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Archive for October, 2022

Episode 520: Cell Phone From the Elder Things

October 28th, 2022 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we address a query from beloved Patreon backer Steven Dosman on keeping the solutions of mysteries far enough away from characters with the competence and point spends to solve them.

The Mythos Hut obeys the command of estimable backer Joshua Randall, who seeks the eldritch secrets behind the Antarctic doom of explorer Ernest Shackleton.

The Tradecraft Hut investigates the case of Park Chae-seo, the spy dubbed Black Venus, whose undercover work dealing with North Korea embroiled him in political chicanery back home.

Finally, an attempt to outsmart the stock market is turning into an apocalyptic belief system, and Conspiracy Corner is here to cover it.

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.


The PDF of Atlas Games’ prehistoric, dinosaur-approved 5E setting, Planegea, is ready to hurtle to your download folder like a theropod toward an sauropod.  Order it now for immediate download!

 

Track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt city, clamber through underground ruins and investigate the intrigues of your decadent rivals in Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE game of swords, sorcery and mystery, now available 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!

Delta Green Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient, brings a team of Agents to a scene of horrors all too real: Mosul in 2016, held by the self-styled Islamic State in a reign of depraved brutality. From a small base at the Kirkuk airfield, the Agents must research the horrors to come and prepare for a harrowing infiltration. Terrors and new supplementary material await, now in PDF, hardback now in preorder.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Werewolf By Night, She-Hulk, and Paris Hangouts

October 25th, 2022 | Robin

Recommended

Irma Vep (Television, France, HBO Max, Olivier Assayas, 2022) Hollywood star (Alicia Vikander) enters an unfamiliar world when she takes the lead role in a French miniseries by a neurotic auteur (Vincent Macaigne) based on his past experimental adaptation of Feuillade’s classic serial Les Vampires. Beguiling, funny hangout television about the movies, in dialogue with Feuillade, Assayas’ life and work, and less overtly but most especially, Truffaut’s Day for Night.—RDL

The Passengers of the Night (Film, France, Mikhaël Hers, 2022) Newly single mom Elisabeth (Charlotte Gainsbourg) gets a job at a late-night call-in radio show and navigates the 80s in Paris. Lives and moments expand and touch in this warm hangout film anchored by Gainsbourg’s open performance. Incidents that could have been mawkish or forced instead reinforce the felt humanity of her family, while wonderfully intercut archival footage illustrates that the 80s were the best decade in Paris, too. –KH

Ultimates and Ultimates 2 (Comics, Marvel, Mark Millar & Bryan Hitch, 2010) Nick Fury assembles a team of superheroes to protect America in this grittier retelling of the Avengers origin. In its original run (2002-2007), Millar wrote the heroes as reflections of American imperialism and embedded the story in War-on-Terror geopolitics, which has aged more unevenly than Hitch’s lovingly detailed ultra-cinematic spreads. Occasional frustrations with “decompressed storytelling” aside, though, these books built the Marvel Cinematic Universe and remain foundational. –KH

Werewolf by Night (Television, US, Disney+, Michael Giacchino, 2022) A ringer (Gael Garcia Bernal) joins a group of murderous monster-hunters to compete for the right to possess a powerful artifact. Styled in homage to the Universal horror canon, this self-contained weird adventure zippily dispatches a simple narrative, and introduces three characters from the comics with not an iota of unnecessary backstory. I have arguably upgraded this a level just for the reel change marks.—RDL

Good

1920: The Year of Six Presidents (Nonfiction, David Petrusza, 2006) Teddy Roosevelt wanted to run in 1920 but died, Wilson crippled his party with the same delusion, Hoover waited for a sure thing, Harding and Coolidge ran two races on one ticket, and FDR agreed to be the sacrificial VP candidate to build connections for the future. Petrusza tells the story of one of America’s most fascinating elections adequately but without much brio, and with barely any detail on the actual Democratic candidate. –KH

Leonor Will Never Die (Film, Philippines, Martika Ramirez Escobar, 2022) Long-retired Filipina screenwriter Leonor (Sheila Francisco) gets hit on the head by a falling TV while writing a comeback script and falls into the world of her own action film. Wonderfully loopy homage to 80s Philippine action flicks gets meta while sweetly if unsubtly plumbing family trauma, but as so often happens the ending cops out. –KH

