Ken and Robin Consume Media: Kung Fu Rio Bravo and the Gun-Toting Raccoon

May 9th, 2017 | 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 our new podcast segment, Tell Me More.

Recommended

Call of Heroes (Film, HK / China, Benny Chang, 2016) Principled sheriff (Lau Ching Wan) and scruffy martial artist tempted by altruism (Eddie Peng) await the arrival of warriors intent on freeing their warlord boss’ sadistic son (Louis Koo) from the village jail. When you hear “martial arts riff on Rio Bravo from the director of The White Storm, with action direction by Sammo Hung, featuring the aforementioned cast plus Wu Jing,” the only sensible question is, “They don’t screw it up somehow do they?” And I am here to tell you, no, they do not screw it up.–RDL

Colossal (Film, US/Canada, Nacho Vigalondo, 2017) Alcoholic, unemployed, and kicked out by her boyfriend, Gloria (Anne Hathaway) returns to her hometown and discovers that she is somehow linked to a kaiju suddenly materializing in Seoul. A well-crafted, if not very subtle, film about alcoholism gets points for metaphorical boldness, and for the performances by Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis, who plays her childhood friend turned helpful bartender. –KH

Don’t Breathe (Film, US, Fede Alvarez, 2016) Trio of young robbers gets more than it bargained for when its target, a blind army vet (Stephen Lang) living in an otherwise abandoned Detroit neighborhood, turns out to be a terrifyingly buff and competent defender of his hoarded cash. Taut and shudder-inducing inversion of Wait Until Dark has much more going for it than its generic horror marketing campaign wanted to let on.—RDL

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (Film, US, James Gunn, 2017) Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell) saves the gang from mercenaries in order to reveal himself as Starlord’s absent father. Comic set-pieces and stylistic verve sub in for plot momentum within a structure that has the heroes discovering their procedural goal only at the top of the final act.—RDL

Judas Country (Fiction, Gavin Lyall, 1975) The civil-air-transportation thriller maybe never had a heyday, but if it did it was right around when Lyall wrote them. Cargo pilots Cavitt and Case get themselves tangled up in gunrunning, fraud, murder, and artifact smuggling in this assured novel that hops from Nicosia to Beirut and Jerusalem. Lyall evokes an almost vanished milieu along with the smell of jet fuel and his trademark flashes of breathtakingly good prose. –KH

Our Little Sister (Film, Japan, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015) After the death of their estranged father, a trio of sisters meet their teen step-sister and invite her to live with them. Visually and emotionally beautiful drama realizes its suppressed conflicts with warmth and a masterful lightness of touch.—RDL

The Small Hand: A Ghost Story (Fiction, Susan Hill, 2010) A wrong turn down a country lane leads a London bookhound to a prolonged haunting by a young boy’s ghost. Ably paced novella marries contemporary characterization to the M. R. James school of subtle terror.—RDL

Good

The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger’s Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare’s First Folio (Nonfiction, Andrea Mays, 2015) Biographical account of the genial, secretive Standard Oil exec who, in tandem with scholarly spouse Emily, amassed the book collection that formed the basis of their Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Breathes life into the story of the most unassuming super-rich couple ever, injecting suspense into the essentially repetitive rhythm of narrow-field collecting. The dismissive insistence that the Standard Oil breakup was inarguably bad for consumers may send you a-Googling for a fairly rendered opposing view.—RDL

Okay

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (Film, US, James Gunn, 2017) Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and the gang are back, and more laboriously scripted than ever! Gunn’s film works best when it just relaxes into being a big damn pretty comic book, switching between slapstick and music video and shootemups and exasperated space raccoons. It’s when it tries for meaning that it’s undercut, by the enjoyable irony of the rest of the film as much as by the rote dialogue. Gunn also dusts and dulls his magnificent Seventies palette for the last act, which doesn’t help. –KH