Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: New Tim Powers, The Dirty Dozen with Samurai, and the Quest for Kim

December 9th, 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

11 Rebels (Film, Japan, Kazuya Shiraishi, 2024) Condemned prisoners accept an offer of reprieve to defend a fort long enough for a double-dealing clan to play both sides of the Boshin War. Ensemble cast samurai war film combines classical storytelling with contemporary gore effects.—RDL

Juliet, Naked (Film, US, Jesse Peretz, 2018) Quietly discontented museum curator (Rose Byrne) stumbles into an online epistolary relationship with the obscure retired indie rocker (Ethan Hawke) her lunkhead professor partner (Chris O’Dowd) obsessively idolizes. Hawke reminds us what a brilliant naturalistic actor he is in this winning Nick Hornby adaptation.—RDL

The Mills of the Gods (Fiction, Tim Powers, 2025) In 1925 Paris, American expat artist Harry Nolan gets embroiled with Vivi Chastain, the victim of a Moloch-worshipping body-jumping cult. The narrative ramps up almost too abruptly, and unusually for Powers from only one perspective, with his famous supporting cast (Hemingway, Stein, Picasso) less finely drawn. But the occult doings remain scary and cool, even if this installment reads more as alongside history than within it.—KH

Mountain Onion (Film, Kazakhstan, Eldar Shibanov, 2022) With his mom about to leave his dad for dragging them to the countryside on a disastrous back-to-nature impulse, an intense preteen (Esil Amantay) enlists his unflappable younger sister (Amina Gaziyeva) on a quest to save their marriage by acquiring a box of knock-off Viagra. Refreshes the portrait of rural life genre with bright colors, a comic outlook, and a winning narrative throughline.—RDL

Quest For Kim: In Search of Kipling’s Great Game (Nonfiction, Peter Hopkirk, 1996) Great Game historian Hopkirk follows the path of Kim and proposes specific models for the main characters in Kipling’s Pinnacle spy novel. Reading Kim put Hopkirk on the trail of the Great Game in the first place, and the combination of love and knowledge in this book makes it an irresistible and rapid read.—KH

Good

Ready or Not (Film, US, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, 2019) Orphan Grace (Samara Weaving) has finally found a family when she marries Alex le Domas (Mark O’Brien), estranged scion of a wealthy games publishing dynasty. As the words “wealthy games publishers” should warn us, they’re in league with Satan, and the resulting bloody game of Hide and Seek provides all the thrills and most of the interest in the film. Watched as a live-action cartoon, it’s fun while it lasts; Weaving isn’t given enough to hang a character on, so that’s all it really can be.—KH

Okay

Nobody 2 (Film, US, Timo Tjahjanto, 2025) Government assassin/wage slave Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) takes his family (Connie Nielsen, et al.) on vacation to his only good childhood memory, a Wisconsin water park, which turns out to be a front for a murderous smuggling ring led by Lendina (Sharon Stone). The first film worked when it did by contrasting its state-of-the-art violence with a relatively mundane life background embodied by Odenkirk’s schlub character. This one deliberately plunges into a cartoon world almost from the jump, stepping on its few good setups, and even Tjahjanto’s gore-loving camera can’t force much more than the occasional chuckle.—KH

Not Recommended

A Perfect Couple (Film, US, Robert Altman, 1979) A doormat at home but pushy on dates, an eccentric schlub (Paul Dooley) pursues a wan pop singer (Marta Heflin.) With its bizarre gap between the response to the characters it expects from the audience and how it portrays them, and interminable stretches of screen time devoted to an unbearable, untethered-in-time, Broadway-infused MOR band, this might be the weirdest movie Altman ever made. And he made Popeye.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Fantastic 4, The Ax, and a Cozy House Explosion

December 2nd, 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 Ax (Fiction, Donald E. Westlake, 1997) Laid off from a middle management job at a paper company, Burke Devore decides to end his two-year stretch (with no end in sight) of unemployment by killing a middle manager at a paper company, along with the six people with better resumes for that job than his. One of Westlake’s most successful straight psychological thrillers touches Raskolnikovian depths with an uncanny first-person voice, along with Westlake’s untouchable skill at plotting.—KH

Christmas Pudding (Fiction, Nancy Mitford, 1932) To gain access to the journals of a Victorian poet he intends to write about, an indolent writer conspires with a raffish young friend, his subject’s grandson, to pose as his tutor over the holidays . Hilarious, knowing dissection of gentry folkways.—RDL

Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Film, Japan, Nagisa Oshima, 1969) Standoffish book shoplifter (Tadanori Yokoo) and angry store clerk (Rie Yokoyama) circle one another in an ambivalent quasi-relationship. Brechtian essay film made in collaboration with an experimental theater company wrestles with sexuality as a force that surfaces from the id to attack the certainties of male intellectuals.—RDL

