Posts Tagged ‘Ken and Robin Consume Media’
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Thunderbolts*, Final Destination, Daredevil
May 20th, 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
Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1924) With her brother King Gunther (Theodor Loos) refusing to turn over her husband Siegfried’s killer, his aggrieved widow (Margarete Schön) marries Attila the Hun (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), setting in motion her inevitable retribution. The second part of Lang’s seminal epic sets aside the fantasy tropes of part one for historical human tragedy with a mass-scale conclusion.—RDL
Recommended
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 (Television, US, Disney+, Dario Scardapane, 2025) The assassination of friend Foggy Nelson and the rise of the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) to the mayor’s office test the determination of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) to put his vigilante past behind him at a new law firm. Surprisingly coherent for a show that underwent a conceptual correction in mid-shoot, this doesn’t reach the heights of the original first season but at least understands what was great about it. Unusually for Marvel, which usually vaguebooks its politics, this not only deals with authoritarian criminality in high office but, in a subplot showcasing the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), addresses rogue cops’ co-optation of the character’s insignia.—RDL
The Gilded Lily (Film, US, Wesley Ruggles, 1935) When the charming stenographer (Claudette Colbert) he loves falls for an incognito English lord (Ray Milland) a cynical reporter (Fred MacMurray) turns her into a tabloid sensation. Smart romcom tackles such classic 30s themes as reality stardom and the friend zone.—RDL
Horse Under Water (Fiction, Len Deighton, 1963) Jaundiced MI6 agent accepts a dodgy-seeming mission to retrieve counterfeit currency from a sunken U-boat near the Portuguese coast. Applies knowing bureaucratic realism to a pulpy spy mystery.—RDL
No Greater Glory (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1934) A put-upon boy strives to prove himself to his military-styled kid gang as dirt bomb warfare with older rivals approaches. Borzage’s depth of feeling lifts this anti-war parable, based on a Ferenc Molnar novel, from stifling didacticism.—RDL
Good
Background to Danger (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1943) American visitor to Turkey (George Raft) accepts the plea of a distressed traveler (Osa Massen) to smuggle an envelope into the country, placing himself in the crosshairs of a voluble Nazi operative (Sydney Greenstreet) and the excitable Soviet counterpart (Peter Lorre) opposed to his disinformation scheme. One wonders what Cagney, Bogie or Flynn would have done with the material, and whether writers W. R. Burnett and William Faulkner pared it down to fit the limitations of its stolid, once-popular star. Nonetheless, Walsh moves this wartime Eric Ambler adaptation along and gives Greenstreet and Lorre plenty of room to play.—RDL
Final Destination Bloodlines (Film, US, Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, 2025) Fifty-plus years after a premonition of disaster allows her to prevent mass fatalities in a skyview restaurant in 1968, Iris’ (Brec Bassinger and Gabrielle Rose) granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) inherits the premonition and (along with the rest of Iris’ bloodline) Death’s Rube-Goldbergesque attentions. From the heightened surrealism of the initial disaster to the cunning sadism of the multiple kills throughout, this is exactly what one wants from the franchise, plus a touching farewell from semi-regular Tony Todd. Recommended for fans of the series, so Good for more character- or motive-focused horror fans.—KH
Okay
A Guilty Conscience (Film, HK, Wai-Lun Ng, 2023) Irresponsible jerk lawyer (Dayo Wong) seeks a redemptive underdog win after an influential family frames his client for her young daughter’s murder. Part of the recent cycle of Hong Kong courtroom dramas, this gets you rooting for the comeuppance of the bad guys while showing as much concern for legal procedure as wuxia films do for gravity.—RDL
