Ken and Robin Consume Media: Oddity, Woman of the Hour, and Alan Moore’s Magic 101

November 5th, 2024 | 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 Abandoned (Film, Taiwan, Ying-Ting Tseng, 2022) Aided by a tentative rookie (Chloe Xiang) and a victim’s impulsive boyfriend (Ethan Juan), a grief-stricken cop (Ning Chang) investigates the slayings of foreign workers who have fled their visa requirements. Tense serial killer policier paints Taipei’s underbelly as a place of dread and fleeting beauty.—RDL

Bed of Roses (Film, US, Gregory La Cava, 1933) Cynical ex-con (Constance Bennett) reels in a stuffy, rich publisher (John Halliday) but pines for a down-to-earth barge captain (Joel McCrea.) Economically told wisecracking Pre Code romantic drama.—RDL

Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution (Nonfiction, Jonathan B. Losos, 2017) Lizard-wrangling biologist shows how DNA analysis and experimental studies have established convergent evolution, the tendency of species to arrive at similar solutions to the same environmental challenges, not as a quirky occurrence but as the baseline. Illuminating throughout, including the section where you discover that everything you thought you knew about the Burgess Shale has now been upended.—RDL

The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic (Nonfiction & Comics, Alan Moore & Steve Moore & divers hands, 2024) A big and beautiful introduction to (and defense of) the magical arts, comprising among other things précis of the Kabbalah and Tarot, magical geographies and summonables, 50 “Lives of the Great Enchanters” in comics form, and several “rainy day activities” sections that provide beginning magical instruction. Really most comparable to other wide-ranging introductions to the field such as Richard Cavendish’s Black Arts (also Recommended) but also valuable to (and fun for) the scholar or fan of Alan Moore.—KH

Oddity (Film, Ireland, Damian McCarthy, 2024) Blind psychic proprietor of a curio shop specializing in cursed items (Carolyn Bracken) shows up unannounced at the home of her dead sister’s doctor husband (Gwilym Lee), intent on identifying her killer. Weird tale of revenge and the supernatural filled with unexpected turns and shot with exacting control.—RDL

Wingwomen (Film, France, Mélanie Laurent, 2023) Longtime high-end heist partners, collected Carole (Mélanie Laurent) and vulnerable Alex (Adèle Exarchopoulos) agree to steal a painting for their increasingly unhinged boss (Isabelle Adjani.) Glamorous hangout movie with inventive action set pieces celebrates the bonds of female friendship.—RDL

Woman of the Hour (Film, US, Anna Kendrick, 2024) Struggling actress (Anna Kendrick) reluctantly agrees to appear as a contestant on The Dating Game, unaware that one of her prospective dates (Daniel Zovatto) is an active serial killer. Judiciously understated true crime drama uses a chronologically fragmented structure to depict the ambient menace fostered by predatory men and its confining effect on women.—RDL

Okay

Anora (Film, US, Sean Baker, 2024) Smitten stripper (Mikey Madison) marries rich man-child (Mark Eidelshtein) scrambling the minions of his Russian oligarch parents into dismayed action. Unnecessary scenes and repetitive story beats weigh down this realist romantic farce, Madison’s star-making performance notwithstanding.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Shadow Strays, Rumours, and Neorealist Folk Horror

October 22nd, 2024 | 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.

Ken was on the road this week.

Recommended

Il Demonio (Film, Italy, Brunello Rondi, 1963) In rural southern Italy, an unbalanced young woman (Dalia Lavi) outrages her village by casting a spell on the burly farmer (Frank Wolff) she yearns for, triggering an exorcism attempt. Neorealist horror casts an ethnographic eye on rites and workings ranging from the religious, to folk-religious to forbidden witchcraft.—RDL

I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition (Nonfiction, Lucy Sante, 2024) Acclaimed nonfiction writer recounts the circumstances of her recent, late-in-life embrace of her trans identity and a previous life spent resolutely suppressing it. A personal narrative of punishing internal confusion told with admirable clarity.—RDL

Rumours (Film, Canada, Guy Maddin & Evan Johnson & Galen Johnson,, 2024) At a G7 summit to discuss an unspecified world crisis, leaders including the amorous German chancellor (Cate Blanchett) and dreamy, melancholy Canadian PM (Roy Dupuis) find themselves suddenly isolated and beset by self-pleasuring bog corpses and a giant brain. SF/fantasy satire, surreal by the standard of any other filmmaker but a swerve toward normal for Maddin, plants a flag as the defining political film of the Biden era.—RDL

