Ken and Robin Consume Media: A Magic Shirt, the Last Mr. Moto Novel, and the Yellow King in Minecraft
May 5th, 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
The Bowery (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1933) Two gamblers, a big lug (Wallace Beery) and a dapper charmer (George Raft), pursue an epic rivalry on the hardscrabble side of Gilded Age New York. Walsh’s ultimate salute to roughneck knuckleheads features a franker-than-usual depiction of period racism and a looser-than-usual performance from Raft.—RDL
Elena and Her Men (Film, France, Jean Renoir, 1956) A much-adored Polish princess (Ingrid Bergman) who specializes in assisting men with their ambitions sets her sights on a general touted for the presidency (Jean Marais), to the consternation of a rival suitor, a suave aristocrat without other aspirations (Mel Ferrer). Renoir fills the screen with people and keeps them in motion in a color-drenched, farcical reimagining of the Belle Époque’s Boulanger Affair, featuring Bergman at her most glamorous and charming.—RDL
The Golden Fern (Film, Czechoslovakia, Jiri Weiss, 1963) Handsome but thin-skinned 18th century shepherd (Wit Omer) takes up with a beautiful forest nymph (Karla Chadimová), who fashions a magic shirt to protect him when he is hauled off to war. Starkly atmospheric folk tale of unheeded warnings and untrustworthy nobles could have made our Fantasy Film Essentials series had I seen it back then.—RDL
A House of Dynamite (Film, US, Kathryn Bigelow, 2025) After an ICBM launch of unknown origin, US government officials, from the personnel at an anti-missile station to mid-level analysts to the Defense Secretary (Jared Haris) and President (Idris Elba) struggle to assemble the information needed to decide whether to trigger global nuclear war. Bigelow marshals her mastery of the stiff-lipped procedural in a speculative docudrama told in three repeated slices of nail-biting time. A telling acknowledgment that the technothriller genre only makes sense if set before the end of the Obama years.—RDL
Right You Are, Mr. Moto (Fiction, John P. Marquand, 1957) American spy Jack Rhyce is sent to Japan to uncover a Communist assassination plot and the elusive “Big Ben,” but complications arise in the form of last-minute spy partner Ruth Bogart and mysterious manipulator Mr. Moto. The only postwar Mr. Moto novel combines genuinely thrilling espionage minutiae and Marquand’s habitual command of the travelogue with reveals that of course “Moto” is an alias, and of course Mr. Moto’s cartoonish English is a cover.—KH
Searching For a World That Doesn’t Exist (Film, US, Wifies, 2025) YouTuber Avery (Owen Yarnold) finds a world he didn’t build inside his Minecraft instance, and tries to track down the mysterious builder and crack his enigmatic message. By far the most-watched Yellow King Mythos work is a tight 42-minute reality horror tale taking place inside Minecraft. This does mean lots of watching Avery walk through Minecraft tunnels, but even that can turn chillingly interesting on a dime.—KH
Good
Beijing Watermelon (Film, Japan, Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 1989) Stubborn greengrocer (Bengal) fixates on helping Chinese exchange students, threatening his business, family, and health. Somewhat overlong drama of obsessive altruism takes a surprising late swerve from naturalism to metafiction. A huge contrast with the director’s best-known film outside Japan, the berserk horror flick House.—RDL
Destroying a World That Doesn’t Exist (Film, US, Wifies, 2026) Avery (Owen Yarnold) tracks the supposed builder, D3rLord3 (Wifies), and we watch D3rLord3 try to seal up the King in Yellow, who he unleashed by exploring the mysterious instance. Two hours plus runtime and explanations for many of the first film’s brilliantly elliptical mysteries lessen the tension and horror in the sequel, although we get far more explicit Yellow Mythos in this one. The Minecraft scenery is if anything even better and more evocative this time around, though.—KH
