Every week, we list our recommendations of new music, books, comics, movies and TV to check out. This is Recs in Effect:
New Movie
Tabloid
I know people are going to all go see Harry Potter this weekend. But personally, I hate most of those movies. I like the books (well, all but the first 2) and I like Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix as well as elements of some of the other movies, but mostly I just find them so boring and poorly made. So, in a bit of counterprogramming - I'm asking you to go see Errol Morris's latest film: Tabloid, which concerns former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney who may or may not have chained up a mormon missionary in the 70s. It appears to be Morris's meditation on fame and a similar look at how diverse the multiple chapters in our lives can be. Errol Morris is, to me, the best documentary filmmaker of all time (his attempts at subverting the truth are more apparent to me than Werner Herzog's, and so I appreciate Morris more) who has done much to not only shape the visual language of modern documentary filmmaking but also to fundamentally alter the way we think about documentary films. Read a review (and explore more about Errol Morris) here.
New Music
Sweet Bye and Bye
How is this not the new soundtrack for Steampunks or RetroFuturists everywhere? Not only does the plot sound fairly batshit, involving telecommunications and major corporations (all this written in 1946), robots, romance and other farces, but apparently the original production was such a shit show that it never even made it to Broadway. The original production was plagued by casting problems, like hiring a mime for the lead, and problems with the cast, like the lead actress having a nervous breakdown. Cursed show + wacky subject matter with a jaunty beat and some serious Broadway Petigree? Yes please. Find out more here.
New Comic
Red Wing (1 of 6) by Jonathan Hickman & Nick Pitarra
Jonathan Hickman got started in rabble rousing sci-fi with The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Red Mass for Mars and Transhuman. He has since done some great work for Marvel with SHIELD, Secret Warriors and Fantastic Four/FF, but it's always cool to see an artist return to his roots. Red Wing seems to be that return as it's a sci-fi tale involving war and time travel. The only info for this limited series is "to stay alive in the future, the best fighter pilots in the world not only have to perfect their skills and master their aircraft, they also have to know how to travel through time." Find out more/order it here.
New Disc
Things
I've never seen this movie. I try not to do too many blind recommendations, but here's the trailer:
THINGS (1989) Trailer from Intervision Picture Corp. on Vimeo.
Right? Even if this movie isn't good, it'll be great. Canadian exploitation involving a wispy mustache, a porn star, a drill and some sort of cabin in the woods horror film? Oui, de plus, s'il vous plaît. Find out more here.
New Book
Casanova II: Gula by Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
The original run of Casanova's second series came at a weird time for Matt Fraction. After years as a very profitable, respectable advertising and marketing guy, Fraction then became a comic book writer. He wrote a few indies and garnered a lot of praise for Mantooth (a gorilla spy/detective), Last of the Independents (a remake, almost, of Charley Varrick), Five Fists of Science (Twain & Tesla vs. Edison & Cthulu) and Casanova's first series before being invited to work for Marvel. He then began to flourish as he wrote Iron Man and X-Men, before returning to the weird fun ultra world of Casanova. So right before Fraction became one of the big architects of Marvel Universe (and helped usher in many Iron Man movie fans into comics, and even penned this summer's event, Fear Itself), he was returning to his very personal and very odd creation. Gabriel Ba, Casanova's original artist and co-creator, was too busy with other proects so Fraction used Fabio Moon, Ba's twin brother, to do the art. This series is darker, sadder and much weirder than the first one - but it is even more awesome and fun and pretty special. Both the twin Brazillian brothers, Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, returned to work on this new version of Casanova series two (now called Gula) with Fraction, overseeing the added colorization and helped created a new short story that will lead into the all new third series debuting later this year. Find out more/order it here.