posted inMovies & TV
Beauty and Terror: Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts on Monsters, Vietnam, and Kong: Skull Island
Interview and Comic by Suzette Smith
Interview and comic by Suzette Smith.
Posted inMovies & TV
A Look at 2017’s Inspiring POW Fest: “Feminism and Intersectionality Are Like a Moving Target Right Now”
Womanhood isn’t a niche voice—or at least it shouldn’t be—because women are half the people that are. But portrayals of women in mainstream film are largely framed from a male perspective, and only seven percent of directors out there are women. The world is less interesting for Hollywood’s singular gaze, and audiences miss out on […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Breaking the Niche
POW Fest 2017: More Inclusive, More Interesting
POW Fest 2017: More inclusive, more interesting.
Posted inArts
The Shirley Jackson Project is Like a Collection of Ghost Stories
Portland Comic Artists Share Their Passion for Shirley Jackson, Queen of Gloom
Portland comic artists share their passion for Shirley Jackson, Queen of Gloom.
Posted inMovies & TV
Finally, a Sexy Polish Horror Mermaid Musical!
The Lure works on a few different levels. On one hand, it’s a sexy Polish horror musical about savage mermaid sisters trying to eat people. (Everybody who’s into that already has their ticket.) But dig a bit deeper and The Lure is what I wish films were more often allowed to be. Agnieszka Smoczyska’s debut […]
Posted inBooks
The IPRC Needs A New Location—and A New Executive Director
After being threatened with a 300-percent rent increase, it seemed that things were looking up for Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center. Now, though, it looks like the opposite might be true. The Independent Publishing Resource Center “has now officially walked away from negotiations with the [City Bikes Annex] location on 7th and Ankeny,” IPRC Executive […]
Posted inMusic
Stef Chura’s New Record Messes Is a California Surf-Rock Update on ’90s Feminist Grunge
STEF CHURA Fri 2/17 Disjecta Zak Bratto Stef Chura is kind of blowing up right now. Her debut full-length, Messes, just dropped at the end of January, and though it may seem like the Michigan singer/songwriter arrived at the head of grunge rock fully formed, she’s actually been sitting on a number of Messes’ tracks […]