Posts Tagged ‘Ken and Robin Consume Media’
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Taylor Tomlinson, Good Fortune, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond
March 10th, 2026 | 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
Causeway (Film, US, Lila Neugebauer, 2022) Injured soldier intent on a return to duty (Jennifer Lawrence) befriends a garage owner with his own penchant for trauma repression (Brian Tyree Henry.) Character drama with a keen respect for actual behavior and affecting, realistically understated performances.—RDL
Good Fortune (Film, US, Aziz Ansari, 2025) Aching to do more than prevent people who text while driving from causing accidents, a lower-ranked angel (Keanu Reeves) allows a down on his luck film editor (Aziz Ansari) to swap lives with a blithely selfish venture capitalist (Seth Rogen.) Filters the themes of 40s fantasy and 30s screwball comedy through a gentle, generous version of today’s comic sensibility.—RDL
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond (Comics, Dave Sim and Carson Grubaugh, 2021) In his comic glamourpuss, Sim taught himself photorealistic inking, and in the back pages of glamourpuss, he examined the career (and death in a 1956 car crash) of Alex Raymond, creator of Flash Gordon and paragon of the photorealist comics school. In SDOAR, Sim re-examines his examination in increasing keys of eliptony, eventually indicting Raymond’s writer (on his postwar strip Rip Kirby) Ward Greene for manipulating the occult power of “comic-art metaphysics” to control Raymond and maybe kill Margaret Mitchell and God knows what else. A riveting history of realistic comics art, a thrilling occult-conspiracy narrative, and a magisterial collapsing of the planes of comics experience, it would be a clear Pinnacle if Sim’s wrist injury had allowed him to complete it. Grubaugh essentially performs an exorcism in the last 40 pages or so, which is a great ending, but not a Pinnacle one.—KH
Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter (Stand-up, Taylor Tomlinson, Netflix, 2026) This new Taylor Tomlinson special sees her move away from the joke-a-minute density of her earlier standup sets, toward longer bits with bigger payoffs. The material here draws heavily on Bible stories, church backgrounds, and religion in general; there’s a modicum of preaching, but the punchlines are still king: “You know what I take away from the parable of the Prodigal Son? That Jesus was an only child.”—KH
Good
Harry Price: Ghost Hunter (Television, UK, ITV, Alex Pillai, 2015) Traumatized parapsychologist Harry Price (Rafe Spall) and his loose affiliation of helpers investigates a haunting plaguing a rising politician’s wife (Zoe Boyle.) Pilot for a series that didn’t happen features a team of 30s occult investigators and uses a frequent KARTAS mentionee as its protagonist, so is relevant to our interests despite its ritual invocation of trendy cliches.—RDL
The Wrecking Crew (Film, US, Ángel Manuel Soto, 2026) Badass but estranged brothers James (Dave Bautista) and Jonny (Jason Momoa) investigate the death of their father in an apparent hit-and-run in Hawaii. Soto knew the brief—scenery, manly banter, violence, explosions—and works to it here, landing what could have been streaming slop squarely in “forgettable but enjoyable 90s action movie” territory.—KH
Not Recommended
She Rides Shotgun (Film, US, Nick Rowland, 2025) A tense ex-con (Taron Edgerton) takes his smart preteen (Ana Sophie Heger) on the lam after he is accused of murdering her mom and stepdad. Gradually and then completely abandons its strongest element, the father-daughter relationship, for routine crime drama beats.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Book Thieves, Unreliable Narration, and a Yakuza Father
March 3rd, 2026 | 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
Pan (Fiction, Knut Hamsun, 1894) Retired officer leading a hermit’s existence as a subsistence hunter falls into a love-hate relationship with the mercurial daughter of a well-off merchant. Haunting, enigmatic character study told from the distorted perspective of a protagonist who lacks awareness of himself and others. A generation ahead of his time in the use of modernist literary techniques, including the radical subjectivity seen here, Hamsun would be better remembered today if not for his later endeavors as a fervent Nazi quisling.—RDL
Thieves of Book Row: New York’s Most Notorious Rare Book Ring and the Man Who Stopped It (Nonfiction, Travis McDade, 2013) True crime and bibliophilia come together in an absorbing account of three overlapping theft gangs who pillaged the library shelves of the 1930s northeastern US, in an era when most such institutions left increasingly valuable first editions and rarities in the open stacks. A slim volume by Edgar Allan Poe stars as main McGuffin. Add a Necronomicon or two and you’ve got your Big Apple sequel to Bookhounds of London, complete with a police-accredited New York Public Library special investigator as a key player character.—RDL
Good
