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Archive for September, 2016

Episode 210: Tell Jimbo That You’ve Moved House

September 30th, 2016 | Robin

Much tabletop roleplaying advice, ours included, helps GMs to keep players entertained. But what about the other way around? Thanks to Patreon backer Jesse Morgan, we head into the Gaming Hut to look at ways to keep your GM motivated.

Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else covers not one but two areas of expertise, as Hal Mangold delivers the wisdom on art direction and layout. The favorite font he says we’ll reveal in the show notes is 806 Typography.

Then in a special double-length screening session in the Cinema Hut, Robin reveals his discoveries from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. For films glossed over in the segment, see his capsule review round-up.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!


Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press. For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Ken and Robin Consume Media: No, the Other Kind of Sea Lion

September 27th, 2016 | 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

Everybody Street (Film, US, Cheryl Dunn, 2013) Documentary profiles top NYC photographers who prowl its streets in search of spontaneous images of people and city life. Each proves in her or his own way as rich a character as the subjects they capture on film. The HD format shows off their iconic images to fine advantage.—RDL

Traveling to Work: Diaries 1988-1998 (Nonfiction, Michael Palin, 2014) Journal entries cover a decade of film acting, writing, travel documentaries and inconclusive Monty Python business meetings, rendered much less boring than that sounds by Palin’s wit and insight. Ideal reading for any concentration-draining circumstance where you’d nonetheless like to have a smart book to devour in discrete snippets—standing in line-ups at a film festival, let’s say. Return to halcyon days when the first Gulf War was the worst thing happening in the Middle East, the bombs going off in London were set by the IRA, and Tony Blair inspired optimism.—RDL

We March Against England: Operation Sea Lion, 1940-1941 (Nonfiction, Robert Forczyk, 2016) Forczyk doesn’t quite manage to overturn the consensus opinion on Hitler’s mooted invasion of England: that it was doomed to fail, if not a bluff. However, his fully researched history does integrate Sea Lion far more fully into the whole story of the UK-Hitler strategic war, emphasizes that it would have been a closer-run thing than we think, and provides one or two roads-not-taken that could have made it the basis of a forced armistice if not a “swastika over the Tower” moment. –KH

Good

The Threat (Film, US, Felix Feist, 1949) Terrifying armed robber (Charles McGraw) escapes from Folsom Prison to kidnap the DA and cop he threatened with reprisals, along with the burlesque performer who let him down. Police procedural notable for its authentic grubbiness and the cast of lived-in faces inhabiting the roles of crooks and law enforcement alike.–RDL

Episode 209: There is Mooching To Be Done

September 23rd, 2016 | Robin

Take a reality check before you dare to enter the Gaming Hut, as we answer Patreon backer Bryan’s request to devise a campaign based on flawed perceptions.

Time for another intro course in the Cinema Hut as Ken and Robin give your their film noir 101.

Coriander meets pate as the Food Hut investigates the banh mi, a sandwich whose flavors are as complex as its history.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine revs up at the behest of backer Rick Neal, who wants to know just what was up when Jack Parsons met L. Ron Hubbard to attempt the Babylon Working.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!


Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press. For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.   

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Possessed By a Film Of Possession

September 20th, 2016 | 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.

This week was all about film consumption for Robin. Check out his 45 capsule reviews from titles seen at the Toronto International Film Festival. Those reviews will reappear as KRCM entries when the films gain wide release in theaters, disc, or streaming.

Recommended

Alucarda (Film, Mexico, Juan Lopez Moctezuma, 1977) Orphan girls Justine (Susana Kamini) and Alucarda (Tina Romero) become Satan-inspired and perhaps demonically possessed lovers, violently disrupting the life of their convent. This phantasmagoric film (Moctezuma collaborated with Jodorowsky on El Topo) combines LeFanu’s “Carmilla” with Ken Russell’s The Devils, but creates a world of beauty and terror all its own. The production design and many of the static shots are unreally effective, although the histrionic acting and period-synth score take some getting used to. –KH

