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Archive for October, 2019

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Parasite, Jojo Rabbit and a Suppressed Transmission

October 29th, 2019 | 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.

The Pinnacle

Parasite (Film, South Korea, Bong Joon Ho, 2019) Hardscrabble family spins a series of deceptions to win positions in a tech tycoon’s household. Deliriously unpredictable, masterfully executed thriller of slow-boiling class tension.—RDL

Recommended

Buoyancy (Film, Australia, Rodd Rathjen, 2019) Impoverished teen Chakra (Sam Heng) leaves his Cambodian village for work in Thailand but gets enslaved on a fishing boat. Gripping drama of character and situation fully digs into both, becoming a modern-day Jack London story complete with the sea, exploitation, and brutal violence. Sam Petty’s sound design exacerbates and completes the experience. –KH

Jojo Rabbit (Film, US,Taika Waititi, 2019) As the Allies close in on Germany, a naively fervent ten-year-old member of the Hitler Youth (Roman Griffin Davies) whose imaginary friend (Waititi) discovers that his mother (Scarlett Johannsen) is harboring a Jewish teen (Thomasin McKenzie.) Broad, biting comedy and bubbling energy create that most unlikely of combinations—a profoundly humane satire.—RDL

Mr. Jones (Film, Poland/UK/Ukraine, Agnieszka Holland, 2019) Curious about the Soviet economy,  Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton) follows a lead to Ukraine where he witnesses Stalin’s terror-famine. After a long takeoff, the movie gets to the USSR and becomes a wild blend of Carol Reed and David Lean, going from the vile decadence surrounding the New York Times’ Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard, beautifully odious) into the white nightmare around Stalin. –KH

Monstrum (Film, South Korea, Jong-ho Huh, 2018) Exiled but loyal royal guard risks political treachery to investigate rumors of a monstrous creature. Classic adventure moments abound in a movie unabashedly intent on delivering the funnest version of every plot turn.—RDL

Once Upon A River (Film, US, Haroula Rose, 2019) In 1978 Michigan, teenage Annie Oakley-wannabe Margo Crane (Kenadi DelaCerna) heads up the Stark River to find her mother. Rose (and her cinematographer Charlotte Hornsby) pulls off a tour de force of tone, balancing and adjusting natural beauty with good and evil, growth and fear. DelaCerna commands the screen in every scene despite barely having any dialogue; John Aston makes a superb foil as a dying misanthrope. –KH

Vast of Night (Film, US, Andrew Patterson, 2019) While everyone in Cayuga, New Mexico one night in 1959 attends the high school basketball game, late night DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) and precocious switchboard girl Fay (Sierra McCormick) discover a strange — dare I say suppressed — transmission. The word “bravura” could have been coined to describe this film, and so much (including the small-town dynamic) works so well that I feel like a churl kvetching about a slight misstep in the ending. –KH

Good

Svaha: the Sixth Finger (Film, South Korea, Chae-hyŏn Chang, 2019) Opportunistic cult-busting pastor (Jung-jae Lee) investigates a Buddhist sect engaged in a covert demon hunt. Bump up the rating of this twisty supernatural thriller to Recommended if you want to see a flick that precisely parallels a GUMSHOE scenario.—RDL

Okay

8: A South African Horror Story (Film, South Africa, Harold Hölscher, 2019) When Lazarus (Tshamano Sebe) shows up at the farm inherited by hapless white folks, he fixes their generator and befriends their daughter Mary (Keita Luna) so of course he’s got a demon in a bag. “Single Black Handyman” doesn’t deliver much but rote plot ratchets and gratuitous misogyny on the way to a wildly colorful but nugatory ending. Bump it up to Good if the African lore and setting really move you. –KH

The Great Green Wall (Film, UK, Jared P. Scott, 2019) Documentary follows Malian singer-songwriter Inna Modja across the Sahel collaborating with local musicians on an album to raise awareness and funds for the titular wall, a planned reforestation belt from Senegal to Djibouti. It provides a 101-level overview of the region’s various interlocked crises from an unabashedly activist point of view; those seeking a close or hard look at the challenges and promises of reforestation (or full versions of the songs) should look elsewhere. –KH

