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Archive for June, 2025

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mission: Impossible, Attila the Hun, and Vintage Fantasy Films

June 17th, 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.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Film, Germany, Lotte Reiniger, 1926) Heroic prince battles monsters and an evil magician to save the lovely ruler of a demon island. Cinema’s first animated feature is a straight up swords and sorcery yarn, shot in a beguiling, delicate style with articulated 2D silhouette figures.—RDL

Lost Horizon (Film, US, Frank Capra, 1937) Diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman) and four others get hijacked to the peaceful realm of Shangri-La. 21st-century viewers may find Capra slow going, not willing to relax into the scenic and cultural idyll he paints. But there’s a scorpion sting in the tail (and occasional other places) that provide the needed venom beneath the seemingly placid (and visually arresting) action.—KH

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2025) Superspy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) continues his quest for the source code that can unmake the Entity, a rogue A.I. destroying truth and threatening apocalypse. Alternately talky and taut, the film does a creditable job of rounding off the whole franchise with one last world-saving mission. Also worth examining as part of Cruise’s lengthy cri de coeur for reality and story in film over AI, CGI, IP, and the other besetting sins of the current age.—KH

Zvenygora (Film, Russia, Alexander Dovzhenko, 1928) During the 1917 German invasion of Russia, an old man and his grandson scheme to find the cursed treasure buried in a magic mountain. Allegorical fantasy with a weird hypnagogic intensity has a lot of mystical Ukrainian nationalism in it for a film its director thought would win over Party cultural apparatchiks.—RDL

Good

Attila the Hun: A Barbarian King and the Fall of Rome (Nonfiction, John Man, 2005) Historical biography traces the rise of the Huns, the impact exerted by the titular leader as he occupied the Balkans and threatened the 5th century Roman Empire(s), and his outsized role in later myth. A solid comprehensive treatment weighed down by putatively flavorful you-are-there-while-I-talk-to-this-museum-curator narrative flourishes.—RDL

Blue Light (Film, Germany, Leni Riefenstahl, 1932) Travelers in a mountain town read the story of Junta (Riefenstahl), a fey “witch” who could climb to the inaccessible blue crystal grotto, and the stranger Vigo (Mathias Wieman) who loves and destroys her. Magnificent climbing sequences provide the highlight of this alternately sententious and tender film, which aims for mysticism and achieves it only sporadically.—KH

Monkey Man (Film, US, Dev Patel, 2024) Man employed as a simian-masked human punching bag at underground MMA matches (Dev Patel) infiltrates a high end nightclub/brothel on a mission of vengeance. Intense actioner blunts its impact by withholding its revenge motivation sequence until the end of act two, instead of putting it up front where it belongs.—RDL

Okay

Destiny (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1921) A grief-stricken young woman (Lil Dagover) begs a weary, remorseful Death (Bernhard Goetzke) to spare her fiance, prompting him to show her vignettes of his inevitable power set in Arabia, Renaissance Italy, and a fanciful China. The heavy hand of Orientalism weighs down this mordant anthology film of the fantastic.—RDL

Fascinatingly Wrong

The Wizard of Oz (Film, US, Larry Semon, 1925) After henchmen from Oz arrive in a biplane to assassinate their unknowing rightful queen Dorothy (Dorothy Dwan), she is whisked there by a tornado, where her farmhand friends (Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Curtis McHenry) dress up as a scarecrow, a tin man and a lion. Now-forgotten slapstick star Semon ruined his finances and health with this massive flop, which audiences perhaps thought would bear some resemblance to L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. CW: racism.—RDL

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Episode 653: Flankington’s Syndrome

June 13th, 2025 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut beloved Patreon backer Michael Cule wants to know more about the role dice play in roleplaying games.

Fun With Science answers estimable backer Jurie Horneman’s request to look into a case of brain diagnosis by inner voices.

The Cinema Hut kicks off our tour through Fantasy Film Essentials with the formative titles of the silent era.

Finally in Ken’s Time Machine our resident chrononaut reveals the dread timelines prevented by his intervention in the sinking of the galleon San Jose during Wager’s Action.

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!

Get caught in the spiral with God’s Teeth, a new set of pulse-pounding Delta Green scenarios dripping with the once and future corruption of a nation swirling into cruelty and spite. From a government panopticon to alien worms to an app-driven mass shooter, your agents have nothing to fear but every screaming headline.

Play spies, skirmishers, and saboteurs in the battle for the future of the Thirteen Colonies in Flagbearer Games’ thoroughly researched and beautifully illustrated 5E compatible roleplaying game Nations and Cannons. Jump into the early actions of the war with the new campaign guide The American Crisis, available as a PDF or for print pre-order.