Highest 2 Lowest (Film, US, Spike Lee, 2025) Wealthy record exec (Denzel Washington) discovers that a kidnapper (A$AP Rocky) who intended to grab his son instead took his pal. Lee and screenwriter Alan Fox are less interested in the suspense beats of Kurosawa’s High and Low than in an expansive meditation on the pressures of black success. Deserves respect despite its bad case of Too Many Endings Syndrome.—RDL
Onimasa (Film, Japan, Hideo Gosha, 1982) A young girl (Nobuko Sendô) given away to serve as adopted daughter to a pigheaded yakuza boss (Tatsuya Nakadai) grows up to become an activist schoolteacher (Masako Natsume.) Memorable for Nakadai’s big yet controlled movement-based performance, although the second half loses emotional punch as it blitzes through the many developments of its decade-spanning source novel.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: An Under-Celebrated Horror Writer and New Films by Yuen Woo-Ping and Zhang Yimou
February 24th, 2026 | 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
Blades of the Guardians (Film, China, Yuen Woo-ping, 2026) Imperial guardsman turned bounty hunter and surrogate dad (Wu Jing) agrees to escort a revolutionary (Sun Yizhou) and a khan’s archer daughter (Liya Tong) on a journey to the capital. The non-combat parts of Yuen’s directorial efforts can be uneven, but that’s not at all the case in this wuxia epic, where story and thrilling fight choreography fully mesh. With Tony Leung Ka Fai and, in what is billed as a final role, Jet Li.—RDL
Lord Peter Wimsey (all 5 series) (TV, BBC, Richard Beynon and Bill Sellars, 1972-1975) Ian Carmichael’s sprightly but layered performance as Wimsey keeps all five of these series more than watchable despite their visible budgetary (and videotape) limitations; the scripts uniformly respect both Sayers’ originals and the audience’s intelligence. Murder Must Advertise is the best of the five, tight plot surrounded by wonderful character work, Five Red Herrings the weakest, but still very respectable (and mostly shot on film) despite a bit of a fall-off and a parade of comic Scots suspects.—KH
Randalls Round (Fiction, Eleanor Scott, 1929) The only horror collection published by Scott comprises nine stories of generally Jamesian intent and good-to-superb execution. “Randalls Round” and “The Cure” both strongly prefigure folk horror, and “Celui-Là” echoes Lovecraft into the bargain. The linked edition includes two other pseudonymous tales by “N. Dennett” that editor Aaron Worth believes may also be by Scott, of which “The Old Woman” is another minor masterpiece.—KH
Scare Out (Film, China, Zhang Yimou, 2026) Counterintelligence squad leader (Yilong Zhu) and his loyal second in command (Jackson Yee) become the prime suspects in a mole hunt. It goes without saying to any serious student of the spy genre that a technothriller melodrama with American adversaries from the grandmaster of mainland Chinese film is required viewing.—RDL
The Secret Agent (Film, Brazil, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025) A scientific researcher (Walter Moura) goes underground in authoritarian 1970s Brazil to escape the wrath of a regime-connected industrialist. Confident, multi-layered political thriller in which withheld information is both subject matter and narrative strategy.—RDL
Such a Pretty Little Beach (Film, France, Yves Allégret, 1949) A melancholy young man (Gérard Philipe) arrives in a rain-drenched off-season resort town with a need for rest, a fishy story, and an equally enigmatic pursuer (Jean Servais.) Regret-soaked existential noir centered around a small ensemble and constrained set of locations.—RDL
Good
Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Film, Italy/France, Dario Argento, 1971) Prog-rock drummer Roberto (Michael Brandon) accidentally stabs the man he catches following him, an act photographed by a masked tormentor who tightens the noose around our frankly unappealing hero. Argento cares only for the wonderful camera stunts, set-piece stalks, and kills here, filling the rest of the script with comic hobos, a camp gay P.I., and a bit of nudity to pass the time. Morricone’s score seems like an afterthought, and as a giallo this is perhaps best viewed through Argento’s frustration with the straight crime thriller.—KH
Marty Supreme (Film, US, Josh Safdie, 2025) Narcissistic hustler (Timothée Chalamet) sucks both of the married women he’s sleeping with, childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and faded movie star Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow) into his vortex of chaos as he tries to raise the scratch for a trip to a Tokyo ping pong championship. Antidote to the inspirational sports biopic makes big, wild swings without unifying its stew pot of elements—particularly the choice to score, edit and shoot it as if Alan Parker made this in 1983. Release the vampire cut you cowards!—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Pluribus, It Was Just an Accident, and Nature vs Our Rules
February 17th, 2026 | 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
