A LITTLE PARTY NEVER KILLED NOBODY

Madame Frankenstein #5 is on stands this coming Wednesday. It's the crucial part of the middle act. The series is kind of structured in three pieces: issues #1-3, #4-5, and #6-7.

What'cha Reading? has a pretty good overview up until now, free of #5 spoilers, too. 

They have a preview, as does the awesome Comicosity site. Or you can just scroll through the gallery below.

I've added the issue to my webstore, as well, in case you wanted to preorder it during this weekend's sale.

Current Soundtrack: Ariana Grande, My Everything

I'VE KNOWN NO WAR

NOW IN THEATERS...

* The Internet's Own Boy, a political documentary about the life and tragic death of the creator of Reddit.

* Life of Crime, an entertaining if slightly underwhelming Elmore Leonard adaptation. Jennifer Aniston leads a great cast.

* The November Man, Pierce Brosnan's return to the spy genre, brings Olga Korylenko with him.

* The Trip to Italy, another excursion out on the road with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. 

Portlanders can also catch Terry Gilliam's manic fantasy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen all this week at the Academy. It has an hilarious Robin Williams cameo.

And Saturday night, pay tribute to the late Lauren Bacall by watching Key Largo at the Hollywood.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* I've Always Loved You, a 1946 melodrama set in the world of classical music. From director Frank Borzage.

* Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Pedro Almodovar joins the Criterion Collection.

Current Soundtrack: The Sweet Inspirations, The Complete Atlantic Singles Plus 

THE SECRET LIFE OF ARABIA

So, David Schulner is the writer of the Image Comics series Clone and also the creator of the TV shows The Oaks and Do No Harm.

He did an interview about Clone this week, and buried in there is some interesting news.

CV: Not everything is ending for you though. You have a pretty exciting project coming up for Universal Television. What can you tell us about that?

DS: Damn, you're breaking a lot of stories here Mat. I'm adapting Jamie Rich's andDan Christensen's Archer Coe and The Thousand Deadly Shocks put out by ONI Press.

CV: How did you land this gig?

DS: ONI actually pitched the book to me. How about them apples? As soon as they told me the premise I was hooked and knew it'd make a great series. And when I read it I was blown away.

More in the link.

We're in the wayyyyyyyy early stages so far, but David's treatment was pretty fantastic. It was totally weird reading someone else's take on a character I came up with, but when I switch gears and look at it as a fan, it's pretty awesome. 

Current Soundtrack: David Bowie, Heroes 

O(VERLY) D(EDICATED)

NOW IN THEATERS: 

* Down River, a rewarding indie drama about four artistic women getting by in Vancouver, B.C.

* The One I Love, a contemporary romance with a Twilight Zone-inspired swerve. Starring Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss.

Portlanders might also check out the rooftop screening of The King of Comedy next Thursday. The De Niro/Scorsese collaboration is black comedy perfection. On the other hand, look out for The Color Wheel. It's grating.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* Call Her Savage, an entertaining pre-Code melodrama with "It Girl" Clara Bow.

* The Children's Hour, a poignant drama with a message with Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner.

* The Darjeeling Limited, take a look at my notes from my recent introduction to the movie at the NW Film Center, who are in the final weeks of their Wes Anderson festival.

* Donkey Skin, a fairy tale from Jacques Demy.

* Rosemary's Baby (2014), a pointless television remake with Zoe Saldana in the title role.

* The Secret Heart, a fair melodrama from 1946 with Claudette Colbert competing with stepdaughter June Allyson for the affections of old man Walter Pidgeon.

* The Unforgiven, Audrey Hepburn's only western is also John Huston's answer to The Searchers. 

* The Wind Will Carry Us, an intriguing meditation on life and death from Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami.

On the set of The Children's Hour.

Current Soundtrack: Gerard Way, "No Shows" & "Action Cat"

HEAVEN IS A SECRET

NOW IN THEATERS...

* Calvary, reteaming Brendan Gleeson with writer/director John Michael McDonagh in a dark, difficult drama about faith.

* Down River, a documentary studying the cycle of alcoholism amongst Canada's native peoples.

