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Archive for December, 2022

Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Fabelmans, Glass Onion, and Premonitions of Doom

December 27th, 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

The Best Max Carrados Detective Stories (Fiction, Ernest Bramah [E.F. Bleiler, ed.], 1972) Blinded by an accident, wealthy dilettante Max Carrados trains his remaining senses to their highest pitch and solves crimes. Bleiler selects ten of the 26 Carrados tales written between 1913 and 1927 for this collection, which ably display the wit, arch social commentary, and skill with character that Bramah embodies in his best works. The mysteries per se more resemble Holmesian prestidigitation than the Golden Age standard, but Carrados’ charms make up for structural sleight-of-hand. –KH

The Fabelmans (Film, US, Steven Spielberg, 2022) Through the lens of his moviemaking obsession, a precocious teen (Gabriel Labelle) spots the fault lines in the marriage between his earnest, technically-minded father (Paul Dano) and thwarted, exuberant mother (Michelle Williams.) Spielberg uses his love language, the larger-than-life acting, grammar, and gloss of 50s Technicolor spectaculars, to pay autobiographical tribute to his parents.—RDL

The Premonitions Bureau (Nonfiction, Sam Knight, 2022) 60s British psychiatrist John Barker, an experimenter with aversion therapy who tried to reform the snakepit mental hospital that employed him, studies psychosomatic death and establishes, with an Evening Standard science reporter, a project to document premonitions of disaster to see if they come true. Vivid reporting with contextualizing discursions tells a tale of real life Serlingesque ironic doom.—RDL

Good

Glass Onion (Film, US, Rian Johnson, 2022) Billionaire Miles Bron (Ed Norton) invites five people with motives for murder to his remote island, but fortunately detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) joins the party. Two acts delightfully deconstructing a Christie classic setup (down to the broadly ridiculous characters; Kate Hudson exceeds herself) hit tonal and thematic crosswinds by act three. The result: a messier, less clever sequel. –KH

Glass Onion (Film, US, Rian Johnson, 2022) Master detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) receives a mysterious invitation to a murder mystery weekend on a Greek island, thrown by a self-mythologizing tech billionaire (Ed Norton) for his circle of besties. The first act is such a beguiling contemplation of cinematic glamor and charismatic bitchiness that the arrival of genre plot demands in the second act takes it down a notch.—RDL

Rhubarb (Film, US, Arthur Lubin, 1951) Harried PR man (Ray Milland) becomes the reluctant guardian to a feisty cat (Orangey) whose inherited business empire includes an underdog baseball team. Comic fable from the production team behind Miracle on 34th Street serves up its obstacles somewhat haphazardly, but knows to keep returning to its central gag, the truculence of the titular feline.—RDL

Ryuzo and the Seven Henchmen (Film, Japan, Takeshi Kitano, 2015) Bored by the humiliations of old age and retirement, a crew of ex-yakuza assembles to take on a new breed of post-yakuza gangsters. Kitano recasts his fatalistic take on the gangster flick as a agreeably shambling comedy.—RDL

Okay

Love Is News (Film, US, Tay Garnett, 1937) Irked by her tabloid fodder status, a charming heiress (Loretta Young) gives a tricksy reporter (Tyrone Power) a taste of his own medicine by announcing her engagement to him. Breezy screwball comedy with Don Ameche bringing extra brio to the standard role of a tantrum-throwing newspaper editor.—RDL

Episode 528: Live at Dragonmeet

December 23rd, 2022 | Robin

After nearly three chaotic years, the universe has begun to right itself, as you can tell when this episode recorded live at Dragonmeet enters your ear canals. Ken answers the call of the nerdtrope card. Then, fortified by sticky toffee pudding and Christmas sandwiches, we talk topical villains, the cure for cursed dice, the occult nature of various drinks, and more.

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.


Fill every stocking with social deduction. Tis in fact the season for Weird Little Elf, Atlas Games’ perfect not-boring activity for your next holiday gathering.

