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Archive for February, 2022

Episode 485: What I Might Have Done in the Future

February 25th, 2022 | Robin

Beloved Patreon backer Walter Manbeck chases a bad guy we thought we vanquished into the Gaming Hut, asking us how to keep recurring villains scary after the group has teamed up to defeat them.

At the best of well-rounded backer Robert Wolfe, the Architecture Hut goes Dymaxionic with a look at Buckminster Fuller.

Night’s Black Agents has bats, rats, and wolves. Trail of Cthulhu has cephalopods, rats, and hounds. In the Horror Hut, we select creepity animals to associate with The Yellow King Roleplaying Game.

We wrap up in the Tradecraft Hut, where we tear open the archives and reveal the stay-behind secrets of Operation Gladio.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Human problems are out of hand, so thank goodness, and Atlas Games, for Magical Kitties Save the Day, a fresh, fun roleplaying game for players of all ages, and for GMs from age 6 and up!

Score a blood-drenched special bonus from Pelgrane Press when you order the print edition Night’s Black Agents Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook or any of its associated bundles. A new 50-page Cuttings PDF of deleted scenes and horrors that didn’t fit is now available for a limited time with the voucher code VAMP2021.

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!

Delta Green: Black Sites collects terrifying Delta Green operations previously published only in PDF or in standalone paperback modules.  They lock bystanders and Agents alike in unlit rooms with the cosmic terrors of the unnatural. A 208 page hardback by masters of top secret mythos horror Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Shane Ivey, and Caleb Stokes.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Peacemaker, Titane, Kimi, and the Evolution of Maps in WWII

February 22nd, 2022 | 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

Titane (Film, France, Julia Ducournau, 2021) Serial killer undergoing a weird pregnancy (Agathe Rousselle) takes the heat off her escalating kill spree by posing as the long-missing son of a steroid-addled fire captain (Vincent Lindon.) Visually arresting entry in the cinema of extremity draws on giallo and the body horror traditions of David Cronenberg and Shinya Tsukamoto, but eschews the thriller structure in favor of sometimes memetic, sometimes utterly surreal drama. The only film ever to win both Cannes’ Palme d’Or and the TIFF Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award. Multiple content warnings here.—RDL

Recommended

A History of the Second World War in 100 Maps (Nonfiction, Jeremy Black, 2020) Not the predictable cartograms of Versailles-to-Nagasaki one might expect from the title, but a copiously illustrated history of the uses and evolution of maps – military, propagandistic, journalistic – throughout WWII. Remarkable study repays close attention and idle thumb-through alike, a real contribution. One nitpick: the center gutter sometimes swallows a bit of the map displayed, an irksome flaw in an otherwise beautifully designed work. –KH

Kimi (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2022) Agoraphobic tech worker (Zoe Kravitz) discovers audio evidence of a murder while conducting quality assurance for the titular Alexa-like smart home product. Soderbergh’s formalist chops lend nail-biting propulsion to a kicky chamber thriller riff on Blow Out and Rear Window.—RDL

Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Film, Bhutan, Pawo Choyning Dorji, 2022) Would-be pop star reluctantly fulfills the last year of his national service by making the arduous trek to teach for a year in Bhutan’s most remote mountain village. Beautiful, simply told tale of the beauty of simplicity features luminous performances from the most charismatic cast of non-actors ever put before a camera—a device none of them had laid eyes on before shooting started.—RDL

Peacemaker Season 1 (Television, US, HBO Max, James Gunn, 2022) Helmeted vigilante (John Cena) confronts the roots of his ultraviolent manbabyism when ARGUS makes him the expendable spearhead of a B-team effort against a covert alien menace. With his signature mix of goofball camaraderie, splatter, sentimentality, and deep comics nerdery, Gunn carves out a trashy, downmarket corner of the DCU, where costumed crimefighters live in trailers, work shifts at chain restaurants, and conduct epic fights in ugly parking lots.—RDL

That Uncertain Feeling (Film, US, Ernst Lubitsch, 1941) Bored with her no-nonsense insurance exec husband (Melvyn Douglas), a socialite (Merle Oberon) turns her attentions to a misanthropic concert pianist (Burgess Meredith.) Witty love triangle comedy is lesser Lubitsch, but still Lubitsch, so ergo recommended.—RDL

Good

Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History (Fiction, Peter G. Tsouras, 2013) Admiral Raeder’s death leads to defeat for PQ-17, Turkey enters the war against Russia, and Hitler replaces von Paulus with Manstein: Tsouras abandons the “least change” model of alternate history for a Rube Goldberg meditation on Lend-Lease that ends essentially as fanfic. But buy the premise(s) and you get a ripping yarn about how if everything went just right, Stalingrad would maybe have fallen. –KH

I Want You Back (Film, US, Jason Orley, 2022) Dumped by their partners, a complacent functionary for an evil nursing home corp (Charlie Day) and a stuck receptionist (Jenny Slate) strike up a friendship and plot to break up the new relationships that ruined their lives. Smart romcom keeps its character and central contrivance charming and real.—RDL

Episode 484: Unprecedented Snow

February 18th, 2022 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we wonder how many possible player character choices the writer of published scenarios should provide guidance for.