Portlanders can also a revival of John Waters' first feature, the hilarious shock comedy Pink Flamingos, and the less funny collection of adult cartoons, Twillerama.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* Cast a Giant Shadow, a 1966 war drama with Kirk Douglas fighting for Israel. 

Current Soundtrack: FKA Twigs, LP1

JUST WALK AWAY, RENEE

NOW IN THEATERS...

* The Hundred-Foot Journey, this flavorless food-oriented love story finds Lasse Hallström trying to regain his Chocolat success and dragging Hellen Mirren along with him. Track down The Lunchbox instead.

* Rye Coalition: The Story of the Hard Luck 5, a documentary about the venerable indie band's decades-spanning history.

Portlanders also have a chance to see Mary & Max, the 2009 claymation feature with Philip Seymour Hoffman lending his voice.

Or if you're up for it tonight, a free movie at the Clinton: a documentary about Winston Churchill.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Fourth Season, the penultimate series of the Atlantic City-based Prohibition-era drama.

* Faust, Alexander Sokurov's trippy, troubling Goethe adaptation.

* Girl Trouble, Don Ameche gets mixed up with Joan Bennett in this screwy 1942 comedy.

* Love in the City, a 1953 anthology film from Italy with early work by Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.

* And two more from Jacques Demy's Criterion boxed set: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort. 

Current Soundtrack: Various Artists, Sam Cooke's SAR Records Story: 1959-1965

LET ME BE MINE

We've had some pretty good reactions to Madame Frankenstein #4.

The Outhousers gives us high marks, saying:

Madame Frankenstein is unique in that it’s in black and white, a twist on an old flavor and genuinely engrossing. Rich and Levens have taken the skeleton of a classic and added their own muscle, brain and most of all, heart. 

While the Coming Up Comics Blog ranks us 9/10:

Megan Levens’ art is downright beautiful to look at. At first glance, you would assume that the panels were easy for her to create, but look closer. Everything on the page has very fine detail as she is building this world around you. She’s also able to make her characters display deep levels of emotion from just the expression on their faces. At a time when colored artwork leaps off the page, it takes a very strong talent to pull of black-and-white panels without action to draw a reader in, and Levens does it so well.

Then Multiversity went ahead and gave us glowing praise and a score of 8.5:

“Madame Frankenstein” is a real hidden gem among all the other excellent Image Comics series. It adapts a classic story in a wholly unique way without losing the essence of it. Gail’s journey is coming to and end soon but it’s a great ride getting to this point.

And Feminism/geekery makes the issue one of their picks of the week:

Between the carnivale, burlesque dancers, and speak-easy, it’s everything I wish my first public outing could have been. Of course there’s bound to be trouble when taking your pet monster out for the first time, but who cares?

Also look for a couple of plugs here in the "140 Chracter Reviews" at Comics Bulletin.

If you're looking to get this comic digitally:

Buy this issue on Comixology now. Complete with DRM-free option.

Or buy directly from Image Comics in a variety of formats.

Current Soundtrack: Spoon, They Want My Soul 

Preview MADAME FRANKENSTEIN #4, on sale Wednesday

Comic Book Resources has posted a preview of this Wednesday's issue of Madame Frankenstein.

This is our favorite issue so far.

STORY BY Jamie S. Rich * ART BY Megan Levens * LETTERED BY Crank! *  COVER BY
Joëlle Jones, & Nick Filardi * PUBLISHER Image Comics

COVER PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE DATE: Wed, August 6th, 2014

Carnival sideshows! Burlesque dancers! Speakeasies! It's time for the monster's first trip into a public space, and Vincent has chosen a locale where Gail can hide amongst other freaks and denizens of the underworld. Just be careful what happens when another woman gets between the doctor and his creation.

Current Soundtrack: Jessie J, Ariana Grande, & Nicki Minaj, "Bang Bang;" Beyonce & Nicki Minaj, "Flawless Remix"

REVIEWING THE SITUATION

A couple of new items.

* A lovely academic review of A Boy and a Girl. 

Sample...

