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Archive for April, 2023

Episode 545: B-52s are Just Very Large Horses

April 28th, 2023 | Robin

Get your spreadsheets and notebooks out because in the Gaming Hut we’re talking bluebook-heavy games.

In the Command Hut beloved Patreon backer Andrew Miller waves his saber to precipitate a discussion of the Charge of the Savoia Cavalleria at Izbushensky, and whether it was in fact history’s last significant cavalry charge.

The lucky thirteenth chapter of our Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials series takes us to the late 70s, starting with the lightsaber-wielding film that changed the genre forever.

Finally in the Eliptony Hut we get drunk and play with Polaroids as we retell the tale of psychic photographer Ted Serios.

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.

Rejoice, fans of Atlas Games and Ken and Robin. Atlas Games is running its most Ken and Robiny promotion ever. Atlas publishes books from both of us and for a limited time only you can get 20% off those books with the promo code KENANDROBIN23 at the Atlas Games store: https://atlas-games.com/product_tables/.

The skies above New Olympus are patrolled by caped crusaders, but these superior beings are far from heroes. They wield their powers with reckless disregard, serving the interests of corporate overseers, and silencing those who oppose their will. You are Klara Koenig, investigative journalist for The Pedestrian newspaper, and you intend to prove the privileged superhuman elite do not yet hold a monopoly on justice. Welcome to Alteregomania: the newest setting for the GUMSHOE One-2-One system.

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!

Put on your flannels, grab your duffel bag of hardware and assemble your fake passports. Alert your retailer to the contents of their favorite unmarked warehouse. Delta Green: The Conspiracy, the revised, updated and declassified edition of the iconic 1990s sourcebook has escaped from Arc Dream Publishing.

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Picard, The Mandalorian, Tetris, Beau is Afraid

April 25th, 2023 | 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 Case of Hana & Alice (Film, Japan, Shunji Iwai, 2015) New arrival at high school bonds with her reclusive neighbor from one grade up as they bumble through an investigation into the latter’s supposedly dead classmate. The anime format confers a level of idealization on a sweet, naturalistic comic drama of burgeoning friendship.—RDL

My Way (Film, South Korea, Je-kyu Kang, 2011) A champion marathoner (Jang Dong-Gun) is sentenced to serve in the Japanese military, where he and his friends are forced to fight against the Soviets in Mongolia under the command of his fanatical former athletic rival (Joe Odagiri.) Moments of bombastic sentimentality bookend hellish, impressively mounted battle sequences across three theaters of war.—RDL

Star Trek: Picard Season 3 (Television, US, Paramount+, Terry Matalas, 2023) Picard (Patrick Stewart) discovers that the son (Ed Speelers) whose existence Crusher (Gates McFadden) concealed from him ties into a conspiracy to topple the Federation. Though larded with Easter eggs, the throughline of this rousing valedictory remains rooted in character, bringing the TNG cast forward from where we last saw them and then giving each of them a new arc to complete.—RDL

Good

Kill Boksoon (Film, South Korea, Sung-hyun Byun, 2023) Renowned killer (Jeon Do-yeon) faces her greatest challenge yet—understanding her increasingly closed-off teen daughter (Esom.) Blend of family drama and assassin conspiracy actioner slowed by an excess of tertiary characters and subplots.—RDL

Okay

The Mandalorian Season 3 (Television, US, Disney+, Jon Favreau, 2023) Mando (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu assist Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) in her bid to reunite the Mandalorians and resettle their homeworld. Backburners the established premise of the show in favor of a new one without taking the time to invest the audience in it.—RDL

Tetris (Film, US, Jon S. Baird, 2023) Scrappy entrepreneur game publisher Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) battles Communism and Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) to secure rights to Tetris in 1988. Completely anodyne produpic (a biopic, but for a product) coasts on nostalgia for falling bricks in between entertaining skirmishes with bad guys who hate products and capitalism. Cleverly leans into its garbage CGI so I can’t hate on that too much. –KH

