Archive for the ‘Audio Free’ Category
Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Last of Us, Cocaine Bear, and Psionic Norwegian Kids
March 28th, 2023 | 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
Aftersun (Film, UK, Charlotte Wells, 2022) As seen through a veil of unanswered adult memory, a young girl (Frankie Corio) vacations with her covertly troubled dad (Paul Mescal) at a disappointing tourist resort. Delicately acted, observation-driven naturalistic drama about the way parents protect their kids by hiding who they really are.—RDL
The Innocents (Film, Norway, Eskil Vogt, 2022) Young kids in an apartment complex develop interconnected psionic powers—but one of them is a bad seed. Horror of high-stakes conflict between children made all the more disturbing by its naturalistic presentation.—RDL
The Last of Us Season 1 (Television, US, HBO, Craig Mazin, 2023) In a post-apocalyptic present stalked by fungal zombies, a smuggler closed off by his tragic past (Pedro Pascal) reluctantly agrees to transport a sharp-witted teen (Bella Ramsey) across country to a lab that hopes to turn her immunity into the plague into a vaccine. Brilliantly realized survival horror built around the unusually clear dramatic arc of its videogame source material.—RDL
Good
Banacek Season 1 (Television, US, NBC, George Eckstein, 1972-1973) Insurance investigator Thomas Banacek (George Peppard) investigates impossible disappearances for a 10% recovery fee while radiating self-satisfaction, romancing suspects, and dropping “old Polish proverbs.” Peppard’s airy vibe still has its qualities, the padded interstitial scenes less so, but the mysteries are genuinely fun and challenging. –KH
Cocaine Bear (Film, US, Elizabeth Banks, 2023) Brave nurse (Keri Russell) tries to rescue her daughter as a cocaine bear tears its way through a string of victims in the Chattahoochee–Oconee National Forest. Horror comedy delights in entropic mayhem; peaks too soon.—RDL
Deliver Us From Evil (Film, South Korea, 2022) Ex-spy turned assassin delays his retirement to rescue the young daughter he never knew he had from Thai organ traffickers, pursued by his last victim’s ultra-violent blood brother. Well-staged hard action follows the recent Asian cinema trope of depicting Thailand as a sun-baked Wild West.—RDL
Okay
F9 (Film, US, Justin Lin, 2020) Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) come out of hiding to stop his brother (John Cena) from capturing a world-threatening technology. Disquieting nods toward self-awareness deep into a franchise that works when it fully commits to pure stupidity. I can’t tell whether Diesel is becoming a worse actor with each installment or if Lin has stopped trying to pick his less embarrassing takes.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Chris Rock, Czech SF, and the Science of Flavor
March 21st, 2023 | 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
Chris Rock: Selective Outrage (Standup, US, Netflix, Joel Gallen, 2023) The first three-quarters of this show are “merely” classic-style Chris Rock material (race, sex, family), which is to say a top-three standup doing a somewhat familiar sounding set. The last ten minutes or so, however, respond to the infamous Slap, and here Rock really gets angry again, and as fresh and compelling as when I first heard him. –KH
Desperate Journey (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1942) Heroic RAF pilot (Errol Flynn) leads downed comrades (Ronald Reagan, Arthur Kennedy, Alan Hale) to swipe Nazi secrets and escape Germany. Treats a then-current crisis as fodder for rip-roaring adventure, demonstrating the wise-ass sangfroid that won the propaganda war for America.—RDL
Flavor:The Science of Our Most Neglected Sense (Nonfiction, Bob Holmes, 2017) Survey of recent science covers the physiology of taste and the chemistry of the compounds that excite it. My favorite factoids concerns the presence of taste receptors in such disparate parts of the body as the gut and lungs.—RDL
