May « 2021 « Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Archive for May, 2021

Episode 447: The Bert-Adjacent Ugly Wheels of Commerce

May 28th, 2021 | Robin

We start out in the Gaming Hut to tell your GM that the shocking premise subversion they have in mind isn’t as fun or cool as they might think.

A segment that had to hibernate during the pandemic is back! In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Ken talks to colleague Jeff Tidball about his Bert and Ernie dichotomy of creative collaboration, perhaps typified by their upcoming project, Band or Album Remix, soon or now at a Kickstarter near you.

In the Horror Hut, beloved Patreon backer Timothy Coram asks how to inject a heaping spoonful of Edgar Allan Poe into The Yellow King Roleplaying Game.

We end up in the Eliptony Hut, as TikTok convinces users to acquire that most cursed of crystals, moldavite.

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.

Bears need hairstyles! Lumberjacks need beards! Be friends to both in Yukon Salon, a quick, humorous, family card game in a tin, from our snow-dappled pals at Atlas Games. Take Your Place at the Frontier of Style !

A murderous mystery lies beneath the gladiatorial arenas in the majestic, dragon-patrolled city of Axis. Only your first level 13th Age characters can confront it, in Crown of Axis, by Wade Rockett, now available at the Pelgrane Press shop.

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!

Fear Is a Fractal …and your world is a lie. A horror freed from an antique book reverberates through reality. But don’t despair. There is hope. A King waits for us. And Impossible Landscapes, the first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game waits for you. In PDF now, hardback in May. Hailed as “one of the best RPG campaigns ever made” and “a masterpiece of surreal horror!”

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Tags: Eliptony Hut, Gaming hut, Horror Hut, Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Zombies and Cocktails (But Not the Zombie Cocktail)

May 25th, 2021 | 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

Peaky Blinders Season 2 (Television, UK, BBC, Stephen Knight, 2014) As the Shelby Company mounts a violent incursion into the London gang scene, Campbell (Sam Neill) returns to squeeze Tommy into a covert mission against Irish nationalists. Scripts show just how tight serialized ensemble storytelling can be, always jumping forward to the next big plot point, culminating in a bravura suspense episode.—RDL

Imbibe! (Nonfiction, David Wondrich, 2007/2015) 19th century America’s invention of the cocktail as we know it kicks off with the advent of the ice industry, flows through San Francisco, and winds up in New York, topped up with showmanship and heaps of muddled sugar. Obsessive research and lively prose mixes food, history, and giddy anecdote.—RDL

Good

The Conjuring (Film, US, James Wan, 2013) After moving into a super-haunted house, the Perrons (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) call in demonologist Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and his clairvoyant wife Lorraine (Vera Farmiga). Wan puts together an update of the Amityville Horror style haunting movie from a hundred other films, getting nothing particularly wrong but achieving nothing particularly unique either. Wan plays it entirely straight, which feeds into the strong 1970s vibe he establishes — but squelches any brio anyone might have brought to this ghostly hotdish. –KH

Zombieland: Double Tap (Film, US, Ruben Fleischer, 2019) Six years after the first film, domestic frustrations send Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) on the road, and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) ride to the rescue. Achieves the medium bar of “The first film, but not surprising in any way,” while not precisely squandering Zoey Deutsch and Luke Wilson among other guest stars. Stay for the post-credits Bill Murray sequence though! –KH

Okay

Army of the Dead (Film, US, Zack Snyder, 2021) Billionaire hires badass Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) to assemble a team to heist his own vault, left behind in zombie-plagued Las Vegas, just before the government nukes the city. After a traditionally superb Snyderian opening credits/exposition sequence, Snyder settles down to chew this terrific high concept to mush with too many cartoonish characters in too many subplots. I can certainly understand Snyder’s desire to make father-daughter reconciliation the emotional hook of the film, but I can’t forgive his willingness to make both of them dumb as rocks. Someone somewhere will unlock the secret of strong performances from Bautista, but not this time. On the other hand, zombie white tiger! –KH

Crazed Fruit (Film, Japan, Kō Nakahira, 1956) A naive teen (Masahiko Tsugawa) who looks to his faster older brother (Yujiro Ishihara) to lead him into the world of girls and parties falls for a self-possessed young woman (Mie Kitahara) who meets questions about her home life with cagy deflection. An obvious, drawn-out conclusion deflates an alluring look at emerging teen culture, bursting with pressure cooker fifties eroticism.—RDL

