Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Black Bag, A Noir Mambo Musical, and The John the Balladeer Movie
March 18th, 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
Black Bag (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2025) Impassive, lie-hating MI6 agent (Michael Fassbender) conducts a mole hunt in which his blithely assured wife (Cate Blanchett) numbers among the suspects. Formally rigorous, mysteriously powerful—but I said Soderbergh already—chamber spy thriller built around a sly, incisive script by David Koepp that plays like a collaboration between John LeCarré and Alan Ayckbourn.—RDL
Recommended
Black Bag (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2025) MI6 counter-intelligence prodigy George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) investigates the theft of a dangerous software exploit, with his also-MI6 wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) an increasingly likely suspect. Perfect puzzlebox script masters the repeated revelation while the film actually rotates around the nature of loyalty (and marriage). A delight on every level, a controlled polygraph rather than the triphammer of his other near-Pinnacle spy flick, Haywire.—KH
A Lion is in the Streets (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1953) Rabble-rousing traveling salesman (James Cagney) cuts ethical corners as he discovers his flair for populist demagoguery during a run for Louisiana governor. Walsh’s energy and affection for the unruly common man propel this Technicolor political drama.—RDL
Victims of Sin (Film, Mexico, Emilio Hernandez, 1953) Vivacious cabaret dancer (Ninón Sevilla) sacrifices her promising career to adopt the abandoned infant son of a dangerous pimp (Rodolfo Acosta.) Potent mix of exhilarating mambo musical and gut-punching social melodrama.—RDL
Wild at Heart (Fiction, Barry Gifford, 1990) Released convict Sailor violates parole to skip town with his beloved Lula, pursued by her obsessed mother and her private detective beau. A tone poem of loopy Southern dialogue and storytelling, without the nightmarish noir elements added by David Lynch for his film adaptation.—RDL
Good
City of the Dead (Film, UK, John Llewellyn Moxey, 1960) Curiously intense history professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee) inspires his plucky student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) to visit witch-haunted Whitewood, Mass. in search of primary data about the cult. British actors doing American accents (and gallons of fake fog) notwithstanding, this is a nice little corker of proto-folk-horror hamstrung mostly by a micro budget and a fairly predictable script.—KH
Red Peony Gambler (Film, Japan, Kōsaku Yamashita, 1968) Her shoulder tattooed to mark her mission of vengeance, a refined 19th century yakuza (Junko Fuji) follows the trail of her father’s killer. Classically staged period action flick delivers in the first and last acts but sags in the middle with the doings of irrelevant tertiary characters. Start of a seven part series, newly restored by Eureka.—RDL
Ten Cents a Dance (Film, US, Lionel Barrymore, 1931) Good-hearted taxi dancer (Barbara Stanwyck) picks the wrong guy when she goes for a luckless striver (Monroe Owlsley) over a world-weary millionaire (Ricardo Cortez.) The secret to an early 30s romantic melodrama is to have Barbara Stanwyck in it.—RDL
Who Fears the Devil? (Film, US, John Newland, 1972) After the Devil beats his grandpappy (Denver Pyle) in a Defy, young John (Hedges Capers) sets out to defy the Devil’s servants with a silver-stringed guitar. Based on two of Manly Wade Wellman’s Pinnacle John the Balladeer stories, this hippified version still rings somewhat true to the Appalachian rhythms and folkloric horror of the original. The end kind of trails off, but a surprising number of great scenes and effective character moments go a long way; there’s not enough Hoyt Axton music, but there’s more than none. [Also released as The Legend of Hillbilly John.]—KH
Okay
Tombs of the Blind Dead (Film, Spain/Portugal, Amando de Ossorio, 1971) A woman’s pal and ex-girlfriend investigate her strange murder in an abandoned town allegedly haunted by the revenants of a Satan-worshipping Templars. On one hand, cool creepy zombie knights; on the other, exploitatively depicted sexual assaults.—RDL
