Ken and Robin Consume Media: One Battle After Another, Classic Noir, Chinese Neo-Noir
September 30th, 2025 | 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
One Battle After Another (Film, US, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025) Wake-and-bake fugitive ex-bomber (Leonardo di Caprio) and his teen daughter (Chase Infiniti) flee the heavily resourced pursuit of a weirdo anti-terrorism officer (Sean Penn) who once had a perverse relationship with her revolutionary mother (Teyana Taylor.) Anderson trains his cinematic control on the conspiratorial pursuit thriller, satirically tuned to the contemporary moment, with Jonny Greenwood’s restless percussive score its percussive, insistent timekeeper.—RDL
Recommended
Alias Nick Beal (Film, US, John Farrow, 1949) Crusading district attorney Joseph Foster (Thomas Mitchell) offers to sell his soul to get the goods on a racket boss; fixer Nick Beal (Ray Milland) appears to help him rise to the governor’s mansion. Milland is superbly smooth as the Devil in this rare occult noir, shot with foggy menace by Lionel Lindon. Standout sequence: Nick Beal rehearsing fallen woman Audrey Totter in her script of seduction, two consecutive readings of the dialogue showing supernatural menace and emotional depth.—KH [Note: For this Noir City KARCM I am reviewing some films I saw three weeks ago that I’ve already seen, but that I haven’t covered in these hallowed pixels before. After all, the whole point is to point you beloved readers to good movies.]
Cry Danger (Film, US, Robert Parrish, 1951) When a sudden eyewitness (Richard Erdman) springs him from a prison sentence for a robbery rap, Rocky Mulloy (Dick Powell) goes in search of the money to clear his still-imprisoned partner. Rhonda Fleming plays the woman on the outside and William Conrad the oily fixer in this perfectly curdled bit of postwar noir in which the only light remains the easy comradeship of its war veteran characters.—KH
The Fallen Bridge (Film, China, Yu Li, 2022) When her engineer father’s remains are discovered in a crumbled support column of a collapsed bridge he was working on at the time of his disappearance, a stunned college student (Sichun Ma) teams with a wary fugitive (Karry Wang) to investigate. Gritty crime drama indicts official corruption in its way to a thriller conclusion.—RDL
One Battle After Another (Film, US, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025) Burnout bomber Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and psycho colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) seek the favors of revolutionary Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), and then custody of her daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). Anderson’s groove meshes perfectly with early-Pynchon interlocking conspiracies against the backdrop of the Eternal Seventies we seem to be stuck in, and his handling of bombings, chases, and chaos is as sure-handed as his depiction of gormless fuckups. Jonny Greenwood turns in another terrific score, as well.—KH
Phantom Lady (Film, US, Robert Siodmak, 1944) Besotted secretary Carol (Ella Raines) searches for the unknown woman who can alibi her boss Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) for the murder of his wife. Terrific adaptation of the Cornell Woolrich novel kicks into high gear when Scott’s missing best friend Marlow (Franchot Tone) shows up to help. Don’t miss Elisha Cook Jr’s orgasmic drum solo, either. Woody Bredell’s cinematography and Bernard Brown’s sound design transform a crime thriller into raw noir.—KH
The Prowler (Film, US, Joseph Losey, 1951) Called to the sumptuous home of Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) by a prowler scare, resentful cop Webb Garwood (Van Heflin) insinuates himself into her life and bed, while her jealous husband (voiced by sub rosa screenwriter Dalton Trumbo) keeps his all-night DJ shift. This can’t last in a proper noir, and doesn’t, leading to a somewhat overblown climax in a desert ghost town. But the first two acts are all weaselly and riveting Van Heflin.—KH
Separate Tables (Film, US, Delbert Mann, 1958) In a sleepy seaside inn populated by long term residents leading lives of parallel isolation, a tormented man (Burt Lancaster) receives an unwelcome visit from the scheming ex (Rita Hayworth) who broke him, and a bluff military man (David Niven) attempts to conceal a scandal. Perfectly judged adaptation of the Terence Rattigan stage play, a capsule from a time before anyone used therapeutic language to describe their problems.—RDL
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Film, US, Lewis Milestone, 1946) Gambler Sam Masterson (Van Heflin) returns to Iverstown after 17 years to find his childhood sweetheart, heiress Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) married to the nebbish Walter O’Neil (Kirk Douglas in his first role), now district attorney. Will he be able to escape with ex-con Antonia (Lizabeth Scott) or will he fall for Martha once more? Rich noir melodrama makes a grand feast for Stanwyck, and thus a grand experience for the viewer.—KH
Good
Chongqing Hot Pot (China, Qing Yang, 2016) Desperate to make their failed underground restaurant salable, a trio of childhood friends performs an illegal excavation that accidentally breaks through into a bank vault. Heist movie about comradeship and surprise colliding forces openly signals its love for the works of Johnnie To.—RDL
Dead Reckoning (Film, US, John Cromwell, 1947) Paratrooper Rip Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) heads to Gulf City on the track of his war hero friend Johnny Drake, but he finds a burned corpse, a tangled prewar mystery, and Drake’s former lover Coral (Lizabeth Scott). Convoluted noir works too hard for cool and leans too hard on a somewhat phoned-in Bogart. Scott’s Bacall impression, and Morris Carnovsky’s turn as villainous club owner Martinelli, both deserved a better script.—KH
Murder, My Sweet (Film, US, Edward Dmytryk, 1944) On the trail of a missing nightclub singer, Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) gets entangled with Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor) and her step-daughter Ann (Anne Shirley) and an also-missing jade necklace. Powell’s Marlowe is weirdly jaunty throughout this Chandlerian labyrinth (based on Farewell, My Lovely), despite getting knocked out at least three times, poisoned, and blinded by gunshot. The film is kind of a mess, frankly, but never boring.—KH
Okay
The Reckless Moment (Film, US, Max Ophüls, 1949) Left to manage the house by herself in her husband’s absence, Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) tries to shield her daughter Bea (Geraldine Brooks) from a murder charge, as blackmailer Donnelly (James Mason) gets closer. While full of bravura Ophüls tracking shots and domestic stress, it can’t overcome the fundamental passivity of the main character.—KH
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain (Film, US, Michael Curtiz, 1932) On the lam after her no-good ex shoots a cop, a single mom taxi dancer (Ann Dvorak) attracts the eye of a glib, corner-cutting reporter (Lee Tracy), who does not suspect she’s the story he’s trying to track down. Curtiz keeps the pot boiling, and the pre-Code lingerie shots coming, but because the lead role is taken by Tracy, a second banana at best, instead of a charismatic, smoldering movie star, the script makes no emotional sense.—RDL