Blood and Sand (Film, US, Rouben Mamoulian, 1941) The force of will that propels a poor young boy to acclaim as a superstar matador (Tyrone Power) pulls him from his worshipful wife (Linda Darnell) into the arms of a fickle aristocrat (Rita Hayworth.) Cast and director commit unironically to the sort of theatrical Technicolor melodrama they literally don’t make anymore.—RDL
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (Nonfiction, Mary Roach, 2021) From apex predators who occasionally attack us to the various species who eat our crops, with a brief digression to exploding trees and toxic beans, Roach surveys the ways in which we attempt to manage conflicts between people and wildlife. Written in the casual, you-are-there style that grinds my gears whenever anyone else does it, because her imitators lack her discernment and wit.—RDL
It Was Just an Accident (Film, Iran, Jafar Panahi, 2025) A random run-in leads an impulsive former political prisoner (Vahid Mobasseri) to kidnap the man (Ebrahim Azizi) whose squeaking prosthetic leg sure sounds like that of his torturer. Naturalistic thriller jabs at the traumatized moral conundrum left by generations of oppression.—RDL
Mr. Scorsese (Television, US, Apple, Rebecca Miller, 2025) I thought I knew all the Martin Scorsese lore but by bringing in additional informants to her celebratory biodocuseries Miller finds fresh angles on its subject’s journey from seething Hollywood outsider to avuncular patron saint of auteurism.—RDL
Pluribus Season 1 (Television, US, Apple, Vince Gilligan, 2025) When a virus coded from space turns the world’s population into a blissed-out hivemind, a dyspeptic romantasy author (Rhea Seehorn) realizes she’s one of a handful of surviving individuals. Seehorn’s ability to hold the screen centers an atmospheric Twilight Zone-ish SF serial whose extended pure cinema sequences defy the current assumption that the audience isn’t really paying attention.—RDL
Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost (Film, US, Ben Stiller 2025) Prompted by the need to empty their longtime NYC apartment, Ben Stiller profiles his parents, actors and comedy team members Jerry Stiller and Anne. The mystery of parents when seen from an adult child’s perspective, coupled with the director’s uncomfortable realizations about himself, surpass the limitations of the family album documentary.—RDL
Ken is on the road.
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Blue Moon, The Secret Agent, Chain Reactions
February 3rd, 2026 | 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
Blue Moon (Film, US, Richard Linklater, 2025) Needy lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) struggles to keep his insecurities in check at the Sardi’s after-party celebrating the Broadway opening of Oklahoma!, for which his erstwhile partner Richard Rogers (Andrew Scott) replaced him with a new, less brilliant, more reliable collaborator. Contemporary acting’s greatest talker masterfully and movingly holds court as Linklater uses close-ups and movement to alchemize an apparently stagey script into crackling cinema.—RDL
Chain Reactions (Film, US, Alexandre O. Philippe, 2025) Five horror authorities—comedian Patton Oswalt, critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, writer Stephen King and filmmakers Takashi Miike and Karyn Kusama—discuss the personal and cultural impact of Tobe Hooper’s convention-shattering Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In a fruitful formal move, Philippe, rather than intersperse the commentary of many talking heads, shapes each interview into its own separate spoken essay.—RDL
Good News (Film, South Korea, Byun Sung-hyun, 2025) When excitable young Red Army Faction hijackers try to divert an outbound Tokyo flight to Pyongyang, an oddball KCIA fixer (Sul Kyung-gu) enlists a straight arrow army air traffic controller (Hong Kyung) in a scheme to land them in the south. Satirical docudrama takes jabs at official opportunism while also bubbling away as a process thriller.—RDL
Left-Handed Girl (Film, Taiwan/US, Shih-Ching Tsou, 2025) A beleaguered noodle stall owner (Janel Tsai) with two daughters, one a headstrong young adult (Shih-Yuan Ma), the other an adorable moppet who has been convinced one of her hands serves the devil (Nina Ye), struggles to get by in Taipei. Brightly digital slice-of-life drama ineluctably builds into a classic explosion of family secrets. Tsou makes her feature debut after acting for many years as producing partner of Sean Baker, who serves here as co-writer and editor.—RDL
The Secret Agent (Film, Brazil/France/Germany/Netherlands, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025) A man (Wagner Moura) hiding out in Recife, Brazil, during the military dictatorship tries to keep attention off him long enough to get out of the country with his son. Deliberately told in several narrative modes, including weird urban legend, 70s crime flick, and bald (almost soap-operatic) declamation, this movie depends on Moura’s chameleon, low-key acting for the viewer’s trust. Throughout, Mendonça Filho plays with film and time, layering information slowly, but always communicating the most through his shots. I suspect this will repay multiple viewings.—KH