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (Film, UK, Sophie Hyde, 2022) Inhibited former schoolteacher (Emma Thompson) hires a hunky, kindly sex worker (Daryl McCormack) for a long overdue introduction to pleasurable intimacy. Dialogue-driven two-hander drama was written for the screen using a playwright’s techniques.—RDL
Smilin’ Through (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1941) Young woman (Jeanette MacDonald) must choose between the beloved uncle who raised her (Brian Aherne) and her American beau (Gene Raymond), whose father killed the former’s bride on their wedding day. Borzage’s emotional commitment, plus touches of the gothic, elevate the third screen version of a once-popular stage melodrama. This is a MacDonald vehicle, so steel yourself for plenty of her dated operetta-style singing.—RDL
Spinning the Tales of Cruelty Towards Women (Film, South Korea, Lee Doo-yong, 1983) The suffering of a daughter of poor nobles begins when she joins a rich family as wife of their deceased son. Restrained period melodrama of social injustice builds to a hammer blow conclusion.—RDL
Good
Ikarie XB-1 (Film, Czechoslovakia, Jindřich Polák, 1963) In 2163, the first interstellar starship heads for Alpha Centauri. Neither cheap nor clunky despite its Eastbloc origin, it plays out (somewhat languidly and sententiously) as a proto-Star Trek, as various puzzles and dangers await our multinational crew. Its final act aims for pure scientific wonder, which sets it intellectually (if not dramatically) above virtually all SF films before Kubrick’s 2001, which it clearly influenced. –KH
Knock at the Cabin (Film, US, M. Night Shyamalan, 2023) The vacation of eight-year-old Wen (Kristen Cui) and her two dads (Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge) gets interrupted by the arrival of Leonard (Dave Bautista) and his apocalypse-fearing cult. Despite an actually convincing performance from Bautista, Shyamalan doesn’t hit the needed balance between ambiguity and suspense, thus sort of spoiling his own trick. Jarin Blaschke and Lowell Meyer’s beautiful cinematography continue Shyamalan’s commendable record of not making ugly films, whatever their other flaws. –KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Bones and All, EO, and the Letters of M. R. James
March 14th, 2023 | 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
Band of Outsiders (Film, France, Jean-Luc Godard, 1964) Pushover Odile (Anna Karina), feckless Franz (Sami Frey), and thuggish Artur (Claude Brasseur) plot to steal a hoard of cash from Odile’s landlord. Godard as usual cares less about the plot than about the dysfunctional interplay among the trio, but hits an ideal ironic distance from which to watch their attempts. The pernicious colonialism of American culture on French youth provides both a running leitmotif and the film’s highlight dance sequence. –KH
Bones And All (Film, Italy, Luca Guadagnino, 2022) Teen obligate cannibal Maren (Taylor Russell) searches for answers and meets other “eaters” including scary Sully (Mark Rylance) and lovely Lee (Timothée Chalamet). Sweet and creepy by turns, Guadagnino’s 80s American road trip horror-romance never stops working, hitting a balance and a vibe his Suspiria remake notably failed to. –KH
Bank Shot (Fiction, Donald E. Westlake, 1972) Seeing opportunity when a bank under renovation temporarily relocates to a modified mobile home across the street, a team of down-at-the-mouth thieves led by dyspeptic planner John Dortmunder resolves to put it back on wheels and tow it away. Second in Westlake’s series of wry, observant heist-gone-wrong novels delights in the procedural obstacles thrown up by its unique premise.—RDL
EO (Film, Poland, Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022) After animal welfare officers remove him from a circus, a donkey, seeking his beloved performance partner, undertakes an arduous journey into the hellish world of humans. Visual language predominates in an inverted quest narrative made poignant by the emotions we project on the large, expressive eyes of its equine protagonist.—RDL