The Fantastic 4: First Steps (Film, US, Matt Shakman, 2025) Ex-astronaut couple (Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby), her brother (Joseph Quinn) and their best friend (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) use their superpowers to save her unborn child, and the world, from the planet-eating giant alien Galactus (Ralph Ineson.) An (almost) self-contained story and sure sense for the right tonal notes give third-time’s-the-charm status to the MCU version of the foundational comic books.—RDL

Ikarie XB 1 (Film, Czechoslovakia, Jindrich Polák, 1963) The crew of an interstellar exploration ship endures the deadly rigors of space travel. Humanistic depiction of a community under pressure tells a story without antagonists.—RDL

Sky High (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1955) When Major MacMorris is blown up with his house, Mrs. Artside has lost a tenor for her church choir but gains a mystery to unravel. Gilbert has fun with the “cozy village” mystery in this one, distributing the investigations between Mrs. Artside, her ex-commando son Tim, and eventually Inspector Hazlerigg. Not especially difficult as a whodunit, a bit of a howdunit, but mostly a chance to follow Gilbert through his felicity with small dramas.—KH

Good

The Tender Bar (Film, US, George Clooney, 2021) Abandoned by his deadbeat disk jockey dad (Max Martini), a thoughtful (Daniel Ranieri) kid grows into a Yale student with literary aspirations (Tye Sheridan) under the substitute tutelage of his autodidact bartender uncle (Ben Affleck.) Affectionate character portraits take center stage in an adaptation of a memoir without a strong narrative line.—RDL

Vera Cruz (Film, US, Robert Aldrich, 1954) Ex-Confederate colonel Ben Trane (Gary Cooper) teams up with outlaw gunman Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster) and they sell their services to Emperor Maximilian, who commissions them to escort the Countess Marie (Denise Darcel) to Vera Cruz through the Juarista rebel forces. Intermittently gorgeous shots by Ernest Laszlo and plenty of gunplay and betrayal punctuate a proto-spaghetti Western in which not even Gary Cooper is immune to greed and situational ethics. The timing and rhythm of the film seem off (too many rewrites and too many cuts), and Burt Lancaster’s endless mugging gets a tad old as even Lanc later admitted: ​​"There I was, acting my ass off. I looked like an idiot, and Coop was absolutely marvelous."—KH

Okay

Topaz (Film, US, Alfred Hitchcock, 1969) In the days preceding the Cuban missile crisis, a French intelligence officer (Frederick Stafford) sidesteps his own bosses to freelance an operation for his US counterpart (John Forsythe.) Although it’s interesting to see Hitch tackle a more topical and realistic spy story than usual, and to see him working with French stars Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret, the multi-protagonist Leon Uris source novel leaves him mostly serving its complicated plot.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Nouvelle Vague, an Obscure New Wave Gem, and The Brain Stealers

November 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.

Recommended

The Brain Stealers (Film, Hong Kong, Umetsugu Inoue, 1968) A scientist’s daughter (Lily Ho) uses judo to protect him from a megalomaniacal supervillain intent on using his plant growth tech to create an army of giants. Fast moving entry in the Shaw Brothers cycle of kooky Bond tributes packs in enough outlandish plot elements for three normal movies. Mind switching! Snake charming! The acid pit! A giant attack owl!—RDL

Happy as Lazzaro (Film, Italy, Alice Rohrwacher, 2019) Beatifically naive young farm worker (Adriano Tardiolo) befriends the feckless son of the Marquise (Nicoletta Braschi) who has tricked his family and neighbors into believing they owe her their labor as sharecroppers. Evanescent portrait of rural life takes a turn into allegorical magic realism.—RDL

Love at Sea (Film, France, Guy Gilles, 1964) A trusting young Parisian office worker (Geneviève Thénier) corresponds with her brooding sailor boyfriend (Daniel Moosmann), who is stationed in gloomy Brest. Beguiling New Wave mood piece, stunningly photographed in both color and black & white, once a meditation on nostalgia for the present, now a time capsule of France at its epitome of cool.—RDL

Madame White Snake (Film, South Korea, Shin Sang-ok, 1960) An eager snake spirit in human form (Choi Eun-hee) wreaks unintended havoc when she falls for a human merchant (Jo Hyeong-geun.) This version of the oft-adapted legend casts it as a melodrama, with the divine laws separating the mortal and immortal realms standing in for the oppressive social conventions bringing suffering to the heroine. As discussed in Episode 642, the director and leading lady were later abducted by North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il.—RDL

