Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Last of Us, Cocaine Bear, and Psionic Norwegian Kids

March 28th, 2023 | 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

Aftersun (Film, UK, Charlotte Wells, 2022) As seen through a veil of unanswered adult memory, a young girl (Frankie Corio) vacations with her covertly troubled dad (Paul Mescal) at a disappointing tourist resort. Delicately acted, observation-driven naturalistic drama about the way parents protect their kids by hiding who they really are.—RDL

The Innocents (Film, Norway, Eskil Vogt, 2022) Young kids in an apartment complex develop interconnected psionic powers—but one of them is a bad seed. Horror of high-stakes conflict between children made all the more disturbing by its naturalistic presentation.—RDL

The Last of Us Season 1 (Television, US, HBO, Craig Mazin, 2023) In a post-apocalyptic present stalked by fungal zombies, a smuggler closed off by his tragic past (Pedro Pascal) reluctantly agrees to transport a sharp-witted teen (Bella Ramsey) across country to a lab that hopes to turn her immunity into the plague into a vaccine. Brilliantly realized survival horror built around the unusually clear dramatic arc of its videogame source material.—RDL

Good

Banacek Season 1 (Television, US, NBC, George Eckstein, 1972-1973) Insurance investigator Thomas Banacek (George Peppard) investigates impossible disappearances for a 10% recovery fee while radiating self-satisfaction, romancing suspects, and dropping “old Polish proverbs.” Peppard’s airy vibe still has its qualities, the padded interstitial scenes less so, but the mysteries are genuinely fun and challenging. –KH

Cocaine Bear (Film, US, Elizabeth Banks, 2023) Brave nurse (Keri Russell) tries to rescue her daughter as a cocaine bear tears its way through a string of victims in the Chattahoochee–Oconee National Forest. Horror comedy delights in entropic mayhem; peaks too soon.—RDL

Deliver Us From Evil (Film, South Korea, 2022) Ex-spy turned assassin delays his retirement to rescue the young daughter he never knew he had from Thai organ traffickers, pursued by his last victim’s ultra-violent blood brother. Well-staged hard action follows the recent Asian cinema trope of depicting Thailand as a sun-baked Wild West.—RDL

Okay

F9 (Film, US, Justin Lin, 2020) Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) come out of hiding to stop his brother (John Cena) from capturing a world-threatening technology. Disquieting nods toward self-awareness deep into a franchise that works when it fully commits to pure stupidity. I can’t tell whether Diesel is becoming a worse actor with each installment or if Lin has stopped trying to pick his less embarrassing takes.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Bones and All, EO, and the Letters of M. R. James

March 14th, 2023 | 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

Band of Outsiders (Film, France, Jean-Luc Godard, 1964) Pushover Odile (Anna Karina), feckless Franz (Sami Frey), and thuggish Artur (Claude Brasseur) plot to steal a hoard of cash from Odile’s landlord. Godard as usual cares less about the plot than about the dysfunctional interplay among the trio, but hits an ideal ironic distance from which to watch their attempts. The pernicious colonialism of American culture on French youth provides both a running leitmotif and the film’s highlight dance sequence. –KH

Bones And All (Film, Italy, Luca Guadagnino, 2022) Teen obligate cannibal Maren (Taylor Russell) searches for answers and meets other “eaters” including scary Sully (Mark Rylance) and lovely Lee (Timothée Chalamet). Sweet and creepy by turns, Guadagnino’s 80s American road trip horror-romance never stops working, hitting a balance and a vibe his Suspiria remake notably failed to. –KH

Bank Shot (Fiction, Donald E. Westlake, 1972) Seeing opportunity when a bank under renovation temporarily relocates to a modified mobile home across the street, a team of down-at-the-mouth thieves led by dyspeptic planner John Dortmunder resolves to put it back on wheels and tow it away. Second in Westlake’s series of wry, observant heist-gone-wrong novels delights in the procedural obstacles thrown up by its unique premise.—RDL

EO (Film, Poland, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022) After animal welfare officers remove him from a circus, a donkey, seeking his beloved performance partner, undertakes an arduous journey into the hellish world of humans. Visual language predominates in an inverted quest narrative made poignant by the emotions we project on the large, expressive eyes of its equine protagonist.—RDL