Till Death Do Us Part (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1944) Richard Markham discovers his fiancee is a serial killer, or is she? And if she’s innocent, who killed the man who fingered her, with her own supposed m.o.? (Which is of course a seeming suicide in a locked room.) Carr pulls at least four complete narrative U-turns in this short novel, with Gideon Fell simply outraced rather than out-thought by the killer. A vertiginous tour de force of misdirection, its sheer artificiality of structure almost foreshadows the admittedly contrived solution to the murder.—KH
Good
Short Night of Glass Dolls (Film, Italy/Yugoslavia, Aldo Lado, 1971) American reporter Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) is found dead in Prague—but he’s actually alive inside his corpse, and trying desperately to remember how he got killed! With a setup like that and Barbara Bach as the mandatory vanished girlfriend, this plays less like a typical giallo and more like a conspiracy thriller, although the stop-and-start pacing mitigates the thrill quotient. I hear the new 4K version cleans up the muddy dialogue dubbing, which would be a distinct improvement.—KH
Swoon (Film, US, Tom Kalin, 1992) Sexually obsessed with uncaring sociopath Richard Loeb (Daniel Schlachet), weak-willed ornithology student Nathan Leopold (Craig Chester) joins him in the thrill murder of a local boy. The first Leopold & Loeb film to foreground the killers’ sexuality (although Compulsion hints at it as strongly as 1959 would allow) suffers from an inevitable lapse in focus after the two are sentenced and separated. Kalin makes a virtue of his scanty budget, weaving artificialities and staginess into his stark black-and-white shots and theatrical performances.—KH
Okay
The Running Man (Film, US, Edgar Wright, 2025) In an authoritarian near future, a screwed-over prole (Glen Powell) agrees to become the target in a deadly reality show run by a slick exec (Josh Brolin.) Satirical action remake is fun when it feels like an Edgar Wright movie, which isn’t often enough. Casting Powell as angry and intense leaves no room for the breezy charm essential to his star power.—RDL
Seeing is Believing (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1941) Under hypnosis, and watched by four witnesses, Victoria Fane kills her husband with a dagger that minutes ago was harmless rubber. For once, Henry Merrivale isn’t the worst thing about a ‘Carter Dickson’ novel, although he’s plenty insufferable here. In addition to a fairly unbelievable howdunit, Carr also profoundly cheats in the opening section, ruining the whodunit as well. It’s a shame because the murder setup itself is vastly clever and original, but it’s wasted.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Sentimental Value, More Locked Room Mysteries, and the Submarine Movie that Obsessed Howard Hughes
January 27th, 2026 | 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
Coherence (Film, US, James Ward Byrkit, 2013) Dinner party attendees suffer reality entanglement after a passing comet knocks out power in an LA neighborhood. Indie-budget SF makes the most of its deliciously twisty premise.—RDL
The Inheritance (Film, Japan, Masaki Kobayashi, 1962) Restrained secretary (Keiko Kishi) waits for opportunity when her dying boss (Sô Yamamura) bids her and other underlings to find the three illegitimate children he might want to include in his will. Chilly, acidic drama of greed and skulduggery.—RDL
The Reader is Warned (Fiction John Dickson Carr, 1939) When thought-reader Herman Pennik predicts the killing of his host Sam Constable, Sir Henry Merrivale is typically too late to prevent the murder. A truly brilliant tour-de-force of misdirection, only slightly marred by Merrivale’s dramatics and a farcical “international crisis” side plot, although both of those also count as misdirection, so touché, JDC. [CW: Weirdly unnecessary racism right at the end.]—KH
Sentimental Value (Film, Norway, Joachim Trier, 2026) Anxiety-prone actress (Renate Reinsve) refuses her long absent auteur father (Stellan Skarsgård) when he drops back into her life to offer her a leading role he has written for her. Observant, trenchantly acted family drama leaves room for viewers to find their own understanding of its characters.—RDL
The Ten Teacups (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1937) Vance Keating is shot twice in an attic room with a policeman outside the only door and ten teacups on the table with him, echoing an earlier unsolved crime. Sir Henry Merrivale reasons it out bumptiously, but the addition of Sergeant Pollard (the man outside the door) as well as Merrivale’s regular foil Chief Inspector Masters makes much more entertaining detection. Carr’s abilities with atmosphere and puzzlecraft take point here, as does (sadly) his occasional disinterest in realistic characters.—KH
