Archive for the ‘Audio Free’ Category
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Morris on Manson, Moravian Witch Hunting, 70s Cops, and the Hottest New Fiction of 1771
April 15th, 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.
Recommended
Close Your Eyes (Film, Spain, Victor Erice, 2023) An unsolved mysteries-style TV show inspires a novelist (Manolo Solo) to follow up on the fate of a renowned actor (Jose Coronado), whose disappearance from set a generation ago ended his second career as a movie director. Erice, returning to filmmaking after a 31 year absence, infuses his ambiguous narrative of identity and loss with a complex, absorbing simplicity—not to mention a surprising homage to Rio Bravo.—RDL
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Fiction, Tobias Smollett, 1771) An outwardly querulous, secretly kindly gent, his fussy, husband-seeking sister and their lovestruck niece and hotheaded nephew take a tour across England and Scotland. Fictionalized comic epistolary travelogue leaves an accessible, amusing record of everyday life in Georgian Britain.—RDL
The Seven-Ups (Film, US, Philip D’Antoni, 1973) Plainclothes cop Buddy Manucci (Roy Scheider) and his team of maverick “Seven-Ups” find their pursuit of New York organized crime figures complicated by freelance crooks kidnapping those same targets. A fine 70s cop movie is vaulted into greatness by the third (after Bullitt and The French Connection) of stunt co-ordinator Bill Hickman’s legendary car chases.—KH
Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) (Film, US, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, 2025) Arts profile documentary uses a diptych structure to examine the musical innovations of funk pioneer Sly Stone, and then to ask what role the extra pressures placed on a black superstar contributed to his breakdown into drug dependency.—RDL
The Thief of Bagdad (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1924) Exquisitely muscled rogue (Douglas Fairbanks) poses as a foreign prince to vie with rival suitors for the hand of a princess (Julanne Johnston.) Foundational work of fantasy cinema, its monumental sets dripping with art nouveau and Symbolist style, centered by Fairbanks as the prototypical action star. Obvious caveat: if there’s a non-orientalist way for a Westerner to do this story, it’s not gonna be the one from a hundred years ago.—RDL
Witchhammer (Film, Czechoslovakia, Otakar Vávra, 1970) In Baroque-era Moravia, an erudite deacon (Elo Romancik) challenges a venal inquisitor (Vladimír Smeral) conducting an escalating, lethal anti-witchcraft campaign. Harrowing historical political drama of complicity and inertia in the face of tyrannical abuse hits hard now, as it would certainly have done for Czech audiences two years after the Soviet crackdown.—RDL
Good
Chaos: the Manson Murders (Film, US, Errol Morris, 2025) Morris’ ongoing tumble down the MKULTRA rabbit hole leads him to entertain researcher Tom O’Neill’s admittedly unproven theory that Charles Manson gained his powers of persuasion from a government mind control project. The problem with this challenge to the prevailing narrative of Manson as a Svengali of nihilistic terror is that it still strives to impose sense on what was really a spiral of drug-addled, criminal stupidity, which is where the documentary correctly if somewhat reluctantly lands.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Bill Burr, 80s Elmore Leonard, and a Martial Arts Crossover Event
April 8th, 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.