The Mythology Hut makes room for a round table as beloved Patreon backer Steve Dempsey seeks gaming inspiration from the kings and emperors whose stories make up the composite figure of King Arthur.

We try not to spill ink in the Culture Hut as equally beloved Patreon backer Ruth Tillman seeks the behind-the-scenes on superstar actress Sarah Bernhardt’s sculptural inkwell self-portrait of herself as a bat-winged, griffin-clawed Sphinx.

Finally, no less beloved Patreon backer Keelan O’Hea summons us to the Eliptony Hut to account for UFO aliens’ love affair with New Mexico.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Human problems are out of hand, so thank goodness, and Atlas Games, for Magical Kitties Save the Day, a fresh, fun roleplaying game for players of all ages, and for GMs from age 6 and up!

Score a blood-drenched special bonus from Pelgrane Press when you order the print edition Night’s Black Agents Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook or any of its associated bundles. A new 50-page Cuttings PDF of deleted scenes and horrors that didn’t fit is now available for a limited time with the voucher code VAMP2021.

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!

Delta Green: Black Sites collects terrifying Delta Green operations previously published only in PDF or in standalone paperback modules.  They lock bystanders and Agents alike in unlit rooms with the cosmic terrors of the unnatural. A 208 page hardback by masters of top secret mythos horror Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Shane Ivey, and Caleb Stokes.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Boba Fett, Belfast, and the Hand of God

February 15th, 2022 | 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.

Ken is on the road.

Recommended

Belfast (Film, UK, Kenneth Branagh, 2021) A nine-year-old boy (Jude Hill) sees his world suddenly upturned when his street becomes a battlefield in Northern Ireland’s sectarian conflict, with his father (Jamie Dornan) wanting to leave and his mother (Caitríona Balfe) equally determined to stay. Heartfelt but by no means treacly memoir film threads its character-driven moments together by disciplined adherence to its throughline.—RDL

The Book of Boba Fett (Television, US, Disney+, Robert Rodriguez, 2021-2022) With trusty assassin Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) at his side, Boba Fett (Temeura Morrison) recalls a transformative experience in the desert and declares dominion over Jabba the Hutt’s former territory. The structural discursions of this backdoor third season of The Mandalorian will inspire less head scratching if you go in knowing that this is Rodriguez’s chance to remake Desperado with Star Wars characters.—RDL

A Letter to Three Wives (Film, US, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949) When a friend sends them a catty note informing them that she’s run off with one of their husbands, an ambitious radio playwright (Ann Sothern), rags-to-riches bootstrapper (Linda Darnell) and nervous town newcomer (Jeanne Crain) recall moments of crisis in their marriages. The underrated Darnell is particularly affecting in this quasi-satirical domestic drama, from an era where it was possible to acknowledge the status consciousness even of sympathetic characters.—RDL

Manson (Nonfiction, Jeff Guinn, 2013) Biography covers Charles Manson from childhood to imprisonment, placing him and his crimes in their historical and social context. A definitive work of serious history provides complicating detail at odds with the streamlined version of events that has passed into popular myth.—RDL

Good

The Hand of God (Film, Italy, Paolo Sorrentino, 2021) A withdrawn Neapolitan teen (Filippo Scotti) from a large, bumptious family dreams of a filmmaking career and copes with the intermittent warfare between his prank-playing mother (Teresa Saponangelo) and philandering father (Toni Servillo.) Episodic memoir film shows Sorrentino’s brilliant, visually stunning scene making, but also his lesser interest in placing those elements into a fully coherent narrative.—RDL

Okay

Teen Spirit (Film. UK/Germany, Max Mingella, 2018) Isolated Isle of Wight teen (Elle Fanning) enlists the aid of a broken down former opera tenor (Zlatko Burić) as she enters a reality show singing contest. Fanning’s screen presence does the heavy lifting in an underdog competition drama that isn’t so much ambivalent about its protagonist’s goal as clinically detached from it.—RDL

Episode 483: Don’t Come at Me, Circle People

February 11th, 2022 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we look at GMing techniques to respond to that moment when one player makes a unilateral choice that causes the rest of the group to groan in protest.

