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