Madeleine Collins (Film, France, Antoine Barraud, 2021) A busy professional (Virgine Efira) struggles to keep ahead of the lies she’s floated to hide the existence of her secret second family. Suspenseful character study wouldn’t work without Efira’s brilliant performance, which keeps us with the protagonist as we discover the full extent of the terrible decisions that have placed her in her worsening spiral.—RDL

Good

Avengement (Film, UK, Jesse V. Johnson, 2019) Inmate hardened by repeated attempts to kill him in prison (Scott Adkins) escapes to settle the score with the older brother (Craig Fairbrass) who put the bounty on his head. Brutal action vehicle for Adkins classed up with a flashback structure and a taste for hard man dialogue.—RDL

Casting the Runes: The Letters of M.R. James (Nonfiction, Jane Mainley-Piddock (ed.), 2023) Collects and reprints 101 letters from M.R. James held in various Cambridge University archives, spanning his life from childhood to c. 1925. (This collection excludes the letters from MRJ to the family of his bff James McBryde, which have been separately published in a now-out-of-print volume.) Readers get a glimpse of James’ personality emerging, and some familiarity with his life thanks to generally excellent annotations by Mainley-Piddock. While still Recommended for MRJ-heads, the near-total absence of insight into his ghost stories from his correspondence must drop it to Good for the casual Jamesian. –KH

Not Recommended

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Film, US, Guillermo del Toro, 2022) Woodcarver mourning the WWI bombing death of his young son gets a second chance at fatherhood when a wood nymph breathes life into a marionette he has fashioned. Grim slog through the Carlo Collodi story trafficks in loaded imagery of fascism and crucifixion without resolving its meaning.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Ant-Man, Women Talking, and The Fabelmans

March 7th, 2023 | 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

Athena (Film, France, Romain Gavras, 2022) When the Athena housing project in Paris erupts in revolution after cops kill a young boy, his three brothers (Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Ouassini Embarek) choose their sides. The resulting Homeric drama occurs against a propulsively filmed, jawdropping action backdrop with moments of pure humanity throughout.  –KH

The Fabelmans (Film, US, Steven Spielberg, 2022) Young wannabe film director Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) realizes that his art can immiserate as well as exalt him, not least by revealing his parents’ (Paul Dano and an amazing tightwire Michelle Williams) marital difficulties. Spielberg turns his rollercoaster mastery (and Janusz Kaminski’s luxe lensing) to semi-autobiography, and for about two acts achieves riveting perfection. I was actually relieved when the bones of artifice showed up toward the end, but the final scene may be the best one of the century. –KH

The Green Years (Film, Portugal, Paulo Rocha, 1963) Callow hick (Rui Gomes) arrives in the big city of Lisbon to become a cobbler and woo a thoughtful maid (Isabel Ruth.) New wave observational drama starts out wry and sweet, then takes a dark turn..—RDL

King Con (Nonfiction, Paul Willetts, 2018) From the teens into the 40s, the charismatic, bisexual, cocaine-confident swindler and vaudevillean Edgar Laplante adopts the guise of a Cherokee prince to spend and scam his way across America and Europe. True crime biography presents a particularly egregious example of the still persistent pretendian phenomenon. Notable for its anti-hero’s use of patriotic fervor to grease his marks, which reaches its apogee when he embraces Italian fascism.—RDL

Son of the White Mare (Film, Hungary, Marcell Jankovics, 1981) Aided by his only somewhat less awesome brothers Stonecrumbler and Irontemperer, the hero Treeshaker ventures to hell to rescue the princesses of the three good seasons from the many-headed dragon husbands who keep them captive. Animated feature tells a myth of the steppe peoples with graphic, boldly stylized visuals.—RDL

Women Talking (Film, US, Sarah Polley, 2022) With the men away bailing out the community members who repeatedly tranquilized and sexually assaulted them, the women of a Mennonite community collectively decide whether to leave, or stay and fight. Drama of passion and ideas features heightened dialogue, a mastery of cinematic space, and stunning performances from an ensemble headed by Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy and Sheila McCarthy.—RDL

Okay

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Film, US, Peyton Reed, 2023) An experiment gone awry drags the whole ant-clan into the quantum realm to face Janet Van Dyne’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) past and Kang the Conqueror (a morose Jonathan Majors). By-the-numbers plot deliberately ignores everything interesting, original, or specific to the quantum realm (and Kang) on its way to flabbily set up the next endless cycle of MCU film and TV. Michelle Pfeiffer gets to act, though, which is nice. –KH