Madeleine Collins (Film, France, Antoine Barraud, 2021) A busy professional (Virgine Efira) struggles to keep ahead of the lies she’s floated to hide the existence of her secret second family. Suspenseful character study wouldn’t work without Efira’s brilliant performance, which keeps us with the protagonist as we discover the full extent of the terrible decisions that have placed her in her worsening spiral.—RDL
Good
Avengement (Film, UK, Jesse V. Johnson, 2019) Inmate hardened by repeated attempts to kill him in prison (Scott Adkins) escapes to settle the score with the older brother (Craig Fairbrass) who put the bounty on his head. Brutal action vehicle for Adkins classed up with a flashback structure and a taste for hard man dialogue.—RDL
Casting the Runes: The Letters of M.R. James (Nonfiction, Jane Mainley-Piddock (ed.), 2023) Collects and reprints 101 letters from M.R. James held in various Cambridge University archives, spanning his life from childhood to c. 1925. (This collection excludes the letters from MRJ to the family of his bff James McBryde, which have been separately published in a now-out-of-print volume.) Readers get a glimpse of James’ personality emerging, and some familiarity with his life thanks to generally excellent annotations by Mainley-Piddock. While still Recommended for MRJ-heads, the near-total absence of insight into his ghost stories from his correspondence must drop it to Good for the casual Jamesian. –KH
Not Recommended
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Film, US, Guillermo del Toro, 2022) Woodcarver mourning the WWI bombing death of his young son gets a second chance at fatherhood when a wood nymph breathes life into a marionette he has fashioned. Grim slog through the Carlo Collodi story trafficks in loaded imagery of fascism and crucifixion without resolving its meaning.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Ant-Man, Women Talking, and The Fabelmans
March 7th, 2023 | 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
Athena (Film, France, Romain Gavras, 2022) When the Athena housing project in Paris erupts in revolution after cops kill a young boy, his three brothers (Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Ouassini Embarek) choose their sides. The resulting Homeric drama occurs against a propulsively filmed, jawdropping action backdrop with moments of pure humanity throughout. –KH
The Fabelmans (Film, US, Steven Spielberg, 2022) Young wannabe film director Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) realizes that his art can immiserate as well as exalt him, not least by revealing his parents’ (Paul Dano and an amazing tightwire Michelle Williams) marital difficulties. Spielberg turns his rollercoaster mastery (and Janusz Kaminski’s luxe lensing) to semi-autobiography, and for about two acts achieves riveting perfection. I was actually relieved when the bones of artifice showed up toward the end, but the final scene may be the best one of the century. –KH
The Green Years (Film, Portugal, Paulo Rocha, 1963) Callow hick (Rui Gomes) arrives in the big city of Lisbon to become a cobbler and woo a thoughtful maid (Isabel Ruth.) New wave observational drama starts out wry and sweet, then takes a dark turn..—RDL
King Con (Nonfiction, Paul Willetts, 2018) From the teens into the 40s, the charismatic, bisexual, cocaine-confident swindler and vaudevillean Edgar Laplante adopts the guise of a Cherokee prince to spend and scam his way across America and Europe. True crime biography presents a particularly egregious example of the still persistent pretendian phenomenon. Notable for its anti-hero’s use of patriotic fervor to grease his marks, which reaches its apogee when he embraces Italian fascism.—RDL
Son of the White Mare (Film, Hungary, Marcell Jankovics, 1981) Aided by his only somewhat less awesome brothers Stonecrumbler and Irontemperer, the hero Treeshaker ventures to hell to rescue the princesses of the three good seasons from the many-headed dragon husbands who keep them captive. Animated feature tells a myth of the steppe peoples with graphic, boldly stylized visuals.—RDL
