Ken and Robin Consume Media: Backrooms, Obsession, Fallout, and The Sleuth of Baghdad
June 23rd, 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.
The Pinnacle
Dry Summer (Film, Turkey, Metin Erksan, 1964) Domineering farmer (Erol Tas) bullies his younger brother (Ulvi Dogan) into his plan to deprive neighbors of their property’s spring water, while coveting his strong-willed bride (Hülya Koçyigit). Stark morality tale ratchets up the audience’s desire for its incorrigible bastard protagonist’s comeuppance.—RDL
Recommended
Backrooms (Film, US, Kane Parsons, 2026) Embittered furniture store owner (Chiwetel Ejiofor) stumbles into a labyrinthine otherworld that imperfectly mimics grim, anonymous commercial interior spaces; his tense therapist (Renate Reinsve) goes to look for him. Not since Kiyoshi Kurosawa crept onto the horror scene has deteriorating industrial design provoked as much unease as in this adeptly realized weird fable.—RDL
Fallout Season 1 (Television, US, Prime, Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, 2025) In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a sheltered vault-dweller (Ella Purnell) seeks a decapitated head McGuffin to free her kidnapped father (Kyle McLachlan), crossing paths with an ill-treated soldier (Aaron Moten) and mutant revenant gunslinger (Walton Goggins) who want it for their own purposes. Keeps the momentum on the boil and lore revelations coming while threading the actions of multiple protagonists.—RDL
Obsession (Film, US, Curry Barker, 2026) Romantically maladroit music shop employee (Michael Johnston) makes an ill-advised wish for the intense love of a co-worker (Inde Navarette) who probably thinks of him as strictly a friend. Navarette’s calibrated yet jaw-dropping performance as the unfortunate wish object powers a sly riff on a classic horror premise.—RDL
Secret Mall Apartment (Film, US, Jeremy Workman, 2024) In 2004 a group of street-level Providence RI artists find a large dead spot behind the scenes of a high-end shopping mall and for four years covertly transform it into a second living space. Documentary uses footage taken by its subjects on early digital cameras to tell a shaggy dog story exploring the questions around hidden and ephemeral art. The role played in all of this by the weird geometry of the mall, built as it is to hug the rerouted Providence River, remains an exercise for the Mythos-aware viewer.—RDL
The Sleuth of Baghdad (Fiction, Charles B. Child, 2002) This collection assembles fifteen of the 34 stories, published between 1947 and 1969, featuring homicide inspector Chafik J. Chafik of the Baghdad Police. A mix of procedural and pure deduction, with a smattering of terrific impossible murders, the evocation of a thoroughly destroyed milieu is its most interesting feature.—KH
Okay
Sucker Free City (Film, US, Spike Lee, 2013) The paths of an empathetic gangbanger (Anthony Mackie), felonious finance company gopher (Ben Crowley), and impetuous triad debt collector (Ken Leung) cross in San Francisco’s Balkanized criminal underworld. Pilot for unproduced Showtime show, shot on blown-out early oughts digital video, transfers Lee’s concern for clashing local communities out of NYC, with less rounded characterization than his own scripts and a tacked-on ending.—RDL
