January « 2025 « Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Archive for January, 2025

Ken and Robin Consume Media: New Donnie Yen, Black Doves, A Ghost Story for Christmas, and Gender-Flipped Conan in the Bardo Thodol

January 14th, 2025 | 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.

Day of Anger (Film, Italy, Tonino Valerii, 1968) To get out of a town that treats him as a wretched outcast, a young man who has been practicing his fast draw (Giuliano Gemma) seeks apprenticeship under a cynical gunslinger (Lee van Cleef) ruthlessly pursuing an old debt. Offers unusually strong characterization and dialogue for a spaghetti western, a subgenre that typically paints with broader strokes.—RDL

A Ghost Story for Christmas Series 1 (Television, UK, BBC, Lawrence Gordon Clark, 1971-1978) Shot on film, not videotape, these horror shorts share a rich, haunted look and (with the exception of the final film, made without Clark’s involvement) feel. Of the eight shorts, five are solidly Recommended: the first four M.R. James adaptations and “The Signalman” (based on the Dickens story). “The Ash Tree” lets its timeslip get away from it, although the spider-things are truly horrendous; “Stigma” is a one-note folk horror shaggy dog, and “The Ice House” (the only Okay one in the batch) suffers from truly bizarre line readings and a distinct lack of ghost. —KH

She is Conann (Film, France, Bertrand Mandico, 2023) Guided by a dog-headed psychopomp (Elina Löwensohn), the legendary avatar of slaughter Conann the Barbarian (Françoise Brion) goes on an afterlife recapitulation of her past personae: traumatized teen (Claire Duburcq), implacable warrior (Christa Théret), 80s Bronx scenester (Sandra Parfait), near-future dictator (Agata Buzek) and death-seeking decadent (Nathalie Richard.) Surreal bardo thodol odyssey invokes the spirits of Méliès and Greenaway as it queers the tropes and characters of Robert E. Howard.—RDL

The Score (Fiction, Richard Stark, 1964) Master thief Parker overlooks initial objections to run an operation to knock off an entire North Dakota mining town. An original heist premise provides the foundation for an extra existential installment of the hardboiled realist crime series.—RDL

The Stool Pigeon (Film, Hong Kong, Dante Lam, 2010) Guilt-ridden cop (Nick Cheung) presses an ex-con street racer (Nicolas Tse) to join and inform on a ruthless robbery crew. Bathed in the last vestiges of Hong Kong neon, this crime drama brings hard action and harder fatalistic melodrama.—RDL

The Prosecutor (Film, China/HK, Donnie Yen, 2024) Veteran cop turned rookie prosecutor (Donnie Yen) detects a wider conspiracy in the case of a poor young man charged with receiving a package of cocaine. Martial arts meets aggressively sincere courtroom drama in a star vehicle that begins to question whether anyone, including Donnie Yen, should be making Donnie Yen still get kicked around like this.—RDL

Vertical (Fiction, Cody Goodfellow, 2023) Traumatized urban explorer rejoins his former crew under duress for one last exploit: climbing Moscow’s Korova Tower before its opening. Goodfellow’s superb horror reflexes energize this relatively straightforward thriller, wringing real suspense from standard beats of paranoia, disaster, and betrayal.—KH

Good

Black Doves Season 1 (Television, UK, Netflix, Joe Barton, 2024) When Helena’s (Keira Knightley) lover is killed, she risks her position as a spy planted on (and wife of) the UK Defence Minister (Andrew Buchan) to hunt down those responsible. Let us be frank with one another: unless it’s a real dog’s breakfast, “Keira Knightley spy thriller” is going to get at least a Good from me, assuming Keira both smiles and shoots people. Sterner critics might praise Ben Whishaw’s steady performance as her hit-man protector, or enjoy the occasional descent into Ritchified low comedy, but they would probably also point out that none of it is remotely plausible, tactically or even emotionally.—KH

The Entity (Film, US, Sidney J. Furie, 1982) Targeted by a rapist poltergeist, beleaguered single mom (Barbara Hershey) seeks help from an intense doctor (Ron Silver) and then a team of earnest parapsychologists. Adapted from his own novel by Frank de Felitta and blithely misrepresenting a real case, this psychotoxic dose of eliptonic horror gains disorienting power from its mix of disreputable subject matter and mainstream, naturalistic presentation. The premise is the content warning.—RDL

Eye of the Devil (Film, UK, J. Lee Thompson, 1966) When her husband the Marquis de Monfaucon (David Niven) returns suddenly to his ancestral chateau to deal with a drought killing the vineyards, his wife Catherine (Deborah Kerr) follows and discovers strange cult goings-on. Although its momentum suffers from the last-minute reshoots (Kerr replacing an injured Kim Novak; Thompson was the fourth director on the project), the resulting dreamlike imagery and discordance keep things well and truly uncanny. Sharon Tate and David Hemmings as weird witch-twins, meanwhile, strangely imply that modernism is the new paganism.—KH

Shopworn (Film, US, Nick Grinde, 1932) When a charming waitress (Barbara Stanwyck) and an ardent med student (Regis Toomey) inform his wealthy mother (Clara Blandick) of their wish to marry, she goes to deranged lengths to separate them. Romantic melodrama burns with good old fashioned class animosity.—RDL

Tags: Ken and Robin Consume Media

Posted in Audio Free | No Comments »

Episode 631: A Vestigial Nub

January 10th, 2025 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut Robin discusses his recently concluded Golden Age DC superheroes versus the Cthulhu mythos game.

