The 20th Portland Queer Film Festival has a lot of those things! Now in its 20th year, the Portland Queer Film Festival—formerly known as the Portland Lesbian & Gay Film Festival—has a goal that’s at once clear and sprawling: to showcase “feature, documentary, and short films from all over the world that are made by, […]
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 inTBA
TBA Preview: Repurposed Nostalgia in Mechanics Laid Bare
Suzette Smith Tonight, TBA presents Mechanics Laid Bare a one-time-only collaboration between Portland non-profit cinema art collective the Cinema Project and local composer Matt Carlson. I got a chance to see their practice and talk about the project a few nights ago in a darkened Old Town loft where they were rehearsing. Carlson sat near […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Sex, Politics, and Teletubbies at the Portland Queer Film Fest
Reality and Sensuality, From Summertime to Real Boy
Reality and sensuality, from Summertime to Real Boy.
Posted inHousing
How to Trick Someone into Letting You Live with Them
Appear to Be a Good Housemate with These Six Simple Secrets
How to fake your way into making someone believe you’d make a good housemate.
Posted inTBA
TBA Review: When Watching One Part of Morgan Thorson’s Still Life, Another Part Passes You By
Dirty walls, dancers moving in unison, check marks happening on the back wall. Suzette Smith Since Friday, Morgan Thorson’s Still Life has been playing at the Portland Art Museum, on the second floor of the Modern and Contemporary Art Building for five hours at a time. Thorson has 10-plus dancers working with her, running through […]
Posted inBooks
Martha Grover Is the Voice of Portland Right Now
Cam Floyd As soon as Martha Grover opened her new book, The End of My Career, with a story about cleaning, I knew we were on the same page. People make fun of me for liking David Sedaris, but at least he understands how to clean a hardwood floor. Grover does too, as a seasoned […]
Posted inBooks
Martha Grover’s Messy Lives
The End of My Career Author Is the Voice of Portland Right Now
The End of My Career author is the voice of Portland right now.
Posted inMovies & TV
Movie Review: The Measure of a Man, AKA The Long, Depressing Ride on the Decrepit Train to Horrible Bummertown
French director Stéphane Brizé’s The Measure of a Man opens with Thierry (Vincent Lindon), an unemployed, 51-year-old father, explaining that his social worker just wasted 15 months of his time—which means that now, his government stipend is running out. So: Who’s pumped for an extremely realistic film about an out-of-work French father? Yeah, that’s what […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Unemployment, Fatherhood, and The Measure of a Man
Oof. This Is One Sad Dad.
French director Stéphane Brizé’s dark, contemplative film about unemployment. Fun!
Posted inMusic
Neon Indian’s “Annie” Music Video: Cool VHS Aesthetics for Hot Days
We rented a karaoke machine and cloned the hard drive and after we sang karaoke all night we laid in my housemate’s bed and watched the videos created specially for some of the songs, videos that had none of the band members and were just the same seven people—with perms—climbing ladders and running around in […]
Posted inComic Books
Study Group Magazine Applies a Critical Lens to Comics
The latest issue has a Dungeons & Dragons adventure theme and tons of stand-alone fantasy art. LEVON JIHANIAN | FLOATING WORLD INTERIOR SPACE (BACKGROUND) What do you put in a magazine without advertisements? Fantasy adventure art, obviously. It’s been two years since the release of Study Group Magazine #3, in all of its red-and-blue line, […]
Posted inBooks
Study Group Takes Comics Seriously
The Local Magazine Applies a Critical Lens to the Art Form
The local magazine applies a critical lens to the art form.