The Hypnotist (Film, Finland, Arthur Franck, 2019) Olavi Hakasalo reinvents himself as Olliver Hawk, Finland’s missionary hypnotist — but what of his relationship with longtime Finnish President Kekkonen? What of it indeed? In this mix of recreation and archive, of self-aggrandizement and shrugging guesswork, somewhere there could be a gripping documentary about the relationship between politics and hypnosis and showmanship. Not here, though, in what my friend Emily describes as “the world’s most conspiratorial ASMR video.” –KH

Integrity (Film, HK, Alan Mak, 2019) Financial crimes agent (Lau Ching-Wan) races the clock to save a case against corporate-level cigarette smugglers after his whistleblower (Nick Cheung) flees to Australia. Police procedural with an overactive soundtrack takes its time getting to the twisty bit.—RDL

The Laundromat (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2019) An insurance scam impels a determined widow (Meryl Streep) to investigate the world of shell companies, as embodied by shady Panama-based lawyers Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Fonseca (Antonio Banderas.) Soderbergh’s knack for adding magic to quotidian moments partially buoys this effort to apply The Big Short’s dramatized essay format to a parallel instance of high-level financial chicanery. Chiefly interesting as a study in contrast between two highly mannered performances: Streep, fussy and joyless, Oldman fully committed to over-the-top hilarity.—RDL

The Moneychanger (Film, Uruguay/Argentina, Federico Vieroj, 2019) Somewhat ambitious and totally venal, Humberto Brause (Daniel Hendler) oozes to the top of 1970s Uruguay’s money laundering and offshoring business. Somewhat ambition isn’t enough to drive this lackluster film, though, despite a game cast and a suitably grainy color palette. Like its main character it gets partway somewhere but doesn’t have nearly enough fun along the way. –KH

Paradise Next (Film, Japan, Yoshihiro Hanno, 2019) Two gangsters — taciturn, cool Shima (Etsushi Toyokawa) and smirking punk Makino (Satoshi Tsumabuki) — hide out in rural Taiwan with bartender Xiao En (Nikki Hsieh), who eerily resembles a dead girl linked to both. Look, I’m as fond of beautiful yet oblique emotional collage as the next Taiwanese director, but you’ve got to give me something we can agree is a plot before you’re getting out of Okay. –KH

Episode 367: Ungrateful Mopes

October 25th, 2019 | Robin

The Gaming Hut warms up its blue bolts as we mull the exasperated Dungeon Master trope.

Beloved Patreon backer Corey Pierno asks the Book Hut for tips on researching the everyday lives of historical people.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, we chat with Ellie Akers about her online equestrian management game Hunt and Jump, and common horse mistakes in RPGs.

Finally the Consulting Occultist heads to balmy British Columbia to tell the tale of yellow-robed cultist Brother XII.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Welcome to the Island is the first adventure anthology for the third edition of the Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games. It features five original storylines by award-winning authors, each with hooks for different characters. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots to bend your players’ heads.

What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.

The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!

Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color  illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Carmilla, Capra, and CIFF

October 22nd, 2019 | 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

Bring Me Home (Film, South Korea, Kim Seung-woo, 2019) Nurse and mother Jung Yae-on (Lee Young-ae) searches for her son, who went missing six years ago, following a lead to a fishing station and its corrupt cop enforcer Sgt. Hong (Yoo Jae-myung). Korean films do not generally soften their blows, and this genuinely harrowing psychological thriller is no exception. Even the inevitable violent climax avoids Western-style catharsis, becoming yet more chaotic horror leaving unease behind. Just another powerful triumph from by far the best national film culture on the planet. –KH