Recommended
52 Pick-Up (Film, US, John Frankenheimer, 1986) Steel company exec Harry Mitchell’s (Roy Scheider) philandering exposes him to blackmail by Alan Raimy (John Glover), setting off an escalating battle of wills and wits. Elmore Leonard co-wrote the script based on his novel, and the result feels tighter and smarter than the average 80s thriller, while not quite maintaining the tension Frankenheimer was capable of.—KH
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (Nonfiction, Amanda Vickery, 2009) Deep dives into 18th century household account books, letters, court records and commercial catalogues illuminate Georgian home life, with a particular eye to the roles assigned to women and men. If you don’t want an entire chapter on the 18th century wallpaper industry maybe this isn’t for you, but I am addressing a self-selecting crowd here.—RDL
Bill Burr: The Drop Dead Years (Stand-up, Hulu, Ben Tishler, 2025) At age 55, Burr begins to confront his “drop dead years” by attempting to modulate his “angry Everyman” persona. The best individual bits, by and large, still come from that old type, but the larger structure of the routine points to a key change that will either produce a whole new comedy or remove his teeth entirely.—KH
Escape from Mogadishu (Film, South Korea, Ryoo Seung-wan, 2021) When embassies in the Ethiopian capital come under attack during the 1990 overthrow of Siad Barre, the mutually distrustful delegations of North and South Korea band together to find a way out of the war torn city. Docudrama political thriller culminates in a heart-in-mouth suspense action set piece.—RDL
The Girl on a Broomstick (Film, Czechoslovakia, Václav Vorlícek, 1972) Bored by the prospect of a 144-year detention, an inattentive student witch (Petra Cernocká) splits for the mortal world, where her shaky grasp of magic wreaks havoc at a contemporary high school. Wacky, anarchic comedy with funny gags, beguiling credits sequence illustrations and a jazz-funk soundtrack. I theorize that Cernocká and her foxy witch outfit exerted a galvanizing effect on a generation of impressionable young Czechs.—RDL
Nickel Boys (Film, US, RaMell Ross, 2024) Studious teen (Ethan Herisse) unjustly sentenced to a corrupt, murderous reform school befriends a more realistic fellow inmate (Brandon Wilson.) Moments of evanescent, Malick-esque beauty juxtapose with memories of rage and horror in a confident adaptation of the novel by Colson Whitehead.—RDL
September 5 (Film, US/Germany, , 2024) The ABC sports team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, led by obstacle-smashing exec Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) and voice-of-caution Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) invents live crisis coverage on the fly when the Black September terror group attacks Israeli athletes and coaches. Journalistic procedural docudrama executes the shouting into phones genre with tension and clarity.—RDL
Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (Film, Japan, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1971) When samurai seeking to cover up a massacre hunt a high-leaping Chinese warrior (Jimmy Wang Yu), the swordcane-wielding blind masseuse yakuza punks can’t stop messing with (Shintaro Katsu) steps up to protect a young boy who knows what really happened. A martial arts crossover event for the ages becomes a fatalistic meditation on cultural barriers in this above-average entry in the long-running series.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Vourdalak, They Cloned Tyrone, Reacher
April 1st, 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 Pinnacle
Mother and a Guest (Film, South Korea, Shin Sang-ok, 1961) An irrepressible yet vulnerable six year old (Yeong-seon Jeon) who lives with her mom (Choi Eun-hie), grandmother and maid, all of them widows, does not understand the adult emotions stirred by the arrival of a male teacher (Kim Jin-kyu) as a lodger in their guest house. Often funny, sometimes strikingly poignant domestic drama, told with a deceptive simplicity that veers away from melodrama toward emotional realism. Features one of cinema’s greatest child performances. See kbelow for more on the star and director.—RDL
Recommended
Ant Colony (Comics, Michael DeForge, 2020) Anomic ants ponder wretched insect existence and their illicit desires as catastrophe looms over their colony. Obsessively drawn, bleakly comic fable of deterministic fatalism set in a Herrimanesque arthropod hellscape.—RDL
Close Your Eyes (Film, Spain, Victor Erice, 2023) An unsolved mysteries-style TV show inspires a novelist (Manolo Solo) to follow up on the fate of a renowned actor (Jose Coronado), whose disappearance from set a generation ago ended his second career as a movie director. Erice, returning to filmmaking after a 31 year absence, infuses his ambiguous narrative of identity and loss with a complex, absorbing simplicity—not to mention a surprising homage to Rio Bravo.—RDL
The Lovers & the Despot (Film, UK, Ross Adam & Robert Cannan, 2016) Documentary recounts the astounding story of top South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok and his star actress ex-wife Choi Eun-hie, who were separately kidnapped from Hong Kong in 1978 at the behest of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, a frustrated cineaste who held them captive until they were willing to make movies for him. Illuminates the many stunning turns of a wrenching incident often treated in Western media as a surreal joke.—RDL