Under Capricorn (Film, US, Alfred Hitchcock, 1949) Seeking a new start in Sydney, a charming Dublin failson (Michael Dublin) falls in with a gruff ex-con made good (Joseph Cotten) and tries to revive his depressed, alcoholic wife (Ingrid Bergman), who he remembers from his childhood. Class-conscious period melodrama features a tangled, ambiguous love triangle and only a brief sequence of Hitchockian suspense. Despite the characters’ supposed Irish upbringing, the actors mercifully stick with their English, American and Swedish accents. —RDL
Good
Building Material (Nonfiction, Stephen Bruno, 2024) Young man tames the wild streak he earned growing up in a demon-believing Dominican-Puerto Rican household by becoming a Park Avenue doorman. At its most interesting when focused on its insider view of a rarefied world of class interaction, where the workers most value tenants who are kind to them and know what is expected of the rich.—RDL
Ice Station Zebra (Film, US, John Sturges, 1968) U.S. sub commander James Ferraday (Rock Hudson) and British agent “Jones” (Patrick McGoohan) clash on a supposed mission to rescue a British Arctic research station. McGoohan is great in this, as is a lengthy sub-in-danger sequence, but Sturges can’t keep the tension up in this two-and-a-half-hour wannabe spy movie that ignores or avoids its own plot. It’s really more a filmic meditation on how cool submarines are, and the Oscar-nominated Daniel Fapp cinematography and swelling Michel Legrand score bring it up to Good periscope depth.—KH
Okay
See How They Run (Film, UK/US, Tom George, 2022) In 1953 London, Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell and about a third of a British accent) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) investigate the murder of film director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody) in the theater where Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap has just hit 100 performances. If you think naming the detective Stoppard is hilarious, then you will love this movie. If you want jokes to be funny and mysteries to be interesting, well, Saoirse Ronan is in there swinging for the fences.—KH
Not Recommended
Ballad of a Small Player (Film, UK/Germany, Edward Berger, 2025) Spiraling gambler (Colin Farrell) wheedles for one last chance in Macau, pursued by oddball private investigator (Tilda Swinton.) Ditches the most interesting element of the Lawrence Osborne source novel, its precise observation of a marginal social milieu, making the rest glossier, bigger, and dumber.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Night Patrol, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
January 20th, 2026 | 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
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Film, UK/US, Nia DaCosta, 2022) Young Spike (Alfie Williams) finds himself “adopted” into Sir Lord Jimmy’s (Jack O’Connell) underage bandit gang while Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) tries to calm rage-alpha Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). Wisely not trying to match Danny Boyle’s visionary exuberance, DaCosta ably blends a horror story with a philosophical escape. The clattering, urgent score by Hildur Guðnadóttir keeps the danger in our heads throughout.—KH
Cover-Up (Film, US, Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus, 2025) Documentary profiles archetypal investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the My Lai massacre story and filled in key details on Watergate and Abu Ghraib. The filmmakers get past the defenses of their reluctant subject to reveal the emotional person behind the bylines, and to grapple with the reliability issues of a reportorial method heavily dependent on confidential sources.—RDL
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Film, US, Mary Bronstein, 2025) An emergency relocation to a crummy motel further unravels a harried therapist (Rose Byrne) at the breaking point burdened with all of the care for a demanding kid with an eating disorder. White-knuckle portrait of a crackup features Conan O’Brien in an unexpected dramatic role as the protagonist’s withholding therapist.—RDL
Mission Impossible: the Final Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2025) Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and team take on one last mission, completing their battle against an AI planning to nuke Earth. A final hour of superbly wrought, quadrupled action-suspense pays off an hour of setup.—RDL
Night Patrol (Film, US, Ryan Prows, 2026) When his partner Hawkins (Justin Long) gets tapped for the elite gang-hunting Night Patrol, LAPD cop and former Crip Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler) has to decide where his loyalties lay. At times in the first act I had the giddy thought that I was seeing a Pinnacle vampire film, but it doesn’t pay off those expectations, instead becoming merely great. Freddie Gibbs’ occult-minded Blood gang leader Bornelius should have his own movie.—KH
Punishment (Fiction, Linden MacIntyre, 2014) Forcibly retired corrections officer, returned to his insular Nova Scotia community, tries to steer clear of its scapegoating of an ex-con for a teen’s overdose death. Character-driven literary crime novel with authoritative eye for rural dynamics.—RDL