Carmilla (Film, UK, Emily Harris, 2019) Isolated in rural Sussex, young Lara (Hanna Rae) welcomes the presence of the mysterious Carmilla (Devrim Lingnau) although her upright governess Miss Fontaine (Jessica Raine) has her doubts. Harris soft-pedals the supernatural elements of LeFanu’s source novel almost into invisibility, playing up Lara’s naive excitement and love for the new girl. Although the script wavers between murk and didacticism, the strong acting and Michael Wood’s eager camera work (much of it in candle-lit night interiors) keep it on the Recommended side of the bubble. –KH

Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable (Film, US, Sasha Waters Freyer, 2018) Critical and biographical documentary profile of archetypal street photographer Garry Winogrand, who famously left mountains of his images unprocessed at the time of his death. Poignant testimony from his colleagues brings emotional impact to the arts doc format.—RDL

Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (Film, Spain/Estonia/Ethiopia/Latvia/Romania, Miguel Llanso, 2019) CIA agents DT Gargano (Daniel Tadesse) and Palmer Eldritch (Augustin Mateo) must enter the Psychobook cyberspace to defeat the Soviet virus “Stalin” (and the Beta-Ethiopian dictator Batfro, who yes dresses as Batman) in this gonzo mashup of spy-fi, martial arts, cyberpunk, lucha, and every other genre with “-sploitation” added to it. Shot in three different formats plus stop-motion, Llanso’s inspired PKD-WSB bricolage somehow hangs together around its many many curves and triumphs, backed by a killer free-jazz soundtrack by Bill Dixon. –KH

Ladies of Leisure (Film, US, Frank Capra, 1930) Cracks appear in the hardboiled veneer of a mercenary party girl (Barbara Stanwyck) when a brusque but handsome railroad heir (Ralph Graves) hires her as an artist’s model. Surprisingly uncreaky pre-Code stage play adaptation elevated by Stanwyck’s affecting, quicksilver performance.—RDL

Varda by Agnés (Film, France, Agnés Varda, 2019) The beloved filmmaker assembled this documentary montage of her lectures on (and excerpts of) her own work just before her death this March, and the portion of it that unpacks her cinematic creation does so with the genius and generosity that became her trademarks. Most of the last half of the film deals with her post-2000 career as a digital installation artist, a less interesting and more remote body of work that leaves you wanting more of the first half. –KH

Good

Gambling Lady (Film, US, Frank Capra, 1934) When she falls for a naive but handsome socialite (Joel McCrea) an honest gambler (Barbara Stanwyck) learns that the upper crust contains sharper characters than the underworld. Star power wins the day in a typically veering early 30s script.—RDL

Knives and Skin (Film, US, Jennifer Reeder, 2019) After teenage Carolyn Harper (Raven Whitley) disappears in Big River, Illinois, her mother and schoolmates remain haunted. Very ambitious blend of David Lynch and Richard Linklater ultimately drowns in a too-large cast of characters, most written in the same voice; intriguing story notes appear only to vanish like Carolyn. But the luminous color-high cinematography by Christopher Rejano, Badalamenti-esque score by Nick Zinner, and compellingly sharp edits by Mike Olenik enhance your experience throughout. –KH

Miyamoto (Film, Japan, Tetsuya Mariko, 2019) Young schlemiel with anger issues Miyamoto (Sosuke Ikematsu) hits the rapids in his relationship with Yasuko (Yu Aoi) as we follow two halves of their story to inevitable confrontation. Ambitious plotting and roller-coaster emotion (and a viscerally unsettling fight scene) almost distract from what a drip the main character is throughout, but help drive the endings to almost inevitable anticlimax. –KH

The Whistlers (Film, Romania/France/Germany, Corneliu Porumboiu, 2019) Femme fatale Gilda (Catrinel Marlon) inveigles corrupt Bucharest cop Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) into learning the whistling language of the Canary Islanders to break her partner out of jail, and no it doesn’t make a lot more sense than that after you’ve watched it either. Porumboiu’s deadpan style blends unevenly with the crime thriller genre, and Cristi (and the viewer) only learn he’s not the protagonist far too late in the proceedings. But it still racks up plenty of great sequences on the way to not at all being Charley Varrick with whistling. –KH