They Cloned Tyrone (Film, US, Juel Taylor, 2023) Aided by a motor mouthed, has-been pimp (Jamie Foxx) and a streetwalker who learned detective skills from her Nancy Drew collection (Teyonah Parris), a taciturn mid-level drug dealer (John Boyega) chases down eyewitness reports of his own murder. Hyper-verbal, hazily shot weird science mystery joins the satirically conscious horror cycle ushered in by Get Out.—RDL
The Vourdalak (Film, France, Adrien Beau, 2023) Lost and robbed in the 18th-century Balkans, French Marquis d’Urfe (Kacey Mottet Klein) shelters in the home of Gorcha, who has become a vampirish vourdalak. Undeniably effective adaptation of the Alexei Tolstoy novella aims more for “cringe horror” than real dread, although Beau’s decision to show the vourdalak’d Gorcha as a marionette pays big dividends in the uncanny.—KH
Good
Reacher Season 3 (Television, US, Amazon Prime, Nick Santora, 2025) Seeking to revenge himself on a connected sadist who got away, Reacher (Alan Ritchson) goes along with a rogue DEA operation targeting the sadist’s partner Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall). Although this season finds an even more enormous foe to pit against Reacher, it suffers from Reacher being fundamentally reactive (and run by pinhead feds to boot) and from a dearth of Reacher whaling on guys. At least it’s a tighter story than Season 2, but America wants real Reacher.—KH
You Can’t Buy Everything (Film, US, Charles Reisner, 1934) Querulous, wealthy miser (May Robson) forces her dutiful son (William Bakewell) to follow in her footsteps, until he falls for the daughter (Jean Parker) of the ex-fiancee (Lewis Stone) she loathes with obsessive fervor. Domestic melodrama takes a rare focus on a mother-son relationship, drawing its matronly antihero with unexpected realism, even when Robson is overacting a little.—RDL
Okay
The Amateur (Film, Canada, Charles Jarrott, 1981) CIA cryptographer Charles Heller (John Savage) blackmails the Agency into sending him behind the Iron Curtain to kill the terrorists who murdered his fiancee. Christopher Plummer embraces the role of the Czech secret policeman on the other side, animating as best he can the back half of the movie. A few set pieces provide intermittent thrills, but this is perhaps best watched as a hairy period piece.—KH
Piaffe (Film, Germany, Ann Oren, 2023) Forced to take over work as a foley artist from her hospitalized sister, a withdrawn woman (Simone Bucio) grows a horse tail and enters into a fetishistic affair with a fern expert (Sebastian Rudolph.) Solemn, surreal magic realist fantasy shies away from resolution, with cryptic, hermetically sealed results.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: A Different Man, Will & Harper, and Ghost Stories from a POW Camp
March 25th, 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 Pinnacle
Danton (Film, France/Poland, Andrzej Wajda, 1983) In the second year of the revolutionary Republic, charismatic faction leader Georges Danton (Gerard Depardieu) challenges the tightening grip on power held by his icy, ruthless rival Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak.) Stirring historical political thriller doomed by its incisiveness to a state of perpetual timeliness..—RDL
Recommended
The Alabaster Hand and Other Stories (Fiction, A.N.L. Munby, 1949) Collection of Jamesian horror tales written while Munby (an antiquarian bookseller by trade) was held in a German POW camp unsurprisingly amps up the nostalgic tone of James’ work, sometimes at the expense of horror. Munby’s ghosts prove more susceptible to laying than James’ do, but several of the stories (especially “Herodes Redivivus” and “The White Sack”) transmit real dread, and even the “happy ending” tales pass through excellent grue.—KH
A Different Man (Film, US, Aaron Schimberg, 2024) Would-be actor with extensive facial tumors (Sebastian Stan) undergoes treatment rendering him traditionally handsome, only to lose the playwright (Renate Reinsve) and starring role of his dreams to a chipper bon vivant (Adam Pearson) unfazed by his own similar condition. Mordant satire of inner versus outer acceptance with a 90s NYC indie vibe.—RDL
Trial Run (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1978) Bounced from the turf by a “no glasses” safety rule, astigmatic gentleman farmer and former steeplechaser Randall Drew succumbs to royal pressure and travels to Moscow to quash a rumor ahead of the Olympics. Francis’ thriller pace and well-sketched characters keep this not-quite-spy story intriguing, and make for a zippy read to boot.—KH
Will & Harper (Film, US, Josh Greenbaum, 2024) Will Ferrell goes on a heartland road trip with longtime co-writer Harper Steele to check on the status of their friendship, and her relationship to the down and dirty haunts she used to favor, now that she has come out as trans. Warm, funny buddy road documentary of awareness and acceptance triggers halcyon recollections of the late Biden era.—RDL
Good
Aavesham (Film, India, Jithu Madhavan, 2024) Seeking help against bullying upper classmen, three engineering students (Roshan Shanavas, Mithun Jai Shankar, Hipzster) establish a surprising bond with a flashy but insecure gang kingpin (Fahadh Faasil.) Punchy action comedy finds, in the neediness of its leading frenemy, a fresh spin on the in-too-deep-with-the-mob trope.—RDL