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Tags: Cinema hut, Fun with Science, Gaming hut, Ken's Time Machine

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Andor, The Phoenician Scheme, Ballerina

June 10th, 2025 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Andor Season 2 (Television, US, Disney+, Tony Gilroy, 2025) Run by an increasingly ruthless Luthen (Stellan Skarsgard), Cassian earns his spurs as an Alliance intelligence officer; Dedra (Denise Gough) and Syril (Kyle Soller) assist a genocidal Imperial resource extraction scheme. Packed with incident, constantly forwarding its story, this suspenseful, incisive meditation on authoritarianism and the compromises needed to defeat it does serialized television right.—RDL

Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney (Television, Netflix, John Mulaney, 2025) This second season of Mulaney’s talk show sadly proves less wonderfully shambolic than the first, but Letterman-style stunts (lining up 25 men by height, Mulaney fighting three 14-year-olds) go some distance to erase the second-season polish. The live remotes are much missed (replaced by clearly producer-driven “Mulaney in the wild” type segments), the taped comedy hits a peak early (a focus group entirely made up of actors who have played Willy Loman) and doesn’t quite hit thereafter. But given the desuetude of the American talk show nowadays, Mulaney still provides a joyful refresher.—KH

Hilma (Film, Sweden, Lasse Hallström, 2022) Obsessive painter Hilma af Klint (Tora Hallström/Lena Olin) flummoxes the 1880s Swedish art establishment by inspiring a collective of spiritualist women, including jealous lover Anna Cassel (Catherine Clark), to fashion her pioneering works of abstract art. Hallström’s script avoids biopic syndrome by rigorously hewing to its emotional and thematic throughline. Due to vagaries of film financing this extremely Swedish film is in English.—RDL

Juror #2 (Film, US, Clint Eastwood, 2024) Doting expectant father and recovering alcoholic (Nicholas Hoult) gets seated on a murder jury, only to realize that he’s the responsible party in the victim’s death. Calmly observant courtroom drama plays its melodramatic premise straight, more moral fable than thriller.—RDL

The Monk and the Gun (Film, Bhutan, Pawo Choyning Dorji, 2023) When election officials arrive in a remote village to stage a practice vote prior to Bhutan’s transition to democracy, a lama orders his junior monk to find him a pair of guns, so he can make things right. Gently amusing, breathtakingly photographed social realist comedy.—RDL

The Order (Film, US, Justin Kurzel, 2025) Reassigned to a rural field office, an FBI agent on the edge (Jude Law) investigates an Aryan Nations terrorist splinter group led by a charismatic young philanderer (Nicholas Hoult.) Tense true crime police procedural mirrors its characters against expansive landscape.—RDL

The Phoenician Scheme (Film, US, Wes Anderson, 2025) Unscrupulous arms dealer-fixer Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) survives his sixth plane crash and decides to name his novitiate daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) as his heir, so that his scheme to bring water and transport to Phoenicia will outlive him. Behind a series of sketches presented as business negotiations, Anderson tells a story of morality and redemption; his most Coen-Brothers-esque film can’t be his finest, but it’s great great fun.—KH

The Phoenician Scheme (Film, US, Wes Anderson, 2025) After yet another assassination attempt resulting in a fiery airplane crash, a ruthless businessman (Benicio del Toro) plucks his estranged daughter (Mia Threapleton) from her impending vows as a nun to accompany him as he attempts to knit back together a massive infrastructure deal in a fictive Saharan nation. With less grief and fewer layers than usual for Anderson, this journey into recondite silliness plays like one of his animated features, albeit with actors who move more than a frame at a time.—RDL

Wasp (Fiction, Eric Frank Russell, 1957) Inserted into the hostile and totalitarian Sirian Combine, James Mowry begins a one-man campaign of propaganda, sabotage, and distraction to tie down the enemy forces long enough for Earth to strike a fatal blow. Barring a few super-chemicals and an interstellar radio, the SF level of this WWII war story is almost nonexistent, but as a thrilling adventure it’s hard to beat. Unlike many similar works, Russell constantly conveys the danger of enemy countermeasures; both Mowry and his foes get lucky just enough for verisimilitude.—KH

Good

Ballerina (Film, US, Len Wiseman, 2025) To avenge her father’s death at the hands of the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas) joins the Ruska Roma to learn the assassin’s art. The marketing tag “From the World of John Wick” tells you everything wrong with this movie: it slogs through a bunch of Wickiverse world-building before it gets to the bang-bang. The fights are universally great to jaw-dropping; Stahelski (who allegedly re-shot them in post) convincingly sells tiny Ana fighting guys whose legs weigh more than she does. Two of the fight scenes in here are all-timers, but Keanu looks tired of the whole idea in both his cameos.—KH

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Episode 652: Break a Window and Wait for Film Night

June 6th, 2025 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we talk roleplaying the French Revolution at the behest of beloved Patreon backer Dr. Nick.

The Tradecraft Hut profiles English spy George Blake.

The Cinema Hut kicks off a new Fantasy Film Essentials series by examining the boundary of the genre and setting some ground rules.

Finally the Consulting Occultist obeys the command of estimable backer Justin Mohareb, who wants to know about Kabbalists who used their powers against fascism.

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.

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.