Women Talking (Film, US, Sarah Polley, 2022) With the men away bailing out the community members who repeatedly tranquilized and sexually assaulted them, the women of a Mennonite community collectively decide whether to leave, or stay and fight. Drama of passion and ideas features heightened dialogue, a mastery of cinematic space, and stunning performances from an ensemble headed by Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy and Sheila McCarthy.—RDL
Okay
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Film, US, Peyton Reed, 2023) An experiment gone awry drags the whole ant-clan into the quantum realm to face Janet Van Dyne’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) past and Kang the Conqueror (a morose Jonathan Majors). By-the-numbers plot deliberately ignores everything interesting, original, or specific to the quantum realm (and Kang) on its way to flabbily set up the next endless cycle of MCU film and TV. Michelle Pfeiffer gets to act, though, which is nice. –KH
Lake of Dracula (Film, Japan, Michio Yamamoto, 1971) A young woman clashes with her envious sister when the events from a vividly terrifying childhood dream acquire prophetic reality. A step less eerie than its predecessor, the second in the director’s vampire trilogy preserves the barest bones of the Stoker novel. Notable for Dracula’s sinister plan of having himself FedExed to his victim’s home.—RDL
Mondocane (Film, Alessandro Celli, Italy, 2021) In post-collapse Italy, a pair of young teen pals put their mutual loyalty to the test when they join a murderous communal gang. Dystopian social realism kept in second gear by weak staging and composition.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Aftersun, Crimes of the Future, and The Quiet Girl
February 28th, 2023 | 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
Aftersun (Film, UK, Charlotte Wells, 2022) On a seemingly blissful vacation in Turkey with her doting 30-year-old dad Calum (Paul Mescal), 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) subconsciously feels darker currents at work that her adult self now recalls. Two wonderfully natural performances synchronize to build a film all about layered emotional truths and the impossibility of memory. A magical experience that deliberately avoids the traps of plot and omniscience. –KH
The Contractor (Film, US, Tarik Saleh, 2022) Abruptly cashiered for using performance enhancing drugs to stay in his Green Beret unit, a financially strapped vet (Chris Pine) joins his fellow family man army buddy (Ben Foster) in a mission run by a gruffly avuncular merc company proprietor (Kiefer Sutherland.) Gritty action spy thriller with touches of the Western takes pains to establish the reality of its protagonist and his world.—RDL
Crimes of the Future (Film, Canada/Greece, David Cronenberg, 2022) In a future world mostly without pain, tortured performance artist Tester (Viggo Mortensen) tests the line of new vice when he’s drawn into a police investigation of radical evolutionists. Cronenberg presents a basic procedural narrative in a wildly discordant fashion, down to huge variations in line readings: the result is literally bloody pulp and bloody good fun. –KH
Henri Dauman: Looking Up (Film, US, Peter Kenneth Jones, 2018) Profile of Henri Dauman, who in his 60s heyday shooting for Life brought a glamorous, cinematic eye to photojournalism. Shot with affection for the subject’s puckish perfectionism and empathy for the travails of a life informed by his boyhood escape from deportation to Auschwitz in wartime France.—RDL
The Quiet Girl (Film, Ireland, Colm Bairéad, 2022) In 1981, superfluous nine-year-old daughter Cáit (Catherine Clich) goes to live with her mother’s cousins in a rural idyll. A sad, beautifully shot movie about girlhood and (at a remove) motherhood, made extra gorgeous for Anglophones by having almost all the dialogue in Irish. Clinch’s excellent performance wisely stays very interiorized, as the title indicates. –KH