Korea: The Impossible Country (Nonfiction, Daniel Tudor, 2012/2018) Introductory survey of all things South Korean, from film to K-pop, from shamanism to an economy built from nothing to powerhouse on a structure of centrally-planned mercantilist capitalism. Useful and illuminating, though its arrangement by topic results in considerable repetition, as so many elements of South Korean life owe their character to the same events.—RDL
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2023) Ethan (Tom Cruise) and his team pursue a McGuffin granting control over a rogue AI which has hired an old enemy (Esai Morales) to counter him. McQuarrie expertly performs the mission he has assigned himself in his run on the series, to configure bedrock genre elements for maximum momentum and brio. Ironically this, the movie audiences decided to punish for two-parter syndrome, could have, with the merest of tweaks, stood on its own.—RDL
Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Black Bag, A Noir Mambo Musical, and The John the Balladeer Movie
March 18th, 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 Pinnacle
Black Bag (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2025) Impassive, lie-hating MI6 agent (Michael Fassbender) conducts a mole hunt in which his blithely assured wife (Cate Blanchett) numbers among the suspects. Formally rigorous, mysteriously powerful—but I said Soderbergh already—chamber spy thriller built around a sly, incisive script by David Koepp that plays like a collaboration between John LeCarré and Alan Ayckbourn.—RDL
Recommended
Black Bag (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2025) MI6 counter-intelligence prodigy George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) investigates the theft of a dangerous software exploit, with his also-MI6 wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) an increasingly likely suspect. Perfect puzzlebox script masters the repeated revelation while the film actually rotates around the nature of loyalty (and marriage). A delight on every level, a controlled polygraph rather than the triphammer of his other near-Pinnacle spy flick, Haywire.—KH
A Lion is in the Streets (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1953) Rabble-rousing traveling salesman (James Cagney) cuts ethical corners as he discovers his flair for populist demagoguery during a run for Louisiana governor. Walsh’s energy and affection for the unruly common man propel this Technicolor political drama.—RDL
Victims of Sin (Film, Mexico, Emilio Hernandez, 1953) Vivacious cabaret dancer (Ninón Sevilla) sacrifices her promising career to adopt the abandoned infant son of a dangerous pimp (Rodolfo Acosta.) Potent mix of exhilarating mambo musical and gut-punching social melodrama.—RDL
Wild at Heart (Fiction, Barry Gifford, 1990) Released convict Sailor violates parole to skip town with his beloved Lula, pursued by her obsessed mother and her private detective beau. A tone poem of loopy Southern dialogue and storytelling, without the nightmarish noir elements added by David Lynch for his film adaptation.—RDL
Good
City of the Dead (Film, UK, John Llewellyn Moxey, 1960) Curiously intense history professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee) inspires his plucky student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) to visit witch-haunted Whitewood, Mass. in search of primary data about the cult. British actors doing American accents (and gallons of fake fog) notwithstanding, this is a nice little corker of proto-folk-horror hamstrung mostly by a micro budget and a fairly predictable script.—KH
Red Peony Gambler (Film, Japan, Kōsaku Yamashita, 1968) Her shoulder tattooed to mark her mission of vengeance, a refined 19th century yakuza (Junko Fuji) follows the trail of her father’s killer. Classically staged period action flick delivers in the first and last acts but sags in the middle with the doings of irrelevant tertiary characters. Start of a seven part series, newly restored by Eureka.—RDL
Ten Cents a Dance (Film, US, Lionel Barrymore, 1931) Good-hearted taxi dancer (Barbara Stanwyck) picks the wrong guy when she goes for a luckless striver (Monroe Owlsley) over a world-weary millionaire (Ricardo Cortez.) The secret to an early 30s romantic melodrama is to have Barbara Stanwyck in it.—RDL
Who Fears the Devil? (Film, US, John Newland, 1972) After the Devil beats his grandpappy (Denver Pyle) in a Defy, young John (Hedges Capers) sets out to defy the Devil’s servants with a silver-stringed guitar. Based on two of Manly Wade Wellman’s Pinnacle John the Balladeer stories, this hippified version still rings somewhat true to the Appalachian rhythms and folkloric horror of the original. The end kind of trails off, but a surprising number of great scenes and effective character moments go a long way; there’s not enough Hoyt Axton music, but there’s more than none. [Also released as The Legend of Hillbilly John.]—KH
Okay
Tombs of the Blind Dead (Film, Spain/Portugal, Amando de Ossorio, 1971) A woman’s pal and ex-girlfriend investigate her strange murder in an abandoned town allegedly haunted by the revenants of a Satan-worshipping Templars. On one hand, cool creepy zombie knights; on the other, exploitatively depicted sexual assaults.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mickey 17, Superman: Space Age, Legends of the Condor Heroes
March 11th, 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.