Okay

Blue My Mind (Film, Sweden, Lisa Brühlmann, 2015) 15 year old arriving mid-term at a new school throws in with the fast kids while coping with a weird bodily transformation that fuses her toes and gets her hungering for raw fish. Hews so utterly to the distressing teens realist template that it plays as an earnest plea to understand the important social problem of turning into a mythical sea creature.—RDL

La Llorona (Film, Guatemala/France, Jayro Bustamante, 2019) Mobs of protesters besiege the house of elderly, genocidal general Enrique (Julio Diaz), while the vengeful spirit La Llorona (Maria Mercedes Coroy) infiltrates it. Regardless of its virtues as indictment of Guatemala’s actual past genocidaires, it fails as a horror film because the contemptible General never has the remotest audience sympathy and La Llorona (a beautifully creepy portrayal by director and actor wasted) never really threatens anyone else. Promising threads about the General’s Alzheimer’s and elderly weakness drop unused. –KH

T2 Trainspotting (Film, UK, Danny Boyle, 2017) Twenty years after stealing his mates’ drug deal proceeds, Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to Edinburgh to face his reckoning. Fun but inessential sequel serves as a reunion tour for the cast, with touches of sentimentality the original bracingly avoided.—RDL

Episode 366: Ample Provender

October 18th, 2019 | Robin

We hunker down in the mud and fear of the Gaming Hut to answer beloved Patreon backer Bill Durfy’s request to combine WWI and ghouls.

Impeachment is in the news, the 1867 news that is, as the History Hut covers the attempt to remove Andrew Johnson from the White House.

In How to Write Good we provide tips on creating blocked desires for your dramatic characters.

Finally the Food Hut takes a journey on Ken’s Time Machine as we peer into the dire timeline prevented when our hero supplied the yeast strain necessary for the brewing of lager.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Welcome to the Island is the first adventure anthology for the third edition of the Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games. It features five original storylines by award-winning authors, each with hooks for different characters. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots to bend your players’ heads.

What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.

The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!

Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color  illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Hot Priests

October 15th, 2019 | 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.

The Pinnacle

Fleabag Season 2 (Television, UK, BBC/Amazon, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, 2019) A yen for the priest (Andrew Scott) who will officiate the wedding of her father (Bill Paterson) to his dreadful partner (Olivia Colman) threatens Fleabag’s (Waller-Bridge) newfound equilibrium. In a rare recent instance of a second season building on and topping the first, Waller-Bridge deepens her already rich characters and brings the proceedings to a satisfying unresolved resolution.—RDL

Recommended

The Devils (Film, UK, Ken Russell, 1971) Accusations of sorcery from a sexually frustrated abbess (Vanessa Redgrave) provide the pretext for Cardinal Richelieu’s allies to rid themselves of a politically inconvenient, hot-blooded priest (Oliver Reed.) Only in the topsy-turvy film world of the early seventies could this wildly theatrical, and wildly everything else as well, phantasmagoria of a satirical historical drama appear on the Warner Brothers release slate.—RDL

Exhibition (Film, UK, Joanna Hogg, 2013) The marriage of two artists, one (Viv Albertine) in preemptive mourning over the striking modernist house she does not want to sell, the other (Liam Gillick) cerebral and unresponsive, hits a rough patch. Austere, minutely-observed, (mostly) naturalistic drama will induce squirms of pained sympathy from anyone who hates to be interrupted while working at home.—RDL

Joker (Film, US, Todd Phillips, 2019) Failed by everyone including himself, party clown Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) embraces nihilism in a broken Gotham City. Phoenix’ gripping physical performance carries the film over its two main structural problems: origin stories aren’t stories, and even the best pastiche (which this is) only reminds viewers of the better originals (in this case, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy). However, within those limits, Phillips and his team (especially production designer Mark Friedberg) make a really great movie nobody really needs. –KH