Wild Girl (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1932) A vivacious young woman (Joan Bennett) raised among California’s redwoods resists the attentions of men from the nearby town, until a handsome stranger (Charles Farrell) shows up to settle a score with the worst of them. Walsh’s roughneck sympathies energize a Western fable of good-hearted outsiders up against merciless, hypocritical authorities. —RDL
Okay
Django & Django (Film, Italy, Luca Rea, 2021) Documentary survey of the nihilistic spaghetti westerns of Sergio Corbucci could do with an extra talking head or two to balance the on-set anecdotes from Franco Nero and Ruggero Deodato and the enthusiastic flapdoodle of Quentin Tarantino.—RDL
Massacre at Grand Canyon (Film, Italy, Sergio Corbucci, 1964) Returning home after avenging his father’s death, an ex-sheriff (Jim Mitchum) tries to prevent a range war. Made just before Corbucci saw his friend Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and adopted a version of its hyper-accentuated spaghetti western style, this more traditional cowboy actioner contains flashes of the darkness that takes center frame in his subsequent films.—RDL
Triangle of Sadness (Film, Sweden, Ruben Östlund, 2022) Feckless models (Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean) in a romantic and/or business relationship take a free trip on a luxury cruise bound for disaster. Scores when directing its gleeful satirical cruelties at easy targets, but loses energy in its final act and cops out when it realizes where a true resolution of its tensions would take it.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Woman King, Fleishman is in Trouble, and Inuk Kids on Bikes vs. Alien Monsters
February 21st, 2023 | 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
A Curious Boy (Nonfiction, Richard Fortey, 2021) Memoir follows the author’s progression from science-obsessed youngster in post war Britain to the advent of his career as the Natural History Museum’s renowned trilobite expert. A skilled science writer makes the leap to more personal writing, with evocative results.—RDL
Fleishman is in Trouble (Television, US, Hulu/FX/Disney+, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, 2022) A former magazine writer mired in suburban despond (LIzzy Caplan) recounts the divorce story of her college friend, uptight hepatologist Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), whose hard charging talent agent ex (Claire Danes) has inexplicably ghosted him and their kids. Brilliantly acted and directed satirical drama of money, class, marital expectation and shifting perspectives. Read the excellent source novel first to see how differences in medium can radically shift the impact of an extremely faithful adaptation.—RDL
Slash/Back (Film, Canada, Nyla Innuksuk, 2022) Teen Inuk girls defend the tiny Arctic settlement of Pangnirtung from a gruesome alien menace. Fun kids on bikes creature feature with side dishes of empowerment and local Indigenous culture.—RDL
The Woman King (Film, US, Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2022) In 1820s Dahomey, the tough-minded leader (Viola Davis) of the Agojie, the kingdom’s cadre of women warriors, prepares for a war of liberation against the superior forces of the Oyo Empire and discovers an unexpected connection to a cocky but determined recruit (Thuso Mbedu.) Historical epic of stoic empowerment recalls David Lean and event pictures of the 60s, with the addition of energetically staged modern mass fight choreography.—RDL
Good
In the Earth (Film, UK, Ben Wheatley, 2021) During a deadly plague, a feckless biologist (Joel Fry) and his sensible ranger guide (Ellora Torchia) find folk horror and a research product gone violently awry in the woodland depths. Wheatley revisits favorite themes in this reduced-scale forest freakout.—RDL
Thunder on the Hill (Film, US, Douglas Sirk, 1951) When a party transporting a distraught young woman (Ann Blyth) to the gallows takes refuge from a flood at a Norwich convent, a problem-solving nun (Claudette Colbert) sets out to prove her innocence. Sirk forgoes his characteristic florid irony, devoting his technique to hide the stage play origins of this atmospheric investigative thriller.—RDL
Ken was on the road this week.