Recommended
It’s What’s Inside (Film, US, Greg Jardin, 2024) Young couple with relationship problems (Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini) attends a gathering of old college friends where a long-estranged pal (David Thompson) proposes a game using his top secret body-switching machine. Fast-paced single location SF ensemble thriller dares the audience to keep up with its twists and convolutions.—RDL
Lee (Film, UK/US, Ellen Kuras, 2024) Captivating, abrasive ex-model and fashion photographer Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) sweeps the rules aside to cover WWII, from combat in France to the discovery of the Dachau death camp, as a war correspondent. Though its storytelling devices are overly wordy and literary, perhaps inescapably so due to Miller’s story and the many renowned figures who populate it, Winslet’s fierce commitment to the role holds its pieces together.—RDL
Mickey 17 (Film, US, Bong Joon-ho, 2025) Expendable operative and guinea pig (Robert Pattinson) used by a project to colonize the frosty world of Niflheim survives a mission only to discover that his next self has already been bio-printed and implanted with his memories. Pattinson gets to play two character roles in an emphatic, satirical SF look at identity, alien contact, and authoritarian malfeasance. Mark Ruffalo and Toni Colette play the despotic villains as ridiculously cartoonish, which is to say with absolute documentary accuracy.—RDL
Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature’s Bounty (Nonfiction, Craig Welch, 2010) In their pursuit of poachers overfishing the geoduck, an expensive clam of absurd phallic aspect, wildlife officers enlist a larger than life informant up to shenanigans of his own. Eye-opening, colorfully reported exposé reveals the mechanics of marine animal piracy.—RDL
Superman: Space Age (Comics, DC, Mark Russell and Mike Allred, 2022-2023) Soon after the JFK assassination brings Clark Kent off the farm, he learns from Pariah that the world will end in twenty years. Lexcorp and WayneTech dueling for Pentagon contracts is one of the better bits in this “DC Universe but with history in it” story, but the core is Superman figuring out what heroism means on a doomed planet. Mike Allred, of course, is born to do Silver Age art, and this is some of his best work.—KH
Wildcat (Film, US, Ethan Hawke, 2023) Worsening illness forces young aspiring writer Flannery O’Connor (Maya Hawke) to move from New York City to the small town Georgia home of her conventional, undermining mother (Laura Linney.) Hawke’s angry, thwarted dignity as O’Connor anchors a nonlinear biopic, which addresses the problem of its subject’s outwardly uneventful life by threading in dramatized excerpts of her most famous stories.—RDL
Woman of the Hour (Film, US, Anna Kendrick, 2024) Struggling actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) agrees to appear on The Dating Game in 1978, unaware that Bachelor #3 is serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto). A solid true-crime flick that centers Kendrick’s Everywoman experience in the sexist vortex of LA, and does not romanticize the killer at all, which is the best commentary on The Dating Game (and LA) that one could ask for. Like many actor-directors, Kendrick prefers to shoot actors emoting rather than locations, which harshes her period vibe a bit.—KH
Good
Enquiry (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1969) Warned off the track for allegedly fixing a race, jockey Kelly Hughes goes about investigating and reversing the titular enquiry by the unfathomable tactic of asking direct questions. In Britain, this counts as hard-boiled detection. Not as polished as later Francis thrillers, this one still has the Swiss-watch pacing that a true thriller writer needs more than anything else. But it doesn’t really have surprise, shock, or particularly well drawn characters; Hughes seems a little more Mary Sue than Francis’ later protagonists.—KH
Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants (Film, China, Tsui Hark, 2025) Honorable martial artist raised by Mongols as an exile from the Song Dynasty (Zhang Xiao) seeks reunion with the love he unjustly scorned (Dafei Zhuang) and tries to prevent war between his ancestral and adopted peoples. Overly intent on epic scale, and ungainly, as attempts to squish the elaborately plotted fiction of Louis Cha into feature length often are, but the climactic action set piece is what you want from a Hark film. The same material has been made into three different TV series.—RDL
Okay
Mickey 17 (Film, US, Bong Joon-ho, 2025) On the run from a loan shark, whiny schlimazel Mickey (Robert Pattinson) joins a colony ship as an Expendable, to be killed and cloned and reprinted over and over at need. An interminable succession of ultimately toothless satire, tell-don’t-show storytelling, and random things Bong thought were neat (and many of them in fact are) follows. Nothing interesting gets followed up or built upon; the absolute best bit is Toni Collette committing to the role of sauce-obsessed Melania/Lady Macbeth manque, but that’s because Toni Collette is always great.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Glowing TVs, Chic French Goddesses, Classic Costumes, and the Master of Horse Mysteries
