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Archive for July, 2023

Episode 558: Any Other Stupid Cave Lake

July 28th, 2023 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer Hector Trelane asks us to discuss the Jeepform game design movement.

A Crime Blotter investigation has us looking at Captagon, a licit pharmaceutical product that traveled from Germany to the Eastern Bloc and finally morphed into a war-fighting or party drug with a geopolitical reach throughout the Middle East.

In the Cinema Hut Science Fiction Film Essential series we look at 9/11’s impact on the genre.

And finally the Consulting Occultist regales us with tales true and folkloric concerning Ursula Southill, remembered by history as the witch and prophetess Mother Shipton.

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.

Waggle your tiny clawed arms in delight! The 5E edition of Planegea, Atlas Games’ setting of primordial fantasy wonder, has arrived. Whether you’re a saurian or shimmering, dreamwalking elf, you’ll want to grab the campaign setting book, as well as accessories like the GM screen, adventures, soundtrack, and deluxe boxed edition while that meteor remains safely in the sky above.

Even Death Can Die, the breathlessly-awaited scenario book for Cthulhu Confidential, is now in print at an eldritch game store near you, or in the Pelgrane web store. Thrill to three hardboiled Lovecraftian adventures apiece from stalwart investigators Langston Wright, Vivian Sinclair, and Dex Raymond, all for one player and one GM.

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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Tags: Cinema hut, Consulting Occultist, Crime Blotter, Gaming hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Classic Logo Design, Avant Garde Color Guard, and Noir Rarities

July 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.

By Design: The Joe Caroff Story (Film, US, Mark Cerutti, 2022) Arts profile documentary sits down the legendary graphic designer responsible for the West Side Story poster, the 007 logo and the Last Temptation of Christ title treatment among many others to learn the thought processes behind their creation.—RDL

Contemporary Color (Film, US, Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross, 2016) Ten high school color guard squads stage an arena performance with the music stars, including St. Vincent, Ad Rock, Nelly Furtado, and organizer David Byrne, who have composed songs for them. Vibrant documentary paean to the affirming joys of joint creative work under pressure.—RDL

Cry of the City (Film, US, Robert Siodmak, 1948) Wounded cop killer Martin Rome (Richard Conte) attempts to evade detective Candella (Victor Mature) and venal lawyer Niles (Berry Kroeger) to escape with (some) loot and his girl. Taut script provides magnificent character beats for not just ultra-weasel Kroeger but Shelley Winters, Kathleen Howard, and the wonderfully menacing Hope Emerson. A best-of-breed Siodmak B noir. –KH

Good

Kingdom (Film, Japan, 2019) Brash slave intent on rising to fame as a general (Kento Yamazaki) aids the deposed Qin king (Ryô Yoshizawa) as he allies with a hill barbarian army to reclaim his throne. Sometimes on-the-nose but ultimately rousing Warring States epic with a mythic manga sensibility. To clear up or intensify any confusion, yes, it depicts Chinese history but features a Japanese cast speaking Japanese.—RDL

Pitch Black (Film, US, David Twohy, 2000) The determined pilot (Radha Mitchell) of a crashed spaceship reluctantly teams with a prison-bound murderer (Vin Diesel) to protect passengers from the planet’s darkness-dwelling apex predators. Solid exercise in SF problem-solving held back by clumsily executed or insufficiently examined elements.—RDL

Raw Deal (Film, US, Anthony Mann, 1948) Escaped heister Joe Sullivan (Dennis O’Keefe) and his partner Pat (Claire Trevor) kidnap Joe-besotted paralegal Ann (Marsha Hunt) to get past the dragnet. John Alton’s paradigmatic noir cinematography, and wonderfully monstrous villain Raymond Burr, are the real standouts in a pulp wallow where Mann visibly (but sporadically) finds his feet as a director of cruelty and fate. –KH

What Have You Done To Solange? (Film, Italy/Germany, Massimo Dallamano, 1972) Philandering teacher Enrico (Fabio Testi) finds himself embroiled as a serial killer murders girls at his school. Exploitative and misogynistic even by giallo standards, it nonetheless features strong mystery plotting and pacing, an ominous Morricone score, and confident if not brilliant camera work. To clear up or intensify any confusion, yes, it depicts an English school but features an Italian cast speaking dubbed English. –KH

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Episode 557: All Four-Sided

July 21st, 2023 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut, beloved Patreon backer Michael David Jr. wants to know how to fold the 19th century French interest in Ancient Egypt into The Yellow King Roleplaying Game.

In the Food Hut we look at gum arabic, a ubiquitous ingredient in processed food and other products whose worldwide supply is now threatened as a side consequence of the Sudan conflict.

The Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials series turns a dissociated, paranoid corner into the 21st century.

Finally, it’s once more time to ask a perennial Eliptony Hut question, here posed by estimable backer Tennant Reed (and we paraphrase) “Is this latest wave of UFO hoo-hah, unlike the other ones you talked about, a thing?”

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.

