Ken and Robin Consume Media: F1, 28 Years Later, and a Restored Wax Museum

July 15th, 2025 | Robin

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.

Recommended

28 Years Later (Film, UK, Danny Boyle, 2025) Trained too young as a biozombie-hunting warrior by his gung ho dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), 12 year old Spike (Alfie Williams) forsakes the safety of his island enclave to find a doctor for his ailing mom (Jodie Comer.) Takes care of its Brexit metaphor obligations early to then take the series and genre in big, unexpected directions.—RDL

Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse (Film, US, Molly Bernstein & Philip Dolin, 2025) Arts profile doc shows the shadow Maus has cast over its subject’s life, and how his wife Francoise Mouly transitioned 60s comix into 90s high culture.—RDL

The Bride of Newgate (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1950) To secure her inheritance, haughty gentlewoman Caroline Ross marries condemned man Dick Darwent, convicted of murder, the day before his scheduled execution in June 1815. When reprieved by a stroke of luck, Darwent must try to find the real killer while avenging himself on Caroline and her bully-boy. Breathless historical mystery never slows down, action and fight scenes piled on occasional deduction, buoyed by Carr’s top-notch (if slightly obvious) historical research.—KH

The Cassandra Cat (Film, Czechoslovakia, Vojtech Jasný, 1963) A small town panics when a magician’s troupe arrives with a feline who, when his cool sunglasses are removed, literally reveals the true colors of everyone caught in its gaze. Gently barbed whimsical fantasy captures a mood of evanescent magic. AKA When The Cat Comes.—RDL

F1 (Film, US, Joseph Kosinski, 2025) Desperate for a win, Formula 1 team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) hires long-faded prodigy driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) to partner his rising star Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Like Formula 1 itself, this sports movie zooms along a familiar track, and the handling makes all the difference. Hans Zimmer’s EDM-infused score and the spectacle of real race cars really racing provide the boost to pro performances from Pitt (whose eye work has never been better), Bardem, and Kerry Condon. It’s nothing special, done very well, which in 2025 is something special.—KH

A Gentleman and a Thief (Nonfiction, Dean Jobb, 2024) Biography of suave, prolific 1920s jewel purloiner Arthur Barry is well-told, well-researched and packed with telling detail to import into your Call or Trail of Cthulhu game.—RDL

Hour of the Gun (Film, US, John Sturges, 1968) When one brother is murdered and the other wounded as a reprisal for the Gunfight at the OK Corral, self-contained marshal Wyatt Earp (James Garner) and his caustic death dealer pal Doc Holliday (Jason Robards) hunt those responsible, commanding cattle rustler Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan) included. Laconic, lavishly cast take on the west’s defining vendetta assigns Earp the dramatic poles of law versus vengeance.—RDL

Mystery of the Wax Museum [Restored Version] (Film, US, Michael Curtiz, 1933 [2020]) Fast-talking reporter (Glenda Farrell), chasing a scoop about missing bodies, snoops around a wax museum run by crippled genius Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill). Glorious two-strip Technicolor is the main attraction in this restored pre-Code thriller, but Farrell is terrifically game. Fay Wray belts out a few good screams, too.—KH

Spaceship Earth (Film, US, Matt Wolf, 2020) Documentary profiles the not-quite-a-cult eccentrics who attracted media buzz and controversy with their Biodome 2 enclosed environment project. Look behind the scenes of a category-defying enterprise intrigues despite the reluctance of interview subjects to let their guards down.—RDL

Okay

The Black Windmill (Film, UK, Don Siegel, 1974) Arms smuggler (John Vernon) abducts the son of MI5 officer Tarrant (Michael Caine) to get a stash of diamonds used by MI5 as a slush fund. For the first two thirds of this strangely inert spy thriller, the only thing worth watching is Donald Pleasance’s tic-filled performance as Tarrant’s superior. It lurches back to life when Tarrant starts back on the kidnappers’ trail, but by then it’s too late. How Don Siegel of all people let this happen is a bigger mystery than anything in the film.—KH

Ken and Robin Consume Media: 28 Years Later, Captain America, and the Occult Detective Who Went Mundane

July 9th, 2025 | Robin

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.