The History Hut acquires a pointy hat as beloved Patreon backer Bob J. Koester asks us to delve into Yale’s 1825 Conic Sections Rebellion.

Estimable backer Ed Sizemore demands to know how and why Ken’s Time Machine erased Pope John XX from the timeline.

And finally, at the behest of discerning backer Derrick McMullin, we enter the Cinema Hut to look at Eternals and ask if a big ideas film can also be a superhero film. For ease of spoiler avoidance, this segment appears at the end of the episode.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Human problems are out of hand, so thank goodness, and Atlas Games, for Magical Kitties Save the Day, a fresh, fun roleplaying game for players of all ages, and for GMs from age 6 and up!

Score a blood-drenched special bonus from Pelgrane Press when you order the print edition Night’s Black Agents Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook or any of its associated bundles. A new 50-page Cuttings PDF of deleted scenes and horrors that didn’t fit is now available for a limited time with the voucher code VAMP2021.

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!

Delta Green: Black Sites collects terrifying Delta Green operations previously published only in PDF or in standalone paperback modules.  They lock bystanders and Agents alike in unlit rooms with the cosmic terrors of the unnatural. A 208 page hardback by masters of top secret mythos horror Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Shane Ivey, and Caleb Stokes.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Reacher, The Mysteries of Cabling, and Lovecraftian Gothic Catholicism

February 8th, 2022 | 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

1987: When the Day Comes (Film, South Korea, Jang Joon-hwan, 2017) A recalcitrant prosecutor’s refusal to rubber-stamp the interrogation torture death of a student activist snowballs into a scandal that threatens the dictatorship of Chun Doo-Hwan. Turns the events of the June Democracy Protests into a rattling thriller spiced with biting humor and rousing idealism.—RDL

Hired Gun (Film, US, Fran Strine, 2016) Rock doc profiles the unsung employed studio players and side men of the post-Wrecking Crew era, from the 70s to today. Alice Cooper is the mensch and Billy Joel the heel in this portrait of the precarious, sometimes familial, sometimes exploitative conditions of the people you didn’t know were playing on all those hit records.—RDL

Lapsis (Film, US, Noah Hutton, 2020) Hoping to fund experimental treatment for his brother, who suffers from a mysterious malady, an airport baggage courier joins the curious world of cabling, a gig economy job laying quantum cables through national parks. Speculative indie satire astutely skewers the infantilizing layer of fake-happy propaganda that covers the exploitative practices of app-driven labor.—RDL

Reacher Season 1 (Television, US, Amazon, Nick Santora, 2022) Enormous drifter and former MP Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) gets arrested for murder in Margrave, Georgia, and dismantles the conspiracy responsible. Truly satisfying junkburger show seamlessly adapts Lee Child’s first Reacher novel into a propulsive eight episodes with plenty of head butts and elbow scythes in the excellent fight choreography. Not Justified, by any means, but it’s not impossible to hope it might get within shouting distance in a season or two. –KH

Records (Film, Canada, Allan Zweig, 2021) Documentarian Zweig returns to the subject of his 1995 Vinyl to once again explore the joy and obsession of record collecting. Reflecting the changed personal circumstances of its maker, this docu requel acts as a corrective to the bleak original, zeroing in on the hobby’s affirming, art-embracing side.—RDL

Wife of a Spy (Film, Japan, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2020) In wartime Japan, the impassioned wife (Yû Aoi) of a secretive silk merchant (Issey Takahashi) discovers that he and his assistant have been delving into military secrets. The stripped-down approach of genre revisionist Kurosawa turns the period spy thriller into an intense chamber drama.—RDL

Good

Dark Waters (Film, Russia/UK, Mariano Baino, 1993) Upon the death of her father, Elizabeth (Louise Salter) returns to the convent on the remote Black Sea island of her birth. Lovecraftian vibes mesh well with Gothic Catholicism in this ambitious, atmospheric, candle-lit creeper that plays like (somewhat) chilled-out Fulci. Not anything really spectacular, but not disappointing, which is an accomplishment worth noting. –KH

Not Recommended

The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window Season 1 (Television, US, Netflix, Rachel Ramras & Hugh Davidson & Larry Dorf, 2022) Traumatized by divorce and her daughter’s death, Anna (Kristen Bell) mixes drugs and wine and bad suspense novels and maybe sees a murder? Apparently, the showrunners fell in love with the idea of doing a tribute to the “woman on the edge of a crime-movie breakdown” genre but sporadically inserted arrant nonsense. The resulting casserole accomplishes neither comedy nor suspense but does thoroughly waste four hours and Kristen Bell. –KH

Episode 482: I Never Really Got Rid of Her

February 4th, 2022 | Robin

The launch pad has been positioned uncomfortable close to the Gaming Hut, as beloved Patreon backer Neil Barnes seeks ways to center a game around the Soviet Space Program.