Thunderbolts* (Film, US, Jake Schreier, 2025) Duplicitous biotech corpo turned CIA director Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) inadvertently creates a new albeit underpowered team when she tries to get her various loose-end semi-super contractors (Florence Pugh, et al.) to kill each other off. While superior to the recent ruck of Marvel outings, it’s not actually Good despite the presence of a Theme (depression), one (1) interesting super-encounter (Winter Soldier vs. three (3) Humvees), and Pugh’s actual acting chops. Moments of joy amid a tiresome slog are on theme, though, I guess.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Companion, The Shrouds, Dr. Mabuse
May 13th, 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
Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1924) Impulsive, none-too-bright hero Siegfried (Paul Richter) gains invulnerability from dragon blood and makes an underhanded bargain in exchange for the hand of a king’s sister (Margarete Schön). As he did for so many genres, Lang creates a foundational text of fantasy cinema, in this case slyly undercutting the nationalist overtones of the source material.—RDL
Recommended
Agent of Vega and Other Stories (Fiction, James H. Schmitz, 2001) Thrilling SF tales of intrigue seem strong but unremarkable until you check the dates and discover that Schmitz is writing near-transhuman stories of duplicated consciousness, technical and informational near-omnipotence, human-weapon-ship symbiosis, and borderline nanotech between 1949 and 1963, mostly with female protagonists. The Agents of Vega sequence (included) handles the seemingly impossible task of cracking good espionage-adventure in a universe with omnipresent telepathy; Schmitz’ first (1943) story “Greenface” by contrast is just very capable man vs. monster horror-SF.—KH
Companion (Film, US, Drew Hancock, 2025) A shocking incident at a Russian mogul’s secluded manor reveals leads a drippy dude’s (Jack Quaid) devoted girlfriend (Sophie Thatcher) to the awful discovery that she is in fact an android programmed to adore him. Thatcher’s yearning, quicksilver performance goes straight to the horror hall of fame in this ingeniously twisty, comic reversal of robot terror tropes.—RDL
Drinking History: Fifteen Turning Points in the Making of American Beverages (Nonfiction, Andrew F. Smith, 2013) The development and reception of 15 beverages from cider to bottled water reflects on key developments in US history. Food historical overview dense with shareable factoids.—RDL
Escape (Film, South Korea, Lee Jong-pil, 2024) On the final day of his decade-long military deployment, a determined North Korean sergeant (Lee Je-hoon) makes a break for the south, pursued by a childhood friend turned twisted high-ranking officer (Koo Kyo-hwan.) High-energy chase thriller set against the soul-killing backdrop of the present Kim regime.—RDL
The Shrouds (Film, Canada/France, David Cronenberg, 2025) When his weird high-tech cemetery is vandalized and hacked, a grief-stricken entrepreneur (Vincent Cassel) becomes enmeshed in conspiracy, which his late wife’s neurotic sister (Diane Kruger) and her paranoid ex-husband (Guy Pearce) might help him solve, or might be implicated in. Cerebral, dialogue driven technothriller, unsettling in its placidity, strips body horror of its metaphorical layer.—RDL
Good
Kill Me Again (Film, US, John Dahl, 1989) In debt to a loan shark, a traumatized Reno P.I. (Val Kilmer) agrees to fake the death of an alluring client (Joanne Whalley) who has not told him about her briefcase full of stolen mob cash. Sparely written neo-noir, shot in a restrained version of 80s style, suffers from a couple of ending problems, one of character motivation and the other of genre philosophy.—RDL
The Return of Dr. Mabuse (Film, West Germany, Harald Reinl, 1961) Newly collected on Blu-ray with the other 1960s Mabuse films, this first non-Fritz-Lang chronicle of the criminal mastermind/disguise artist rackets along from murder to murder as Inspector Lohmann (Gert Fröbe) and FBI agent Joe Como (Lex Barker) doggedly piece together the somewhat over-complicated truth. Seldom a dull moment, but not a particularly exciting film.—KH
Okay
The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (Film, West Germany, Harald Reinl, 1962) The third in the revived Mabuse postwar series is something of a misfire, with the mastermind going all out to get an invisibility device from its inventor, who uses it mostly to creep on an actress (Karin Dor). The low stakes, decentering of Mabuse, and galumphing presence of Lex Barker (returning as FBI agent Joe Como) in the lead all contribute to an air of pointless effort rather than Lang’s cool surveillance paranoia.—KH