Tesla (Film, US, Michael Almereyda, 2020) Visionary electrical engineer Nikolai Tesla (Ethan Hawke) spars with self-satisfied rival Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and is pursued by determined heiress Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson.) Formally unconventional biopic uses anachronism and info slides similar to the ones Spike Lee has taken up lately to overcome the hurdle of an utterly withdrawn central figure. Doesn’t quite work, but in its experimentation is more interesting than less ambitious films that do.—RDL

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Episode 446: Well Also H. R. Giger

May 21st, 2021 | Robin

An all-request episode kicks off in the Gaming Hut with beloved Patreon backer Chris Camfield’s request to follow up on a carelessly dropped side reference about realist F2O.

Esteemed Patreon backer Chris Melkus meets us in the Archaeology Hut to ask about a recent story of tomb robbing in China’s Shaanxi province, in which the culprits tunneled into ancient sites from conveniently situated restaurants.

Celebrated Patreon backer Gene Ha pops into the Narrative Hut to note that Robin often refers to the western narrative traditions, and asks about other narrative traditions we might take gaming inspiration from.

Finally, shadowy Patreon backer Dave from Washington enters the parlor of the Consulting Occultist hoping he may shed light on the appearance of Theosophical symbols on the control console in Ridley Scott’s Alien.

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.

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Tags: Archaeology Hut, Consulting Occultist, Gaming hut, Narrative Hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Wrath of Man, Succession, Kong

May 18th, 2021 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Succession Season 1 (Television, US, HBO, Jesse Armstrong, 2018) When a cerebral event sidelines a domineering media mogul (Brian Cox), his esteem-deprived heir apparent (Jeremy Strong) makes a bid for control, variously abetted and thwarted by his siblings, a cynical political consultant (Sarah Snook), a scenester jackanape (Keiran Culkin) and a granola libertarian (Alan Ruck.) Slashing wit is the elevating factor of a Sirkian business melodrama that revels in the awfulness of its characters while finding pathos in, well, some of them.—RDL

Awaara (Film, India, Raj Kapoor, 1956) Happenstance reunites a charming petty criminal (Raj Kapoor) with his childhood sweetheart (Nargis), now a law student whose pathologically judgmental magistrate guardian (Prithviraj Kapoor) is determined to keep them apart. And also, unbeknown to either, the disadvantaged suitor’s father. Foundational Bollywood musical melodrama features social conscience, expressionist visuals, and a surreal, mythic dream sequence dance number full of gods and demons.—RDL

Wrath of Man (Film, US/UK, Guy Ritchie, 2021) Robbery-plagued armored car company hires new guard H (Jason Statham) but it seems he has another agenda. Remaking a French armored-car-heist version of High Plains Drifter with lashings of Seijun Suzuki and Heat seems to have given Guy Ritchie enough to do that he tones his manic style way down, matching the overlapping menace that Statham and composer Christopher Benstead bring. Jeffrey Donovan is a joy as the main heister, while Scott Eastwood seems to delight in playing the negative space around his dad. –KH

Good

The End of the F***ing World Season 1 (Television, UK, Channel 4, Charlie Covell, 2017) Alienated by her family situation, a stroppy teen (Jessica Barden) runs away with an introverted classmate who fancies himself a budding serial killer. Supplies the chemistry needed for an entry in the couple on the lam sub-genre, but with a structure that lands it in the nether zone between feature film and serialized TV.—RDL

The Servant (Film, UK, Joseph Losey, 1963) A manservant who is both more and less than he appears (Dirk Bogarde) insinuates himself into the life and psyche of his callow aristocratic employer (James Fox.) Chilly portrayal of the English class system as a study in codependency which, perhaps because it has to subtextualize its characters’ sexuality, executes its spiral into madness a shade abruptly.—RDL

Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness (Television, US, Netflix, Joshua Zeman, 2021) Journalist Maury Terry uncovered evidence that David Berkowitz did not commit the Son of Sam killings alone, and spun that out into a sprawling Satanic-cult narrative that eventually broke his life. Essentially four overlapping and under-argued docs, this series throws the usual Netflix quality at the wall but Zeman (who was friends with Terry in his later years) can’t really make it stick. –KH

Okay

Kong: Skull Island (Film, US, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, 2017) In 1973, frustrated air-cav Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) escorts a team of geologists exploring the newly-discovered Skull Island. If you’re going to insist on making your giant ape movie a Vietnam War metaphor, try not to do it so heavy-handedly. Kong vs. Huey gunships is a truly great sequence, but there’s another 90 minutes of sententious blather after that. Johns Goodman and C. Reilly try to infuse the needed manic weirdness into this wannabe Apocalypse Kong but fail for lack of support and overall vision. Hey, it is a Vietnam War metaphor! –KH

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Episode 445: The Cavern of Boring

May 14th, 2021 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we provide tips enabling you to convince your fellow players to go along with your plans.