The Red Widow Murders (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1935) When Lord Mantling hosts a gathering to test the curse of the Widow’s Room in his house, a young student dies of intravenously administered poison in the cursed chamber without a mark on him, the only exit under constant watch throughout. A “locked corpse” mystery inside a locked-room mystery, with a Carr historical flashback to boot, this underrated triumph even withstands Sir Henry Merrivale’s mulishness.—KH
Storm Warning (Film, US, Stuart Heisler, 1951) A traveling clothes model (Ginger Rogers) visiting her sister (Doris Day) in a small southern town sees the Klan murder a reporter, but resists a dogged prosecutor (Ronald Reagan) who wants her to testify, because one of the killers is her new brother-in-law. Aimed at a white audience prior to the rise of the Civil Rights Movement, this hardboiled political thriller focuses on the KKK as a tinpot racket that exploits its own people.—RDL
Good
Nine—And Death Makes Ten (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1940) When an adventuress is killed on a liner crossing the Atlantic through U-Boat hunting grounds, the murderer’s fingerprints match nobody’s on board. The haunted atmosphere of the nearly-empty ship in wartime winter is the real seller here, the mystery less compelling. Sir Henry Merrivale uncharacteristically remains (mostly) sensible throughout.—KH
Okay
Honey Don’t! (Film, US, Ethan Coen, 2025) Acerbic PI (Margaret Qualley) investigates the death of a would-be client, crossing paths with a drug dealing evangelist (Chris Evans) and hopping into bed with a sullen cop (Aubrey Plaza.) Separately entertaining scenes fail to cohere in this tongue-in-cheek, lesbian gaze film noir riff.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: No Other Choice, Hamnet, Jay Kelly
January 13th, 2026 | 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
No Other Choice (Film, South Korea, Park Chan-wook, 2025) Desperate to keep his home and family intact, laid-off paper mill manager Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) plans to kill a more successful paper mill manager, along with the superior candidates for the ensuing job vacancy. Son Ye-jin takes on the harder role as Man-su’s increasingly unhappy wife, and her grounded delivery keeps the movie from spinning out of control in Park’s increasingly daring and dissonant shots and Kim Sang-bum and Kim Ho-bin’s drum-snap edits. Gorgeous, innovative, clever, and mordant, a worthy Westlake adaptation for those who claim it can’t be done.—KH
Recommended
Death in Five Boxes (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1938) Four people at a table have been poisoned, and one of them has been fatally stabbed, and bizarre clues litter the crime scene: a worthy challenge for Sir Henry Merrivale. I have reluctantly turned back to the Merrivale mysteries as I run out of Carr, and find to my delight that the pre-1941 ones are almost all Recommendable. The mysteries run a little tighter and the atmosphere less Gothic than the classic Fell cases, and the early Merrivale is only intermittently a buffoon.—KH
Jay Kelly (Film, US, Noah Baumbach, 2025) In a bid to crash his daughter’s European trip, a self-absorbed movie star (George Clooney) abruptly accepts a film festival tribute invite, triggering reminiscence for him and a string of crises for his overly devoted manager (Adam Sandler.) Co-written by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer, the screenplay’s perfectly sculpted dialogue and scene construction provide the platform for brilliant performances from Clooney, Sandler, Laura Dern, and, in a barn-burner one-and-done, Billy Crudup.—RDL
No Other Choice (Film, South Korea, Park Chan-wook, 2025) Desperate for a new job in the paper industry, a fired plant manager (Lee Byung-hun) hatches a plan to murder rival job applicants. Hyper-competitive South Korea makes a consummate setting for a barbed, masterfully composed adaptation of Donald Westlake’s The Ax. —RDL
The Phantom Atlas (Nonfiction, Edward Brooke-Hitching, 2016) Cartographic survey of nonexistent places that made it onto maps despite their origins in myth, misapprehension, or deception. Enjoyable, visually rich roundup of past and future Cartography Huts.—RDL
The Silence of the Sea (Film, France, Jean-Pierre Melville, 1949) Required to billet a Francophile German officer (Howard Vernon) during the occupation, an old man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his adult niece (Nicole Stéphane) greet his attempts to ingratiate himself with absolute silence. Drama of resistance, based on a novel illicitly published during the war, gains power from bare bones simplicity.—RDL
Time to Die (Film, Mexico, Arturo Ripstein, 1966) After 18 years in prison a beaten-down man (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos) returns to his home village, where the sons of the man he slew have sworn to kill him. Western written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes portrays its inevitable showdown not as an act of clarifying order but as Greek tragedy.—RDL
Good