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Tags: Cinema hut, Eliptony Hut, Food Hut, Gaming hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mission Impossible, Uncanny Wartime Paris, and A Movie About, Uh, Dungeons and [Checks Notes] Dragons

July 18th, 2023 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Paris Noir: The Secret History of a City (Fiction and/or Nonfiction, Jacques Yonnet, 1954) Hiding from the Gestapo among down and outers of the 5th arrondissement, a Resistance operative with an antiquarian bent learns their often uncanny secrets. Enchanting concoction of wartime memoir, demimonde anthropology, psychogeography, and weird horror. The author’s preferred title, Rue des Maléfices (Witchcraft Street) better conveys its spirit .—RDL

AKA (Film, France, Morgan S. Dalibert, 2023) Lethally competent DGSE operative (Alban Lenoir) returns to France to infiltrate the household of a gangster linked to a terror suspect (Kevin Layne.) Centers realistically drawn characters in its ambitious mix of hard action, political thriller, and the undercover cop crime drama.—RDL

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Film, US, John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein, 2023) Bard master planner (Chris Pine) and his barbarian comrade (Michelle Rodriguez) assemble a band of adventurers to reclaim his daughter from their double-crossing former partner (Hugh Grant.) In addition to solid fight choreography, smart obstacle building and engaging performances, this serves as an object lesson in executing a light, breezy tone in a geek-forward IP adaptation. There are plenty of jokes, but they’re never telling you that the source material is fundamentally stupid and unworthy of the filmmakers’ attention.—RDL

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2023) Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and skilled thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) must evade every nation’s secret agents plus the enigmatic Gabriel (Esai Morales) to obtain the key to a rogue AI called The Entity. Frontloading the exposition changes the dynamic of this film from the familiar beats of the franchise, as it tries to wryly sum up and cap itself. Not the strongest in the series, but a worthy beginning of the end. And yes the motorcycle jump is amazing. —KH

Open Your Eyes (Film, Spain, Alejandro Amenabar, 1997) After a jilted lover nearly kills him in a car accident, a formerly handsome, now disfigured hotel heir (Eduardo Noriega) bitterly pursues his dream girl (Penelope Cruz) and experiences a series of reality breaks. Moody existential mystery subsequently remade as Vanilla Sky, also with Cruz.—RDL

Good

Kagero-za (Film, Japan, Seijun Suzuki, 1981) A playwright (Yûsaku Matsuda) succumbs to a surreal entanglement with various women in the orbit of a gun-toting rich eccentric (Katsuo Nakamura.) Striking images dominate cinema’s most accurate evocation of what it feels like to keep falling back into the same frustrating dream.—RDL

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Episode 556: We Touched the Thing in Tomb of Horrors

July 14th, 2023 | Robin

Beloved Patreon backer and longtime GM David Rourke convenes us in the Gaming Hut to ask, is it okay if running published adventures doesn’t work for you?

Travel Advisory features a report from Ken on his recent trip to the Diversão Offline game convention in São Paulo, Brazil.

The Cinema Hut Science Fiction Essentials Series becomes ever more entangled in issues of selfhood and identity as we cover the back stretch of the 1990s.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine finds our chrono-here looking for salubrious adjustments to the Qing invasion of Korea in 1636.

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.

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Tags: Cinema hut, Gaming hut, Ken's Time Machine, Travel Advisory

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: 19th Century Spirit Photography, the Granddaddy of Police Procedurals, and Chow Yun-Fat as a Weirdo Columbo

July 11th, 2023 | Robin

The Goddess (Film, US, John Cromwell, 1958) The insecurity of childhood emotional neglect eats away at a woman (Kim Stanley) as she rises from small town lust object to Hollywood star. Full-throated fifties method acting drives home every moment of Paddy Chayefsky’s lacerating, psychologically penetrating script.—RDL

Hell Dogs (Film, Japan, Masato Harada, 2022) Rogue ex-cop (Jun’ichi Okada) comes in from the cold of a vengeful kill spree to go undercover as a yakuza bodyguard. A knack for surprising moments and staging marks this mix of underworld intrigue with heroic bloodshed themes of brotherhood and betrayal.—RDL

Love Unto Waste (Film, HK, Stanley Kwan, 1986) A rich merchant’s wastrel son (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) falls in with a singer, a model, and an actress; when one of them is murdered, an eccentric detective (Chow Yun-Fat) insinuates himself into their lives. A prime example of the French New Wave’s influence on the golden age of HK cinema, this drama of bohemian angst unsettles by flirting with, and then veering away from, the murder mystery genre.—RDL

Peterloo (Film, US, Mike Leigh, 2019) Pro-democracy activists bring famed orator Henry Hunt to address a protest gathering in 1819 Manchester, provoking a deadly response from the city’s reactionary magistrates, Working in his meticulous historical recreation mode, Leigh zeroes in on the manners and gestures of political activity, depicting the foibles of his heroes and the grotesquerie of his villains.—RDL

Good

The Naked City (Film, US, Jules Dassin, 1948) NYPD homicide detectives Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Halloran (Don Taylor) investigate the murder of a model. Against the almost neo-realist background of Manhattan’s “low and high”, the extensive use of verite-style location shots, and Dassin’s riveting chase climax, one must balance the jabbering voice-overs by the producer and various vox pops and the almost entirely routine story and acting. The result: a Good film that became perhaps the most influential police procedural ever made: Law and Order, Homicide, and every other cop show apes this movie. So, Recommended for film or cultural historians. –KH

Okay

The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost (Nonfiction, Peter Manseau, 2017) During the Spiritualist blossoming of the mid 19th century, photographer William Mumler goes into business making images of sitters with spectral visitors, leading to bunco charges in New York City. Mumler, an unassuming and sedentary character, did not leave a book’s worth of colorful life to document, requiring the author to also profile a number of other figures whose connection to the main narrative is not always apparent.—RDL

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Episode 555: Do We Get a Deal for Seven?

