Ken and Robin Consume Media: Oppenheimer, Marple, and the Editing of Star Wars
October 3rd, 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.
The Pinnacle
Oppenheimer (Film, US, Christopher Nolan, 2023) Chosen despite his left-wing associations as unlikely head of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), races to build an atom bomb, and later confronts an effort to use those associations against him. Nolan breaks and reassembles the biopic into a series of propulsive, interlocking puzzles, with mesmerizing, all-cylinders results that can only be described as Nolanesque.—RDL
Recommended
The Classified File (Film, South Korea, Kyung-taek Kwak, 2015) Frozen out by both the local and national halves of a task force assigned to a child kidnapping, an impolitic cop (Kim Yoon-seok) forms an uneasy alliance with a Taoist fortune teller (Yoo Hae-jin) who makes eerily accurate predictions about the case. Tense true crime police procedural reprises the common South Korean theme of official malpractice.—RDL
A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away: My Fifty Years Editing Hollywood Hits—Star Wars, Carrie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Mission: Impossible, and More (Nonfiction, Paul Hirsch, 2020) Career retrospective autobiography follows the author’s career from cutting early de Palma titles on film to acting as seasoned hand to young directors in the digital era. Highly readable insider account examines the diplomatic challenges of creative collaboration, and also reminds us that the credit we often give to tight, unconventionally structured screenplays ought to go to a desperate editor making a radical fix.—RDL
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories (Fiction, Agatha Christie, 1985) In 20 short stories (13 published in 1932, the others doled out between 1939 and 1957) Miss Marple listens to (or very occasionally notices) a mystery and solves it with her vast knowledge of human nature. Christie’s combination of Dupin and Father Brown doesn’t quite reach the heights of either but reliably presents solid puzzles well played, which is nothing to sneeze at. Christie also limns character more carefully in these than in much of her other work. —KH
A Shaman’s Story (Film, South Korea, Ha Won Choi, 1972) Fading village shaman’s joy at the return of her son turns to crisis when he falls in love with her successor, and worse, reveals his conversion to Christianity. Rampant sexuality bubbles through this character study of changing spiritual mores.—RDL
Good
Smile (Film, US, Parker Finn, 2022) Therapist Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) witnesses a smiling suicide, transferring a demonic entity’s attention to her, attention that manifests in unnatural smiles. This movie suffered from having one of the all-time great trailers, and doesn’t live up to that. Occasional eerie menace, a great high concept, and generally good performances likewise can’t fix a predictable script or really stick the landing. —KH
Okay
Polite Society (Film, UK, Nida Mansoor, 2023) Aspiring teen stunt person (Priya Kansara) decides to halt the rushed marriage of her beloved sister (Rita Aryu) to a biotech entrepreneur with a controlling mother. Blend of teen comedy and martial arts with an Anglo-Pakistani cast of characters substitutes exaggeration for jokes and funny situations.—RDL