Beloved Patreon backer Jurie Horneman asks us to convene a Book Hut to talk about Robert Anton Wilson.

In Ask Ken and Robin, estimable Patreon backer Gabriel Rossman looks for a fictionalized treatment of the Bronfman family’s various brushes with cults and mysticism.

Finally we duck into the Conspiracy Corner and down the rabbit hole of the NESARA theory.

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.

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Tags: Ask Ken and Robin, Book hut, Conspiracy Corner, Gaming hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Godzilla vs. Kong, Tenet, and the King of Ontario Bootleggers

May 11th, 2021 | Robin

The Pinnacle

A New Leaf (Film, US, Elaine May, 1971) Having burned through his own fortune, a haughty idler (Walter Matthau) woos a mousy, rich botanist (Elaine May), planning to murder her after the wedding. Witty dialogue and a hilarious Matthau turn are the obvious pleasures of this black romantic comedy, but it’s the tightrope tonal balance between jaundice and warmth that justly earns its cult fave status.—RDL

Colonia (Film. Germany, Florian Gallenberger, 2015) English flight attendant (Emma Watson) joins a cult that, among other crimes, tortures dissidents for the freshly installed Pinochet regime, in hopes of finding and freeing her German activist boyfriend (Daniel Bruhl.) Nail-biting suspense flick places an appalling real-life horror in a genre package.—RDL

Godzilla vs. Kong (Film, US, Adam Wingard, 2021) After Godzilla mysteriously attacks an Apex Corp research station, Apex recruits geologist Nathan Lind (Alexander Skarsgård) to lead an expedition to the Hollow Earth and he convinces Kong’s handler Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) to bring Kong as their guide. I have just spent almost as much time setting this up as the film does, getting us into the monster fights and hollow earth tourism efficiently. Script and direction embrace the operatic nonsense that is the other way (besides, you know, genuine horror or pathos) to make a great kaiju film, wisely sidelining human characters as often as possible. –KH

Tenet (Film, US, Christopher Nolan, 2020) Ultra-competent CIA operative (John David Washington) draws the abused ex-wife (Elzabeth Debicki) of a psychopathic oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) into his bid to capture reality-shattering devices from the future. Nolan once again pits a thriller protagonist against the forces of Borgesian unknowability, with gob-smacking action set pieces and inverted exposition meant not to explain, but to baffle.—RDL

Whisky King (Nonfiction, Trevor Cole, 2017) Armed with a mastery of gangland diplomacy and a common law wife who acts as his full co-equal in crime, Rocco Perri runs bootlegging in Prohibition-era Ontario, with undercover RCMP investigator and fellow Italian immigrant Frank Zaneth on his trail. Rich portrayal of a murder-strewn history belies my province’s myth of beatific dullness. If you like historical true crime, you’ll dig this, even if none of the crime scenes are within walking distance of your apartment.—RDL

Good

Mandalay (Film, US, Michael Curtiz, 1934) After the gun runner she loves (Ricardo Cortez) sells her to a Rangoon nightclub, a glamorous White Russian refugee (Kay Francis) gains power over men and seeks a new life. Atmospheric melodrama with a decidedly pre-Code approach to its protagonist’s feminist liberation..—RDL

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Episode 444: Axe Democracy

May 7th, 2021 | Robin

Prepare to reverse polarity as the Gaming Hut looks at scenarios that revolve around science mysteries.

Beloved Patreon backer Tennant Reed asks us to unfurl the Crime Blotter for the story of penal colony escapee and confessed cannibal Alexander Pearce.

In Ask Ken and Robin, estimable Patreon backer Kaijuthulu seeks tips on running a Mutant City Blues game with hardboiled 30s private eyes.

Finally in a thrilling Food Hut / Ken’s Time Machine crossover event, perspicacious Patreon backer Martin Rundkvist assigns Ken to change American condiment history.

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.