On Stories and Other Essays on Literature (Nonfiction, C.S. Lewis, 1982) In a series of essays (mostly published between 1944 and 1960) Lewis justifies the Romance and explains, as best he can, his own works in that broad country. Mostly minor pieces, a few of them (“On Stories” and “On Criticism” especially) sparkle as critical gems. Lovers of Lewis’ stately arguments, and of that breed of fiction concerned with Story, can find plenty to chew over, although readers already familiar with Lewis will find plenty that’s familiar here as well. –KH

Good

1637: The Polish Maelstrom (Fiction, Eric Flint, 2019) Book 27 (!!) in the “Ring of Fire” series finds the time-slipped Americans at war with the Ottoman Empire and deniably undermining the Polish kingdom. Nothing much happens in the big picture, but at least it happens fast this time around, thanks to Flint authoring solo and attempting to advance his unwieldy alternate timeline by main force. If you’re a fan of the series, it’s Recommended for this refreshing pacing change. –KH

Raising Hell: Ken Russell and the Unmaking of the Devils (Nonfiction, Richard Crouse, 2012) Until Criterion releases the deluxe disc edition they’re clearly hankering to make, this thorough, occasionally hyperbolic,  look at Russell’s best and most doomed film serves as a commentary track in prose. Covering everything from the historical case of the Loudun possessions to the myriad censored cuts of the film, this dangles the ironic likelihood that Warners only greenlit it because studio execs can’t read stage directions.—RDL

Okay

The Curse of the Werewolf (Film, UK, Terence Fisher, 1961) Spanish nobleman (Clifford Evans) tries to shield his adopted son (Oliver Reed) from the lycanthropic curse caused by the violent circumstances of his conception. Structural problems are the bane of werewolf movies, and this Hammer effort, memorable for the intensity of Reed’s performance, has them in spades: he doesn’t even appear until halfway through the runtime. Fun fact: producer Michael Carreras forced the filmmakers to switch the setting to Spain to reuse sets from another production. The resulting movie so offended Spanish officials that all Hammer films were banned there until the end of the Franco regime.—RDL

Not Recommended

The Brides of Dracula (Film, UK, Terence Fisher, 1960) Vampire hunter Abraham van Helsing (Peter Cushing) heads to Transylvania to mop up the vampire cult Dracula left behind, encountering a fanged baron and the women he’s turned. Rote, listless stab at spinning off the Hammer franchise without Christopher Lee. Lovely sets though.—RDL

Episode 365: The Grumpocene

October 11th, 2019 | Robin

Our forces muster outside the Gaming Hut as Patreon backer Robert Dean asks us how to fold mass battles into D&D.

Thanks to a redaction failure the Tradecraft Hut discovers ICE’s requisition for a replica Chicago at Fort Benning.

Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else gets a 13/10 as we chat with multi-hat wearing designer and gaming honcho Darren Watts, about such projects as We Rate Dogs!: The Card Game.

Finally in a very special segment of Conspiracy Corner Patreon backer Drew Clowery asks us to mull the responsibility of pop culture treatments of conspiracy culture.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Welcome to the Island is the first adventure anthology for the third edition of the Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games. It features five original storylines by award-winning authors, each with hooks for different characters. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots to bend your players’ heads.

What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.

Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available in print or PDF or both from Pelgrane Press. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agency hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.

The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!

Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color  illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Ken Weighs in on Color Out of Space

October 8th, 2019 | 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

Color Out of Space (Film, US, Richard Stanley, 2019) When a meteorite strikes the Gardner family farm outside Arkham, failed patriarch Nathan’s (Nicolas Cage) is only the loudest of the resulting disintegrations. Stanley provides a multiply layered and blackly funny look at destruction, from cancer to alpacas, while still retaining the cosmic core of Lovecraft’s story. Masterful sound design and Colin Stetson’s powerful score amplify the horror. –KH

Death-Watch (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1935) When a man is found fatally stabbed with the minute hand of a clock in a tense London house, Dr. Fell must solve the crime. Not an impossible murder (except for the impossibility of keeping the house layout straight) but an interesting puzzle that also prefigures the post-Golden Age mystery by turning on the psychology of the household rather than the minutiae of method on which Carr usually focuses. –KH

Graveyard of Honor (Film, Takashi Miike, 2002) Dishwasher proves to be a rampaging liability to his yakuza clan after a swift rise through their ranks. Remake of Kinji Fukasaku’s scabrous 1975 film encourages us to feel empathy for a protagonist who is himself incapable of it, compelled by his limited emotional range to destroy others and ultimately himself.—RDL

Hustlers (Film, US, Lorene Scarfaria, 2019) When 2008 dries up the wallets of their Wall Street clientele, a single mom stripper (Constance Wu) and her pole artiste mentor (Jennifer Lopez) hatch a scheme to drug marks and max out their credit cards. Transposes the Scorsese/Pileggi first-person sociological crime drama template to a non-murderous scheme run by women, where even the betrayals remain supportive.—RDL

Tom Jones: the Director’s Cut (Film, UK, Tony Richardson, 1963) Charming adoptee (Albert Finney) loves a country squire’s daughter (Susannah York), with his pleasure-loving ways and apparent low birth standing as obstacles between them. Today it takes a bit of context about Britain in 1963 to see why its cheeky use of anti-realist cinematic devices and hipsters vs squares rebellion into the period literary adaptation hit like lightning, but still amiable fun.—RDL

Tokyo Vampire Hotel (Television, Japan, Amazon, Sion Sono, 2018) Trad and neo vampire clans vie to possess a young woman raised as the vessel for ancient Dracula blood, leading to ultra-violence and weird regret at the titular establishment. Sono spends his Amazon money on a structurally daring chimera of a horror-action mini-series, featuring mode shifts, eye-popping colors, precision fight choreography, campy yet appropriately awful vampires, and an aesthetic that crosses the streams  between Jean Rollin and Frank Tashlin.—RDL

Yella (Film, Germany, Christian Petzold, 2007) After her ex drives them off a bridge and into a river, an accountant (Nina Hoss) travels to Hanover, where a promised job leads to an unmoored, subtly unnerving professional life. Demythologized riff on Carnival of Souls, anchored by Hoss’ quietly riveting screen presence, posits that in the German Bardo Thodol you still have to study spreadsheets and face the moral disequilibrium of nagging procedural irregularities.—RDL

Good

The Ikon (Film, Canada, Nathan Saliwonchyk, 2019) Animated rotoscope depicts the discovery of a blasphemous ikon by two Russians, in 1942 and 1992. Beautiful animation and fairy tale narration layer a tight, if familiar, Lovecraftian tale with a bit of political bite. –KH

Okay

Lost Island (Film, Russia, Denis Silyakov, 2018) When his boss exiles him to a remote island in the Kuriles, reporter Ivan Voevodin (Daniil Maslennikov) discovers weird amnesia, healing algae, and a beautiful marine biologist. Voevodin never interests the viewer, so even the most beautiful of islands doesn’t hold your attention, and nor does the desultory mystery. –KH

Episode 364: In the World of Awful Meats

October 4th, 2019 | Robin

The PCs are being pursued! Run to the Gaming Hut to learn how to make this fun!

A sinister substances drips in your direction! Creep into the Horror Hut for an examination of ooze horror.

Fill your cart with processed junk as the Food Hut contemplates objectively terrible comestibles at least one of us loves.

Get communal, or at least manufacture a fork or two, as we enter the Eliptony Hut to make up something fun about 19th century preacher—some might say cult leader—John Humphrey Noyes.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Welcome to the Island is the first adventure anthology for the third edition of the Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games. It features five original storylines by award-winning authors, each with hooks for different characters. Launch brand new stories, add intriguing complications to your existing arcs, or create exciting one-shots to bend your players’ heads.