Lake of Dracula (Film, Japan, Michio Yamamoto, 1971) A young woman clashes with her envious sister when the events from a vividly terrifying childhood dream acquire prophetic reality. A step less eerie than its predecessor, the second in the director’s vampire trilogy preserves the barest bones of the Stoker novel. Notable for Dracula’s sinister plan of having himself FedExed to his victim’s home.—RDL

Mondocane (Film, Alessandro Celli, Italy, 2021) In post-collapse Italy, a pair of young teen pals put their mutual loyalty to the test when they join a murderous communal gang. Dystopian social realism kept in second gear by weak staging and composition.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Aftersun, Crimes of the Future, and The Quiet Girl

February 28th, 2023 | 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

Aftersun (Film, UK, Charlotte Wells, 2022) On a seemingly blissful vacation in Turkey with her doting 30-year-old dad Calum (Paul Mescal), 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) subconsciously feels darker currents at work that her adult self now recalls. Two wonderfully natural performances synchronize to build a film all about layered emotional truths and the impossibility of memory. A magical experience that deliberately avoids the traps of plot and omniscience. –KH

The Contractor (Film, US, Tarik Saleh, 2022) Abruptly cashiered for using performance enhancing drugs to stay in his Green Beret unit, a financially strapped vet (Chris Pine) joins his fellow family man army buddy (Ben Foster) in a mission run by a gruffly avuncular merc company proprietor (Kiefer Sutherland.) Gritty action spy thriller with touches of the Western takes pains to establish the reality of its protagonist and his world.—RDL

Crimes of the Future (Film, Canada/Greece, David Cronenberg, 2022) In a future world mostly without pain, tortured performance artist Tester (Viggo Mortensen) tests the line of new vice when he’s drawn into a police investigation of radical evolutionists. Cronenberg presents a basic procedural narrative in a wildly discordant fashion, down to huge variations in line readings: the result is literally bloody pulp and bloody good fun. –KH

Henri Dauman: Looking Up (Film, US, Peter Kenneth Jones, 2018) Profile of Henri Dauman, who in his 60s heyday shooting for Life brought a glamorous, cinematic eye to photojournalism. Shot with affection for the subject’s puckish perfectionism and empathy for the travails of a life informed by his boyhood escape from deportation to Auschwitz in wartime France.—RDL

The Quiet Girl (Film, Ireland, Colm Bairéad, 2022) In 1981, superfluous nine-year-old daughter Cáit (Catherine Clich) goes to live with her mother’s cousins in a rural idyll. A sad, beautifully shot movie about girlhood and (at a remove) motherhood, made extra gorgeous for Anglophones by having almost all the dialogue in Irish. Clinch’s excellent performance wisely stays very interiorized, as the title indicates. –KH

Wild Girl (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1932) A vivacious young woman (Joan Bennett) raised among California’s redwoods resists the attentions of men from the nearby town, until a handsome stranger (Charles Farrell) shows up to settle a score with the worst of them. Walsh’s roughneck sympathies energize a Western fable of good-hearted outsiders up against merciless, hypocritical authorities. —RDL

Okay

Django & Django (Film, Italy, Luca Rea, 2021) Documentary survey of the nihilistic spaghetti westerns of Sergio Corbucci could do with an extra talking head or two to balance the on-set anecdotes from Franco Nero and Ruggero Deodato and the enthusiastic flapdoodle of Quentin Tarantino.—RDL

Massacre at Grand Canyon (Film, Italy, Sergio Corbucci, 1964) Returning home after avenging his father’s death, an ex-sheriff (Jim Mitchum) tries to prevent a range war. Made just before Corbucci saw his friend Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and adopted a version of its hyper-accentuated spaghetti western style, this more traditional cowboy actioner contains flashes of the darkness that takes center frame in his subsequent films.—RDL

Triangle of Sadness (Film, Sweden, Ruben Östlund, 2022) Feckless models (Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean) in a romantic and/or business relationship take a free trip on a luxury cruise bound for disaster. Scores when directing its gleeful satirical cruelties at easy targets, but loses energy in its final act and cops out when it realizes where a true resolution of its tensions would take it.—RDL