Werewolf by Night (Television, US, Disney+, Michael Giacchino, 2022) Werewolf Jack Russell, and yes that’s really his name in the comics (Gael Garcia Bernal) competes with a clan of monster-hunters and stereotypes for the mystical monster-zorching Bloodstone. Delightful 1940s black-and-white production and a fun guest spot help the hour mostly fly by, but at the end it’s just a fine werewolf thing and not a very compelling story. –KH

Okay

She-Hulk, Attorney at Law (Television, US, Jessica Gao, 2022) After an accident involving her cousin Bruce (Mark Ruffalo) leaves her with the ability to transform into a more controlled version of the Hulk, perennially single district attorney Jessica Walters (Tatiana Maslany) takes a new job heading a defense team specializing in super-powered cases. Though it does give pause when the finale breaks the fourth wall to make critiques of past MCU content you have also read in this very column, the show never decides whether it wants to be a legal procedural, a dating travails sitcom, or a Marvel serial. If you’re going to do episodic TV, pick a formula and execute it.—RDL

Episode 519: Everything Weak and Flimsy

October 21st, 2022 | Robin

The Gaming Hut as always uses Skynet for your benefit, providing ways to use AI art at your roleplaying table.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Ken talks to two someones: Katarzyna “Kate” Kuczynska and Marcin “Martin” Kuczynski of Game Machinery, publisher of the Defiant Roleplaying Game.

In the Horror Hut we look at character likeability in the genre of terror and monstrosity.

Finally the Eliptony Hut tunes into stony vibrations as beloved Patreon backer Shon Richards asks us to weigh in on the geomantic claims of wacky NYC mayor Eric Adams, with a compare and contrast to Toronto and Chicago.

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.


The PDF of Atlas Games’ prehistoric, dinosaur-approved 5E setting, Planegea, is ready to hurtle to your download folder like a theropod toward an sauropod.  Order it now for immediate download!

 

Track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt city, clamber through underground ruins and investigate the intrigues of your decadent rivals in Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE game of swords, sorcery and mystery, now available 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!

Delta Green Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient, brings a team of Agents to a scene of horrors all too real: Mosul in 2016, held by the self-styled Islamic State in a reign of depraved brutality. From a small base at the Kirkuk airfield, the Agents must research the horrors to come and prepare for a harrowing infiltration. Terrors and new supplementary material await, now in PDF, hardback now in preorder.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Severance, After Yang, and Chicago Film Fest Highlights

October 18th, 2022 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Severance (Television, US, Apple+, Dan Erickson, 2022) The unprepossessing new manager (Adam Scott) of an inexplicable department of a cult-like corporation that surgically walls off the memories of its workers begins to plumb its mysteries, in both of his separated incarnations. From its brilliant credit sequence to the work of a stacked cast including John Turturro, Patricia Arquette and Christopher Walken, this contemporary dystopian SF perfectly calibrates suspense, character drama, and dark workplace comedy.—RDL

Recommended

After Yang (Film, US, Kogonada, 2021) A gentle father (Colin Farrell) tries to reactivate his daughter’s android brother after he suffers a fatal shutdown. Moody, hushed character SF posits that the real danger of AI is not that they will take our jobs or Skynet us, but that they will give us more people to lose and mourn.—RDL

The Beasts (Film, Spain/France, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, 2022) French organic farm couple (Denis Minochet and Marie Foïs) in Galicia find themselves in an escalating feud with the resentful locals. What begins as a Straw Dogs-like Western switches gears into a slower-simmering portrait of willpower and life, all against the hard Spanish hill country and Olivier Arson’s harsh score. –KH

Green For Danger (Fiction, 1944, Christianna Brand) During the Blitz, a patient dies under anesthetic in a Kent hospital, leaving Inspector Cockrill to find out whether murder has been done. Generally considered Brand’s first triumph, she joins her surgical character portraits to a  Carr-like ability with atmosphere, as the bombs and then the investigation ratchet up tension. I’m not sure whether my deducing a third of the puzzle a third of the way in was me being smart or Brand being clever. –KH