Knight and Day (Film, US, James Mangold, 2010) Rogue manchild/superspy Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) uses, meets cute, and then serially rescues and endangers bystander June Havers (Cameron Diaz) in what Mangold apparently intended to be an action update of (near-Pinnacle) 1963 screwball thriller Charade. Cruise and Diaz pour their considerable charm into a black hole of a script, relieved by the occasional cool spy bit. Potentially recoverable if you watch it as a blackly humorous parody of every other 1990s/2000s action movie.—KH
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
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Sinners, Havoc, Wolfs
April 29th, 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
Broken Rage (Film, Japan, Takeshi Kitano, 2025) Shambling hit man (Beat Takeshi) comes under police pressure to lure his clients into a drug bust. Kitano’s ongoing ethical struggle with the popularity of his violent yakuza films gives rise to a dual structure, where the same story is told twice, first seriously and then absurdly.—RDL
Dodes’ka-den (Film, Japan, Akira Kurosawa, 1970) Poverty grinds down the residents of a Tokyo shantytown. Kurosawa’s fundamental humanism and wild color design leaven the bleakness of the source material.—RDL
Havoc (Film, UK, Gareth Evans, 2025) In a city of corruption, a remorseful cop (Tom Hardy) races to scoop up the son of the politician who owns him (Forest Whitaker) before vengeful triads get to him. Thundering, kinetic action set pieces and Hardy’s left-field acting choices ring variations on classic cop noir themes.—RDL
Layer Cake (Film, UK, Matthew Vaughn, 2004) Cocaine trafficking middleman (Daniel Craig) seeking to get out instead gets two annoying-to-impossible assignments from mercurial mob boss Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), and things spiral thusly. Somewhat more straight-faced and straightforward than Guy Ritchie’s earlier London crime films, Vaughn relies instead on propulsive energy and the real stakes of the plot. Colm Meaney’s turn as Jimmy’s second-in-command is only the top of the superb supporting roles on display, along with the tannest Michael Gambon has ever been.—KH
Sinners (Film, US, Ryan Coogler, 2025) The Smokestack Twins (Michael B. Jordan) return to their Mississippi Delta hometown from WWI and Capone’s Chicago to open a juke joint with secret weapon pure bluesman Sammie (Miles Caton). But you know what happens when you reject Chicago: God punishes you with Irish vampires. Coogler and composer/music coordinator Ludwig Göransson synthesize music, action, and story in a way that even most musicals struggle to achieve, while also providing a rich slice of Delta life and a superb vampire movie. If anything, it feels almost over-full of goodness; I await the inevitable three-hour-plus director’s cut with anticipation.—KH
Sinners (Film, US, Ryan Coogler, 2025)Twin brothers (Michael B. Jordan) return to Mississippi after a stint in Chicago’s 30s gangland to open a juke joint, little suspecting that their opening night star attraction (Miles Caton) has drawn the attention of music-appropriating vampires. Delta blues culture nerdtroped with patient assurance and passionate energy.—RDL
Good
Diamond Island (Film, Cambodia/France, Davy Chou, 2016) WIthdrawn young man from a rural village gets a construction job in the big city and reunites with his secretive brother, who has joined a circle of rich kids. Chou pushes against the limitations of contemporary neorealism in a lushly photographed slice of life drama.—RDL
Okay
Pontianak 100kg (Film, Malaysia, Shuhaimi Lua, 2023) A food-obsessed girl (Aya Amiruddin) returns to her native village as a plus-sized pontianak, who devours the locals’ food while the mayor (Kazar Saisi) frets. Ostensible comedy defangs the female-revenge horror of the cannibal-vampire ghost into a series of fat jokes and Scooby-ish fleeing. As a core sample of Malay horror-comedy, I hope it’s a flawed one.—KH
Wolfs (Film, US, Jon Watts, 2024) Both called to the same hotel room to clean up the same dead not-prostitute (Austin Abrams), two fixers (George Clooney, Brad Pitt) trade dick-measuring bits and bits of information. A tonal mess that compulsively vitiates its own meager stakes for mild approval, it eerily embodies the “made for streaming” slop movie despite the considerable charm Clooney and Pitt exhibit throughout.—KH