Nouvelle Vague (Film, France/US, Richard Linklater, 2025) In 1959, frustrated critic Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) gets his chance to direct his debut film, Breathless. Linklater shoots and cuts this love letter to Godard’s work in completely un-Godardian fashion (although in black-and-white and in French and in a 4:3 aspect ratio), which explains much of why I found myself engrossed in the story and sympathizing with the characters. Much of the rest is Zoey Deutch’s star turn as a frustrated Jean Seberg, who cannot believe she’s stuck doing this movie for this jerk.—KH

Paint, Gold, and Blood (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1989) The impecunious schoolboy Peter Dolamore stumbles over an art theft, and with his chum Stewart Ives eventually investigates. I am a sucker for all three of the strands of this novel: “boys’ adventure” school story, Hitchcockian “wrong man” thriller, and art theft, and by now I’m less surprised (though no less impressed) when Gilbert eventually but seamlessly weaves three seemingly random separate types of novel into one. As is common with Gilbert, the last quarter of the book clicks up into superb suspense.—KH

The Shanghai Free Taxi (Nonfiction, Frank Langfitt, 2019) Journalist portrays everyday life in Xi’s China by following the lives of people he meets by offering free car rides in Shanghai. Sympathetic first person social storytelling with an eye for illuminating detail.—RDL

Good

Moon (Film, Austria, Kurdwin Ayub, 2024) Washed-up MMA fighter (Florentina Holzinger) finds her new gig training the teen daughters of a wealthy family in Jordan increasingly troubling . Hard-edged observational drama from the point of view of a character unable to fully penetrate its core dilemma.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Blue Moon, Only Murders in the Building, Bring Her Back

November 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.

Recommended

Alucarda (Film, Mexico, Juan López Moctezuma, 1977) Intense student Alucarda (Tina Romero) encourages new arrival Justine (Susana Kamini) to take part in a Satanic ritual, spiraling their convent school into an inferno of bloodshed. Which you’d think is a mixed metaphor but no. Sepia-toned psychosexual horror freakout reminds us that there’s no Catholicism more fervent than the transgressive kind.—RDL

Blue Moon (Film, US, Richard Linklater, 2025) On the opening night of Oklahoma!, lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) gives vent to jealousy and genius before and during a Sardi’s party for his former partner, composer Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), where he hopes to win the love of Yale student Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley). A tour-de-force both interior and mannered by Hawke, for the only director who can bring that kind of performance out of him; Qualley and Scott match him in their paired rejection scenes. Occasional hey-its-that-guy intrusions (“Weegee, take a picture!”) and the weird “height wizardry” involved in depicting 5’10” Hawke as the 4’11” Hart briefly distract, but not fatally.—KH

Bring Her Back (Film, Australia, Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou, 2025) Orphaned teens, protective but volatile Andy (Billy Barratt) and his blind, independence-seeking stepsister (Sora Wong) move in with a seemingly empathetic foster parent (Sally Hawkins) who harbors a hidden necromantic agenda. Hawkins’ intense performance multiplies the horror of being trapped with a cruel and manipulative caretaker.—RDL

The Carter of La Providence (Fiction, Georges Simenon, 1931) Maigret investigates the strangulation of an English yachtsman’s wife in an area frequented by barge workers of the Marne. More of a policier than a puzzle-style whodunnit, focused on characters from a couple of contrasting sub-cultures.—RDL

The Killing of Katie Steelstock (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1980) Local girl become TV pop icon turns up murdered by the canal in her sleepy hometown, bringing “star of the Murder Squad” DCI Knott to the scene. Gilbert cleverly tells a Golden Age style “village mystery” through the lens and language of the police procedural, carefully seeding near-invisible clues to the surprising reveal.—KH

The Night of the Twelfth (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1976) When the third murdered boy turns up, DCS Jock Anderson heads up a task force to methodically quarter the country around the Trenchard School for the killer. Gilbert here combines the “school story” complete with enigmatic new “cool” schoolmaster, terrorism thriller (one of the students is the son of the Israeli ambassador), and police procedural to once more produce a sort of holographic Golden Age detection, all in a superbly controlled style running from near psychological horror to character-driven humor.—KH

Good

The Big Sky (Film, US, Howard Hawks, 1952) Enterprising frontiersman (Kirk Douglas) and his hotheaded traveling companion (Dewey Martin) join a cartel-busting riverborne fur trading mission through uncharted territory. Rhythm is everything with Hawks, here sabotaged by a visible studio hack job in the edit suite, but even so this unusually-set Western quest has its moments.—RDL

