Ken and Robin Consume Media: Haunting Docs and Shambolic Talk

October 2nd, 2018 | 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

Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (Canada, Jennifer Baichwal & Nicholas de Pencier & Edward Burtynsky, 2018) Documentary prowls the world depicting the massive scale of Homo sapiens’ alterations to the planetary environment. Titanic in its scope and paradoxical in the beauty of its hellishness—though the narration does not grapple with the way its visual language portrays humanity as a destructive invasive species in need of dramatic culling.—RDL. Seen at TIFF; now in limited theatrical release.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (Film, Canada, Bill Morrison, 2016) Collage technique uses archival footage, mostly from a recovered trove of silent films found buried in the Yukon permafrost, to tell the wild story of Dawson City and its early experience of cinema culture. A haunting ambient score turns what could be a quotidian tale of film preservation into a haunting meditation on images as messages from the past.—RDL

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool (Film, UK, Paul McGuigan, 2017) Young Liverpudlian actor (Jamie Bell) has a romance with film star Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) two decades after the peak of her career, only to discover that she’s been concealing a grave health problem. Bening, probably wisely, comes off more as a generalized fading movie icon than a likeness of Grahame. She and Bell deliver affecting performances and McGuigan adds a dash of style to what could have been a talky biopic.—RDL

The Good Place Season 2 (Television, NBC, Michael Schur, 2017) Having discovered that they are in the [[SPOILER]] Place, Eleanor and the gang reluctantly accept Michael’s help in avoiding the attentions of his fellow [[SPOILERS.]] Counters the dread sophomore slump with a significant change-up to its core formula, breaking new ground for the serialized sitcom.—RDL

Quincy (Film, US, Rashida Jones & Alan Hicks, 2018) Documentary interweaves chronological bio segments presenting the many careers and accomplishments of music legend Quincy Jones with an intimate present-day portrait of a hard-partying workaholic’s confrontation with the limitations of an aging body.—RDL

Good

Norm Macdonald Has a Show Season 1 (Television, Netflix, 2018) It seems odd to think that an intentionally meandering, offputting, deconstructed talk show should be longer, but it should. Following the format of his old podcast, Norm takes his habitual talk-show-derailing affect to his own show with predictable consequences: when the guest can hang (like Michael Keaton or Jane Fonda) or fight back (David Spade, David Letterman) it’s great. When they can’t (Lorne Michaels), it’s shambolic. Most times, it’s kind of both. Recommended for full-tilt Macdonaldphiles, but the Norm sauce may be a bit too reduced for everyone to like the taste. –KH

The Tag-Along (Film, Taiwan, Cheng Wei-hao, 2015) Callow realtor, along with his girlfriend and grandma, run afoul of mosien, child-goblin-insect spirits who, after habitat encroachment on their mountainous forest homes, have expanded their range to prey on urbanites. Sublimation of Alzheimer’s fears overcomes the common stumbling block of ghost movies by having somewhere to escalate to in its third act.—RDL