{"id":1298,"date":"2017-04-25T16:15:19","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T16:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2017-04-25T16:15:19","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T16:15:19","slug":"ken-and-robin-talk-about-stuff-roald-in-the-spy-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/ken-and-robin-talk-about-stuff-roald-in-the-spy-factory\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Roald in the Spy Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>. 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\u2019ll talk about in greater depth on our new podcast segment, Tell Me More.<\/i> <\/p>\n

Recommended<\/h2>\n

Girls Season 6 (Television, US, HBO, Lena Dunham & Judd Apatow, 2017) An unexpected pregnancy forces Hanna to reconsider her ever-drifting New York existence and chaotic friendships. The final season of the decade\u2019s most polarizing dramedy does as much bow-tying as it can get away with without betraying its theme of messy lives in constant collision with one another.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington<\/a> (Nonfiction, Jennet Conant, 2008) Wounded RAF officer and future children\u2019s book author goes to Washington at the behest of spymaster William Stephenson to covertly influence US policy, one cocktail at a time. Dahl may not have carried the Walther PPK his colleague and friend Ian Fleming would later put in Bond\u2019s hands, but he sure had the seduction part down, including a taxing series of trysts with Clare Booth Luce. Conant presents an engaging narrative from events that in less able hands would fail to excite.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

The Happiest Day in Life of Olli Maki (Film, Finland, Juho Kuosmanen, 2016) Finns pin their hopes on a featherweight contender who is more interested in remaining a small town mensch in love with his girlfriend than coping with the pressure put on him by his ex-fighter manager. Reverses the emotional polarity of the boxing bio: here you\u2019re rooting for the hero to escape the dread fate of championship glory.\u2014RDL. Seen at TIFF \u201816; now in North American theatrical release.<\/p>\n

Orbital Cloud<\/a> (Fiction, Taiyo Fujii, 2014) In 2020, a Japanese space blogger discovers orbital debris in impossible motion, triggering a technothriller race to solve the mystery, resolve the crisis, and save every satellite in LEO from a weaponized electrodynamic tether orbiter. The characters are broad but not annoyingly so, and if the standard technothriller is \u201ccompetence porn\u201d this is a downright competence orgy. Spies, satellites, and smartphones: what\u2019s not to love? –KH <\/p>\n

Sand Castle (Film, US, Fernando Coimbra, 2017) During the occupation of Iraq, a reluctant infantryman (Nicholas Hoult) finds purpose when his unit is detailed to protect efforts to rebuild a water station. With its emphasis on driving supplies up and down ambush-ready roads and rebuilding infrastructure in the midst of an insurgency, this addresses the specifics of the conflict it depicts, rather than reskinning pre-existing war film tropes.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Sound of the Mountain (Film, Japan, Mikio Naruse, 1954) Undemonstrative businessman discovers that his warmest family tie relationship is with his sweet-natured daughter-in-law, who his drunk, disdainful son flagrantly cheats on. Quietly heartbreaking drama exemplifies Naruse\u2019s subtle portrayal of thwarted emotion.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

True Story<\/a> (Film, US, Rupert Goold, 2015) Disgraced reporter (Jonah Hill) gets too close when the accused family annihilator (James Franco) offers him a series of jailhouse interviews. Moody exploration of the ambiguous connection between a sociopath and a man anxious to be fooled.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Good<\/h2>\n

De Palma<\/a> (Film, US, Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow, 2015) The director of subversive, shockingly violent suspense serves as sole talking head for a career retrospective illustrated by clips from his and others\u2019 films. De Palma freely dishes on his missteps, revealing why his films are as they are, for good and for ill.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World<\/a> (Nonfiction, Abigail Tucker, 2016) The charming writing in this amiable pop-science book masks its only real flaw: it doesn\u2019t really know the answer to its question. In fairness, nobody does — cats are hilariously hard to study, and human behaviorists apparently know less than animal behaviorists. Tucker tries to introduce a secondary theme — that cats\u2019 hyperpredation, rapid reproduction, and ubiquity make them ecocidal monsters second only to us — but that only runs her into her original question again. –KH<\/p>\n

Venus With Pistol<\/a> (Fiction, Gavin Lyall, 1969) Art smuggler and dealer in antique pistols Bert Kemp gets tangled up in a ever-so-slightly-too-complicated conspiracy to repatriate a millionairess\u2019 expropriated fortune in the form of dodgy masterpieces. And then the murders began. Lyall\u2019s verbal fireworks aren\u2019t quite as on form here and the story is a little staccato, but there\u2019s no shortage of classic thriller sequences in this classic art-crime thriller. I love art-crime thrillers, but I\u2019m trying to control for that here: if you too go weak in the knees for a confident paragraph on Giorgione, call it Recommended. –KH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019ll talk about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiofree","tag-ken-and-robin-consume-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}