Recommended

28 Years Later (Film, US/UK, Danny Boyle, 2025) 28 years after the rage virus depopulated Britain, a 12-year-old boy (Alfie Williams) sets out with his ailing mother (Jodie Comer) from their increasingly medieval home on Holy Island in search of a cure for her. Remarkably beautiful film pits a mythic English remnant against brutish monsters, hitting notes of legend amidst the horror. The score by Young Fathers drives the action, along with brilliant edits by Jon Harris.—KH

The Devil’s Envoys (Film, France, Marcel Carné, 1942) Immortal troubadours with infernal powers (Alain Cuny, Arletty) arrive at a castle in 1485 to torment residents with their seductive wiles on behalf of their master, the Devil (Jules Berry). Fantasy of courtly love drapes a captivating fairy tale atmosphere over a fatalistic view of romantic obsession.—RDL

Dream Scenario (Film, US, Kristoffer Borgli, 2023) Self-centered nebbish biology prof (Nicolas Cage) goes viral when he inexplicably begins to appear in peoples’ dreams. The queasy specter of Charlie Kaufman hangs over this dark comic fable about the hubris of the small.—RDL

Now Beacon, Now Sea (Nonfiction, Christopher Sorrentinno, 2021) Novelist examines his tortured relationship with his angry, unappeasable, self-isolating mother. Memoir of a life shaped by intractable parents told with rueful rigor.—RDL

The Red Dance (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1928) In the lead up to the Russian Revolution, a stalwart young arch-duke (Charles Farrell) and a political prisoner’s passionate daughter (Dolores del Rio) fall In love. Rollicking historical melodrama with energetic action set pieces.—RDL

Speaking of Murder (Film, France, Gilles Grangier, 1957) Gruff garage owner who runs a robbery crew on the side (Jean Gabin) tries to keep his parolee younger brother (Marcel Bozzufi) away from a gold-digging manicurist (Annie Girardot.) Tough, compact crime drama populated by a deep cast of Gallic mugs.—RDL

A Wounded Fawn (Film, US, Travis Stevens, 2022) Museum curator (Sarah Lind) goes to the remote cabin of her new beau (Josh Ruben) for a romantic weekend, not knowing that he is a serial killer planning her murder, or that a being of mythic vengeance waits in the surrounding woods. Stylized vengeance flick fortified with art historical and mythological references and the rare awareness that the typical real serial killer is a pathetic drip.—RDL.

Good

Every Lucius Leffing Story (Fiction, Joseph Payne Brennan, 1962-1990) Lucius Leffing began as Brennan’s occult detective, and morphed into a more regular detective when the mystery magazines wouldn’t buy ghost stories. The result, a not-entirely-Holmes pastiche on the borders of mystery and weird tales, the nostalgia of the ghost story reinforced by the nostalgia of the Holmesian short in the age of the crime novel. I found myself entranced, yes even by the hokey Lovecraftian convention novella Act of Providence (1979), but I cannot convince myself that everyone (anyone?) will be as susceptible, so I dropped it a grade.—KH

Okay

Captain America: Brave New World (Film, US, Julius Onah, 2025) Captain America (Anthony Mackie) and newly-elected President “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) find themselves at odds as a conspiracy undermines a key treaty. Abandoning not just the political but the narrative coherence of the previous two Cap films proves disastrous for a film already drowning in the new Marvel slurry. One or two good fight scenes and an intermittently game Ford don’t rescue it.—KH

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Films Adapted from Haggard, Heinlein, and Dunsany

June 24th, 2025 | Robin

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.

Recommended

100 Yards (Film, China, Haofeng Xu & Junfeng Xu, 2023) Resentful, pushed-aside martial artist (Jacky Heung) decides to wrest his late father’s organization from the shady rival (Andy On) who inherited it. Stylized staging and restrained delivery convey distinctly mainland take on the fight for supremacy trope.—RDL

The Door Into Summer (Film, Japan, Takahiro Miki, 2021) Swindled out of his share in the robotics company he helped found and into a cryosleep chamber, a young genius resorts to fringe science to regain what he lost. Glossy romantic beats add feeling to the tricky plotting of its Robert Heinlein source novel.—RDL

It Happened Tomorrow (Film, US, Rene Clair, 1941) Turn of the century reporter (Dick Powell) advances his career and woos a charming mentalist’s assistant (Linda Darnell) when an older colleague starts giving him newspapers from one day in the future. Comedy of the fantastic with a light touch as magical as its subject matter. One of the two feature films ever adapted, in this case extremely loosely, from the work of Lord Dunsany.—RDL