How To Blow Up A Pipeline (Film, US, Daniel Goldhaber, 2022) Orphaned by a heat wave, Long Beach leftist Xochitl (Ariel Barer, who co-wrote and co-produced) puts together a team with reasons and skills to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas. Goldhaber brilliantly sets Andreas Malm’s agitprop text to pure Ocean’s 11 choreography, creating a top-line caper film in the process. Gavin Brivik’s needling score both drives this film and calls back to classic heists like Thief. –KH

Special Delivery (Film, South Korea, Dae-Min Park, 2022) Coolly ultra-skilled driver for a black market courier service (Park So-dam) finds her professional detachment challenged by her latest client, a young kid on the run from a murderous crooked cop (Sae-byeok Song.) Rattling car chase action thriller with a secondary plot device that would only work in Korea.—RDL

Good

Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues (Film, US, Sacha Jenkins, 2022) Bolstered by tapes of personal conversations and extensive excerpts from his letters, Jenkins paints a portrait of Armstrong as a musical phenomenon without peer and as a misunderstood figure in the civil rights era. (And as a fan of laxatives and Queens.) Neither of which I thought were particularly in question nowadays, meaning I’m not sure who this film was for. The lack of musical attention (we hear no song all the way through) would be enough to ding it a level even if it had a fresh argument, though. –KH

Man on the Edge (Film, Hong Kong, Ming-Sing Wong, 2022) Deep undercover cop (Richie Jen) experiences a crisis of loyalties when the triad boss (Simon Yam) who is his target and best friend decides to step down, triggering a succession crisis. In what must be seven or eight act structure, this incident-packed crime drama fuses together elements of Infernal Affairs, Election and A Better Tomorrow.—RDL

A Wounded Fawn (Film, US, Travis Stevens, 2022) Art broker Bruce (Josh Ruben) covets a statue of the Erinyes (aka the Furies), and also covets curator Meredith (Sarah Lind), setting up a truly unique supernatural slasher suffused with Greek myth and surrealist callbacks. From the grainy 16mm film to the bright karo blood, this movie loves the 70s horror beats and wants me to love it. Its flaws mostly come from Stevens taking big ambitious swings, except its core flaw: horror films flatten emotionally if you have no sympathy with the victim. –KH

The Year Between (Film, US, Alex Heller, 2022) Washed out of college, Clemence (Heller) moves back in with her suburban Chicago parents (a note-perfect Steve Buscemi and J. Smith-Cameron) and struggles with her new bipolar disorder diagnosis. It made me laugh and cry, which should be the bare minimum. But it wants to have the cake of “disruptive (wo)man-children are funny and right” and eat the Serious Mental Health Message too, and the result is perhaps aptly ambivalent. –KH

Okay

Amsterdam (Film, US, David O. Russell, 2022) One-eyed doctor Burt (Christian Bale), stoic Black lawyer Harold (John David Washington), and manic pixie artist Valerie (Margot Robbie) become best friends in a hospital during WWI and an idyll in Amsterdam; a decade later they become embroiled in a murderous plot. Russell channels his inner Terry Gilliam here in a film that almost seems like it lives up to American Hustle and I Heart Huckabees (and Jules et Jim) simultaneously, until the last act just deflates completely into a smug, syrupy mess. –KH

Episode 518: A Big Fan of Heliocentrism

October 14th, 2022 | Robin

Belle Époque wings flutter as the Gaming Hut brings the faery world into The Yellow King Roleplaying Game.

Ken issues a Travel Advisory for his recent visit to the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

In How to Write Good we look at calibrating your characters’ complexity level to the story you are telling.

Finally at the request of beloved Patreon backer Louis Sylvester, the Consulting Occultist profiles Cotton Mather.

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.


The PDF of Atlas Games’ prehistoric, dinosaur-approved 5E setting, Planegea, is ready to hurtle to your download folder like a theropod toward an sauropod.  Order it now for immediate download!

 

Track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt city, clamber through underground ruins and investigate the intrigues of your decadent rivals in Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE game of swords, sorcery and mystery, now available 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!

