{"id":3965,"date":"2026-04-07T14:25:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:25:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:25:42","slug":"ken-and-robin-consume-media-blossoms-shanghai-ben-hur-mel-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/ken-and-robin-consume-media-blossoms-shanghai-ben-hur-mel-brooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken and Robin Consume Media: Blossoms Shanghai, Ben-Hur, Mel Brooks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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 a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.<\/i><\/p>\n

The Pinnacle<\/h2>\n

Blossoms Shanghai (Television, China, Tencent Video, Wong Kar Wai, 2023-2024) Charismatic financier (Ge Hu) and his loyal band of friends, including a self-willed restaurateur (Yili Ma) and an adorable trade office functionary (Yan Tang), weather the booms and busts of China\u2019s early stock market years. Wong\u2019s lyrically rendered, nostalgic melancholy underpins a slick, gorgeous, food-loving, business soap.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/h2>\n

Ben-Hur<\/a> (Film, US, William Wyler, 1959) Unjustly condemned to slavery, Jewish prince Judah ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) seeks revenge on his Roman boyhood friend turned persecutor Messala (Stephen Boyd). Hollywood spectacle combines Roman epic with \u201ca tale of the Christ,\u201d a combination that necessitates a difficult dramatic turn in the final act. Probably as good a film as could be made from the source novel, thanks not least to Christopher Fry\u2019s uncredited dialogue rewrites. The chariot race is, in fact, everything you\u2019ve heard: one of the ten, or maybe five, best action sequences ever filmed. See it on the big screen next Easter if you can.\u2014KH<\/p>\n

Death of a Corrupt Man<\/a> (Film, France, George Lautner, 1977) Cops and conspirators target a crooked legislator\u2019s loyal business partner (Alain Delon) when he comes into possession of a diary full of compromising information. Hitchcockian political thriller pits a tarnished wrong man against competing sinister forces.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Falling in Love Like In Movies (Film, Indonesia, Yandy Laurens, 2023) Middle-aged screenwriter (Ringgo Agus Rahman) pitches his producer a romance about a middle-aged screenwriter pining for his recently widowed high school crush (Nirina Zubir). Winning, dialogue-driven meta-narrative rom com contrasts film conventions with the relationship realities.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Green Rain<\/a> (Film, South Korea, Jung Jin-woo, 1966) Smitten young maid (Hie Mun) allows a rich swain (Shin Seong-il) to think she\u2019s an ambassador\u2019s daughter, scarcely suspecting that he\u2019s really a ne’er-do-well mechanic. Ironic romantic drama with an acerbic tone that lives on today in the films of Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho.\u2014RDL<\/p>\n

Mel Brooks: the 99 Year Old Man! (Television, US, HBO, Judd Apatow & Michael Bonfiglio, 2026) Celebratory two-part biodoc covers Brooks\u2019 three careers as TV writer, movie director and Broadway darling, plus the beautiful love stories of his marriage to Anne Bancroft and friendship with Carl Reiner.\u2014RDL<\/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":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-3965","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\/3965","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=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3966,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions\/3966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenandrobintalkaboutstuff.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}