Exercise Extreme Caution

Beau Is Afraid (Film, US, Ari Aster, 2023) Simmering neurotic Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) faces increasingly surreal obstacles on his journey to visit his overbearing mother (Patti LuPone). This paranoid reality-horror dark ride rivets the viewers’ attention almost nonstop through its three-hour runtime thanks to Aster’s terrifying comic and visual instincts and Phoenix’ whipped-dog performance. The mathematical opposite of Everything Everywhere All At Once, it is not a puzzle to be solved or even a message to be learned but an ordeal to be undergone. Do not watch it if you can’t enjoy watching suffering and cruelty. I mean it. –KH

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Episode 544: Sean Connery’s Speedo

April 21st, 2023 | Robin

The Gaming Hut makes knowing reference to the Gaming Hut as beloved Patreon backer Joshua Hillerup asks how one might make a game that is to roleplaying what Community was to the sitcom.

Malaise gives way to corrupt hedonism as the Cinema Hut science fiction essentials series reaches the mid 70s.

In The Business of Gaming we wonder what the crumbling state of social media means to guerrilla marketing for tabletop products.

Finally in Ken’s Time Machine estimable backer Neil Barnes proposes that our chrono-hero do something about replacing mere decimal mathematics with a Base-12 system.

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.

In Sunset City, there’s always something fishy going on … and we’re not talking tuna.  The magical kitties of Sunset City have their paws full of mystery. Thanks to our fine feline friends at Atlas Games, Magical Kitties Noir is headed to Kickstarter.

The skies above New Olympus are patrolled by caped crusaders, but these superior beings are far from heroes. They wield their powers with reckless disregard, serving the interests of corporate overseers, and silencing those who oppose their will. You are Klara Koenig, investigative journalist for The Pedestrian newspaper, and you intend to prove the privileged superhuman elite do not yet hold a monopoly on justice. Welcome to Alteregomania: the newest setting for the GUMSHOE One-2-One system.

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!

Put on your flannels, grab your duffel bag of hardware and assemble your fake passports. Alert your retailer to the contents of their favorite unmarked warehouse. Delta Green: The Conspiracy, the revised, updated and declassified edition of the iconic 1990s sourcebook has escaped from Arc Dream Publishing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Scream VI, Furies, and Exploding Teenagers

April 18th, 2023 | 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

Furies (Film, Vietnam, Veronica Ngo, 2023) Desperate young woman (Dong Anh Quynh) earns her place in a squad of female martial artists determined to bring violent reprisal to the sex trafficking gangsters of Ho Chi Minh City. Neon-lit hard action puts women at the center of the traditionally masculine thematic territory of the heroic bloodshed subgenre.—RDL

If We Were Villains (Fiction, M.L. Rio, 2017) Ten years after going to prison for killing his classmate, former drama student Oliver Marks tells his arresting officer what really happened that night at Dellecher Classical Conservatory. Shakespeare, the college novel, the murder story, and the theater novel crash together in rising waves of action, passion, and revelation. It’s not quite Donna Tartt’s Pinnacle The Secret History, but that’s the closest comparison I can make. –KH

Lingui, the Sacred Bonds (Film, Chad, Mahamat Saleh Haroun, 2022) Devout, poor Muslim single mom (Achouackh Abakar Souleymane) reluctantly assists her defiant teen daughter (Rihane Khalil Alio) in seeking an abortion, which is illegal in Chad. Specificity of place and culture and a lively color palette distinguish this neorealist social drama.—RDL

Manchurian Tiger (Film, South Korea, Lee Doo-Yong, 1974) Dapper, laconic taekwondo fighter (Han Yong-Cheol aka Ian Han) arrives in Japanese-occupied Harbin to play two rival gangsters against one another. Sly martial arts riff on Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars features a Korean political angle and Han’s beguilingly laidback ass-whupping style.—RDL

Spontaneous (Film, US, Brian Duffield, 2020) When members of her class of high school seniors succumb to a plague that causes them to suddenly explode in showers of blood and viscera, sardonic Mara (Kate Langford) tries to embrace life and first love with adorable geek Dylan (Charlie Plummer.) Teen dramedy goes surprisingly hard at its body horror premise.—RDL

