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Archive for July, 2025

Episode 657: More Mason, Less Free

July 11th, 2025 | Robin

Settle back for some Gaming Hut disambiguation as beloved Patreon backer Bart Mallio asks us to explain the difference between a setting and a campaign frame.

The Mythos Hut listens to a conch and screams when estimable backer Ludovic Chabant seeks the Deep One shenanigans behind the Margate Shell Grotto.

The Cinema Hut Fantasy Essentials series looks at wartime movies about ghosts, supernatural bureaucrats, and an exaggeration-prone Baron.

Finally the Eliptony Hut examines the surely entirely verifiable legend of the Michigan dogman.

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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Ken and Robin Consume Media: 28 Years Later, Captain America, and the Occult Detective Who Went Mundane

July 9th, 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.

28 Years Later (Film, US/UK, Danny Boyle, 2025) 28 years after the rage virus depopulated Britain, a 12-year-old boy (Alfie Williams) sets out with his ailing mother (Jodie Comer) from their increasingly medieval home on Holy Island in search of a cure for her. Remarkably beautiful film pits a mythic English remnant against brutish monsters, hitting notes of legend amidst the horror. The score by Young Fathers drives the action, along with brilliant edits by Jon Harris.—KH

The Devil’s Envoys (Film, France, Marcel Carné, 1942) Immortal troubadours with infernal powers (Alain Cuny, Arletty) arrive at a castle in 1485 to torment residents with their seductive wiles on behalf of their master, the Devil (Jules Berry). Fantasy of courtly love drapes a captivating fairy tale atmosphere over a fatalistic view of romantic obsession.—RDL

Dream Scenario (Film, US, Kristoffer Borgli, 2023) Self-centered nebbish biology prof (Nicolas Cage) goes viral when he inexplicably begins to appear in peoples’ dreams. The queasy specter of Charlie Kaufman hangs over this dark comic fable about the hubris of the small.—RDL

Now Beacon, Now Sea (Nonfiction, Christopher Sorrentinno, 2021) Novelist examines his tortured relationship with his angry, unappeasable, self-isolating mother. Memoir of a life shaped by intractable parents told with rueful rigor.—RDL

The Red Dance (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1928) In the lead up to the Russian Revolution, a stalwart young arch-duke (Charles Farrell) and a political prisoner’s passionate daughter (Dolores del Rio) fall In love. Rollicking historical melodrama with energetic action set pieces.—RDL

Speaking of Murder (Film, France, Gilles Grangier, 1957) Gruff garage owner who runs a robbery crew on the side (Jean Gabin) tries to keep his parolee younger brother (Marcel Bozzufi) away from a gold-digging manicurist (Annie Girardot.) Tough, compact crime drama populated by a deep cast of Gallic mugs.—RDL

A Wounded Fawn (Film, US, Travis Stevens, 2022) Museum curator (Sarah Lind) goes to the remote cabin of her new beau (Josh Ruben) for a romantic weekend, not knowing that he is a serial killer planning her murder, or that a being of mythic vengeance waits in the surrounding woods. Stylized vengeance flick fortified with art historical and mythological references and the rare awareness that the typical real serial killer is a pathetic drip.—RDL.

Good

Every Lucius Leffing Story (Fiction, Joseph Payne Brennan, 1962-1990) Lucius Leffing began as Brennan’s occult detective, and morphed into a more regular detective when the mystery magazines wouldn’t buy ghost stories. The result, a not-entirely-Holmes pastiche on the borders of mystery and weird tales, the nostalgia of the ghost story reinforced by the nostalgia of the Holmesian short in the age of the crime novel. I found myself entranced, yes even by the hokey Lovecraftian convention novella Act of Providence (1979), but I cannot convince myself that everyone (anyone?) will be as susceptible, so I dropped it a grade.—KH

Okay

Captain America: Brave New World (Film, US, Julius Onah, 2025) Captain America (Anthony Mackie) and newly-elected President “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) find themselves at odds as a conspiracy undermines a key treaty. Abandoning not just the political but the narrative coherence of the previous two Cap films proves disastrous for a film already drowning in the new Marvel slurry. One or two good fight scenes and an intermittently game Ford don’t rescue it.—KH

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Episode 656: They Brought Him Pig Lard

July 4th, 2025 | Robin

The Gaming Hut gets informative as beloved Patreon backer Daiv Barr asks for campaign frames built around the librarian answer-seeking list Stumpers-L, aka Project Wombat.

The Mythology Hut looks at St. Cuthbert, the historical Anglo-Saxon saint who became a D&D god.

Our Cinema Hut fantasy essential series continues with the early 40s.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine surveys alternate histories that postpone Attila the Hun’s ignominious death.

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.

Archive for July, 2025

Episode 657: More Mason, Less Free

Ken and Robin Consume Media: 28 Years Later, Captain America, and the Occult Detective Who Went Mundane

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Episode 656: They Brought Him Pig Lard

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