Ken and Robin Consume Media: Dutch Land Forces and Off-Brand Klingons

February 13th, 2018 | 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

Dutch Armies of the 80 Years’ War 1568-1648 (2 vols; Osprey Men-at-Arms 510 & 513) (Nonfiction, Bouko de Groot, 2017) Europe’s first and longest national War of Independence dragged in fighters from Elizabethan poets to Tupi Indians, but most people think of the Dutch as only a maritime force. These two books, magnificently illustrated from period sources and modern paintings (by Gerry Embleton) in the Osprey tradition, turn the focus to the land forces from infantry (Book 1) to cavalry, artillery, and engineers (Book 2). Inspirational and research gold for players and GMs of “early modern” adventure RPGs such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess or (ahem) The School of Night. –KH

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible (Nonfiction, Peter Pomerantsev, 2014) British son of Russian dissident parents gets a gig with a Moscow hipster TV station, leading to encounters with gangsters, professional mistresses, propagandists, corruption victims, and cultists. Acute evocation of character and place adds animates this view of postmodern authoritarianism, as seen from its spawning ground.—RDL

Good

The League of Gentlemen (Film, UK, Basil Dearden, 1960) Ex-army officer (Jack Hawkins) assembles a team of ne’er-do-well former military types to execute a daring bank robbery. The rigorous constraints of the heist genre structure immortalize the stoic ethos of pre-Beatles Britain.—RDL

The Ritual (Film, UK, David Bruckner, 2017) Four British bros on a hiking tour through Sweden in memory of their dead friend take the proverbial wrong turn through the dark dark woods and yes there is a creepy cabin. Bruckner’s spooky, cold, god’s-eye direction is the best thing here; Joe Barton’s script (loosely from a novel by Adam Nevill) commits no egregious sins but neither does it really do anything interesting; Rafe Spall would be better served if his character was one of four instead of the only one we get to know. –KH

Star Trek: Discovery Season 1 (Television, US, CBS, 2016-2017) Disgraced Starfleet commander (Sonequa Martin-Green) receives a surprise career reprieve from a surprisingly ruthless starship captain (Jason Isaacs) helming a super-weapon ship during the first Federation-Klingon war. A split between a front half full of apparently oddball, deliberately jarring choices that pay off as curveballs in the superior back half make this season hard to evaluate. I guess I’ll take advantage of a low bar, then, and say that this still beats all other latter-day Trek first seasons.—RDL

Okay

Crack-Up (Film, US, Irving Reis, 1946) Hardboiled art expert (Pat O’Brien) tries to prove he really was in a train wreck only he recalls, uncovering a sinister conspiracy at the Manhattan Museum. Fun character actor turns and touches of Val Lewton atmosphere number among the energetic distractions from the script’s higgledy-piggledy construction. With Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall and Ray Collins; partially based on a story by golden age SF writer Fredric Brown.—RDL

Ire-Inspiring

The Deer Hunter (Film, US, Michael Cimino, 1978) Trio of Russian-American steelworkers (Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken, John Savage) plunge from the insular shelter of their working class Ohio town into the violent madness of the VietNam war. A first act of masterful social observation gives way to the pernicious, in which every Vietnamese or Chinese character is alien and depraved, and the VietNam conflict matters only as an test of American innocence. Boy though that Vilmos Zsigmond sure could photograph stuff.—RDL