The Crime Blotter has to wait a little while longer for that immersion blender as we look at the recent media flap over package thefts from Union Pacific’s Los Angeles railyard.

Our Mythos Hut series wraps up as we outline a gaming scenario to feature our newly spawned deity, Qotha-Nhur’rin, the Destruction at the Heart of Creation.

Finally estimable Patreon backer Robert Wolfe asks the Consulting Occultist about Mary Poppins creator P. L. Travers and her association with mystical philosopher George Gurdjieff.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.


Human problems are out of hand, so thank goodness, and Atlas Games, for Magical Kitties Save the Day, a fresh, fun roleplaying game for players of all ages, and for GMs from age 6 and up!

Score a blood-drenched special bonus from Pelgrane Press when you order the print edition Night’s Black Agents Dracula Dossier Director’s Handbook or any of its associated bundles. A new 50-page Cuttings PDF of deleted scenes and horrors that didn’t fit is now available for a limited time with the voucher code VAMP2021.

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!

Delta Green: Black Sites collects terrifying Delta Green operations previously published only in PDF or in standalone paperback modules.  They lock bystanders and Agents alike in unlit rooms with the cosmic terrors of the unnatural. A 208 page hardback by masters of top secret mythos horror Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Shane Ivey, and Caleb Stokes.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Killers on the Lam, the Fall of European Aristocracy, and a Temperamental Mentalist

February 1st, 2022 | 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.

Ken is on assignment.

Recommended

Evenings for Sale (Film, US, Stuart Walker, 1932) Financially ruined Count (Herbert Marshall) becomes a taxi dancer, to the dismay of his new nouveau riche inamorata (Sari Maritza) and the delight of a naive American widow (Mary Boland.) Romantic comedy-drama marks the postwar wreckage of the European aristocracy with melancholy and a heartening generosity toward its characters.—RDL

The Fable (Film, Japan, Kan Eguchi, 2019) After racking up a spectacular body count in a restaurant hit, a young man who knows only assassination (Jun’ichi Okada) agrees to lay low in Osaka for a year, not knowing that his mentor plans to murder him if he kills anyone during his stay.  Cult cinema actioner offers an offbeat blend of comedy styles, whipsawing from deadpan to over-the-top and back. Broadpan?—RDL

The Great Buck Howard (Film, US, Sean McGinly, 2008) Law school dropout (Colin Hanks) learns the byways of small-time showbiz as road manager to a temperamental mentalist (John Malkovich) on fame’s downward slide. Deceptively slight indie comfort flick scores by declining to hype the stakes of its memoiristic narrative.—RDL

Night in Paradise (Film, South Korea, Park Hoon-jung, 2021) On the lam after retaliating for the mob hit that killed his terminally ill sister and her daughter, a determined young gangster establishes a prickly bond with his temporary host’s hostile, terminally ill, gun-toting daughter. Serene, controlled character drama with bursts of surprising, brutal violence.—RDL

Good

A Pistol For Ringo (Film, Italy/Spain, Duccio Tessari, 1966) Cheerfully mercenary gunslinger (Giuliano Gemma) agrees to infiltrate a bandit gang trapped with hostages at the ranch of a rich sophisticate (Antonio Casas) and his judgmental daughter (Lorella deLuca.) Spaghetti Western hostage drama takes the anti-heroism of the Man With No Name one cynical step further.—RDL

Not Recommended

Ryan’s Daughter (Film, UK/US, David Lean, 1970) Finding her new schoolteacher husband (Robert Mitchum) a cold fish, a passionate young woman stuck in a desolate coastal Irish village (Sarah Miles) strikes up an affair with the war-damaged British officer (Christopher Jones) in charge of its occupying detachment. Many notorious bombs warrant reappraisal, but critics were right the first time with this thick slab of pseudo-Irish ham. Misconceived on every level, from casting to performance, from scale to viewpoint. But if you’re doing a Lean retrospective, or are a student of things going wrong in narrative, watching it is a price you have to pay.—RDL

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