July 7th, 2023 | Robin

The Gaming Hut looks at collaborative worldbuilding.

Our Cinema Hut Science Fiction Cinema Essentials series reaches the back half of the 90s.

In Ask Ken and Robin, beloved Patreon backer Kevin Greenlee asks how to fit DramaSystem into other games.

Finally the Consulting Occultist tells the tale of a magical assassination plot aimed at Edward II.

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 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.

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Tags: Ask Ken and Robin, Cinema hut, Consulting Occultist, Gaming hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Indiana Jones, Asteroid City, and an Alternate Oppenheimer

July 5th, 2023 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Asteroid City (Film, US, Wes Anderson, 2023) Grieving war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) navigates a panoply of emotional impacts during an elaborate science fair in the titular small town. Presenting his latest film as a film-of-a-play-within-a-TV-special, Anderson triples down on criticisms of his “artificial” style and methods, arguing more fiercely than ever that without artifice, art cannot exist. Anderson’s wondrous occult masterpiece rings with stellar performances from an immense cast, perhaps none better than Willem Dafoe as an acting teacher who explains the meaning of the film in about 45 seconds. –KH

Batman: The Dark Knight: Master Race (Comics, DC, Frank Miller & Brian Azzarello and Andy Kubert & Klaus Janson, 2018) When the Atom unwisely enlarges a Kandorian murder cult, old Batman and young Batgirl must enlist the reluctant Justice League to defeat them. DC wisely put two governors on the project to avoid the wild-swing-disastrous-miss that was DKII, and both Azzarello and Kubert channel Miller’s power without going nuts. The result: a high-stakes operatic super-battle like you love to see, interspersed with Miller & Janson’s almost sketchbook style art in the backup stories. –KH

The Oppenheimer Alternative (Fiction, Robert J. Sawyer, 2020) Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer builds the atomic bomb but uncovers an even more apocalyptic secret. I almost hesitate to describe even the nature of the twist in this very realistic, “you were there” narrative of Oppenheimer’s life, but suffice to say Sawyer wrings tension masterfully from this secret history turned alternate history. –KH

Sing and Like It (Film, US, William A. Seiter, 1934) Inexplicably moved by the terrible singing of an amateur actress (Zazu Pitts), a sentimental mob boss (Nat Pendleton) decides to put her on Broadway, foisting her on a long-suffering producer (Edward Everett Horton.) Snappy showbiz comedy gives witty dialogue to actors who know what to do with it.—RDL

Good

Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! (Film, Italy, Giuilio Questi, 1967) Betrayed bushwhacker’s (Tomas Milan) quest for gold and vengeance goes off the rails in a town populated by noose-happy hypocrites. With its psychosexual brutality and the characters’ dreamlike disinclination to protect themselves, this Spaghetti western presages the amoral universe of 70s Italian horror.—RDL

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Film, US, James Mangold, 2023) His god-daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) summons an aging Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) out of retirement and into the unfinished business from one of his WWII adventures. Much like The Force Awakens, this fifth installment essentially assembles itself from beats of its original trilogy. Eerie de-aging CGI becomes uncanny valley CGI (or just bad green screens) too often for Mangold’s great chase sequence instincts to work (and they’re usually too long, to boot), and he lacks Spielberg’s balletic gifts among other things – but at the end of the day, this is a pretty good end of the day for Indy. –KH

Okay

White Noise (Film, US, Noah Baumbach, 2022) Cultural studies prof (Adam Driver) and his anxious wife (Greta Gerwig) struggle to protect their kids during and after an Airborne Toxic Event. This broad, stylized satire would more accurately convey the spirit and meaning of Don DeLillo’s seminal novel if Baumbach had shot it in his usual naturalistic style.—RDL

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Archive for July, 2023

Episode 558: Any Other Stupid Cave Lake

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Classic Logo Design, Avant Garde Color Guard, and Noir Rarities

Recommended

Good

Episode 557: All Four-Sided

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mission Impossible, Uncanny Wartime Paris, and A Movie About, Uh, Dungeons and [Checks Notes] Dragons

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Episode 556: We Touched the Thing in Tomb of Horrors

Ken and Robin Consume Media: 19th Century Spirit Photography, the Granddaddy of Police Procedurals, and Chow Yun-Fat as a Weirdo Columbo

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 555: Do We Get a Deal for Seven?

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Indiana Jones, Asteroid City, and an Alternate Oppenheimer

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Okay

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