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Archive for January, 2026

Episode 683: Disturbing Holes and Barrows

January 23rd, 2026 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we look at the sorts of stories that work as Page Turners scenarios.

The Archaeology Hut digs into the case of the Russian archaeologist arrested in Poland for damaging the Crimean site of Myrmekion.

In Ask Ken and Robin, beloved Patreon backer Fred Kiesche asks Robin to talk about his role as Creative Director at Pelgrane Press.

Finally Ken’s Time Machine peers into the alternate timeline where Bugsy Siegel wasn’t talked out of rubbing out Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering at an Italian party.

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.

Roleplayers need new GMs and thanks to Atlas Games they have the purr-fect way to celebrate New GMs month, as if it is a piece of paper tied to a string: the Magical Kitties Roleplaying Game. Go to NewGameMasterMonth.com to sign up for the totally free seminar.

Make room on your shelf and in your heart for Page Turners, Robin’s game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM, coming soon from Pelgrane Press. Explore the intensity of emotional storytelling driven by a single protagonist with scenarios ranging from Shakespearean comedy to tragic vampire love, written by Robin, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, Ruth Tillman and Wade Rockett.

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. For a limited time use promo code CANNON at checkout for 17.75% percent off and free PDFs of your books.

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Night Patrol, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

January 20th, 2026 | 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.

Recommended

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Film, UK/US, Nia DaCosta, 2022) Young Spike (Alfie Williams) finds himself “adopted” into Sir Lord Jimmy’s (Jack O’Connell) underage bandit gang while Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) tries to calm rage-alpha Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). Wisely not trying to match Danny Boyle’s visionary exuberance, DaCosta ably blends a horror story with a philosophical escape. The clattering, urgent score by Hildur Guðnadóttir keeps the danger in our heads throughout.—KH

Cover-Up (Film, US, Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus, 2025) Documentary profiles archetypal investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the My Lai massacre story and filled in key details on Watergate and Abu Ghraib. The filmmakers get past the defenses of their reluctant subject to reveal the emotional person behind the bylines, and to grapple with the reliability issues of a reportorial method heavily dependent on confidential sources.—RDL

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Film, US, Mary Bronstein, 2025) An emergency relocation to a crummy motel further unravels a harried therapist (Rose Byrne) at the breaking point burdened with all of the care for a demanding kid with an eating disorder. White-knuckle portrait of a crackup features Conan O’Brien in an unexpected dramatic role as the protagonist’s withholding therapist.—RDL

Mission Impossible: the Final Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2025) Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and team take on one last mission, completing their battle against an AI planning to nuke Earth. A final hour of superbly wrought, quadrupled action-suspense pays off an hour of setup.—RDL

Night Patrol (Film, US, Ryan Prows, 2026) When his partner Hawkins (Justin Long) gets tapped for the elite gang-hunting Night Patrol, LAPD cop and former Crip Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler) has to decide where his loyalties lay. At times in the first act I had the giddy thought that I was seeing a Pinnacle vampire film, but it doesn’t pay off those expectations, instead becoming merely great. Freddie Gibbs’ occult-minded Blood gang leader Bornelius should have his own movie.—KH

Punishment (Fiction, Linden MacIntyre, 2014) Forcibly retired corrections officer, returned to his insular Nova Scotia community, tries to steer clear of its scapegoating of an ex-con for a teen’s overdose death. Character-driven literary crime novel with authoritative eye for rural dynamics.—RDL

The Red Widow Murders (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1935) When Lord Mantling hosts a gathering to test the curse of the Widow’s Room in his house, a young student dies of intravenously administered poison in the cursed chamber without a mark on him, the only exit under constant watch throughout. A “locked corpse” mystery inside a locked-room mystery, with a Carr historical flashback to boot, this underrated triumph even withstands Sir Henry Merrivale’s mulishness.—KH

Storm Warning (Film, US, Stuart Heisler, 1951) A traveling clothes model (Ginger Rogers) visiting her sister (Doris Day) in a small southern town sees the Klan murder a reporter, but resists a dogged prosecutor (Ronald Reagan) who wants her to testify, because one of the killers is her new brother-in-law. Aimed at a white audience prior to the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, this hardboiled political thriller focuses on the KKK as a tinpot racket that exploits its own people.—RDL

Good

Nine—And Death Makes Ten (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1940) When an adventuress is killed on a liner crossing the Atlantic through U-Boat hunting grounds, the murderer’s fingerprints match nobody’s on board. The haunted atmosphere of the nearly-empty ship in wartime winter is the real seller here, the mystery less compelling. Sir Henry Merrivale uncharacteristically remains (mostly) sensible throughout.—KH

Okay

Honey Don’t! (Film, US, Ethan Coen, 2025) Acerbic PI (Margaret Qualley) investigates the death of a would-be client, crossing paths with a drug dealing evangelist (Chris Evans) and hopping into bed with a sullen cop (Aubrey Plaza.) Separately entertaining scenes fail to cohere in this tongue-in-cheek, lesbian gaze film noir riff.—RDL

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Episode 682: The Biter Has Departed

January 16th, 2026 | Robin

The Gaming Hut follows up a previous pedagogical segment by wondering what a course syllabus for tabletop rpg development and editing might look cover.