Alucardos (Film, Mexico, Ulises Guzman, 2011) In 1992, two extreme fans of Alucarda, Lalo and Manolo, kidnapped the director Juan Lopez Moctezuma from a mental hospital, supposedly led to do so by the ghost of an actress killed while shooting that film. And then things got weird. Guzman’s exploration of the terrifying effect of film on fans and creators alike seems jumpy and uneven, which is likely the intent of his collage of archival footage, extensive re-enactments and fictionalizations, and interviews with the kidnappers, Moctezuma’s colleagues and family, and Tina Romero. You’re left uneasy and wanting more. –KH

Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide (Nonfiction, Eric Bogosian, 2015) Between 1920 and 1922, Armenian exiles hunted down and murdered the Turkish architects of the 1915-1916 genocide of the Armenians. With the important caveat that only about 60% of the book is actually about the titular operation, Bogosian tells a vitally interesting story remarkably well, and with ample sourcing. I would have liked to have had more on the American accountant who apparently ran the whole apparat from Syracuse, New York, but the romantic assassin of arch-genocidaire Talat Pasha is irresistibly central-casting ready. Which of course is why the accountant picked him for the hit. –KH

Okay

Black Sabbath (Film, Italy/US, Mario Bava, 1963) Two gothics bookend a proto-giallo in this horror anthology, with Boris Karloff as host and as the final segment’s main vampire. Scripts are weak but give Bava the chance to show off three different creepy Technicolor palettes.—RDL

Mexico Barbaro (Film, Mexico, multiple directors, 2014) Anthology of short horror films derived from Mexican legend, folktales, and urban legends is, like most such compilations, a mixed bag. Ulises Guzman’s brujeria revenge tale “7 Veces 7” and Edgar Nito’s straight-up ghost story “Jaral de Berios” are true standouts, Jorge Michael Grau’s “Munecas” is strikingly shot and does a lot with a minimal story; only two of the eight shorts have nothing to recommend them. –KH

Episode 208: Live from Gen Con 2016

September 16th, 2016 | Robin

Robin is away at the Toronto International Film festival, and longtime listeners know what that means: it’s time to cover his absence from the podcast mic to drop the live episode we released at Gen Con. Join us for another glorious nerdtrope, a big hand for all our Patreon backers, and all the questions a packed audience (a cramped audience frankly) can pack into one 50-minute time slot!
Support the KARTAS Patreon!


Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press.

For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.
  

Ken and Robin Consume Media: School Stories, Hollywood Memories, and One Big Airplane

September 13th, 2016 | KenH

This week Robin is off consuming an incredible flood of films at the Toronto International Film Festival. Catch his capsule reviews daily, or wait for the full round-up of all films in order of preference, over at his blog. Those reviews will reappear here as films get released and become available beyond the festival circuit.

In other news, due to good deeds done in a former life, Ken is back on the Osprey Publishing review copy list. To avoid this feature becoming Osprey Consumes Ken and Robin Consume Media, Ken will only consume the pick of each shipment in this space.

Recommended

Bad Machinery (Webcomic, UK, John Allison, 2009-present) Two teams of students (one set of boys, one set of girls) at Griswalds Grammar School in Tackleford, Yorkshire, solve mysteries with a dash of high weirdness and infectious dialogue. Each year’s story represents a school term; the kids started out 12-ish and are now 15-ish. The sly line art is reminiscent of Kate Beaton, and the plots are many-stranded Wodehousian things, but the real joy is the lovely, mad, human characters. A must-read for Bubblegumshoe fans wanting the occasional selkie or dimensional rift or scooter riot. –KH

Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story) (Film, France, Eva Husson, 2015)  Rift between two high schoolers over a narcissistic boy triggers out of control sex parties. Dreamy drama is subversive in depicting  extreme teenage sexuality as entirely non-apocalyptic—RDL. Seen at TIFF ‘15; now on Netflix.

The Barbary Pirates: 15th-17th Centuries (Osprey Elite 213) (Nonfiction, Angus Konstam, 2016) It’s not possible to do justice to 200+ years of North African naval-political history in only 64 lushly illustrated pages, but Osprey’s pirate guru provides a good first-cut overview eerily similar to an RPG book on the subject. GMs looking for settings could do far worse than 1580s Algiers, where a third of the corsair captains were European former Christians; or the pirate island of Djerba south of Tunis, the quondam isle of Odysseus’ lotus-eaters. –KH