March 4th, 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 Pinnacle
The Violent Bear It Away (Fiction, Flannery O’Connor, 1955) When the deranged backwoods great-uncle who kidnapped him to raise as a prophet drops dead at the breakfast table, a sullen 14 year old heads to the city where his atheist uncle lives to embrace or reject his destiny. Disturbing literary noir of intergenerational mania told with sere omniscience.—RDL
Recommended
Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion (Film, US, Matthew Miele, 2024) Warm-hearted arts profile documentary celebrates the six decade career of iconic costume designer Bob Mackie, whose works include Elton John’s Donald Duck, Pink’s Glitter in the Air Grammy outfit, Cher’s ‘86 Oscar dress and every costume and wig for all 11 seasons of the Carol Burnett Show.—RDL
Duelle (Film, France, Jacques Rivette, 1976) Chicly clad goddesses of day (Bulle Ogier) and night (Juliet Berto) draw fragile mortals into their deadly struggle to possess a powerful gem. Naturalistic fantasy, in which the performer’s stylized movements matter as much as conventional storytelling, demands submission to its eccentric rhythm.—RDL
I Saw the TV Glow (Film, US, Jane Schoenbrun, 2024) Withdrawn kid (Justice Smith) forges an intense connection to an older student (Jack Haven), bonded by their stepfather problems and obsession with a supernaturally themed TV show, which is either more or less than what it seems. Haunting, movingly acted weird tale in which the worst form of reality horror is suppressed gender dysphoria.—RDL
Longshot (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1990) Impoverished survival writer John Kendall takes a desperation job to write the commissioned biography of a racehorse trainer, and gets caught up in a murder investigation. Less of a mystery than a thriller, the novel nonetheless plays fair while hitting suspense beats with stopwatch precision. Francis unsurprisingly reaches his emotional and lyrical peak while describing horses, but his people look and act like humans, which is refreshing.—KH
Man’s Castle (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1933) Autonomy-seeking wanderer (Spencer Tracy) chafes at the unconditional adoration offered him by an angelic fellow shantytown resident (Loretta Young.) Tracy’s presence and Borzage’s mystical romanticism build sympathy for a character and central problem we could otherwise easily reject.—RDL
Maria (Film, Italy/Germany/Chile/US, Pablo Larrain, 2024) In the last week of her life, mercurial opera legend Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) recounts her life to a pharmaceutically hallucinated TV interviewer (Kodi Smit-McPhee), ducks an unwanted prognosis, and works with an English conductor (Stephen Ashby) to revive her ruined voice. In a moving, layered portrayal of a person no longer able to do the thing that defines her, Jolie reveals the pain behind sturdily built defense mechanisms.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Anora, Conclave, and the Fine Art of Financial Fraud
February 25th, 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.
Recommended
Anora (Film, US, Sean Baker, 2024) Stripper Ani (Mikey Madison) hits the jackpot when she connects with oligarch spawn Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) thanks to her familial Russian language skills. Cinderella story turns to dark farce when his parents send the Armenians (Karren Karagulian, Vache Tovmasyan, Yuri Borisov) after the happy couple. Baker’s sympathetic eye for character drives both the comic and moral elements of a story both personal and archetypal, while his editing and direction keep the movie popping.—KH
Conclave (Film, UK/US, Edward Berger, 2024) Self-effacing cardinal (Ralph Fiennes) discovers ecclesiastical intrigue as he steers his colleagues through the election of a new pope. A pellucid interior performance from Fiennes anchors a crackling drama of ambition versus principle.—RDL
The Last Stop in Yuma County (Film, US, Francis Galluppi, 2024) Agitated salesman (Jim Cummings) looks on helplessly as bank robbers take the patrons of a roadside diner hostage. Sun-baked noir spirals into disaster like the Coens with half a cup less of cosmic joke.—RDL
Lying for Money (Nonfiction, Dan Davies, 2018) Witty, lucid survey of large scale financial frauds recent and historical breaks them into categories and finds the elements that unite them. Portrays big frauds as colorful, destructive but rare events exploiting points of vulnerability in a system that can’t monitor everything without hampering legit commerce.—RDL
Sugarcane (Film, US, Julian Brave NoiseCat & Emily Kassie, 2024) Documentarian depicts the impact on generations of people in his British Columbia indigenous community of the abuse and unreported deaths at a government-mandated, Catholic-run residential school designed to deculturate its students. Tells a story that in news coverage can read as an impersonal atrocity through shattering individual experience.—RDL