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Bardo, Gritty Korean Supers, and Twisty Structures from the Classic Mystery Era
February 14th, 2023 | Robin
Recommended
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (Film, Mexico, Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2022) Alternately arrogant and self-doubting documentarian (Daniel Giménez Cacho) experiences a surreal, scrambled version of his life as he prepares for a major awards ceremony. Nods to Buñuel and Fellini abound in this introspective spectacle of personal and national identity.—RDL
Haunters (Film, South Korea, Min-suk Kim, 2010) Goodhearted but luckless man (Gang Dong-won) discovers strange abilities of his own when a robber with mind control powers (Go Soo) murders his new boss. Cat and mouse thriller in the uncostumed gritty supers genre built on the reliable chassis of an underdog hero taking on a loathsome, frightening villain.—RDL
Hot Cash, Cold Clews: The Adventures of Lester Leith (Fiction, Erle Stanley Gardner, 2020) Before creating Perry Mason, Gardner wrote 65 stories (between 1929 and 1941) about con artist Lester Leith, who solves thefts before the cops could, then runs parallel cons (on the crooks and the cops) to hijack the loot. The seven tales collected here run this very fun, if intricate, formula in self-consciously brash pulp style. —KH
The Shining Hour (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1938) Classy nightclub performer (Joan Crawford) marries a besotted sophisticate (Melvyn Douglas) from an old money Wisconsin family, only to discover a mutual attraction for his neurotic brother (Robert Young.) Family melodrama played without ironic excess, and with a sympathy for an antagonist (Fay Bainter, as the bitterly disapproving elder sister) who in a typical treatment of this material would be villainized.—RDL
Trial and Error (Fiction, Anthony Berkeley, 1937) Diagnosed with a terminal heart condition, Mr. Todhunter decides to murder a rotten person – but when Scotland Yard arrests someone else for the crime, he has to prove his guilt. Berkeley at his most arch, once more deconstructing the mystery novel right in the middle of its Golden Age. A trifle long, but it’s a good long. —KH
Good
Lost Bullet 2 (Film, France, Guillaume Pierret, 2022) Lino’s (Alban Lenoir) determination to bring down the drug smugglers who killed his brother threatens his unexpected transition from ex-con to cop. Continuations take more effort to set in motion than originals, so this engaging mix of hand-to-hand and automotive action lacks the precision wristwatch quality of the original.—RDL
Pathaan (Film, India, Siddharth Anand, 2023) Badass Indian secret agent Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan) hunts terrorist mastermind Jim (John Abraham) with (or and?) Pakistani spy Rubina (Deepika Padukone). Ridiculously over-the-top action thriller hits every emotional beat on the map in between joyous fights and chases; imagine a Mission: Impossible flick that cared even less about grounded realism. Bump it up to Recommended if you’re already an admirer of SRK or Deepika. —KH
Okay
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Film, US, Ryan Coogler, 2022) Princess Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) mourning for her brother is interrupted by an argument by an invasion threat by Prince Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and his undersea kingdom. In addition to the usual MCU shoehorning in of extraneous characters, this struggles for momentum with a protagonist with an unconscious objective she is not pursuing, and an antagonist pursuing a fuzzy, strained objective.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: A Talking Shell, a Monopolized Sky, and a High-Stakes Prosecution
February 7th, 2023 | 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
Argentina, 1985 (Film, Argentina, Santiago Mitre, 2022) With a new civilian government holding tenuous power, a principled, irascible prosecutor (Ricardo Darin) takes the considerable risk of assembling a young team of lawyers to prosecute the generals of Argentina’s junta for their crimes against humanity. Political thriller legal procedural skillfully lays out the real world exposition while still leaving room for emotional punch.—RDL
The Black-Eyed Blonde (Fiction, John Banville writing as Benjamin Black, 2014) An alluring client hires wry Los Angeles detective Philip Marlowe to investigate the reappearance of her supposedly dead ex-lover. References Chandler more than Chandler would, but otherwise accurately inhabits his style, which is drier and more measured than we tend to recall. The basis of the upcoming Neil Jordan Marlowe film.—RDL