She (Film, US, Lancing Holden & Irving Pichel, 1935) Following in the footsteps of a 16th century ancestor he strongly resembles, a jut-jawed explorer (Randolph Scott) finds a hidden civilization in the Arctic, ruled by a ruthless despot (Helen Gahagan) who has been longing for him for five hundred years. The best adaptation of the H. Rider Haggard fantasy classic features glorious art deco production design and an unforgettable climactic ritual dance sequence.—RDL

The Wedding (Fiction, Gurjinder Basran, 2024) The impending, lavish nuptials of a perfection-seeking bride and checked out groom heighten the tensions between public face and inner self for a large cast of characters from B.C.’s Sikh community. Generous, expansively observed social novel of values both traditional and Instagrammed.—RDL

Good

Phantom (Film, Germany, F. W. Murnau, 1922) Weak-willed clerk with poetic ambitions (Alfred Abel) spirals into degeneracy after a fleeting interaction with a rich young woman sparks an obsessive romantic fixation. Moral drama with expressionistic touches and an early example of the blatantly tacked-on happy ending. Sometimes classified as a fantasy film, due to a couple of symbolic shots that last a few seconds.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mission: Impossible, Attila the Hun, and Vintage Fantasy Films

June 17th, 2025 | Robin

Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.

Recommended

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Film, Germany, Lotte Reiniger, 1926) Heroic prince battles monsters and an evil magician to save the lovely ruler of a demon island. Cinema’s first animated feature is a straight up swords and sorcery yarn, shot in a beguiling, delicate style with articulated 2D silhouette figures.—RDL

Lost Horizon (Film, US, Frank Capra, 1937) Diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) and four others get hijacked to the peaceful realm of Shangri-La. 21st-century viewers may find Capra slow going, not willing to relax into the scenic and cultural idyll he paints. But there’s a scorpion sting in the tail (and occasional other places) that provide the needed venom beneath the seemingly placid (and visually arresting) action.—KH

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2025) Superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) continues his quest for the source code that can unmake the Entity, a rogue A.I. destroying truth and threatening apocalypse. Alternately talky and taut, the film does a creditable job of rounding off the whole franchise with one last world-saving mission. Also worth examining as part of Cruise’s lengthy cri de coeur for reality and story in film over AI, CGI, IP, and the other besetting sins of the current age.—KH

Zvenygora (Film, Russia, Alexander Dovzhenko, 1928) During the 1917 German invasion of Russia, an old man and his grandson scheme to find the cursed treasure buried in a magic mountain. Allegorical fantasy with a weird hypnagogic intensity has a lot of mystical Ukrainian nationalism in it for a film its director thought would win over Party cultural apparatchiks.—RDL

Good

Attila the Hun: A Barbarian King and the Fall of Rome (Nonfiction, John Man, 2005) Historical biography traces the rise of the Huns, the impact exerted by the titular leader as he occupied the Balkans and threatened the 5th century Roman Empire(s), and his outsized role in later myth. A solid comprehensive treatment weighed down by putatively flavorful you-are-there-while-I-talk-to-this-museum-curator narrative flourishes.—RDL

Blue Light (Film, Germany, Leni Riefenstahl, 1932) Travelers in a mountain town read the story of Junta (Riefenstahl), a fey “witch” who could climb to the inaccessible blue crystal grotto, and the stranger Vigo (Mathias Wieman) who loves and destroys her. Magnificent climbing sequences provide the highlight of this alternately sententious and tender film, which aims for mysticism and achieves it only sporadically.—KH

Monkey Man (Film, US, Dev Patel, 2024) Man employed as a simian-masked human punching bag at underground MMA matches (Dev Patel) infiltrates a high end nightclub/brothel on a mission of vengeance. Intense actioner blunts its impact by withholding its revenge motivation sequence until the end of act two, instead of putting it up front where it belongs.—RDL

Okay

Destiny (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1921) A grief-stricken young woman (Lil Dagover) begs a weary, remorseful Death (Bernhard Goetzke) to spare her fiance, prompting him to show her vignettes of his inevitable power set in Arabia, Renaissance Italy, and a fanciful China. The heavy hand of Orientalism weighs down this mordant anthology film of the fantastic.—RDL

Fascinatingly Wrong

The Wizard of Oz (Film, US, Larry Semon, 1925) After henchmen from Oz arrive in a biplane to assassinate their unknowing rightful queen Dorothy (Dorothy Dwan), she is whisked there by a tornado, where her farmhand friends (Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Curtis McHenry) dress up as a scarecrow, a tin man and a lion. Now-forgotten slapstick star Semon ruined his finances and health with this massive flop, which audiences perhaps thought would bear some resemblance to L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. CW: racism.—RDL