Wolfs (Film, US, Jon Watts, 2024) All is not what it seems when two fixers (George Clooney, Brad Pitt) are forced to work together to whisk away a hotel room corpse (Austin Abrams.) Genial reminder of how good the movies that inspired it are.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Crisis on Infinite Lupins
April 23rd, 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
The Adventures of Arsene Lupin (Film, France, Jacques Becker, 1957) Notorious gentleman thief (Robert Lamoureux) flirts with an aristocratic spy (Liselotte Pulver) while hoodwinking rich art collectors, eager-to-please jewelers, and the German Kaiser (O. E. Hasse.) Lavish celebration of style and luxury in glorious fifties color.—RDL
Noryang: Deadly Sea (Film, South Korea, Kim Han-Min, 2023) As the 16th century Imjin War drags to a close, genius admiral Yi Sun-Sin (Kim Yoon-seok) defies his Ming allies by demanding a final engagement to destroy withdrawing Japanese fleet. Final installment in the Yi Sun-Sin trilogy devotes a long first act to complicated three-way politicking, with factions within each force, all of which are needed to fully follow the rousing, extended naval combat sequences that follow.—RDL
Good
Arsene Lupin (Film, US, Jack Conway, 1932) Crusty Sûreté chief (Lionel Barrymore) pursues a spendthrift duke (John Barrymore) who he suspects is the wily gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. Agreeable pre-Code crime romp uses the Maurice Leblanc character to occasion a double shot of Barrymore.—RDL
Lady of the Train (Film, Egypt, Youssef Chahine, 1952) On discovering that she has not in fact been killed in a train crash, the degenerate gambler husband of a beloved singer pressures her to lay low so he can collect the insurance money. Wild plot turns keep coming in this noir-adjacent musical melodrama.—RDL
Oh, Canada (Film, US, Paul Schrader, 2024) Dying of cancer, an American expat who made a career for himself as a documentarian in Canada (Richard Gere) sits for an hijacks an interview conducted by a former student (Michael Imperioli) into a confession to his wife (Uma Thurman.) Adapting the structure of the Russell Banks source novel (Foregone) to film is a heavy lift, though Gere turns in an impressive performance. Set in the slightly alternate universe that vibrates into being whenever Americans set movies in Canada.—RDL
Okay
Lupin Season 3 (Television, France, 2024) When a mysterious foe kidnaps his long absent mother, Assane again follows in the footsteps of fictional master thief Arsene Lupin to fake his demise. Dutiful recapitulates the structure of season 1 & 2, making some off-putting choices for its protagonist without asking him to reckon for them.—RDL
Ken and Robin were both on the road this week. Like a true gentleman mastermind, Robin banked some capsule reviews for this exact eventuality.
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Morris on Manson, Moravian Witch Hunting, 70s Cops, and the Hottest New Fiction of 1771
April 15th, 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
Close Your Eyes (Film, Spain, Victor Erice, 2023) An unsolved mysteries-style TV show inspires a novelist (Manolo Solo) to follow up on the fate of a renowned actor (Jose Coronado), whose disappearance from set a generation ago ended his second career as a movie director. Erice, returning to filmmaking after a 31 year absence, infuses his ambiguous narrative of identity and loss with a complex, absorbing simplicity—not to mention a surprising homage to Rio Bravo.—RDL
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (Fiction, Tobias Smollett, 1771) An outwardly querulous, secretly kindly gent, his fussy, husband-seeking sister and their lovestruck niece and hotheaded nephew take a tour across England and Scotland. Fictionalized comic epistolary travelogue leaves an accessible, amusing record of everyday life in Georgian Britain.—RDL
The Seven-Ups (Film, US, Philip D’Antoni, 1973) Plainclothes cop Buddy Manucci (Roy Scheider) and his team of maverick “Seven-Ups” find their pursuit of New York organized crime figures complicated by freelance crooks kidnapping those same targets. A fine 70s cop movie is vaulted into greatness by the third (after Bullitt and The French Connection) of stunt co-ordinator Bill Hickman’s legendary car chases.—KH
Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius) (Film, US, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, 2025) Arts profile documentary uses a diptych structure to examine the musical innovations of funk pioneer Sly Stone, and then to ask what role the extra pressures placed on a black superstar contributed to his breakdown into drug dependency.—RDL