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Tags: Cinema hut, Consulting Occultist, Gaming hut, Tradecraft Hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Last Bullet, Die Nibelungen, and John Buchan’s Template for Folk Horror

June 3rd, 2025 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Die Niebelungen Part I: Siegfried (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1924) Teutonic hero Siegfried (Paul Richter) kills a dragon and steals the cursed treasure of the Niebelungs on his way to woo Kriemhild (Margarete Schön), princess of the Burgundians. Richter is a stiff, but even that might be on purpose in Lang’s obsessively composed, highly stylized take on the medieval epic poem. Nearly every shot is one that generations of filmmakers will later swipe, which makes watching the original an experience in fantastic deja vu.—KH

Die Niebelungen Part II: Kriemhild’s Revenge (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1924) When her weakling brother King Gunther (Theodor Loos) refuses to execute his adviser Hagen (Hans Adalbert Schlettow) for the murder of Siegfried, Kriemhild (Margarete Schön) marries Attila the Hun (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) to get revenge on her countrymen. As wild and dark as Part I was orderly and bright, this film strips the fantasy from legend, leaving behind only cruelty. Schön’s superb face-acting carries and centers the film, which might otherwise fly apart in chaos; even Klein-Rogge’s Attila is weirdly passive despite a lot of shouting.—KH

Last Bullet (Film, France, Guillaume Pierret, 2025) Hard-kicking, high-speeding driver Lino (Alban Lenoir) returns from custody in Spain to reluctantly help ex-partner Julie (Stéfi Celma) protect Areski (Nicolas Duvauchelle), killer of his mentor and his brother, until he can testify against his even worse corrupt cop boss. Astutely starting in mid-action and letting us catch up on the plot reset as we go along, this rounds out the Bullet trilogy in a suitably rousing rain of shattered vehicle parts.—RDL

My Heart is That Eternal Rose (Film, HK, Patrick Tam, 1988) Now an assassin for hire, a man (Kenny Bee) returns to Hong Kong to reunite with his teenage love (Joey Wang), who became a gangster’s girlfriend to secure his safe escape from the city. Dreamy heroic bloodshed in which romance replaces brotherhood as the central motif, with Christopher Doyle cinematography, a baby-faced Tony Leung Chiu Wai in the Nick Carraway role, and Gordon Liu cast against type as a sleazeball.—RDL

T’n’T: Telzey and Trigger (Fiction, James H. Schmitz, 2000) Eight stories, mostly written between 1970 and 1972, continue Schmitz’ super-tech, psionic, interstellar “Federation of the Hub” future to its near conclusion. Three superb novellas (“Child of the Gods,” “Ti’s Toys,” and “The Symbiotes”) effectively blur the line between seemingly omnipotent SF and stark horror; the only flaw of “Glory Day,” the promised team-up between super-psi Telzey and crack shot Trigger, is that it’s only novelette length. In “Compulsion,” the two tackle a threatening ecology from both ends, a little less thrilling if a little more clever.—KH

Trigger & Friends (Fiction, James H. Schmitz, 2001) A different, not quite as perfectly blended mix of heist adventure and space-monster (“Lion Loose”) and the somewhat opaque (not well served by Eric Flint’s edits) novel Legacy are the high points of this collection of six tales written between 1956 and 1974. Effectively spanning Schmitz’ career without showcasing it as well as the other three collections in the Baen series, this is perhaps the least essential. That doesn’t make it bad at all, and the hero of “Lion Loose” runs a fun version of the Yojimbo maneuver worth reading on its own.—KH

Violent Streets (Film, Japan, Hideo Gosha, 1974) Retired yakuza (Noboru Andô) just wants to run his Ginza district flamenco bar, but the botched kidnapping of a singer managed by his now-corporate ex-bosses pulls him back in. Poetically lurid gangster flick builds to a crescendo of bloodshed.—RDL

Witch Wood (Fiction, John Buchan, 1927) During the War of the Three Kingdoms, an idealistic neophyte minister assigned to a rural village discovers that the elders of his church perform Satanic rites in the surrounding deep woods. Theologically minded historical novel dense with Scottish lingo and references is not folk horror but nonetheless sets the template for it.—RDL

Good

The Passionate Friends (Film, UK, David Lean, 1949) Conflicted woman (Ann Todd) gets a surprise second reunion with the loving academic (Trevor Howard) she spurned to marry a dispassionate, wealthy banker (Claude Rains.) Affecting, thanks to Lean, Rains, and Howard, even as the Eric Ambler script carefully excises the entire point of the H. G. Wells source novel, and with it any chance of understanding the protagonist’s behavior.—RDL

Psychomania (Film, UK, Don Sharp, 1974) Aided by their sly sorcerer butler (George Sanders), the insolent scion of a wealthy occultist family (Nicky Henson) enlists his motorcycle gang in his scheme to wreak further havoc after returning from death by sheer force of will. Like most UK delinquent flicks, this odd fusion of the bike gang and folk horror genres regards youth rebellion with appalled disgust. I see the vibes responsible for its recent critical revival but due to its cursory narrative development can’t fully get on board. —RDL

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Archive for June, 2025

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mission: Impossible, Attila the Hun, and Vintage Fantasy Films

Recommended

Good

Okay

Fascinatingly Wrong

Episode 653: Flankington’s Syndrome

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Andor, The Phoenician Scheme, Ballerina

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Episode 652: Break a Window and Wait for Film Night

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Last Bullet, Die Nibelungen, and John Buchan’s Template for Folk Horror

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

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