The Shadow Strays (Film, Indonesia, Timo Tjahjanto, 2024) While recuperating on a mission for a ruthless league of assassins, a highly trained teen killer (Aurora Ribero) takes it upon herself to protect a neighbor kid trying to save his mom from a perverse drug gang. Unremitting ultra-hard actioner is Tjahjanto’s best film, and the best Indonesian martial arts film since The Raid.—RDL

Good

Bird Box (Film, US, Susanne Bier, 2019) Pregnant, standoffish painter (Sandra Bullock) struggles to survive when an invasion of spectral, suicide-causing entities collapses civilization. Somber post-apocalyptic horror crosses motifs from A Quiet Place and The Crazies, leaning on Bullock’s built-in audience rapport to maintain sympathy for a hardened, withholding protagonist.—RDL

The Fifth Cord (Film, Italy, Luigi Bazzoni, 1971) Volatile drunk journalist (Franco Nero) investigates a bewildering series of thrill killer attacks and murders, all of them somehow connected to him. Compellingly composed giallo, shot by Vittorio Storaro and scored by Ennio Morricone, challenges our  sympathy for the protagonist, but leaves that thematic thread dangling.—RDL

Vampire Circus (Film, UK, Robert Young, 1972) Fifteen years after staking their local vampire count (Robert Tayman), villagers react with passive bafflement to a visit from a weird circus. Entry from Hammer’s sexy era favors images and atmosphere over story logic.—RDL

Okay

The Adventurers (Film, China, Stephen Fung, 2017) Pursued by a dogged police inspector (Jean Reno) and aided by a charming infiltrator (Shu Qi) and wet-behind-the-ears techie (Yo Yang), an international jewel thief (Andy Lau) pursues one last job in hopes of smoking out the betrayer who sent him to prison. Glossy, generic big-budget heist flick. Not to be confused with 1995’s The Adventurers starring Andy Lau.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Folk Music Horror, Indonesian Theological Terror, and the Walter Ghost Mysteries

October 15th, 2024 | 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

All You Need is Death (Film, Ireland, Paul Duane, 2023) Ethnomusicologists on the make (Simone Collins, Charlie Maher) team with a more established rival (Catherine Siggins) to pry a sinister pre-Irish ballad from the last singer who knows it (Olwen Fouéré.) With its motif of a work of art that warps minds and physical reality, this eerie, disjunctive folk horror may ring bells with devotees of Chambers’ King in Yellow cycle.—RDL

The Bishop’s Bedroom (Fiction, Piero Chiara, 1976) In the Italian-Swiss Lake District after the war, a young idle yacht owner becomes a fixture in the villa of a grasping fellow veteran, his disapproving wife, and her stifled younger sister. Literary murder tale in the Highsmith vein, told with a wry forgiveness for human weakness.—RDL

Grave Torture (Film, Indonesia, Joko Anwar, 2024) Determined nurse (Faradina Mufti) whose parents were killed by a bomber obsessed with the Islamic doctrine that the bodies of dead unbelievers are horrifically tortured goes to extreme lengths to debunk it. Patient theological slow burn followed by shocking spiral into terror.—RDL

Good

His Three Daughters (Film, US, Azazel Jacobs, 2024) Tensions come to a head for three sisters, confrontational Katie (Carrie Coon), mediating new mom Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) and self-medicating Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) as they keep watch over their dying father. Indie drama stylizes its dialogue and performance style as it explores family reconciliation through grief, a wish fulfillment fantasy as alluring as anything involving Jedi or superheroes.—RDL

The Walter Ghost Mysteries (Fiction, Vincent Starrett, 1929-1932) In three novels, dilettante Walter Ghost reluctantly investigates murders. Murder on “B” Deck features a more Holmesian arbitrary revelation; the other two attempt to play fair. Light and airy, but Chicago connection aside there’s not much to distinguish them from the run of the Golden Age mill.—KH

The Widening Stain (Fiction, Morris Bishop, 1942) Library cataloguer Gilda Gorham investigates the mysterious death of a Romance Languages professor in the stacks, interspersed with limericks from her suitor, a Dramatic Arts professor. The witty and well-drawn academic background (Bishop was a professor at Cornell, who published under a pseudonym) rather upstage a somewhat misfired mystery.—KH

Okay

What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (Film, Italy, Massimo Dallamano, 1974) Methodical prosecutor (Giovanna Ralli) and hard-charging cop (Claudio Cassinelli) trace a young girl’s murder to an underage sex trafficking ring protected by a leather-clad hatchet killer. Giallo-adjacent poliziotteschi plays like a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode with extreme gore effects. Like many treatments of this subject matter before and since, the film is blatantly horny for the thing it is morally outraged about.—RDL