The Thief of Bagdad (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1924) Exquisitely muscled rogue (Douglas Fairbanks) poses as a foreign prince to vie with rival suitors for the hand of a princess (Julanne Johnston.) Foundational work of fantasy cinema, its monumental sets dripping with art nouveau and Symbolist style, centered by Fairbanks as the prototypical action star. Obvious caveat: if there’s a non-orientalist way for a Westerner to do this story, it’s not gonna be the one from a hundred years ago.—RDL
Witchhammer (Film, Czechoslovakia, Otakar Vávra, 1970) In Baroque-era Moravia, an erudite deacon (Elo Romancik) challenges a venal inquisitor (Vladimír Smeral) conducting an escalating, lethal anti-witchcraft campaign. Harrowing historical political drama of complicity and inertia in the face of tyrannical abuse hits hard now, as it would certainly have done for Czech audiences two years after the Soviet crackdown.—RDL
Good
Chaos: the Manson Murders (Film, US, Errol Morris, 2025) Morris’ ongoing tumble down the MKULTRA rabbit hole leads him to entertain researcher Tom O’Neill’s admittedly unproven theory that Charles Manson gained his powers of persuasion from a government mind control project. The problem with this challenge to the prevailing narrative of Manson as a Svengali of nihilistic terror is that it still strives to impose sense on what was really a spiral of drug-addled, criminal stupidity, which is where the documentary correctly if somewhat reluctantly lands.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Bill Burr, 80s Elmore Leonard, and a Martial Arts Crossover Event
April 8th, 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
52 Pick-Up (Film, US, John Frankenheimer, 1986) Steel company exec Harry Mitchell’s (Roy Scheider) philandering exposes him to blackmail by Alan Raimy (John Glover), setting off an escalating battle of wills and wits. Elmore Leonard co-wrote the script based on his novel, and the result feels tighter and smarter than the average 80s thriller, while not quite maintaining the tension Frankenheimer was capable of.—KH
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England (Nonfiction, Amanda Vickery, 2009) Deep dives into 18th century household account books, letters, court records and commercial catalogues illuminate Georgian home life, with a particular eye to the roles assigned to women and men. If you don’t want an entire chapter on the 18th century wallpaper industry maybe this isn’t for you, but I am addressing a self-selecting crowd here.—RDL
Bill Burr: The Drop Dead Years (Stand-up, Hulu, Ben Tishler, 2025) At age 55, Burr begins to confront his “drop dead years” by attempting to modulate his “angry Everyman” persona. The best individual bits, by and large, still come from that old type, but the larger structure of the routine points to a key change that will either produce a whole new comedy or remove his teeth entirely.—KH
Escape from Mogadishu (Film, South Korea, Ryoo Seung-wan, 2021) When embassies in the Ethiopian capital come under attack during the 1990 overthrow of Siad Barre, the mutually distrustful delegations of North and South Korea band together to find a way out of the war torn city. Docudrama political thriller culminates in a heart-in-mouth suspense action set piece.—RDL
The Girl on a Broomstick (Film, Czechoslovakia, Václav Vorlícek, 1972) Bored by the prospect of a 144-year detention, an inattentive student witch (Petra Cernocká) splits for the mortal world, where her shaky grasp of magic wreaks havoc at a contemporary high school. Wacky, anarchic comedy with funny gags, beguiling credits sequence illustrations and a jazz-funk soundtrack. I theorize that Cernocká and her foxy witch outfit exerted a galvanizing effect on a generation of impressionable young Czechs.—RDL
Nickel Boys (Film, US, RaMell Ross, 2024) Studious teen (Ethan Herisse) unjustly sentenced to a corrupt, murderous reform school befriends a more realistic fellow inmate (Brandon Wilson.) Moments of evanescent, Malick-esque beauty juxtapose with memories of rage and horror in a confident adaptation of the novel by Colson Whitehead.—RDL
September 5 (Film, US/Germany, , 2024) The ABC sports team at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, led by obstacle-smashing exec Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) and voice-of-caution Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) invents live crisis coverage on the fly when the Black September terror group attacks Israeli athletes and coaches. Journalistic procedural docudrama executes the shouting into phones genre with tension and clarity.—RDL
Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (Film, Japan, Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1971) When samurai seeking to cover up a massacre hunt a high-leaping Chinese warrior (Jimmy Wang Yu), the swordcane-wielding blind masseuse yakuza punks can’t stop messing with (Shintaro Katsu) steps up to protect a young boy who knows what really happened. A martial arts crossover event for the ages becomes a fatalistic meditation on cultural barriers in this above-average entry in the long-running series.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Vourdalak, They Cloned Tyrone, Reacher
April 1st, 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
Mother and a Guest (Film, South Korea, Shin Sang-ok, 1961) An irrepressible yet vulnerable six year old (Yeong-seon Jeon) who lives with her mom (Choi Eun-hie), grandmother and maid, all of them widows, does not understand the adult emotions stirred by the arrival of a male teacher (Kim Jin-kyu) as a lodger in their guest house. Often funny, sometimes strikingly poignant domestic drama, told with a deceptive simplicity that veers away from melodrama toward emotional realism. Features one of cinema’s greatest child performances. See kbelow for more on the star and director.—RDL
Recommended
Ant Colony (Comics, Michael DeForge, 2020) Anomic ants ponder wretched insect existence and their illicit desires as catastrophe looms over their colony. Obsessively drawn, bleakly comic fable of deterministic fatalism set in a Herrimanesque arthropod hellscape.—RDL
Close Your Eyes (Film, Spain, Victor Erice, 2023) An unsolved mysteries-style TV show inspires a novelist (Manolo Solo) to follow up on the fate of a renowned actor (Jose Coronado), whose disappearance from set a generation ago ended his second career as a movie director. Erice, returning to filmmaking after a 31 year absence, infuses his ambiguous narrative of identity and loss with a complex, absorbing simplicity—not to mention a surprising homage to Rio Bravo.—RDL
The Lovers & the Despot (Film, UK, Ross Adam & Robert Cannan, 2016) Documentary recounts the astounding story of top South Korean film director Shin Sang-ok and his star actress ex-wife Choi Eun-hie, who were separately kidnapped from Hong Kong in 1978 at the behest of North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, a frustrated cineaste who held them captive until they were willing to make movies for him. Illuminates the many stunning turns of a wrenching incident often treated in Western media as a surreal joke.—RDL
They Cloned Tyrone (Film, US, Juel Taylor, 2023) Aided by a motor mouthed, has-been pimp (Jamie Foxx) and a streetwalker who learned detective skills from her Nancy Drew collection (Teyonah Parris), a taciturn mid-level drug dealer (John Boyega) chases down eyewitness reports of his own murder. Hyper-verbal, hazily shot weird science mystery joins the satirically conscious horror cycle ushered in by Get Out.—RDL
The Vourdalak (Film, France, Adrien Beau, 2023) Lost and robbed in the 18th-century Balkans, French Marquis d’Urfe (Kacey Mottet Klein) shelters in the home of Gorcha, who has become a vampirish vourdalak. Undeniably effective adaptation of the Alexei Tolstoy novella aims more for “cringe horror” than real dread, although Beau’s decision to show the vourdalak’d Gorcha as a marionette pays big dividends in the uncanny.—KH
Good
Reacher Season 3 (Television, US, Amazon Prime, Nick Santora, 2025) Seeking to revenge himself on a connected sadist who got away, Reacher (Alan Ritchson) goes along with a rogue DEA operation targeting the sadist’s partner Zachary Beck (Anthony Michael Hall). Although this season finds an even more enormous foe to pit against Reacher, it suffers from Reacher being fundamentally reactive (and run by pinhead feds to boot) and from a dearth of Reacher whaling on guys. At least it’s a tighter story than Season 2, but America wants real Reacher.—KH
You Can’t Buy Everything (Film, US, Charles Reisner, 1934) Querulous, wealthy miser (May Robson) forces her dutiful son (William Bakewell) to follow in her footsteps, until he falls for the daughter (Jean Parker) of the ex-fiancee (Lewis Stone) she loathes with obsessive fervor. Domestic melodrama takes a rare focus on a mother-son relationship, drawing its matronly antihero with unexpected realism, even when Robson is overacting a little.—RDL
