Leslie Bridgers

Columnist

Leslie Bridgers is a columnist for the Portland Press Herald, writing about Maine culture, customs and the things we notice and wonder about in our everyday lives. Originally from Connecticut, Leslie came to Maine by way of Bowdoin College and never left. She joined the Portland Press Herald in 2011 as a reporter and spent seven years as the paper’s features editor, overseeing coverage of arts, entertainment and food.

Arts & Entertainment, Review

‘Eternals’ has too much Marvel, not enough Chloe Zhao

by Ann Hornaday The Washington Post November 7, 2021November 5, 2021

Chloe Zhao, fresh off winning two historic Oscars for “Nomadland,” gracefully handles a thankless job with “Eternals,” a Marvel Cinematic Universe origin story that suffers from all the baggy, convoluted drawbacks of the form. Based on characters created by Jack Kirby that first appeared in a 1976 comic, the latest installment of never-ending MCU hegemony […]

Arts & Entertainment

Deep Water: ‘how the body heals,’ by Jeri Theriault

November 7, 2021November 3, 2021

Maine poems edited and introduced by Megan Grumbling.

Arts & Entertainment, Review

Art review: At Cove Street Arts, exhibits on oil and water make an absorbing mix

by Jorge S. Arango November 7, 2021November 6, 2021

A show of watercolors by various artists and another of photographs of oil tanks by Tim Greenway are both on display at the Portland gallery.

Recipes

This acorn squash soup is creamy and flavorful with only 6 ingredients

by G. Daniela Galarza The Washington Post November 7, 2021November 2, 2021

The leaves crunch under my feet on my morning walks these days. The sun, still bright, is starting to hold back its warmth. What color are the trees where you are? Is it sweater weather there, too? On these cool, mid-autumn nights I find myself making a lot of soup. With acorn squashes piled high […]

Arts & Entertainment, Review

In ‘Spencer,’ a messy but moving portrait of Princess Diana, Kristen Stewart inhabits the title role

by Hau Chu The Washington Post November 7, 2021November 3, 2021

Princess Diana may be gone, but she’s never really left the left the public eye. One of the more recent examples came by way of Season 4 of “The Crown,” the popular Netflix series that, since 2016, has succeeded in portraying the humanity of Britain’s royals – in all their shades of gray – while […]

Food

Bryant Terry on ‘Black Food,’ plant-based eating and where he finds inspiration

by Aaron Hutcherson The Washington Post November 7, 2021November 2, 2021

An award-winning author who has been writing plant-based cookbooks for the better part of two decades, Bryant Terry calls his latest project, “Black Food,” “a communal shrine to the shared culinary histories of the African diaspora.” He writes in the introduction: “These pages offer up gratitude to the great chain of Black lives, and to […]

Arts & Entertainment, Do This, Review

Horror film/love story ‘Last Night in Soho’ is equal parts delicious and disappointing

by Michael O'Sullivan The Washington Post November 2, 2021

A medley of compelling psychological thriller, pitch-perfect homage to 1960s London, sweet if superficial love story, tingling murder mystery, intriguing time-travel crime drama and only serviceable slasher flick, “Last Night in Soho” bears the hallmarks of director Edgar Wright’s particular passions, including a fascination with genre cinema and impeccably curated, period-appropriate needle-drops. (Among the soundtrack […]