Can I Go Now? (Nonfiction, Brian Kellow, 2015) Biography of super-agent Sue Mengers depicts a outrageous, dogged, wounded non-feminist smashing through barriers, throwing A-list parties and leaving a trail of bruising friendships in her wake. Offers an unusual vantage on the rise of existential, freewheeling 70s Hollywood filmmaking and its 80s retrenchment into corporate aspiration—from the point of view of the money, honey.—RDL

Messerschmitt Me-264 Amerika Bomber (Osprey X-Planes 2) (Nonfiction, Robert Forsythe, 2016) In 1941, Willy Messerschmitt sold Hitler on his design for an intercontinental bomber capable of hitting New York (or Chicago!) from the Third Reich. Forsythe covers everything from the engineering challenges to the Luftwaffe infighting that eventually doomed this doomsday weapon. Most of the art is period photos and reproduced blueprints and maps; GMs will thrill to the cutaway diagrams and the weird details. –KH

Okay

The World is Ever Changing (Nonfiction, Nicolas Roeg, 2013) In what clearly started as an autobiography and even more clearly turned into “what the hell, record him talking and publish a lightly edited transcript,” the esteemed director free-associates on his films, showbiz anecdotes, newfangledness, and the paranormal. Best story: Roeg asks eyepatch-wearing director Andre de Toth how he lost his eye and is told, “I often visit the grave of the man who did this to me.”–RDL

Not Recommended

The Thing (Film, US, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, 2011) Sure, a prequel-cum-remake of the John Carpenter 1982 masterpiece is unnecessary, but what if we crossed it with Aliens? And replaced the tension with jump-scares? Dr Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who is actually pretty good) is the Ellen Ripley to the eager-to-exploit-this-alien Dr. Sander Halvorsen (Ulrich Thomsen), while Joel Edgerton adds a weak Michael-Biehn-or-is-it-Kurt-Russell vibe. The plot briefly approaches freshness once, then immediately drowns it in overdone, overloud CGI imperfectly replicating the original. –KH

Like to hear more about any of these items on our new Tell Me More segment? Make a note of it as a comment on this post. If someone else has already mentioned the entry you have your eye on, save yourself some typing and simply favorite that comment. Speak up for more than one item if you like, but break them up into separate posts. Remember if you vote for too many you’re cancelling yourself out.And finally before we get to the capsule reviews remember that if you would like us to hit upcoming milestones, including t-shirts, show notes, and transcripts we could use your help. Your social media shout-outs to our main Patreon page will make all the difference: that’s patreon.com/kenandrobin.

Episode 207: It’s Pronounced “Executive”

September 9th, 2016 | Robin

Our 207th installment starts on a tripartite note as Patreon backer Andrew Young pops his head into the Gaming Hut to ask about the pertinence of three-act structure in roleplaying scenarios.

Speaking of Andrews, the Tradecraft Hut opens the case file on East German spymaster Markus Wolf, at the behest of backer Andrew Collins.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else, we invite Jeff Tidball to reveal all about Atlas Games’ upcoming GUMSHOE game set in Ars Magica’s Mythic Europe.

Having left a suitable interval for you all to finish your binge-watching, we then turn on the Television Hut for a much-requested chat about “Stranger Things.”

Support the KARTAS Patreon!


Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press.

For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

  

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Karloff, Lovecraft, and Vanilla Extract

September 6th, 2016 | 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

Hell or High Water (Film, US, David Mackenzie, 2016) Brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) rob banks in West Texas, while Texas Rangers Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Parker (Gil Birmingham) close in on them in this Western driven by (and set in) the post-2008 hollow economy. The acting is universally the high point here, followed by Giles Nuttgens’ cinematography, which unfolds small-town New Mexico (standing in for its neighbor) as a land of desperation equal to any John Ford box canyon. Taylor Sheridan’s excellent script tries just a little bit too hard for my money, but if you put this one on the Pinnacle I won’t say you’re wrong. —KH

The House of Rumour (Fiction, Jake Arnott, 2013) The reader imposes what structure there is on this “novel” assembled as 22 slit-chamber chapters, each using a card of the Tarot Major Arcana as its motif. Some characters — Rudolf Hess, Jack Parsons, Ian Fleming — recur more often, as does the somewhat-central figure of Larry Zagorski, a verisimilitudinous though fictional SF author. The book winds up being a meditation on turning points, hidden interconnectedness, and history, kind of a Hite-forward Bridge of San Luis Rey. —KH