Not Recommended

Lisa Frankenstein (Film, US, Zelda Williams, 2024) Traumatized transfer student (Kathryn Newton) bonds with the reanimated corpse of a 19th century pianist (Cole Sprouse.) Diablo Cody’s 80s-set teen horror comedy script makes some interesting choices but is ill-served by listless direction in which key moments are oddly omitted.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: H. P. Lovecraft Film Fest Highlights, Plus Extreme Taipei Zombies, Classic Giallo, and E. A. Poe, Investigator

October 9th, 2024 | 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

All the Colors of the Dark (Film, Italy, Sergio Martini, 1972) When neither pharmaceuticals or psychoanalysis help a glamorous housewife (Edwige Fenech) with visions of a knife-wielding stalker, she allows a lonely new neighbor to induct her into an orgiastic ceremonial magic cult. Reality horror sexploitation giallo that clearly exerted an influence on Eyes Wide Shut. Consider this added to the Reality Horror 101 list from episode 614.—RDL

Civil War (Film, US, Alex Garland, 2024) Veteran war photographer (Kirsten Dunst) reluctantly mentors an eager rookie (Cailee Spaeny) on the harrowing drive from New York to Washington in the closing days of a catastrophic internal conflict. Not an extrapolation of how armed struggle would break out in America, but an alarmingly realized nightmare of what it would feel like, using a quest structure as its backbone.—RDL

Dream Eater (Film, Canada, Alex Lee Williams, Jay Drakulic, & Mallory Drumm, 2024) Documentarian Mallory (Mallory Drumm) and her douchebag boyfriend Alex (Alex Lee Williams) rent a remote house to celebrate his birthday, but his troubling sleepwalking habits only get worse. Wisely breaking its found-footage conceit when need be, this supernatural possession flick plays all the hits with enough dedication and original spice (such as a weird whistle on the score that slowly becomes diegetic) to stay riveting to the end.—KH

The Man With a Cloak (Film, US, Fletcher Markle, 1951) In 1848 New York, an earnest Parisian (Leslie Caron), who hopes her fiancée’s rich grandfather (Louis Calhern) will fund the cause of the Republic, suspects that his household retinue, led by a stern ex-actress (Barbara Stanwyck) is trying to kill him, prompting her new friend, a a skint, bibulous poet who calls himself Dupin (Joseph Cotten) to apply his powers of ratiocination. A top notch cast and literate script make this John Dickson Carr adaptation my new favorite in the “Edgar Allan Poe investigates” sub-sub-genre.—RDL

The Sadness (Film, Taiwan, Rob Jabbaz, 2021) Young couple (Regina Lei, Berant Zhu) tries to find each other as an outbreak of smart, verbal, gleefully sadistic zombies rips through Taipei. Extremely harsh and violent survival horror in the shadow of COVID and Taiwan’s existential security peril. When the horror streaming platform Shudder adds an extra level of content warnings, you’d best believe them. —RDL

Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire (Film, US, Stuart Ortiz, 2024) Superbly executed faux-documentary purports to tell the story of two San Bernardino cops (Peter Zizzo and Terri Apple) hunting a ritualistic serial killer. Almost too well-done to be a Netflix true crime doc, Ortiz’ film serves up mutilation horror aplenty while slow-burn cosmicism mounts subtly in the background.—KH

Good

The Complex Forms (Film, Italy, Fabio D’Orta, 2023) A down-and-out cook (David White) accepts 10,000 euro to wait in a mysterious villa to be possessed by alien beings. Black-and-white art-film sententiousness makes the movie’s 74 minutes seem a rather long run for a short slide. Some arresting visuals and what might have been a high concept given different editing choices mean it’s not forgettable even if it’s not Recommended.—KH

Cynara (Film, US, King Vidor, 1932) As he readies for self-exile in South Africa, a staid barrister (Ronald Colman) finally recounts to his wife (Kay Francis) the full details of the affair with a shopgirl (Phyllis Barry) that led to his public disgrace. Domestic drama takes a clear-eyed look at the soon-to-be forbidden subject of adultery, with Colman occasionally faltering when forced out of his understated comfort zone.—RDL

The Daemon (Film, USA, Matt Devino & David Michael Yohe, 2024) After his father’s suicide, Tom (Tyler Q. Rosen) retreats to his family lake cabin, followed unwisely by his wife and in-laws. Some good monster effects, and believable characters, compensate somewhat for a pretty routine story. You’ll never believe this, but trauma is the real monster.—KH

Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox (Film, US, Stimson Snead, 2024) Self-hating scientist/smartass Tim Travers (Samuel Dunning) uses a time machine to kill his one-minute-younger self, repeatedly. Expanded from its 2022 short version (which was very funny) with more jokes which sometimes land, and a few big name guest stars driving subplots of varying effectiveness.—KH