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Tags: Ask Ken and Robin, Crime Blotter, Food Hut, Gaming hut, Ken's Time Machine

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Without Remorse, the Bulgarian Front, and the Impossible Middle-Deck Deal

May 4th, 2021 | Robin

Captain Conan (Film, France, Bertrand Tavernier, 1996) The aggression and disdain for authority that makes the leader of a ragtag shock troop on WWI’s Bulgarian front (Philippe Torreton) a hero on the battlefield turns him into a loose cannon after the Armistice. Experiential novel adaptation with energetic, chaotic combat sequences centers on the relationship between the hardnosed protagonist and his intellectual right hand man (Samuel Le Bihan.)—RDL

The Ghost of Peter Sellers (Film, UK, Peter Medak, 2018) The director of The Ruling Class and The Changeling recounts the nightmare of making an ultimately shelved pirate comedy a) without a polished script, b) shot largely on the water, c) with notoriously recalcitrant superstar Sellers. Documentary examines an emotional wound that still eats at Medak half a lifetime later, when other surviving participants have long since written off the debacle as the cost of doing show business.—RDL

The Friend of the Desert (Fiction, Pablo d’Ors, 2009) Czech office worker joins an eccentric society whose members share a fascination with the mysteries of the desert. Spare, absurdist-adjacent novella of achieving selfhood through the abandonment of identity.—RDL

The Magician and the Cardsharp (Nonfiction, Karl Johnson, 2005) In 1932, close-up magician supreme Dai Vernon tracked down card mechanic Allen Kennedy to learn the secret of the impossible center-deck deal. Johnson’s indefatigable research provides ample background to both men and their milieus: Pendergast’s Kansas City, small-town Missouri, and Vernon’s stage-magic subculture. Infectious, fascinating, and earnest, like all the best magic tricks. –KH [Note: The link goes to the hardback; the paperback is cheap POD that shames the good name of Henry Holt.]

Woman of Water (Film, South Korea, Kim Ki-young, 1979) To qualify for a land grant, a wounded Vietnam vet (Kim Chung-chul) marries a lonely young woman (Kim Ja-ok) whose shame over her speech impediment prevents her from speaking in public. Subtlety is for the weak in this scathing domestic melodrama with elements of rural noir.—RDL

Good

Buffaloed (Film, US, Tanya Wexler, 2020) Blue-collar hustler Peg Dahl (Zoey Deutsch) picks herself up after a prison sentence by climbing to the top of Buffalo’s debt collection racket. Manic wing-eating riff on The Wolf of Wall Street takes the easy way out too many times for me to give it a Recommendation, but Deutsch’s shining energy dominates the screen in a way that makes me wish for about a thousand more comedies — ideally comedies that decide whether they want to be screwball, caper, or social-problem pieces — she could run roughshod through. Also noteworthy for never condescending to Peg, and for Judy Greer’s terrific performance as Peg’s mom. –KH

Okay

Without Remorse (Film, US, Stefano Sollima, 2021) Navy SEAL John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) pursues his wife’s killers and uncovers a nefarious plot. Literally none of this film’s story was surprising in any way (except that it’s surprising that a Taylor Sheridan script could be so dull), and very little of it was particularly thrilling. A seeming commitment to realism (which renders many of its gunfights murky) disintegrates when plot contrivances require it; Sollima wastes Jordan’s charisma by likewise enmeshing it in dim murk. The high point by far is Jónsi’s discordant score, which deserved a better movie. –KH

Not Recommended

Time to Hunt (Film, South Korea, Yoon Sung-Hyun, 2020) Trio of young small time crooks seeks to escape the hopelessness of an economic collapse by knocking off a gambling den, attracting the attention of a determined assassin who likes to toy with his prey. A brilliant formal device—action thriller scenes shot and edited with horror techniques—drowns in an undisciplined hodgepodge of a script.—RDL

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Archive for May, 2021

Episode 447: The Bert-Adjacent Ugly Wheels of Commerce

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Zombies and Cocktails (But Not the Zombie Cocktail)

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 446: Well Also H. R. Giger

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Wrath of Man, Succession, Kong

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 445: The Cavern of Boring

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Godzilla vs. Kong, Tenet, and the King of Ontario Bootleggers

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Episode 444: Axe Democracy

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Without Remorse, the Bulgarian Front, and the Impossible Middle-Deck Deal

Recommended

Good

Okay

Not Recommended

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