Delta Green Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient, brings a team of Agents to a scene of horrors all too real: Mosul in 2016, held by the self-styled Islamic State in a reign of depraved brutality. From a small base at the Kirkuk airfield, the Agents must research the horrors to come and prepare for a harrowing infiltration. Terrors and new supplementary material await, now in PDF, hardback now in preorder.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Rotoscoped Witchery, Lockdown Paranormalism, and M. R. James Goes Italian

October 11th, 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

Agatha (Film, US, Roland Becerra & Kelly Bigelow Becerra, 2022) Terminally ill watcher (Ryan Whiting) follows a witch (Emily Joyce-Dial) deep into an urban wasteland in search of a magical cure. Even at its tight 60-minute run time, this lushly rotoscoped urban fairy tale gobsmacks the viewer with details, images, and tonal discomfort, the latter accentuated by a superbly discordant score by Jeremy Santiago-Horsman. –KH

Something in the Dirt (Film, US, Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2022) Neighbors John (Moorhead) and Levi (Benson) attempt to capture a paranormal event in Levi’s apartment as mysteries and pareidoliac connections compound. Your response to this film will depend entirely on your response to “what if paranormal Slacker, but a two-hander because filmed during lockdown, oh and also unreliable narrators and meta-documentary.” I bought the bit and enjoyed the ride mightily. –KH

Whistle, And I’ll Come to You (Film, Italy, Valentina Battorti, 2022) Skeptical professor Parkins (Giorgio Guerra) digs up a Templar whistle while vacationing in Burnstow. Gorgeous black-and-white cinematography by Battorti (who also wrote and costume-designed) highlights this well-paced 68-minute M.R. James adaptation, and Matthew James’ score swells between 40s and 80s orchestrations. Italians playing MRJ’s uber-English characters does add a note of incongruity. –KH

Good

The Keep (Film, US, Michael Mann, 1983) To the dismay of an SS-skeptical German officer (Jurgen Prochnow), stupid Nazis stir an ancient being from his Romanian fortress prison, summoning a counterforce in the form of a super-powered, exposition-eschewing, lidbidinous stranger (Scott Glenn.) Operatic weird fantasy shot at the height of high 80s style can’t be described as fully realized but nonetheless exerts a dreamlike pull.—RDL

Stoyan (Film, Spain, Roberto Ruiz Cespedes, 2022) When her son Stoyan (Max Ulloa) disappears, Maika (Marta Milans) follows the instructions of a heretical Buddhist sect to see him again. The B-plot of this karmic horror film, following existential police detective Israel (Tristán Ulloa) investigating linked deaths, works better and more consistently than the over-promised and under-explained main story, though it remains a meaty take on what exactly separation from emotional ties entails. –KH

Okay

The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Film, US, Peter Farrelly, 2022) Bibulous New York merchant marineman (Zac Efron) decides to bring comfort to his buddies serving in Vietnam with an unauthorized mission to show up there with a duffel bag of beers. Efron transforms radically out of his boyishness in a dramedy docudrama that could have used a rewrite pass for subtlety.—RDL

Incantation (Film, Taiwan, Kevin Ko, 2022) The horror starts up again after six years when a woman who profaned a profane scenario and learned too much about a god regains custody of her young daughter. Mixmasters horror sub-genres ranging from found footage to J-Horror, from Western exorcism flicks to 70s Asian black magic and throws them at the viewer for two hours, without the crucial moments of pause that make scares work.—RDL

Episode 517: Kinda Goopy

October 7th, 2022 | Robin

 The first annual Robin and Valerie International Film Festival has come to an end, and just like TIFF before it, that means Robin has a list of movies to recommend to you in the Cinema Hut. The twist: this time you can find and watch them right away.

Then in The Business of Gaming we look at sudden tsunami of AI art, and the potential and pitfalls of using generated illustrations in gaming products.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine has some tsar-kicking to do as our hero introduces some late edits into Poland’s January Uprising.

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.


The PDF of Atlas Games’ prehistoric, dinosaur-approved 5E setting, Planegea, is ready to hurtle to your download folder like a theropod toward an sauropod.  Order it now for immediate download!