Loving Highsmith (Film, Switzerland/Germany, Eva Vitija, 2022) Documentary uses Patricia Highsmith’s diaries, voiced by Gwendoline Christie, as a springboard to explore the life and short-lived intense loves behind such works as Carol, Strangers on a Train, and the Ripley series.—RDL
The Man in the White Suit (Film, UK, Alexander Mackendrick, 1951) Naive chemist Sidney Stratton (Alec Guinness) topples Britain’s textile industry into crisis when he invents an indestructible, never-dirty artificial fiber. Mackendrick underlines the “innocent everyman against a dirty system” satire literally, filming the white suit glowing against the grime and mean-ness of the rest of the world. In a stable of marvelous Ealing Studios performers, Ernest Thesiger steals the show as the literally consumptive spirit of aristocratic capital. –KH
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (Film, US, Dean Fleischer-Camp, 2022) Recently dumped documentarian (Dean Fleischer-Camp) shoots a film about the unexpected occupant of his AirBNB, a shy but talkative snail shell (Jenny Slate) and his fading grandmother (Isabella Rosselini). I was maybe prepared for this expansion of a viral video series to turn a rental house into a cavernous, melancholy realm, but not for the emotional wallop of its exploration of abandonment and grief.—RDL
Rich Man’s Sky (Fiction, Wil McCarthy, 2021) Four trillionaires control outer space thanks to governmental neglect, so the U.S. President sends an operative to infiltrate the solar shield project. Works both as refreshingly half-assed covert-ops narrative and as rich near-future worldbuilding, with letters from one of the monks on the lunar monastery providing an enjoyable Greek chorus. –KH
Good
Seven Sweethearts (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1942) Brash reporter (Van Heflin) covering a tulip festival in a quaintly Dutch Michigan town led by its garrulous innkeeper (S. Z. Sakall) must fend off the attentions of his fame-seeking eldest daughter (Miriam Hunt) to woo his sweet-natured youngest (Kathryn Grayson.) Only Borzage could fill such fluffy nonsense with such genuine feeling, including glimmers of wartime gravity.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Banshees of Inisherin, The Maestro Nostradamus Trilogy, and a Hollywood Double Agent
January 31st, 2023 | 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
The Banshees of Inisherin (Film, Ireland, Martin McDonagh, 2022) On an isolated Irish Ireland during the Civil War, a brooding would-be songwriter (Brendan Gleeson) goes to extremes to end all interaction with his sweet natured bore of an erstwhile drinking buddy (Colin Farrell.) A substrate of Beckett underlies the pictorial naturalism of this bleak existential political parable.—RDL
Hollywood Double Agent (Nonfiction, Jonathan Gill, 2020) While working for Paramount as music director in the 1930s, clownish charmer and peripatetic striver Boris Morros signs on to spy for Stalin, later turning on his handlers as an FBI mole. Acutely reported account of a true story full of lies shows that any realistic account of the espionage world resembles the works of Armando Iannucci and the Coens more than it does John le Carré.—RDL
The Maestro Nostradamus Trilogy (Fiction, Dave Duncan, 2007-2009) Three mystery novels featuring the alchemist, astrologer, seer, etc. Nostradamus (the nephew) and his apprentice Alfeo in a 1590s Venice where magic works. Engaging pastiche of Nero Wolfe offers moderately compelling mysteries and rich setting and occult detail. Definitely inspirational for Swords of the Serpentine players. –KH
Reservation Dogs Season 1 (Television, US, FX/Hulu/Disney+, Sterlin Harjo, 2021) Four teens on an Oklahoma reservation plot their escape from rural despond to an imagined bright future in Los Angeles. Funny, moving, real, and occasionally magically real, this half-hour dramedy sets out a throughline and then structures each episode as its own evanescent short story.—RDL
Good
The Crazy Ray (Film, France, René Clair, 1923) Eiffel Tower attendant discovers a time-stopped Paris, meets a few other still-awake folks, and eventually discovers the mad scientist responsible. The first ever “awake in an empty city” movie deftly shifts emotional tone while depicting a fantasy of Paris, but its last act drags out to little purpose. Still, several individual scenes and shots retain surprising power even leaving aside their inspiration on later films. –KH
Woman in the Moon (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1929) Even though his project has been hijacked by an evil gold cartel, and the woman he loves (Gerda Maurus) has agreed to marry his second-in-command, a determined astrophysicist (Willy Fritsch) persists with his rocket flight to the moon. Because this is Lang, the first film to depict the romance of space exploration technology is also fundamentally about being trapped—physically, and, more importantly, with other people. A modern remake would radically collapse the ninety minutes of pre-blastoff setup.—RDL