What’s worse—yet even more pulse-poundingly exciting—than being a burned spy on the run from an international vampire conspiracy? Going it alone, as you do in Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s brilliant adaptation of GUMSHOE One-2-One to the shadowy world of Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops, from Pelgrane Press.

Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available in print or PDF or both from Pelgrane Press. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agency hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.

The treasures of Askfageln can be found at DriveThruRPG. Get all issues of FENIX since 2013 available in special English editions. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, along with equally stellar pieces by Graeme Davis and Pete Nash. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish. While you’re at it, grab DICE and Freeway Warrior!

Arc Dream Publishing presents a gorgeous new edition of Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a deluxe hardback in delightful faux snakeskin, with a foreword by John Scott Tynes, annotations by our own Kenneth Hite, and stunning full-pate color  illustrations by Samuel Araya. Grab it while it lasts in the Arc Dream store.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Wendigo Spoor

October 1st, 2019 | 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.

The Pinnacle

The Rim of the Pit (Fiction, Hake Talbot, 1944) “I came up here to make a dead man change his mind.” Maybe the best opening line in mystery fiction introduces this locked room novel set in the Maine north woods. The solution exhausts and gratifies, but what elevates this superb novel above all but the best of Carr is the same thing that elevates the best of Carr: supernatural atmosphere. Talbot surrounds the crime with a séance, Algernon Blackwood wendigo spoor, and fresh snowfall. Don’t read it during a blizzard. –KH

Recommended

The Headless Lady (Fiction, Clayton Rawson, 1940) When a mysterious woman steals the Headless Lady illusion from the Great Merlini, he tracks her to the circus and discovers murder afoot! Rawson buries the reader in circus details, especially including slang, before adding a couple more plot rings to watch. I am a giant sucker for this whole milieu, but I stand by the Recommendation if only for the sheer brio of Rawson introducing one of his own pseudonyms as a suspect. –KH

No Coffin for the Corpse (Fiction, Clayton Rawson, 1942) The Great Merlini’s Watson, Ross Harte, has fallen in love with the daughter of an angry, and poltergeist-plagued, millionaire. Rawson’s final Merlini novel provides the requisite impossible killings and magical misdirection — plus ghost-breaking! — while pushing the boundaries of the fair-play mystery. Again, even as smitten with digression and showing off as Rawson is, he still revs up the pacing while keeping sure-handed control of his story. –KH

Off the Rails (Film, US, Adam Irving, 2016) Documentary profile of Darius McCollum, who attributes to his Asperger’s his compulsion to impersonate NYC transit employees, taking control of trains and buses, which kept him in prison for half of the last thirty years. Warm and heartbreaking portrait of a man who can’t help but mire himself in a system that can’t even contemplate connecting him to the help he so evidently needs.—RDL

Toni (Film, France, Jean Renoir, 1935) Fickle quarryman’s love for a vintner’s niece turns disastrous after she instead agrees to marry his loutish foreman. Rural melodrama finds Renoir turning his sociological eye to migrant workers in the south of France.—RDL

Good

The Twenty Year Death (Fiction, Ariel S. Winter, 2012) A novelist on a slow but inexorable downward spiral becomes a peripheral figure in murder cases in 1930s France and 1940s L.A. before becoming the alcohol-sodden perpetrator of a killing in the 1950s. Three standalone novels, in the respective styles of George Simenon, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, constitute a prodigious feat of literary mimicry, though the Thompson, the hardest voice to nail, isn’t quite as bang-on a pastiche.—RDL

Okay

Between Two Ferns: the Movie (Film, US, Scott Aukerman, 2019) Reflexively insulting public access talk show host (Zach Galifinakis) goes on the road with his partially loyal crew in search of the celebrity interviews that will earn him a prime time show contract from the cruel, click-seeking Will Ferrell (himself). Expansion of the ongoing Funny or Die spot to feature-length has both the comic highs and dead spots typical of a sketch comedy movie.—RDL

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d8
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