 

Track down foul sorcerers in a corrupt city, clamber through underground ruins and investigate the intrigues of your decadent rivals in Swords of the Serpentine, the GUMSHOE game of swords, sorcery and mystery, now available 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!

Delta Green Iconoclasts, a campaign of horrors modern and ancient, brings a team of Agents to a scene of horrors all too real: Mosul in 2016, held by the self-styled Islamic State in a reign of depraved brutality. From a small base at the Kirkuk airfield, the Agents must research the horrors to come and prepare for a harrowing infiltration. Terrors and new supplementary material await, now in PDF, hardback now in preorder.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Sandman, X, Only Murders, and the Making of Midnight Cowboy

October 4th, 2022 | Robin

Recommended

Lucy and Desi (Film, US, Amy Poehler, 2022) Dual documentary biography uses archival footage and new interviews to depict the increasingly fractured creative partnership and marriage of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. As he is lesser known, the major revelations concern Arnaz, brilliant self-taught TV producer who realized he hated the job.—RDL

Only Murders in the Building Season 2 (Television, US, Hulu, Steve Martin & John Hoffman, 2022) Framed for murder, the trio of podcasters (Martin, Martin Short, & Selena Gomez) investigate (sort of) in between personal entanglements. As if recognizing that this murder is a far weaker mystery than the last one, the series examines individual lives (including its leads’) with more nuance. While that means less side-splitting humor than Season 1, it keeps tone and energy up, and stays Recommended. –KH

Perfect Blue (Film, Japan, Satoshi Kon, 1998) When pop idol Mima (Junko Iwao) abandons her girl group for an acting career, exploitation and murderous stalking break down her  boundaries between reality and fiction. Kon deliberately flattens and confuses the animated image, on top of a nested film-within-a-film, for a vertiginous experience that only loses steam just before its relatively straight conclusion. –KH

Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic (Nonfiction, Glenn Frankel, 2021) Deeply researched account of the making of the iconic film expansively covers all of its creative participants, from novelist Jim Herlihy to behind the scenes creators and bit players. A sweeping cultural study of gay writing and film in the burgeoning days of the liberation movement adds a layer of significance.—RDL

Good

The Sandman Season 1 (Television, Netflix, Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer, and Allan Heinberg, 2022) After being trapped by a cranky magician (Charles Dance) for a century, Dream (Tom Sturridge) sets about rebuilding his kingdom. If you loved the comic, this “Allan Heinberg reads Sandman to you slowly” experience pretty much works, despite some dire stagy direction. Supporting cast Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman), Dee (David Thewlis), and the Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) pump in needed energy at intervals. If you don’t know the comic, this probably is not where to start. –KH

X (Film, US, Ti West, 2022) In 1979, aspiring porn star Maxine (Mia Goth) and her producer boyfriend Wayne (Martin Henderson) rent a lodging house on a remote Texas farm to film their skin flick, to the eventual consternation of the aged couple in residence. West blends his skillful 1970s slasher pastiche with very effective modern shots and absolutely no subtlety in his equation of Eros and Thanatos and the role of the gaze in both. Efficient, but not brilliant. –KH

Okay

Censor (Film, UK, Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021) During the 80s UK “video nasty” flap, a withdrawn censorship board employee (Niamh Algar) sees a connection between a horror film she’s been assigned to evaluate and her sister’s childhood disappearance. Dread-filled character piece lights a controlled slow burn, but slips in the third act shift from moody meta-comment on our relationship to horror films into a regular horror film.—RDL

Horror Cinema Essentials Audiobook Now Available

October 3rd, 2022 | Robin

 

Just in time for Spooky Season 2022, Ken and Robin launch the Horror Cinema Essentials Audiobook on Bandcamp! Stitched together Frankenstein-style from seventeen segments of our podcast, the legendary Horror Film 101 series that ran from December 2020 through April 2021, this audiobook covers 135 films in five and a half hours of incisive and free-wheeling chat. Finally, all our horror cinema history discussion from Dr. Caligari to Annihilation has been gathered in one place, available with one click for your listening delight and your viewing diversion.

http://kenandrobin.bandcamp.com

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