Torso (Film, Italy, Sergio Martino, 1973) Jane (Suzy Kendall) and Dani (Tina Aumont) and their friends flee the serial killer stalking the University of Perugia but has the killer followed them to the remote villa? (Yes.) Crucial slasher-film precursor comes alive in the fourth-act cat-and-mouse stalking of Jane; if the rest of this giallo had shown the same mastery of space and suspense, it would be an all-timer.—KH
The Unicorn Murders (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1935) Former MI6 agent Kenwood Blake gives the right countersign to the wrong fellow agent in Paris and winds up dragged into an isolated chateau murder and into Sir Henry Merrivale’s attempt to show up the French police and catch France’s greatest thief. Carr’s espionage action is clunky even for 1935, although the eventual impossible murder nearly makes up for it. Merrivale is less annoying than either French antagonist, but only just.—KH
Not Recommended
Hamnet (Film, US/UK, Chloé Zhao, 2025) Forging a union later tested by grief, a witchy young woman (Jessie Buckley) marries a frustrated writer (Paul Mescal.) Almost nothing is known of Shakespeare’s family life, leaving room for the thudding cliches and back-projected concerns of this lyrically visualized, powerfully acted, preposterous poppycock.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Marty Supreme, Roofman, and the Patrick Petrella Stories
January 6th, 2026 | 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
Compulsion (Film, US, Richard Fleischer, 1959) The fates of 1924 Chicago Nietzschean thrill-killers Steiner and Straus (Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman) depend on crusading attorney Jonathan Wilk (Orson Welles). Surprisingly good roman a clef of the Leopold and Loeb murders ends with an 18-minute speech against the death penalty based on the one given by Clarence Darrow at the historical sentencing. Your appreciation of Fleischer’s achievement depends on what you think of Welles’ monologue (the longest in film history to that point).—KH
Eephus (Film, US, Carson Lund, 2024) Two local recreational teams square off for one last game on a baseball diamond’s last day before demolition. Realistically observed yet also Beckett-like paean to the beautiful existential futility of competitive sports.—RDL
Every Patrick Petrella Story (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1959-2003) Gilbert’s longest-running serial character (two novels and 54 shorter stories), Petrella is a half-Spanish, poetry-reading London police detective. Not quite maverick cop, not quite cerebral detective, not quite procedural protagonist, Petrella gives his adventures a specific and hard-to-isolate flavor that not even Gilbert’s other police stories can match. Start where Gilbert started, with the puzzle-inside-a-procedural Blood and Judgement, and then sample the shorter Petrella in Petrella at Q.—KH
Marty Supreme (Film, US, Josh Safdie, 2025) Hustling New York punk Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) climbs and slips on his way to global table-tennis fame, and over his girl Rachael (Odessa A’Zion) and anyone else in his way. Nonstop energy (weirdly punctuated with ‘80s classics for a film set in 1952) and grift-a-minute action keep you riveted to a character you quite probably (and rightly) despise. Chalamet deserves all the acting plaudits he gets for this, though non-professional actors Abel Ferrara (as a Jewish gangster) and Kevin O’Leary (as a cuckolded industrialist) more than hold their own.—KH
Opera (Film, Italy, Dario Argento, 1987) A mysterious masked killer stalks understudy-turned-superstar Betty (Cristina Marsillach) during an avant-garde staging of Verdi’s Macbeth, complete with ravens. A psychologically wrenching riff on The Phantom of the Opera, it features effortlessly (and endlessly) bravura shots and camera moves. (Ronnie Taylor is the kind of brilliant cinematographer Argento deserves but seldom got.) Often (and perhaps rightly) called Argento’s last masterpiece, it’s also perhaps the last great giallo.—KH
Roofman (Film, US, Derek Cianfrance, 2025) Goodhearted prison escapee (Channing Tatum) dates a devout Toys R Us employee (Kirsten Dunst) after uses his penchant for breaking into businesses through their ceilings to hide out in the store. Socially observant true crime indie comedy permeated with the melancholy of stolen happiness.—RDL
Good
The Paradine Case (Film, US, Alfred Hitchcock, 1947) An aggressive barrister (Gregory Peck) risks his career and marriage when he succumbs to an obsession with an uncooperative murder defendant (Alida Valli.) Straining against producer David Selznick’s florid prestige picture aesthetic, Hitchcock infuses this courtroom drama with a troubling psychosexual undercurrent. The emotional logic would track better if Valli had turned out to be, as Selznick hoped, a screen presence to rival Garbo.—RDL
Wake Up Dead Man (Film, US, Rian Johnson, 2025) Sleuth Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) works to clear the obvious suspect in the murder of a grandiose Monsignor (Josh Brolin), an earnest priest with rage issues (Josh O’Connor.) Juxtaposes the artificial mystery of the locked room murder story with the metaphysical mystery of faith, hobbled by the usual structural problems of the cinematic whodunnit.—RDL