The Crime Blotter peers at the surprisingly long list of criminal forensics techniques that fail to meet scientific standards.

The Stock Character Hut looks at that perennial force for narrative chaos, the wastrel.

Finally the Eliptony Hut makes good on our earlier prediction that we would profile cartographic prophet of pole shifting Gordon-Michael Scallion.

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.

Roleplayers need new GMs and thanks to Atlas Games they have the purr-fect way to celebrate New GMs month, as if it is a piece of paper tied to a string: the Magical Kitties Roleplaying Game. Go to NewGameMasterMonth.com to sign up for the totally free seminar.

Make room on your shelf and in your heart for Page Turners, Robin’s game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM, coming soon from Pelgrane Press. Explore the intensity of emotional storytelling driven by a single protagonist with scenarios ranging from Shakespearean comedy to tragic vampire love, written by Robin, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, Ruth Tillman and Wade Rockett.

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. For a limited time use promo code CANNON at checkout for 17.75% percent off and free PDFs of your books.

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: No Other Choice, Hamnet, Jay Kelly

January 13th, 2026 | 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 Pinnacle

No Other Choice (Film, South Korea, Park Chan-wook, 2025) Desperate to keep his home and family intact, laid-off paper mill manager Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) plans to kill a more successful paper mill manager, along with the superior candidates for the ensuing job vacancy. Son Ye-jin takes on the harder role as Man-su’s increasingly unhappy wife, and her grounded delivery keeps the movie from spinning out of control in Park’s increasingly daring and dissonant shots and Kim Sang-bum and Kim Ho-bin’s drum-snap edits. Gorgeous, innovative, clever, and mordant, a worthy Westlake adaptation for those who claim it can’t be done.—KH

Recommended

Death in Five Boxes (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1938) Four people at a table have been poisoned, and one of them has been fatally stabbed, and bizarre clues litter the crime scene: a worthy challenge for Sir Henry Merrivale. I have reluctantly turned back to the Merrivale mysteries as I run out of Carr, and find to my delight that the pre-1941 ones are almost all Recommendable. The mysteries run a little tighter and the atmosphere less Gothic than the classic Fell cases, and the early Merrivale is only intermittently a buffoon.—KH

Jay Kelly (Film, US, Noah Baumbach, 2025) In a bid to crash his daughter’s European trip, a self-absorbed movie star (George Clooney) abruptly accepts a film festival tribute invite, triggering reminiscence for him and a string of crises for his overly devoted manager (Adam Sandler.) Co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, the screenplay’s perfectly sculpted dialogue and scene construction provide the platform for brilliant performances from Clooney, Sandler, Laura Dern, and, in a barn-burner one-and-done, Billy Crudup.—RDL

No Other Choice  (Film, South Korea, Park Chan-wook, 2025) Desperate for a new job in the paper industry, a fired plant manager (Lee Byung-hun) hatches a plan to murder rival job applicants. Hyper-competitive South Korea makes a consummate setting for a barbed, masterfully composed adaptation of Donald Westlake’s The Ax. —RDL

The Phantom Atlas (Nonfiction, Edward Brooke-Hitching, 2016) Cartographic survey of nonexistent places that made it onto maps despite their origins in myth, misapprehension, or deception. Enjoyable, visually rich  roundup of past and future Cartography Huts.—RDL

The Silence of the Sea (Film, France, Jean-Pierre Melville, 1949) Required to billet a Francophile German officer (Howard Vernon) during the occupation, an old man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his adult niece (Nicole Stéphane) greet his attempts to ingratiate himself with absolute silence. Drama of resistance, based on a novel illicitly published during the war, gains power from bare bones simplicity.—RDL

Time to Die (Film, Mexico, Arturo Ripstein, 1966) After 18 years in prison a beaten-down man (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos) returns to his home village, where the sons of the man he slew have sworn to kill him. Western written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes portrays its inevitable showdown not as an act of clarifying order but as Greek tragedy.—RDL

Good 

Torso (Film, Italy, Sergio Martino, 1973) Jane (Suzy Kendall) and Dani (Tina Aumont) and their friends flee the serial killer stalking the University of Perugia but has the killer followed them to the remote villa? (Yes.) Crucial slasher-film precursor comes alive in the fourth-act cat-and-mouse stalking of Jane; if the rest of this giallo had shown the same mastery of space and suspense, it would be an all-timer.—KH

The Unicorn Murders (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1935) Former MI6 agent Kenwood Blake gives the right countersign to the wrong fellow agent in Paris and winds up dragged into an isolated chateau murder and into Sir Henry Merrivale’s attempt to show up the French police and catch France’s greatest thief. Carr’s espionage action is clunky even for 1935, although the eventual impossible murder nearly makes up for it. Merrivale is less annoying than either French antagonist, but only just.—KH

Not Recommended

Hamnet (Film, US/UK, Chloé Zhao, 2025) Forging a union later tested by grief, a witchy young woman (Jessie Buckley) marries a frustrated writer (Paul Mescal.) Almost nothing is known of Shakespeare’s family life, leaving room for the thudding cliches and back-projected concerns of this lyrically visualized, powerfully acted, preposterous poppycock.—RDL

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Episode 681: Space Oprah

January 9th, 2026 | Robin

As you may have heard in our previous episode, a mysterious technical event ate our recording of our live episode at this year’s Dragonmeet. In the face of this tragedy we prevail with a not at all convincing recreation of the in-person event, with better sound quality and much worse applause.