The Westerner (Film, US, William Wyler, 1940) Honorable saddle tramp (Gary Cooper) tries to mediate between homesteaders and vigilante cattlemen led by hanging judge Roy Bean (Walter Brennan.) The gay relationship between the leads barely counts as subtextual in this friends-turned-foes western drama.—RDL

Good

Banacek Season 2 (Television, US, NBC, George Eckstein, 1973-1974) Self-satisfied freelance investigator of impossible crimes Banacek (George Peppard) now has an ongoing foil in ex-lover and rival investigator Carlie Kirkland (Christine Belford) who mostly only yells at Banacek and slows things down even further. However, the puzzles and guest stars remain fun and thrilling, especially in the episode where Banacek gets romanced by Linda Evans while trying to find a race horse that vanished mid-gallop. –KH

Scream VI (Film, US, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, 2023) The four survivors of the previous Ghostface killing spree (Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jasmine Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding) move to New York City for college, but a new Ghostface follows them there. Not quite as tight a mystery as the previous movie, with a hot-and-cold cruelty that doesn’t really cohere. But the urban stalks, as predictable as they are, still work pretty well, the writers show the weight of the franchise interestingly, and Ortega’s lively presence carries the movie over the Good line on her tiny back. –KH

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Episode 543: Truffle Bulettes

April 14th, 2023 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we examine the social contract of F20, specifically whether players want the GM to move the boss fight into a room convenient to session pacing.

Part eleven of our Cinema Hut science fiction essentials series takes us to the malaise of the early seventies.

In Ken and/or Robin Talk to Someone Else, Ken chats with Christopher Robin Negelein about his Mystery Flesh Pit National Park RPG. Look for it on Kickstarter.

Finally beloved Patreon backer Ed Sizemore beckons us into the Eliptony Hut to learn more about the Brazilian syncretic UFO sect Vale do Amanhecer.

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.

In Sunset City, there’s always something fishy going on … and we’re not talking tuna.  The magical kitties of Sunset City have their paws full of mystery. Thanks to our fine feline friends at Atlas Games, Magical Kitties Noir is headed to Kickstarter.

The skies above New Olympus are patrolled by caped crusaders, but these superior beings are far from heroes. They wield their powers with reckless disregard, serving the interests of corporate overseers, and silencing those who oppose their will. You are Klara Koenig, investigative journalist for The Pedestrian newspaper, and you intend to prove the privileged superhuman elite do not yet hold a monopoly on justice. Welcome to Alteregomania: the newest setting for the GUMSHOE One-2-One system.

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!

Put on your flannels, grab your duffel bag of hardware and assemble your fake passports. Alert your retailer to the contents of their favorite unmarked warehouse. Delta Green: The Conspiracy, the revised, updated and declassified edition of the iconic 1990s sourcebook has escaped from Arc Dream Publishing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: John Wick 4, 70s AI Horror, and a Classic Auteur Collision

April 11th, 2023 | 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

Colossus: The Forbin Project (Film, US, Joseph Sargent, 1970) Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden) has just designed Colossus, a supercomputer wired into the American nuclear weapons grid, but he built it too well. Surprisingly riveting, fast-paced computer-paranoia thriller with touches of Faust and Frankenstein almost seems relevant again in these days of AI panic and superpower confrontation. –KH

Come and Get It (Film, US, Howard Hawks & William Wyler, 1936) Bullish lumberjack (Edward Arnold) sets aside the woman he loves (Frances Farmer) to further his ambitions of logging wealth, later succumbing to romantic obsession for her identical daughter with his old-time best friend (Walter Brennan.) With producer Samuel Goldwyn off sick, Hawks transformed Edna Ferber’s sententious novel into one of his trademark tales of camaraderie on society’s rough hewn fringes. When he recovered, Goldwyn fired him and forced Wyler to restore as much of Ferber’s multi-generational saga as he could. Yet the results are surprisingly alive, proving that troubled shoots only lead to terrible results ninety-nine times out of a hundred.—RDL

