Ken and Robin Consume Media: Brooke Shields, Better Call Saul, and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

May 9th, 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

Better Call Saul Season 5 (Television, US, AMC, Peter Gould, 2020) Now doing business under the name Saul Goodman, Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) draws closer both to Kim (Rhea Seehorn) and the drug cartels. The previously yawning interest gap between the show’s two halves finally closes as Jimmy’s storyline converges with the Breaking Bad crime drama prequel elements featuring Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks).—RDL

Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields (Television, US, Disney+, Lana Wilson, 2023) Actress and model Shields looks back on her life’s tough moments and the strangeness of her 80s super-fame as a poster child for sexualized childhood.—RDL

Good

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (Film, US, Tom Gormican, 2022) Flailing movie star Nicolas Cage (Nicolas Gage) reluctantly accepts a lucrative offer to attend a party thrown by a shady, rich businessman (Pedro Pascal.) So meta that its dialogue calls out its own central flaw, that it is more interesting when Cage and Pascal are doing character moments than during its rote comic thriller beats.—RDL

Okay

The English (Television, US/UK, Amazon, Hugo Blick, 2022) Pawnee ex-cavalry scout (Chaske Spencer) reluctantly assists English aristocrat with a valise full of cash (Emily Blunt) in her quest for vengeance against the man who killed her son. Early momentum earned from a mastery of neospaghetti western gestures sputters when it reaches its flat, contrived conclusion.—RDL

Five and Ten (Film, US, Robert Z. Leonard, 1931) Finding herself a fish out of water in New York society, the ambitious daughter (Marion Davies) of a discount store titan falls for a louche architect (Leslie Howard) with an old money name. Melodrama of top tier American class struggle relies on its soggy B-plot featuring a self-pitying brother for resolution.—RDL

Ken is on a mission in space.