Travel Advisory recalls our visit to the British Museum’s current Silk Roads exhibition.

If we’re thinking about stuff that happened while we were in London, longtime listeners know what that means: Ken’s Bookshelf lovingly lists the purchases our hero made at Treadwell’s and Foyles.

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.

Stop gazing lovingly at that seed catalogue and start pre-ordering Vicious Gardens from Atlas Games. This contemporary, distinctive, choice driven card game combines the joy of gardening with the thrill of being a total jerk. Strategically cultivate your garden, harvest plants, and sabotage others in a cut-throat competition.

A global mythos conspiracy ensnares the player characters in The Borellus Connection, Pelgrane Press’ new Fall of DELTA Green mega-campaign by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and Kenneth Hite. Journey in the guise of federal narcotics agents to Saigon, Beirut, Prague and Bozukepe. Buy it for your GM and demand that she run it today!

Don your pallid mask and get all the Ken, Carcosa, and footnotes you require now that Arc Dream’s The King in Yellow: Annotated Edition is now available in paperback and ebook formats. With stunning art by Samuel Araya, this lavish tome of terror earns a space on any shelf.

Turn your digital dials to Gen Con TV, The Best Four Days in Gaming – All Year Long. Entirely free and streaming your way on Twitch, Gen Con TV offers actual plays, reviews, dramatized gaming shorts, minis painting and its flagship show, Table Talk, beaming to you Fridays at 2 pm with polyhedral news you’re dying to use.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: Gaming hut, Ken's Bookshelf, Travel Advisory

Posted in Podcast | No Comments »

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Nosferatu, Wallace & Gromit, and Anglo-Saxon Monsters

January 7th, 2025 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Nosferatu (Film, US, Robert Eggers, 2024) Obsessed with fey dreamer Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) lures her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) to Transylvania to convey him to her home of Wisborg. Remake of Murnau’s 1922 Pinnacle enriches it with reference to Stoker’s novel, Browning’s film, and The Exorcist among other influences, while presenting the Gothic world on its own terms as only Eggers can. Robin Carolan’s unnerving score, Jarin Blaschke’s perfectly lit darkness, and the actors’ total commitment are only the high points of the best Nosferatu in a century.—KH

History of the Occult (Film, Argentina/Mexico, Christian Ponce, 2020) As a canceled investigative news program ticks down its last broadcast in 1987, its producers (Nadia Lozano, Augustín Recondo, Ivan Ezquerré) desperately try to uncover the piece of evidence that will unlock a black-magic conspiracy at the heart of the Argentine establishment. Superb reality horror justifies the formal experimentation, which veers from retro noir to discontinuous narrative to … —KH

Uprising (Film, South Korea, Kim Sang-man, 2024) The bond between a defiant slave who learns fighting moves with eidetic memory (Gang Dong-wan) and the feckless young noble he trains (Park Jeong-Min) turns to deadly enmity against the backdrop of the 16th century Japanese invasion of Korea. Violent period action epic pulls off all the turns of its complicated, story-packed narrative structure. Old Boy’s Park Chan-wook produced and contributed to the screenplay.—RDL

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Film, UK, Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham, 2025) Inveterate inventor Wallace (Ben Whitehead) neglects the misgivings of loyal pooch Gromit to create an overeager robot garden gnome (Reese Shearsmith), creating an opportunity for imprisoned nemesis Feathers McGraw. Brilliantly and lovingly sustains the energy of the original “Wrong Trousers” short, with an all-time great animation performance of cinema’s foremost deadpan penguin arch-villain. Whitehead’s recreates the late Peter Sallis’ vocal role as Wallace with astonishing fidelity.—RDL

Good

Drive-Away Dolls (Film, US, Ethan Coen, 2024) Hyper-verbal Jamie (Margaret Qualley) invites herself on her uptight friend Marian’s (Geraldine Viswanathan) road trip to Tallahassee, which unfortunately involves a car sought by a criminal Chief (Colman Domingo). Fun and funny lesbian hangout movie lacks Joel Coen’s mordancy and touch of horror, which doesn’t make it bad, but does make it kind of interchangeable (Qualley’s delightful performance notwithstanding) with every good 90s road trip sex-comedy movie.—KH

Room 999 (Film, France, Lubna Playoust, 2023) In a followup to a film with the same format made by Wim Wenders in 1988, directors attending Cannes, including Wenders, Cronenberg, Denis and Luhrmann, tell a camera in a hotel room whether they think the language of cinema is dying. The question of this thought-provoking snack for deep-dive auteur cinema fans mostly acts as a synecdoche for “are you an optimist or a pessimist?”—RDL

Safe Conduct (Film, France, Bertrand Tavernier, 2002) In occupied Paris, womanizing screenwriter Jean Aurenche (Denis Podalydès) resists recruitment efforts by a German-run studio; meanwhile, intense assistant director Jean Devaivre (Jacques Gamblin) works for them while committing acts of sabotage for the Resistance. The wartime setting of this indulgently paced intimate epic intensifies the stakes of Tavernier’s core concern, how one lives life with dignity in difficult circumstances.—RDL

Okay

My Old Ass (Film, Canada, Megan Park, 2024) To mark her last summer on the family cranberry farm, a college-bound queer teen (Maisy Stella) meets, via mushroom trip, her older self (Aubrey Plaza), who warns her to steer clear of charming doofus Chad (Percy Hynes White.) Bolts magic realism and Aubrey Plaza onto an eager-to-please coming of age yarn.—RDL

Tags: Ken and Robin Consume Media

Posted in Audio Free | No Comments »