Hotel Mumbai (Film, Australia, Anthony Maras, 2018) When gunmen invade a luxury hotel as part of the coordinated 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, staff and guests, including an intrepid cook (Dev Patel) and an entitled newlywed (Armie Hammer), struggle to survive. Tense docudrama thriller uses disaster movie script structure as foundation for Paul Greengrass-style ripped from the headlines procedural.—RDL

Good

Every Anty Boisjoly Mystery (So Far) (Fiction, P.J. Fitzsimmons, 2020-2022) 1920s London clubman and layabout Anty Boisjoly solves impossible crimes, generally to clear the good name of a friend, aunt, or elephant. Fitzsimmons aims for “Bertie Wooster as Peter Wimsey” and gets about two-thirds of the way there, mostly. The mysteries are generally neatly done in their own right, and Boisjoly’s great blessing as narrator and detective is less his banter and piffle than his reliable good nature, which makes for pleasant reading. –KH

If These Walls Could Sing (Film, US/UK, Mary McCartney, 2022) Documentarian profiles Abbey Road studios, which she has known since she was an infant. For her dad, Sir Paul, the magic lay in the equipment; for John Williams, the acoustics; for everyone else, the mystique established by the Beatles.—RDL

John Wick: Chapter 4 (Film, US, Chad Stahelski, 2023) Granted dictatorial power to eliminate John Wick (Keanu Reeves), the snotty Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård) conscripts his only equal, Caine (Donny Yen). Fully descended (or ascended) into animated cartoon territory thanks not least to ridiculous bulletproof suits and an Arc de Triomphe shootout featuring over-CGI’d (and apparently massless) cars, this final entry in the franchise lives on half the set-pieces, an excellent turn as “the Hunter” by Shamier Anderson, and a blessedly clear end goal at long last. Dan Laustsen’s cinematography repeatedly exceeds itself as well. Reeves grinds himself down to play a John Wick stripped of almost all humanity, but there’s no point in psychological realism in a film with no other kind on display. –KH

Ship of Monsters (Film, Mexico, Rogelio A. González, 1960) Having captured monstrous specimens from elsewhere in the galaxy for the man-starved planet Venus, a duo of immodestly clad astronauts (Ana Bertha Lepe, Lorena Velázquez) land their rocketship in Chihuahua and set their sights on a fibbing vaquero (Eulalio González.) Engagingly nutty musical comedy horror SF whose titular monsters look like rotting, cancerous rejects from the Krofft brothers workshop.—RDL

Okay

Enys Men (Film, UK, Mark Jenkin, 2023) A volunteer (Mary Woodvine) alone on a rocky Cornish island in 1973 comes progressively unglued. There’s so much to like in this film, from the 16mm film it’s shot on, to the 1973-style direction, to the thoroughly unnerving sound design juxtaposed with beautiful nature photography, that it’s a shame it doesn’t cohere. I don’t mind the refusal to explain, but inexplicable should not be a synonym for meaningless. –KH

The Road to Singapore (Film, US, Alfred E. Green, 1931) In colonial Singapore, a cad with a heart of gold (William Powell) pursues the passionate neglected wife (Doris Kenyon) of a cloddish doctor (Louis Calhern.) Sweaty worldliness pervades a Pre-Code melodrama, based on a stage play, that fades a bit in its resolution. Not to be confused with the later Hope and Crosby vehicle Road to Singapore.—RDL

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Episode 542: Classic Snake Swap-Out

April 7th, 2023 | Robin

We begin in the Gaming Hut as beloved Patreon backer Ludovic Chabant asks for tips on porting the single-protagonist assumptions of much genre source material to the party-driven play typical to tabletop roleplaying.

The Cinema Hut takes place in the shadow of a certain monolith as installment ten of our Science Fiction Cinema Essentials reaches the late 60s and early 70s.

We’ve talked about sidekick campaigns before. In Ask Ken and Robin, revered backer Peter Adkison points out that we haven’t talked about running one centered around noted chrononaut Kenneth Hite.

Finally, the Consulting Occultist profiles 1st century prophet Alexander of Abonoteichus, begetter of the Glykon snake 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.

