{"id":1410,"date":"2017-09-12T13:29:32","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T13:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2017-09-12T13:29:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-12T13:29:32","slug":"ken-and-robin-consume-media-golden-age-mysteries-and-the-sewer-clown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/ken-and-robin-consume-media-golden-age-mysteries-and-the-sewer-clown\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken and Robin Consume Media: Golden Age Mysteries and The Sewer Clown"},"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

Robin is off at the Toronto International Film Festival and posting capsule reviews over at his blog<\/a>. When titles covered there are released in cinemas or on home video, he\u2019ll rerun the reviews in future installments of this here hut.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/h4>\n

Love Lies Bleeding<\/a> (Fiction, Edmund Crispin, 1948) Detective don Gervase Fen is conveniently on the scene when a public school reels under (at least) two murders. Calm and confident in tone, Crispin\u2019s smooth wit, convincing characters, and nicely knotted mystery do ample justice to the setting he creates here. Among the best exemplars of the Golden Age of Mystery. –KH<\/p>\n

Monster Island Tales<\/a> (Fiction, James L. Cambias, 2017) Collects two good short stories: \u201cReturn to Skull Island\u201d is a shaggy dog (Waldroppy dog?) zine review of a somewhat alternate King Kong; \u201cThe Dinosaur Train\u201d is a deceptively light, touchingly Bradburyesque tale of a family with a traveling dinosaur show fallen on hard times in the 1980s. –KH<\/p>\n

Good<\/h4>\n

The Case of the Gilded Fly<\/a> (Fiction, Edmund Crispin, 1944) Crispin\u2019s first mystery featuring his detective don Gervase Fen combines Oxford, the theater, and a locked room for a frothy mixture that reads like the lowest common denominator of Dorothy Sayers and John Dickson Carr, which is to say, still pretty good. Two amazingly effective M.R. Jamesian incidents don\u2019t deepen the story so much as cast it in a watery light by comparison. –KH<\/p>\n

Toni Erdmann<\/a> (Film, Germany, Maren Ade, 2016) Slovenly, prank-loving teacher poses as an eccentric business figure in an effort to get closer to and\/or severely annoy his workaholic daughter when she\u2019s trying to close a difficult consulting deal. Dogme-esque comedy has some memorable scenes at its core, but is suffocated by a two hour forty minute run time full of dead moments crying out for a ruthless edit.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Okay <\/h4>\n

It (Film, US, Andy Muschietti, 2017) Focusing on only the childhood half of Stephen King\u2019s masterpiece, even at 2 and a quarter hours the film feels both cramped and shallow, relying almost entirely on jump scares and theme music. Strong casting can only do so much; the script and director know they need to bring the town of Derry and the kids\u2019 nightmares into the lived foreground, but have no real idea how to do it. Like the miniseries, It punts when replacing King\u2019s ending; unlike the miniseries, It doesn\u2019t have Tim Curry. –KH<\/p>\n

Legends and Romances of Brittany (Nonfiction, Lewis Spence, 1917) Grab bag of Breton faerie, hero, saint and dolmen lore, with the prose voice and scholarship you\u2019d expect from a hundred year old compendium. Useful source material for the Yellow King Roleplaying Game\u2019s Brittany stretch goal, though scarcely a cracking casual read.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Tedious Brief Tales of Granta and Gramarye <\/a>(Fiction, Arthur Gray, 1919) Seven supernatural tales of Jesus College Cambridge, none set after 1766. Gray deep dives into M.R. James-style antiquarianism without the grue and with only a very few droplets of dread, like a church-architecture-obsessed Ripley\u2019s Believe it or Not! –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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410","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=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}