Ken and Robin Consume Media: Alien Invaders, Outback Noir, and a Curse-Breaking Conspiracy

October 17th, 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

Full Circle (Television, US, HBO Max, Ed Solomon & Steven Soderbergh, 2023) To undo a family curse, a Guyanese crime boss (CCH Pounder) orders the kidnapping of a rich couple’s (Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant) son, enmeshing a rogue postal inspector (Zazie Beetz) and many others in a series of dangerous errors and surprising revelations. Chaos theory ensemble crime drama shot by Soderbergh with a subtly destabilizing immediacy.—RDL

Limbo (Film, Australia, Ivan Sen, 2023) Police investigator Travis Hurley (Simon Baker) arrives at the titular opal-mining outback town to investigate the 20-year-old cold case of an Aboriginal girl’s abduction. Baker’s superb performance and the stark black-and-white cinematography (also by Sen) knit together this elliptical bricolage of noir, Western, policier, and social comment film genres into a powerful whole that does the job of cinema better than virtually anything you will see this year.—KH

No One Will Save You (Film, US, Brian Duffield, 2023) Lonely Etsy seller (Kaitlyn Dever) fights back when sinister gray UFO occupants invade her rural home. Nearly dialogue-free exercise in pure cinema cleverly weaves together disparate alien terror tropes.—RDL

Reptile (Film, US, Grant Singer, 2023) Homicide detective (Benicio del Toro) uncovers a conspiracy while investigating the murder of a callow realtor’s (Justin Timberlake) fiancee. Del Toro steps into a welcome leading role as a pitiless roving camera and ominous soundtrack lend neo-gothic dread to a small town policier.—RDL

Good

Evil Dead Rise (Film, US, Lee Cronin, 2023) In a largely deserted apartment building, a guitar tech (Lily Sullivan) defends her nieces and nephew from their demonically possessed mother (Alyssa Sutherland.) Earns points for moving the franchise to a new urban locale and for exploring deeper characterization, though the horror remits too often in the middle, and the fear of motherhood theme doesn’t really integrate with the gothic teleology of the Evil Dead universe.—RDL

Okay

Foremost by Night (Film, Spain/Portugal/France, Victor Iriarte, 2023) Court reporter Vera (Lola Dueñas) penetrates a baby-snatching conspiracy to find her stolen son Egoz (Manuel Egozkue) and his adoptive mother Cora (Ana Torrent). This film could be Exhibit A in McKee’s “no voiceovers” thesis. Three or four very promising premises founder on the complete absence of conflict, leaving what little drama remains for the actors to emote. That game acting and some intriguingly oblique symbology keep this inert exercise barely at Okay. —KH

Thirteen Women (Film, US, George Archainbaud, 1932) Young widowed socialite (Irene Dunne) and her former finishing school classmates receive messages of doom from an astrologer, which come true thanks to the hypnotic powers of their embittered nemesis (Myrna Loy.) Somewhat perfunctory thriller novel adaptation offers the chance to see Loy in one of her early villain roles. CW: Orientalism.