But this apparent predictability is the entire point of the graphic novel. Jamie S. Rich knows exactly what he’s doing by giving us a bland title and a SEEMINGLY bland opening to a story. It’s anything but bland, trite, and predictable. And even when you think it’s predictable in other ways, it’s not. This plot has several key twists and turns that are important for Rich to explore his themes dealing with identity, freedom, sexuality, beauty, true love, friendship, and ethics. 

* Me talking on the PDX Beat podcast about comics and the like.

Current Soundtrack: Conor Oberst, Upside Down Mountain

STANDING OUT IN THE UNIVERSE

NOW IN THEATERS...

* Code Black, a documentary following the country's busiest emergency room as it goes to work.

* Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the funnest movies of the summer and the one Marvel Comics film guaranteed to send you home smiling.

Also, for Portlanders looking for older fare, you can pay tribute to James Garner by seeing The Great Escape or head downtown for a Mid-August Lunch. That is, if you like Italian. (I do.)

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* Arch of Triumph, an overly serious love story with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer set in pre-WWII France.

* Bay of Angels, Jacques Demy's unique take on crime movies, starring Jeanne Moreau.

* Born Yesterday, the classic comedy from George Cukor, with a marvelous performance by Judy Holliday. I'm absolutely in love with this film. 

* The Other Love, a passionless romantic melodrama with Barbara Stanwyck.

Current Soundtrack: Jenny Lewis, The Voyager

MIND OVER MATTER

NOW IN THEATERS...

* Lucy, a brainless sci-fi actioner featuring Scarlett Johansson as a woman unlocking the potential of "cerebral capacity." Yet another in a long line of stinkers from Luc Besson.

* Magic in the Moonlight, Woody Allen's new romantic comedy featuring Colin Firth as a magician and Emma Stone as a spiritualist in 1930s France.

* A Most Wanted Man, the last film from Philip Seymour Hoffman is also the latest from Anton Corbijn, and it's a pretty fantastic spy movie to boot.

* Who is Dayani Cristal? is the question posed in this documentary about the journey of illegal immigrants from Honduras.

For those Portlanders not going to Comic-Con this weekend, you can create your own mini convention by seeing the original Tim Burton Batman movie and the 1940s Superman cartoons.

Or you can catch the special screening of documentary Mending the Line, about a WWII vet returning to France to fish their rivers.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* The Big Chill, the 1980s nostalgic ensemble drama requires a little nostalgia for the 1980s to get through.

* Lola, the debut feature from Jacques Demy is a multi-tiered drama. The first in the new Criterion boxed set The Essential Jacques Demy. 

* The Scalphunters, a later 1960s race-driven western directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Burt Lancaster.

* Six by Sondheim, a documentary about composer Stephen Sondheim, building an image of his life around six of his most important tunes.

Current Soundtrack: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!, Only Run

WILD BRONIES CAN'T BE BROKEN

NOW IN THEATERS...

* A Brony Tale, a fascinating look at the male My Little Pony fanbase. I still don't quite get it, but I guess I at least understand it a little more. In some theaters and on VOD.

* Gabrielle, a Canadian drama about a woman with an intellectual disability seeking romance and independence.

* Half of a Yellow Sun, a middling literary adaption set in Africa.

* A Summer's Tale, a breezy love story from Eric Rohmer doing the revival rounds.

* And Portlanders can indulge in some heavy metal cheesiness with Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare.

WATCH IT AT HOME...

* The Legend of Korra - Book Two: Spirits, a deeper and darker second season of the animated series.

* Paris Blues, a 1961 jazz drama with Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier, and featuring Louis Armstrong.

* Separate Tables, Delbert Mann's expert 1958 adaptation of Terence Rattigan, starring Burt Lancaster, David Niven, Rita Hayworth, and Deborah Kerr.

FROM THE OLDEST SWINGER IN TOWN...

Just proofed the script for Ares & Aphrodite one last time before sending it to Crank! to letter. It's been a year, I forgot how much I really like these characters.

Megan Levens posted this sneak peek image of the female lead, Gigi Averelle, on Facebook yesterday. The coloring has begun!

Current Soundtrack: The Beautiful South, "Let Love Speak Up Itself (BBC Session - Emma Freud 28/3/94"