Okay
The Flanders Panel (Fiction, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, 1990) A restorer’s discovery of a Renaissance murder mystery in a Flemish painting depicting a chess match becomes an element in a current slaying. Erudite mystery thriller of art and gamesmanship with an emotionally implausible final revelation.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Wake Up Dead Man, Predator: Badlands, The Whole Kill Bill, and a Giallo Tarot
December 16th, 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
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (Film, US, Quentin Tarantino, 2006/2025) Gunned down during her wedding rehearsal, former assassin Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) survives to take revenge on her would-be killers (Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah), especially her former mentor Bill (David Carradine). Watched as a complete whole, this most visually arresting of Tarantino’s films also builds surprising weight and momentum from a “nothing but the good bits” tribute to martial arts cinema. Thurman’s acting likewise accumulates power at length; only the jackdaw soundtrack suffers a bit at four-and-a-half-plus hours. [Main changes: Deletes the cliffhanger and recap sequences that ended and started the two films, lengthens the “Origin of O-ren Ishii” anime, restores color and adds violence to the House of Blue Leaves segment, adds a post-credits animated “Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge”]—KH
Recommended
The Body of a Girl (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1972) Newly promoted to Chief Inspector and stationed in the remote suburb of Stoneferry, Bill Mercer investigates a dead body found in a drift island in the Thames. Combines police procedural with a touch of “man vs. town” thriller to superb effect; the Gilbert dry humor here runs a little blacker than his usual. Mercer also stars in a very tight three-novelette series in The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Stories, also Recommended.—KH
Predator: Badlands (Film, US, Dan Trachtenberg, 2025) After his father orders him killed for supposed weakness, a dogged predator (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) heads to a planet populated by deadly animals to seek the ultimate trophy, reluctantly teaming with a damaged, unusually chipper Weyland-Yutani android (Elle Fanning.) Rousingly constructed adventure thriller makes clever use of the established crossover between Predator and Alien and showcases Fanning in a gift of a dual role as it hits one great beat after another.—RDL
Tarocchi Gialli (Tarot, Nick Ribera, 2024) An 83-card tarot (adding five more Major Arcana) cast as posters for giallo movies, mostly using strong design and photomontage well. Although the Minor Arcana all have their own images they don’t always depict their suit (Eyes, Candles, Knives, Skulls) which slightly annoys my inner A.E. Waite.—KH
Thief (Film, US, Michael Mann, 1981) Hardboiled safecracker (James Caan) softens his lone wolf credo to court a wary waitress (Tuesday Weld) and work for a persuasive Chicago gangster (Robert Prosky.) From dazzling rainswept cityscapes to its existential fatalism, Mann’s first theatrical feature finds his auteurist hallmarks already fully in place.—RDL
Good
The Cock-Eyed World (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1929) Pugnacious marine master sergeant (Victor McLaglen) competes with chancer comrade (Edmund Lowe) for the affections of party girls in New York and Latin America. With unusual dynamism for an early talkie, Walsh portrays war as labor and soldiers as irrepressible working stiffs.—RDL
Wake Up Dead Man (Film, US, Rian Johnson, 2025) Accused of murdering the fulminating Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), boxer turned priest Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) helps Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) crack an impossible case. While a vastly better mystery (complete with John Dickson Carr shout-out) than the second installment, it suffers from that film’s problem of one-dimensional characters, in this case, to the mystery’s detriment. O’Connor does his best to put depth on his, but he’s almost the only one given the chance. Like every film in the series, it looks great, though, which is not nothing.—KH
Okay
Officer on Duty (Film, India, Jithu Ashraf, 2025) Fresh from suspension, an uncompromising cop (Kunchacko Boban) tracks a petty jewelry theft to a gang of hipster vengeance killers. Intense entry in a cycle of South Asian action flicks that encourage audiences to applaud straight-up murder.—RDL
Showtime 7 (Film, Japan, Kazutaka Watanabe, 2025) Disgraced TV anchor (Hiroshi Abe) uses a bomber’s call to his radio show to make a play for his old job. Real time thriller falters when it reaches for a serious point its genre characterizations can’t carry.—RDL.