In Sunset City, there’s always something fishy going on … and we’re not talking tuna.  The magical kitties of Sunset City have their paws full of mystery. Thanks to our fine feline friends at Atlas Games, Magical Kitties Noir is now on Kickstarter.

The skies above New Olympus are patrolled by caped crusaders, but these superior beings are far from heroes. They wield their powers with reckless disregard, serving the interests of corporate overseers, and silencing those who oppose their will. You are Klara Koenig, investigative journalist for The Pedestrian newspaper, and you intend to prove the privileged superhuman elite do not yet hold a monopoly on justice. Welcome to Alteregomania: the newest setting for the GUMSHOE One-2-One system.

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!

Put on your flannels, grab your duffel bag of hardware and assemble your fake passports. Alert your retailer to the contents of their favorite unmarked warehouse. Delta Green: The Conspiracy, the revised, updated and declassified edition of the iconic 1990s sourcebook has escaped from Arc Dream Publishing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Parlett’s History of Board Games, Boston Strangler, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

April 4th, 2023 | Robin

Recommended

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Film, US, Laura Poitras, 2022) Documentary interweaves a biographical profile of groundbreaking photographer and chronicler of the 70s/80s NYC gay underground scene with a procedural study of her recent activist campaign to strip the Oxy-peddling Sackler family of its philanthropic associations in the museum world. Poitras ably overcomes the challenge of having too much essential material to assemble into one nonfictional narrative.—RDL

Boston Strangler (Film, US, Matt Ruskin, 2023) Driven reporter Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) teams with established pro Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) to break the story of the Boston Strangler serial killings and the incompetence of the local police investigation. Feminist true crime docudrama stands in the shadow of Zodiac but earns a bump to Recommended status for the script’s handling of the case’s tangle of uncertain resolutions.—RDL

Fahrenheit 451 (Film, UK, Francois Truffaut, 1966) In a totalitarian future where drug-dulled Americans refer to their widescreen televisions as family, a diffident member of the book-burning squad (Oskar Werner), egged on by a dissident neighbor (Julie Christie) who looks a lot like his conformist wife (Julie Christie), nurtures a secret yen for reading. The unemphatic mix of satire and political horror in this adaptation of the classic Ray Bradbury novel aroused confusion in its day but plays as absolutely contemporary now.—RDL

The Forgery of Venus (Fiction, Michael Gruber, 2008) After taking part in a study of the drug salvinorin, a failing artist hallucinates himself into the life of Velasquez and agrees to forge a previously unknown companion to the master’s Rokeby Venus. Art world literary thriller with touches of reality horror lends credence to its more fanciful plot developments with authentic portrayals of character and painting technique.—RDL

Parlett’s History of Board Games (Nonfiction, David Parlett, 2018) A partial revision of his 1999 Oxford History of Board Games, Parlett manages to squeeze a startling amount of information into a relatively small (375 pages) book. Even in 1999, the book had just missed the rise of Eurogames, and a brief overview of “Today’s Games” in this volume still takes us barely into the 1980s. However, for virtually everything before that, Parlett makes a superb first recourse. –KH

Good

Flashpoint (Comics, DC, Geoff Johns & Andy Kubert, 2012) Barry Allen awakens to find himself powerless in a world without Superman where Wonder Woman and Aquaman’s apocalyptic war threatens global survival. Solid by-the-numbers comic suffers from its origin as the frame story for a bloated DC crossover event; its non-Flash beats occasionally feel thin and somewhat unearned. The basis for the upcoming Flash movie. –KH

Flight Command (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1940) Achievement-chasing newbie (Robert Taylor) joins the Navy Hellcats squadron, ruffling his fellow flyers when he gets too close to the commander’s wife (Ruth Hussey.) Peacetime military drama was part of Hollywood’s, and Borzage’s, morale groundwork for America’s entry into the war.—RDL

You Never Can Tell (Film, US, Lou Breslow, 1951) Dog reincarnates  as a human detective (Dick Powell) to clear his human ward (Peggy Dow) of his poisoning death. The painstaking setting of its fantasy rules is not on the agenda for this extremely peculiar comedy.—RDL

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