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: White Noise, Decision to Leave, Classic Lubitsch

December 20th, 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

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (Film, US, Ernst Lubitsch, 1938) On discovering that her blunt rich American fiancee (Gary Cooper) is a serial divorcer, the charming daughter (Claudette Colbert) of a shady count (Edward Everett Horton) decides to exact a literal and emotional toll. Sophisticated screwball comedy mines America vs Europe cultural divide with the aid of fine-tuned wisecracks from the writing team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett.—RDL

Decision to Leave (Film, South Korea, Park Chan-wook, 2022) Devoted cop (Park Hae-il) succumbs to a romantic obsession for an enigmatic emigre (Tang Wei) he suspects in the murder of her husband. Park mutes his bravura style for a hypnotic Journey into Hitchcock territory.—RDL

White Noise (Film, US, Noah Baumbach, 2022) Professor Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) and his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) go from manic to paranoiac after an airborne toxic event. Baumbach’s tendencies to stilted logorrhea meet their perfect match in the Don DeLillo source novel, resulting in a layered alchemical comedy blending genre riffs with self-aware genre lectures and ending in an LCD Soundsystem musical number. Much credit goes to Lol Crawley’s bright 80s camera eye and Danny Elfman’s bouncy score. –KH

Good

Juju Stories (Film, Nigeria, C.J. Obasi, Abba Makama, Michael Omonua, 2021) A woman uses juju for love, cursed money turns a thug into a yam, and a witch gets jealous in the three short films in this anthology. The first has the most human story, but the least excitement; the yam tale probably satisfies the most; the witch story could almost have sustained a whole movie if its characters got to breathe or fuller dimensionality. Three Good shorts, in other words, with a wonderfully naturalistic magic background. –KH

Me and My Gal (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1932) Ambitious bowery-beat cop (Spencer Tracy) falls for the wisecracking sister (Joan Bennett) of a woman mixed up with mobsters. Unusual mix of rough-hewn romcom and crime drama from the early talkie era, where screenwriters weren’t sure such which tropes belonged in the same movie.—RDL

Wednesday Season 1 (Television, US, Netflix, Alfred Gough & Miles Millar, 2022) When her parents Gomez and Morticia (Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones) send Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) to their old boarding school, she uncovers a magical mystery. Tonal collision nearly sinks this effort: Addams comedy depends on playing off normies, which the school isn’t, but the comedy undermines any real stakes to the murders. The fact that all the young actors (except Emma Myers as Wednesday’s fun, girly werewolf roomie) went to the same CW mumblecore drama school gives Wednesday’s mordant affect almost nothing to respond to. Ortega, however, transcends the weak material, and Tim Burton directs four episodes, so there’s at least some personality to watch. –KH

Okay

Enola Holmes 2 (Film, US, Harry Bradbeer, 2022) Enola Holmes (Millie Bobby Brown) investigates a missing match girl while her brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) matches wits with a mastermind in a surely unrelated case. Less fun than the first film, substituting puzzles for mysteries, and barely true even to its own pretend Victorian era: another case of feel-goodism undermining stakes. This one is only for David Thewlis devotees, as his Superintendent Grail has all the sliminess and squintiness one could ask for in a British villain. –KH

Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music (Film, US, Diana Friedberg, 2019) Overlong, fannish documentary profiles the avuncular, workaholic composer who laid down the template for neo-romantic film music and continued to follow it with such classic scores as King Kong, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep.—RDL

Spirited (Film, US, Sean Anders, 2022) The Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) pitches his boss Jacob Marley on a candidate for spectral Yuletide reformation, a seductively cynical PR specialist (Ryan Reynolds.) Cute premise and appealing comic bro chemistry weighed down by formulaic contemporary pop-Broadway songs.—RDL

Episode 527: 100% Game Handoutable

December 16th, 2022 | Robin

Our weary protagonists, fresh from Dragonmeet, stumble into the Gaming Hut. There they undergo the sort of deductive epiphany required, as per a request from beloved Patreon backer Keelan O’Hea, to bring visual “aha” moments into investigative games.

Then London’s National Gallery becomes the Culture Hut as our heroes recall their visit to its current Lucian Freud and Winslow Homer shows.

Seasoned listeners, at the mention of Dragonmeet, know what comes next: Ken’s Bookshelf finally returns to plunder Foyles and Treadwell’s.

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.


Fill every stocking with social deduction. Tis in fact the season for Weird Little Elf, Atlas Games’ perfect not-boring activity for your next holiday gathering.

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: Confess Fletch, Vengeance, and Edward Gorey

December 13th, 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

Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey (Nonfiction, Karen Wilkin (ed.), 2002) Wilkin assembles a collection of interviews with Gorey between 1973 and 1999, providing insight into Gorey’s process, devotion to the ballet, love of cats, and intermittently his career. As most interview collections do, this retreads the same ground occasionally, but it gives the eager Goreyite a better sense of who that enormous weird artist in the fur coat actually might have been. –KH