Okay
The Amateur (Film, Canada, Charles Jarrott, 1981) CIA cryptographer Charles Heller (John Savage) blackmails the Agency into sending him behind the Iron Curtain to kill the terrorists who murdered his fiancee. Christopher Plummer embraces the role of the Czech secret policeman on the other side, animating as best he can the back half of the movie. A few set pieces provide intermittent thrills, but this is perhaps best watched as a hairy period piece.—KH
Piaffe (Film, Germany, Ann Oren, 2023) Forced to take over work as a foley artist from her hospitalized sister, a withdrawn woman (Simone Bucio) grows a horse tail and enters into a fetishistic affair with a fern expert (Sebastian Rudolph.) Solemn, surreal magic realist fantasy shies away from resolution, with cryptic, hermetically sealed results.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: A Different Man, Will & Harper, and Ghost Stories from a POW Camp
March 25th, 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
Danton (Film, France/Poland, Andrzej Wajda, 1983) In the second year of the revolutionary Republic, charismatic faction leader Georges Danton (Gerard Depardieu) challenges the tightening grip on power held by his icy, ruthless rival Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak.) Stirring historical political thriller doomed by its incisiveness to a state of perpetual timeliness..—RDL
Recommended
The Alabaster Hand and Other Stories (Fiction, A.N.L. Munby, 1949) Collection of Jamesian horror tales written while Munby (an antiquarian bookseller by trade) was held in a German POW camp unsurprisingly amps up the nostalgic tone of James’ work, sometimes at the expense of horror. Munby’s ghosts prove more susceptible to laying than James’ do, but several of the stories (especially “Herodes Redivivus” and “The White Sack”) transmit real dread, and even the “happy ending” tales pass through excellent grue.—KH
A Different Man (Film, US, Aaron Schimberg, 2024) Would-be actor with extensive facial tumors (Sebastian Stan) undergoes treatment rendering him traditionally handsome, only to lose the playwright (Renate Reinsve) and starring role of his dreams to a chipper bon vivant (Adam Pearson) unfazed by his own similar condition. Mordant satire of inner versus outer acceptance with a 90s NYC indie vibe.—RDL
Trial Run (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1978) Bounced from the turf by a “no glasses” safety rule, astigmatic gentleman farmer and former steeplechaser Randall Drew succumbs to royal pressure and travels to Moscow to quash a rumor ahead of the Olympics. Francis’ thriller pace and well-sketched characters keep this not-quite-spy story intriguing, and make for a zippy read to boot.—KH
Will & Harper (Film, US, Josh Greenbaum, 2024) Will Ferrell goes on a heartland road trip with longtime co-writer Harper Steele to check on the status of their friendship, and her relationship to the down and dirty haunts she used to favor, now that she has come out as trans. Warm, funny buddy road documentary of awareness and acceptance triggers halcyon recollections of the late Biden era.—RDL
Good
Aavesham (Film, India, Jithu Madhavan, 2024) Seeking help against bullying upper classmen, three engineering students (Roshan Shanavas, Mithun Jai Shankar, Hipzster) establish a surprising bond with a flashy but insecure gang kingpin (Fahadh Faasil.) Punchy action comedy finds, in the neediness of its leading frenemy, a fresh spin on the in-too-deep-with-the-mob trope.—RDL
Korea: The Impossible Country (Nonfiction, Daniel Tudor, 2012/2018) Introductory survey of all things South Korean, from film to K-pop, from shamanism to an economy built from nothing to powerhouse on a structure of centrally-planned mercantilist capitalism. Useful and illuminating, though its arrangement by topic results in considerable repetition, as so many elements of South Korean life owe their character to the same events.—RDL
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2023) Ethan (Tom Cruise) and his team pursue a McGuffin granting control over a rogue AI which has hired an old enemy (Esai Morales) to counter him. McQuarrie expertly performs the mission he has assigned himself in his run on the series, to configure bedrock genre elements for maximum momentum and brio. Ironically this, the movie audiences decided to punish for two-parter syndrome, could have, with the merest of tweaks, stood on its own.—RDL
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