Okay
Aelita, Queen of Mars (Film, USSR, Yakov Protazanov, 1924) As a corrupt supply official turns the head of his new bride, an astrophysicist daydreams of class revolution on Mars. Relegates the science fiction of its source novel to a dream sequence in favor of a satirical melodrama about people struggling to live up to revolutionary ideals in post-revolutionary hard times, and thus more of greater interest as a piece of early Soviet cinema than as a genre precursor.—RDL
The Crazy Ray (Film, France, René Clair, 1923) A handful of unaffected individuals enjoy a brief idyll when a scientific experiment plunges Paris into a time-stopped state. An exercise in futurist whimsy serves as a footnote in science fiction cinema and the career of its director.—RDL
Not Recommended
TÁR (Film, US, Todd Field, 2022) The supreme self-assurance that carried a superstar conductor (Cate Blanchett) to the directorship of the Berlin Philharmonic prevents her from adjusting to the reality of a looming scandal. Character study, written from a position of moral superiority over the protagonist it devotes two and half hours to, slowly descends from ambiguity to obviousness.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Gritty Hong Kong Crime Drama, John Waters Fiction, and Dark Body Horror Supers from Takashi Miike
January 24th, 2023 | 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
Connect Season 1 (Television, South Korea, Disney+/Hulu, Takashi Miike, 2022) Young junkyard employee with grotesque regenerative powers (Jung Hae-in) loses an eye to organ traffickers, gaining unwanted insight into the activities of the serial killer (Go Kyung-Pyo) it has been transplanted into. Gritty body horror dark superhero thriller anchored by Miike’s mastery of the outré.—RDL
Hand Rolled Cigarette (Film, HK, Kin Long Chan, 2022) Veteran of the UK forces in Hong Kong who has been reduced to petty gangsterism (Ka-Tung Lam) reluctantly shelters a young South Asian man (Bipin Karma) secretly in possession of cocaine bricks stolen from his boss. Gritty, character-driven crime drama in crusty guy comes out of his shell mode escalates to an extended, crunching fight sequence.—RDL
Liarmouth (Fiction, John Waters, 2019) When her airport luggage theft business comes a-cropper, a contemptuous pathological liar provokes pursuit from her horny, dimwitted accomplice and wronged trampoline cultist daughter. Satirical, breakneck chase thriller, unfettered by the limits of the filmable, meets the new respectability and finds it the same as the old respectability, thus ripe for gleeful roasting.—RDL
The Mortal Storm (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1940) When Hitler comes to power in 1933, Freya (Margaret Sullavan), daughter of a prominent Jewish medical professor (Frank Morgan), sees the difference between the two men who love her, a pushy Nazi (Robert Young) and an assuming pacifist (James Stewart.) Borzage devotes his poignant, mystical humanism to Hollywood’s effort to prepare American popular opinion for its entry into WWII. This is your great-grandfather’s antifascism, and pretty darn effective.—RDL
The Northman (Film, US, Robert Eggers, 2022) Viking prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) poses as a thrall and allies with a heroic Slavic witch (Anya Taylor-Joy) to avenge the murder of his royal father by the cruel uncle (Claes Bang), who has married his mother (Nicole Kidman.) Brutal spectacle fills the screen in this pre-Christian inversion of Hamlet from a story of action vs contemplation to one of choice vs fate.—RDL
Okay
The Mystery of the Blue Train (Fiction, Agatha Christie, 1928) On the verge of a divorce, American heiress Ruth Kettering is killed on the Blue Train from Paris to Nice; her father hires Poirot to find the killer. Flashes of mature character drown under lurid, sensationalized plot, generating no real atmosphere while the puzzle seems forgotten or almost arbitrary at times. Christie herself “downgraded” anyone who enjoyed this novel, so I guess we agree. –KH
Not Recommended
The Big Four (Fiction, Agatha Christie, 1927) Captain Hastings returns to Poirot’s London flat just as a mysterious courier delivers a post-hypnotic dying message revealing the Big Four – an international crime syndicate headed by a mysterious Chinaman of all things. Christie’s serialized attempt at Sax Rohmer fails as a fixup novel and as a surreal thriller and almost entirely as a mystery. If there’s a worse Poirot book, I hope I never read it. –KH
