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Archive for August, 2025

Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Naked Gun, Murderbot, Dead Talents Society, Riddle of Fire

August 5th, 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.

Dead Talents Society (Film, Taiwan, John Hsu, 2024) Self-effacing ghost (Gingle Wang) joins the entourage of a fading urban legend (Sandrine Pinna) in hopes of earning the haunting license she needs to continue her spectral existence. Supernatural found family comedy spoofs reality TV and the attention economy.—RDL

Hero (Film, China, Shaohong Li, Joan Chen, Sylvia Chang, 2022) During the terrifying early weeks of COVID, a Wuhan nurse (Xun Zhou) butts heads with her oppressively self-sacrificing mother-in-law (Xu Di), a student visiting her Beijing family (Miyi Huang) worries about her infected fiancé, and a Hong Kong photojournalist (Sammi Cheng) confronts her estranged husband. With greater unity of tone and theme than the typical anthology film, this trio of female-centred domestic dramas builds a time capsule for a period the world is hellbent on forgetting.—RDL

Murderbot Season 1 (Television, US, Apple+, Paul Weitz & Chris Weitz, 2025) A security robot who has secretly deactivated his anti-autonomy features in order to watch his favorite streaming television (Alexander Skarsgard) grudgingly assists a party of naive scientists (, David Dastmalchian, et al) surveying an unexpectedly dangerous planet. Self-aware, satirical SF envisions an enshittified future while also working as a successful version of the kind of show it’s poking fun at. Based on the first of a book series by Martha Wells.—RDL

Riddle of Fire (Film, US, Weston Razooli, 2023) Equipped with dirt bikes and paintball guns, a trio of preteen hellions quest for a speckled egg needed for a blueberry pie recipe, battling a poacher gang led by a witch (Lio Tipton.) Blissfully kooky contemporary fantasy comedy wrings laughs from its young protagonists’ singleminded delinquency.—RDL

World’s End (Fiction, Upton Sinclair, 1940) Ingratiating, art-loving teen from a family of munitions manufacturers becomes a witness to history and the bafflement’s of love as WWI sweeps across Europe. Witty, epically observant and influential in its nesting of recent public figures in a fictional narrative.—RDL

Good

The Naked Gun (Film, US, Akiva Schaffer, 2025) Taken off the case but still drawn into it, violent knucklehead cop (Liam Neeson) romances a murdered coder’s sister (Pamela Anderson) and matches half-wits with a sinister tech mogul (Danny Huston.) Spends more time than it needs to on the mechanics of its spoof technothriiler plot, but Neeson makes sense as a successor to Leslie Nielsen, and it’s refreshing to see a jokes-first comedy these days.—RDL

Sadko (Film, USSR, Aleksandr Ptushko, 1956) Lantern-jawed bard confounds the merchants of Novgorod by recruiting a doughty crew to sail to parts unknown questing for the bird of happiness. Impressive, chaotic set pieces and the coolest, creepiest phoenix committed to celluloid stand out in a fitfully paced fantasy adventure.—RDL

Ken was at Gen Con this week.

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Episode 660: That’s North Brownland Energy

August 1st, 2025 | Robin

The episode starts with a retreat to the Gaming Hut as we talk about the importance of a safe headquarters for player characters.

The Command Hut looks at Aggressor, Krasnovia, and other fictional geopolitical adversaries used as targets in US military training maneuvers.

The Cinema Hut’s Fantasy Film Essentials Series makes its way through the rest of the 1950s.

Finally the Eliptony Hut recalls the Hammersmith ghost murder case.

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 official CatStronauts board game features cooperative play that’s only 30-45 minutes long, for 1-4 players ages 10+. Designed and illustrated by CatStronauts comic book creator Drew Brockington and available now from Atlas Games!

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.