Ken and Robin Consume Media: Slow Horses, Blitz, and a Benedictine Occult Investigator
May 6th, 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.
Recommended
Blitz (Film, UK, Steve McQueen, 2024) Worried single mom (Saoirse Ronan) sends her son (Elliott Heffernan), who is sometimes bullied because he is black, out of London to avoid German bombardment, only to have him jump from the evacuation train to return to the city. Stunning depiction of life under falling bombs pairs the epic with the personal.—RDL
Honor Among Lovers (Film, US, Dorothy Arzner, 1931) Playboy financier (Fredric March) makes a clumsy play for his beloved personal assistant (Claudette Colbert), driving her to the altar with her weaselly beau (Monroe Owlsley.) Concisely told drama of power and class highlights the pained realism of Arzner’s treatment of romance.—RDL
Slow Horses Season 4 (Television, Apple+, 2024) An assassination attempt on his mentally failing grandfather (Jonathan Pryce) takes River (Jack Lowden) on a rogue mission to France and an unwelcome family secret. Strips away the large scale threat part of the series formula for character-driven suspense, though that means Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and Diana Taverner (Kristen Scott Thomas) have less to do this time.—RDL
Good
24×36: A Movie About Movie Posters (Film, Canada, Kevin Burke, 2016) A new generation of illustrators pay homage to the classic pre-90s movie poster era, inflaming collectors’ passions and wallets with hip, stunning screenprints. Zippy, historically tethered arts scene documentary.—RDL
HIT: The Third Case (Film, India, Sailesh Kolanu, 2025) Supercop on the edge Arjun Sarkaar (Nani) gets embroiled with a serial-killing cult, and even his trusty interrogating bat may not be enough to get the answers. City-hopping crime flick expands into melodramatic gore, ending in a festival of edged weapon combats and cameos from the first two HIT (Homicide Intervention Teams) films. Fans of picking a lane and sticking to it likely bump this bloody mulligatawny down to Okay.—KH
The Horror of Abbot’s Grange (Fiction, Frederick Cowles, 1936) A collection of (mostly) ghost stories misleadingly marketed as “in the M.R. James tradition.” Cowles, a folklorist rather than an antiquarian by tendency, provides blunt and often physical horrors in tales with simple structure and language. The best of them, “The House on the Marsh,” “One Side Only,” and “The Bell,” are quite effective shorts; others provide good scares somewhat vitiated by explanations or exorcisms. The Benedictine Father Placid delivers some of both, in several tales; he’s an under-rated ghost-breaking occult detective.—KH
Okay
The Empty Man (Film, US, David Prior, 2020) Guilt-stricken ex-cop (James Badge Dale) investigates the disappearance of his ex-lover’s daughter and its connection to an urban legend and a conspiratorial cult. Compelling composition and staging distinguish a graphic novel adaptation packed with competing elements. I really wanted to like this, for its Esoterror vibe and another reason I shouldn’t spoil.—RDL
Not Recommended
The Phantom Carriage (Film, Sweden, Victor Sjöström, 1921) The drinking buddy (Tore Svennberg) who started a disease spreading reprobate (Sjöström) on the road to perdition appears on New Year’s Eve as the Grim Reaper to explain why he must now step in as next year’s herald of death. Lauded as a world classic and early fantasy essential, but the script is a straight-up Salvation Army temperance tract.—RDL