Wolves, Pigs and Men (Film, Japan, Kinji Fukasaku, 1964) Freshly released convict (Ken Takakura) enlists his angry younger brother in a scheme to rob the yakuza clan their weaselly older brother works for. Betrayal and cruelty reign in a tight, confrontational crime thriller from the director of Battle Royale.—RDL
Good
La Chimera (Film, Italy/France/Switzerland, Alice Rohrwacher, 2023) British archaeologist/dowser Arthur (Josh O’Connor) returns to rural Tuscany and his crew of tomb robbers. Isabella Rosselini as a local matriarch is a delight, but her story and Arthur’s seem arbitrary together. The “magic realist tomb raider heist movie” vibes should work better than they play out, possibly because Rohrwacher cannot ideologically cut extraneity, leading to a somewhat leaden story weighing down the fairy tale proceedings.—KH
Okay
Heroes Shed No Tears (Film, Hong Kong, John Woo, 1984) With his young son and sister-in-law unwisely nearby, an intrepid Chinese mercenary seeking a new life in America (Eddy Ko) leads a ragtag strike team to capture a Thai general/drug lord. On the threshold of Woo’s mature operatic style, this gonzo festival of mayhem draws cruel inspiration from the grindhouse jungle warfare cycle of the 70s and early 80s.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Power Fantasy, Sci-Fi Tarot and the Count of Monte Cristo
February 18th, 2025 | Robin
Recommended
The Count of Monte Cristo (Film, France, Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, 2024) On the verge of marriage above his station to Mercedes de Moncerf (Anaïs Demoustier), sailor Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney) is betrayed by her jealous cousin and imprisoned in the Chateau d’If black site. Lushly filmed and produced swashbuckler strips down Dumas’ Pinnacle ur-revenge thriller to a mere three hours, staying mostly true to the original while softening some blows for modern audiences.—KH
Crime of Passion (Film, US, Gerd Oswald, 1956) After giving up her career to marry a homicide detective (Sterling Hayden), an erstwhile star reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) succumbs to Machiavellian mania to advance his career. Proto-feminist mix of cop and domestic noir follows the spiral of its flawed protagonist with acerbic abandon.—RDL
Kim’s Video (Film, US, David Redmon & Ashley Sabin, 2023) Documentarian examining the legacy of legendary, defunct NYC video store stumbles across the strange destination of its legality-skirting archive. Tongue-in-cheek celebration of cinephilia moves from investigation to active intervention in its storyline.—RDL
Power Fantasy Vol. 1: The Superpowers (Comics, Image, Kieron Gillen & Caspar Wijngaard, 2025) Beginning with the Trinity detonation, people started getting powers. Six of them have the power to destroy the planet. None of those six really get along. Gillen’s ongoing wrangling with what Watchmen did to the art form has produced a compelling comic that takes some big swings in terms of narrative consequences and risks to audience sympathy; Wijngaard’s art provides clarity of narrative with valuable emotional color contrast.—KH
Sci-Fi Tarot (Tarot, Todd Alcott, 2024) Not the slam dunk of his Pulp Tarot, but closer to that in its homage-collage tendencies than to his Horror Tarot, this tarot casts the traditional suits as glowing rods, ray guns, capsules, and very saucer-like pentacles. Inspirations come from all over SF art, with the strongest DNA from the 1930s to the 1970s. Visually thrilling and in one case (Death) literally breathtaking.—KH
So You Think You Can Be Prime Minister (Nonfiction, Ian Martin, 2024) Jaundiced satire of recent UK politics couched as a how-to manual for the shallow and ambitious, with quizzes and flow charts. Perfect Father’s Day or birthday reading for sarcastic dads who follow the news, from a key writer for The Thick of It and Veep.—RDL
Timecrimes (Film, Spain, Nacho Vigalondo, 2007) Fleeing an attack from a mysterious bandaged figure, an obdurate everyman (Karra Elejalde) jumps into a time machine, which takes him just far enough into the past to unleash a cascade of twisting consequences. Black comic twist on time travel tropes driven by the protagonist’s headlong insistence on the wrongest available decisions.—RDL
Good
Baba Yaga (Film, Italy, Corrado Farina, 1973) Milan fashion photographer resists the advances of a witchy rich lady. Style-obsessed adaptation of Guido Crepax’s erotica comic Valentina with reality horror theme plays like a giallo where the black-gloved killer never shows up. CW: incidental 70s leftist Euro-racism.—RDL
Heartbreak Motel (Film, Indonesia, Angga Dwimas Sasongko, 2024) Traumatized movie star (Laura Basuki) married to insecure, undermining husband (Reza Rahadian) is somehow connected to mousy hotel maid pursued by hunky financier (Chicco Jerikho.) Showbiz melodrama with noirish undertones and fragmented puzzle structure shifts back to convention for its resolution.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: I Saw the TV Glow, September 5th, The Brutalist
February 11th, 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.