Confess, Fletch (Film, US, Greg Mottola, 2022) Former investigative reporter Fletch (Jon Hamm) lies and snarks through a hunt for stolen paintings in Boston. Hamm’s Fletch is less wacky than Chevy Chase’s incarnation, but emulsifies the Fletch blend of jerkiness and humor just as well: he’s fun to watch annoy his co-stars, in sum. If this had come out in 1992 or even 2002 I might have given it a mere Good, but by simply being a well-lit, capable comic mystery for grown-ups in under 100 minutes, it gets the Recommended bounce in this era of streaming suckily. –KH

Rogues’ Gallery: The Rise (and Occasional Fall) of Art Dealers, the Hidden Players in the History of Art (Nonfiction, Philip Hook, 2017) After a brief nod to ancient Rome, this broad survey with chapter-long individual portraits covers the development of the art sales trade from the early modern period, following the trajectory of dealers from selling the works of the safely dead to their current role in building careers and shaping tastes. Written with wit, erudition, and an insider’s perspective, plus tasty morsels of gossip.—RDL

Val (Film, US, Leo Scott & Ting Poo, 2022) Actor Val Kilmer has obsessively filmed his life since childhood; Scott and Poo assemble footage for an autobiopic that doubles as a meditation on acting. Kilmer’s throat cancer having destroyed his career, it also subtextually interrogates the currently deprecated contribution of superb physicality to acting. Kilmer’s son Jack reads Val’s affecting narration. –KH

Vengeance (Film, US, B.J. Novak, 2022) When a girl he hooked up with in New York overdoses in Texas, journalist Ben (B.J. Novak) decides to launch his true-crime podcast by attending her funeral. Novak performs the minor miracle of making a “New Yorker in Texas” movie without otherizing Texas, and while not remotely hiding New York’s flaws. Add to that a genuinely intriguing “true crime” story, sensational supporting performances from Boyd Holbrook (as her older brother) and Ashton Kutcher (as a music producer), and a script (also by Novak) that moves from buddy-comedy zip to Western to noir philosophy, and the few stumbles melt away. –KH

Good

Bullet Train (Film, US, David Leitch, 2022) Unlucky but self-actualizing black-bagger Ladybug (Brad Pitt) finds himself on the titular train full of wacky assassins enmeshed in at least three revenge plots. This Post-Tarantino Crime Film Lego set of a movie is indeed brightly colored and snaps together into a pleasing shape, but even the fine fight choreography and Pitt’s amiable star power can’t breathe organic life into its prefab components. It’s on Netflix now, though, so I bet streaming it while high works pretty well. –KH

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Film, US, Tom Gormican, 2022) Fading Hollywood star Nicolas Cage (playing himself on “low,” and his imaginary twin on “high,” and yes it’s that kind of movie) takes a million-dollar payday to guest at the birthday party of Spanish olive magnate Javi (Pedro Pascal), but discovers the CIA is interested as well. This is also the kind of movie where the characters talk about the kind of movie they should make and it’s the kind of movie you’re watching, golly. The hangout film Cage and Pascal initially pitch each other would probably have been a better film than this one, though, as their byplay works better than the second or third act do. –KH

Episode 526: From What Steve Did

December 9th, 2022 | Robin

We start as per usual in the Gaming Hut, where this time beloved Patreon backer Bart Mallio asks for tips on combining The Esoterrorists with Night’s Black Agents.

Then we move onto an ever-shifting southwestern Culture Hut, as estimable backer Robert Wolfe seeks knowledge on cartoonist George Herriman’s Krazy Kat and its effect on the dreamlands.

Our scene shifts again to a tangled birch woods, as the Archaeology Hut examines the Beardmore find, a Viking hoax that fooled the Royal Ontario Museum.

Finally, at the behest of insightful backer Benjamin Rawls, the Consulting Occultist turns his gaze to Japan and its Happy Science cult.

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.


Fill every stocking with social deduction. Tis in fact the season for Weird Little Elf, Atlas Games’ perfect not-boring activity for your next holiday gathering.

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.

Episode 525: Neptune Reveal Party

December 2nd, 2022 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we look at scenario text as a place to put GM advice.

At the behest of beloved Patreon backer Bret Kramer the History Hut hosts the tale of German-born eventual doctor Gottfried Knoche, who in the late 19th century took his penchant for mummification innovation to Venezuela.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Ken chats with Heather O’Neill, designer of Meeple Party and Schrödinger’s Cats.

Finally, our hero revs up Ken’s Time Machine to assist the Antemnates against Romulus, the first king of Rome.

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.


Godsforge, Atlas Games’ fast-paced game of battling spellcasters, is now on Kickstarter. Grab wizardly first dibs on the new 2nd Edition of Godsforge, and two new expansions, Return of the Dragon Gods and Twilight of the Great Houses, from November 8 to December 8th.

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.

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