The Nerdtrope Deck demands that Ken explain the connection between Moses and Space Opera.

Reconstructed Gaming Hut questions include how games reflect the current zeitgeist, ideal GM screens, overcoming first time GM jitters, and non-traditional cultist plots.

Other huts dealt with the iconic nature of ducks, fantasy film guilty pleasures, the Dubai pistachio fad, and nice things to put in bread.

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!

Make room on your shelf and in your heart for Page Turners, Robin’s game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM, coming soon from Pelgrane Press. Explore the intensity of emotional storytelling driven by a single protagonist with scenarios ranging from Shakespearean comedy to tragic vampire love, written by Robin, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, Ruth Tillman and Wade Rockett.

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. For a limited time use promo code CANNON at checkout for 17.75% percent off and free PDFs of your books.

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Marty Supreme, Roofman, and the Patrick Petrella Stories

January 6th, 2026 | 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.

Recommended

Compulsion (Film, US, Richard Fleischer, 1959) The fates of 1924 Chicago Nietzschean thrill-killers Steiner and Straus (Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman) depend on crusading attorney Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles). Surprisingly good roman a clef of the Leopold and Loeb murders ends with an 18-minute speech against the death penalty based on the one given by Clarence Darrow at the historical sentencing. Your appreciation of Fleischer’s achievement depends on what you think of Welles’ monologue (the longest in film history to that point).—KH

Eephus (Film, US, Carson Lund, 2024) Two local recreational teams square off for one last game on a baseball diamond’s last day before demolition. Realistically observed yet also Beckett-like paean to the beautiful existential futility of competitive sports.—RDL

Every Patrick Petrella Story (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1959-2003) Gilbert’s longest-running serial character (two novels and 54 shorter stories), Petrella is a half-Spanish, poetry-reading London police detective. Not quite maverick cop, not quite cerebral detective, not quite procedural protagonist, Petrella gives his adventures a specific and hard-to-isolate flavor that not even Gilbert’s other police stories can match. Start where Gilbert started, with the puzzle-inside-a-procedural Blood and Judgement, and then sample the shorter Petrella in Petrella at Q.—KH

Marty Supreme (Film, US, Josh Safdie, 2025) Hustling New York punk Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) climbs and slips on his way to global table-tennis fame, and over his girl Rachael (Odessa A’Zion) and anyone else in his way. Nonstop energy (weirdly punctuated with ‘80s classics for a film set in 1952) and grift-a-minute action keep you riveted to a character you quite probably (and rightly) despise. Chalamet deserves all the acting plaudits he gets for this, though non-professional actors Abel Ferrara (as a Jewish gangster) and Kevin O’Leary (as a cuckolded industrialist) more than hold their own.—KH

Opera (Film, Italy, Dario Argento, 1987) A mysterious masked killer stalks understudy-turned-superstar Betty (Cristina Marsillach) during an avant-garde staging of Verdi’s Macbeth, complete with ravens. A psychologically wrenching riff on The Phantom of the Opera, it features effortlessly (and endlessly) bravura shots and camera moves. (Ronnie Taylor is the kind of brilliant cinematographer Argento deserves but seldom got.) Often (and perhaps rightly) called Argento’s last masterpiece, it’s also perhaps the last great giallo.—KH

Roofman (Film, US, Derek Cianfrance, 2025) Goodhearted prison escapee (Channing Tatum) dates a devout Toys R Us employee (Kirsten Dunst) after uses his penchant for breaking into businesses through their ceilings to hide out in the store. Socially observant true crime indie comedy permeated with the melancholy of stolen happiness.—RDL

Good

The Paradine Case (Film, US, Alfred Hitchcock, 1947) An aggressive barrister (Gregory Peck) risks his career and marriage when he succumbs to an obsession with an uncooperative murder defendant (Alida Valli.) Straining against producer David Selznick’s florid prestige picture aesthetic, Hitchcock infuses this courtroom drama with a troubling psychosexual undercurrent. The emotional logic would track better if Valli had turned out to be, as Selznick hoped, a screen presence to rival Garbo.—RDL

Wake Up Dead Man (Film, US, Rian Johnson, 2025) Sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) works to clear the obvious suspect in the murder of a grandiose Monsignor (Josh Brolin), an earnest priest with rage issues (Josh O’Connor.) Juxtaposes the artificial mystery of the locked room murder story with the metaphysical mystery of faith,  hobbled by the usual structural problems of the cinematic whodunnit.—RDL

Okay

The Flanders Panel (Fiction, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 1990) A restorer’s discovery of a Renaissance murder mystery in a Flemish painting depicting a chess match becomes an element in a current slaying. Erudite mystery thriller of art and gamesmanship with an emotionally implausible final revelation.—RDL

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