Recommended
Becky (Film, US, Jonathan Milott & Cary Murnion, 2020) Sullen, grief-numbed teen (Lulu Wilson) awakens a talent for vengeance when a neo-Nazi prison escapee (Kevin James) and his confederates invade the family cottage. James makes a convincing heel turn in an economically drawn piece of elevated neo-exploitation.—RDL
Chasing Chasing Amy (Film, US, Sav Rodgers, 2023) Young queer filmmaker who credits the 1997 Kevin Smith film Chasing Amy as a literal life-saver from the effects of high school bullying examines its creation and the complicated position it holds as a work of LGBT+ representation. What could be simply a critical essay documentary with interviews and a personal perspective takes a couple of surprising, deeply emotional turns.—RDL
I Saw the TV Glow (Film, US, Jane Schoenbrun, 2024) In 1996, socially isolated teen Owen (Justice Smith) bonds with slightly older Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over YA supernatural show The Pink Opaque. Absolutely crippling emotional realism grounds creeping reality horror; special shout-outs to Eric Yue’s cinematography, which looks far better than the budget allows, and the soundtrack of 2020s artists recording imaginary 90s songs.—KH
Mischief (Fiction, Charlotte Armstrong, 1950) Out of town hotel guests readying themselves for a prestigious banquet leave their 9 year old daughter with the wrong last-minute babysitter. Tense psychological thriller makes masterful use of incisively drawn multiple perspectives.—RDL
Red Rooms (Film, Canada, Pascal Plante, 2023) Techie fashion model Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) becomes obsessed with the trial of a man accused of livestreaming the torture-murder of three girls to dark web “red rooms.” Plante shows us neither the gruesome murders nor Kelly-Anne’s motivation, depicting both by inference. The result is a film about obsession as obsession; Gariépy’s chilly control gives nothing away to the viewer but something to obsess about.—KH
September 5 (Film, Germany/US, Tim Fehlbaum, 2024) Greenhorn producer Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro) takes over the ABC Sports control room on a slow day during the Munich Olympics of 1972, only to be the man on the button when terrorists kidnap the Israeli Olympic team. This news-process thriller revels in period analog technology, going so far as to rough up its own digital footage to look like 16mm film. Magaro anchors the movie with his harried performance, backed up by a superb Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge and Leonie Benesch as a German office assistant pressed into increasingly critical roles.—KH
Sleep (Film, South Korea, Jason Yu, 2023) Expectant mother (Jung Yu-mi) seeks an extreme explanation when medical treatment fails to fix her actor husband’s (Lee Sun-kyun) dangerous, sudden onset sleepwalking. The pursuit of marital perfection becomes a nightmare of released repression in this claustrophobic ghost horror.—RDL
Terra Formars (Film, Japan, Takashi Miike, 2016) Crew of convicts and outsiders lands on a terraformed Mars to battle its population of giant humanoid cockroaches with their own bizarre bioengineered insect powers. In what might be blurbed as “body horror Power Rangers,” Miike maintains his commitment to heightening the absurdity of his manga adaptations.—RDL
Good
The Policeman’s Lineage (Film, South Korea, Lee Kyu-maan) Young officer (Choi Woo-sik), whose cop father warned him to avoid the family business, accepts an Internal Affairs undercover assignment to investigate the apparently corrupt head of an organized crime squad (Cho Jin-woong.) Well executed treatment of familiar material.—RDL
Ire-Inspiring
The Brutalist (Film, US, Brady Corbet, 2024) Arriving in America after surviving Europe’s horrors, a Bauhaus-trained Hungarian architect (Adrien Brody) accepts a commission from an overbearing, mercurial shipping magnate (Guy Pearce) to build a monumental community center in small town Pennsylvania. Miserabilist Vistavision drama of a tormented artist battling the Man to realize his vision continually asserts its importance, features a third act turn that literalizes its theme in the most trite and puerile manner possible, and finally uses the Holocaust to aggrandize its suffering Mary Sue protagonist.—RDL