Loving Day (Fiction, Mat Johnson, 2015) Failed comic book artist returns to his childhood home in Philly, where his hunt for a school for his previously unknown teen daughter draws them into a utopian community intent on changing the nature of biracial identity. Funny, trenchant novel of personal crisis, straining at the seams with sharply delineated characters.—RDL

My Pantry: Homemade Ingredients That Make Simple Meals Your Own (Nonfiction, Alice Waters, 2015) In her rapturous, guilelessly presumptuous style, the titan of pure ingredients cuisine tells you how she lovingly prepares the things she has in her kitchen to make other things out of, from red wine vinegar to almond paste to vanilla extract. I never make anything straight out of a Waters book but always find inspiration to attempt something more feasible. This one is particularly aspirational, going beyond food porn to also become free time porn and, for this apartment dweller, storage space porn. I might have a go at the brown rice and quinoa porridge.—RDL

Sea Fog (Film, South Korea, Shim Sung-Bo, 2014) Desperate fishing boat captain agrees to take on a load of illegal immigrants. Nautical noir keeps on raising the stakes.—RDL Originally reviewed at TIFF ‘14; now on Netflix in the US & Canada and maybe elsewhere.

Good

Carter & Lovecraft (Fiction, Jonathan L. Howard, 2015) Thanks to mysterious hugger-mugger, ex-cop Dan Carter inherits a bookstore in Providence run by Emily Lovecraft, the last living descendant of you-know-who, and she’s black for some reason. Lest you think that thudding labored irony is all JLH brings to the party, know that he presents a strong detective element convincingly, and his descriptions of the effect on the observer of the Lovecraftian hypergeometric cosmos are both original and authentic, which is a tough note to hit. But oh how the hugger-mugger doth mug. —KH

The Man They Could Not Hang (Film, US, Nick Grinde, 1939) Police interrupt the attempt of a pioneering medical researcher (Boris Karloff) to bring a volunteer back from induced death, leading to the eponymous hanging and then to vengeance from beyond the grave. Despite the suspicion that it achieves its 64-minute running time by ripping entire sections out of a more fully developed screenplay, it does give Karloff the chance to display his full range, which is always a treat. The bit where he traps his victims in his house and announces he’s going to kill them one by one could easily be turned into a con scenario. The Karloff character bears a certain resemblance to early KARTAS subject Dr. Alexis Carrel.—RDL

Okay

British Intelligence (Film, US, Terry Morse, 1940) German agents (Boris Karloff, Margaret Lindsay) attempt to spy on and/or blow up the British war cabinet in 1917. Or are they? Brisk and packed with identity switches, but ultimately interesting mostly as an artifact of the two-year period in which Hollywood prepped American audiences for entry into WWII by injecting anti-Nazi propaganda into their rousing entertainments.—RDL

The Ten Thousand (Fiction, Harold Coyle, 1993) I picked this up because it promised me a modern military technothriller based on Xenophon’s Anabasis, and I suppose it sort of delivers. The geopolitics (an American armored corps invades the Ukraine to recover loose nukes, but the duplicitous Germans keep the nukes and close the border) are ridiculous even by the forgiving standards of the genre, and the characterization makes Tom Clancy look like Thomas Hardy. The writing is unforgivably padded, except during the tank-on-tank action, which is in fact just as thrilling as advertised. —KH

Episode 206: They Had Hyenas In Inventory

September 2nd, 2016 | Robin

Rules get hybridized in the Gaming Hut, at the behest of Patreon backer Jason Carter, who wants to fuse GUMSHOE’s investigative rules with the combat systems of other games, say for example Feng Shui.

The man who shot Billy the Kid was himself killed in a dispute over goats. Coincidence? The History Hut looks at the killing of Pat Garrett.

Learn the secret of scoring your RPG sessions with music from writer and game designer Will Hindmarch, as Ken and/or Robin Talk To Someone Else.

Finally, erect your anti-wolf defenses as the Eliptony Hut tells the hair-raising tale of the Beast of Gevaudan.

Support the KARTAS Patreon!


Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card.

 

Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press.

For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish.

Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook.

  

Film Cannister
Cartoon Rocket
d8
Flying Clock
Robin
Film Cannister