Only Murders in the Building Season 5 (Television, US, Hulu, Steve Martin & John Hoffman, 2025) Podcasting trio (Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez) run into opposition from a billionaire squad (Christoph Waltz, Renee Zellweger, Logan Lerman) while investigating the murder of their building’s doorman Lester (Teddy Coluca). To my surprise, the derailing of the podcast pretense of the show also derails the narrative, as the mystery twists unsatisfyingly in the wind for the last six episodes with nothing very interesting to replace it.—KH

Of Historical Note

Mission to Moscow (Film, US, Michael Curtiz, 1943) As WWII looms, sensible American diplomat Joseph Davies (Walter Huston) fact-finds in Moscow and Europe. In a move it would later regret, Warner Brothers agreed to produce this film, aimed at drumming up support for its new Soviet ally, at the behest of the US state department. In the history of propaganda, this stands as a gobsmacking exercise in overreach, going so far as to praise the ‘37 Moscow trials as a needed blow against a Nazi conspiracy directed by Leon Trotsky. On a cinematic level, it highlights Curtiz’s ability to energize even the dullest script imaginable with motion, compelling framing and twinkling character moments.—RDL

Okay

The Wrath of Becky (Film, US, Matt Angel & Suzanne Coote, 2023) When white supremacist losers murder her landlady and steal her dog, off-the-grid teen Becky (Lulu Wilson) returns to form as a vengeance machine. Retains the kicky spirit of the original but skimps on the basic building blocks of action-suspense sequences.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Del Toro’s Frankenstein, Silver Nitrate, and Ken Finds a New Mystery Writer to Binge

November 11th, 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

Death in Captivity (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1952) One of the most original premises for a “locked room” mystery ever: in an Italian POW camp in 1943, a possible informer turns up dead in an escape tunnel that takes four men to open. Gilbert (who actually spent time as a POW in Italy) interweaves a fair-play murder mystery with a classic prison-camp story complete with heroic escape plans, all of it complicated by the fact that the Italian authorities have their own schemes to which the detective is not privy, and their own POW to frame for the crime.—KH

John Candy: I Like Me (Film, US, Colin Hanks, 2025) Documentary profile of the revered comedy star shows why he was beloved on and off screen, while gently exploring the paradox of his quiet self-destruction.—RDL

Silver Nitrate (Fiction, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 2023) When forgotten cult horror director Abel Urueta involves almost-has-been actor Tristán and struggling sound editor Montserrat in a sorcerous ritual he filmed 30 years before at the behest of a Nazi occultist, things get better for all of them. Until, as one might suspect, they get much much worse. Moreno-Garcia has total mastery of her Mexico City ‘90s milieu, and invests her characters with complete believability, which puts this “lost magical film” novel well ahead of most of its rivals.—KH

Smallbone Deceased (Fiction, Michael Gilbert, 1950) An annoying trustee turns up dead in a deed box, throwing the august London firm of solicitors into a tizzy, since their senior partner (also deceased) is the prime suspect. Inspector Hazelrigg (and a new hire who can’t have done it) investigate this beautifully constructed classic mystery. Like Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise, the office byplay and incisive characterization carry a whole extra novel with them, allowing Gilbert to enliven the story with dry wit aplenty.—KH

The Taste of Things (Film, France, Anh Hung Tran, 2023) Revered Belle Époque food writer Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) fears for the health of his longtime cook (Juliet Binoche), who despite his adoration refuses to marry him. With a mastery of light and sound design, establishes itself as one of the greatest food films of all time, which opens up into a sublime, bittersweet contemplation of love, pleasure, and the inevitability of grief.—RDL

Good

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (Film, Spain/Italy, Jorge Grau, 1974) A petulant counterculture antiques dealer (Ray Lovelock) and stressed young woman (Cristina Galbó) are forced to remain in a sleepy English town when its reactionary police sergeant (Arthur Kennedy) accuses them of killings committed by the walking dead. Culturally dislocated horror depicts chauvinist dismissiveness as the contributing factor to gut-munching mayhem. Aka The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue.—RDL

Longlegs (Film, US, Osgood Perkins, 2024) Withdrawn psychic FBI agent (Maika Monroe), guided by veteran superior (Blair Underwood) hunts the weirdo serial killer Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), who appears to cause family annihilation incidents by power of suggestion. Like other recent tributes to horror classics, underwhelms when it comes time to upshift from pervasive dread to climactic resolution.—RDL

Okay

Frankenstein (Film, US, Guillermo del Toro, 2025) Petulant mama’s boy Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac, overacting badly) is hired by weapons magnate Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz, overacting well) to build a living Creature (Jacob Elordi) out of corpses … but who’s the REAL monster, eh? Who? Who? Perhaps the real monster is the filmmaker who gives us 20 minutes of Frankenstein’s daddy issues and no Bride. Del Toro’s patent visual sumptuousness (padded out by some terrible CGI) brings the color his script and characters should have had: Mary Shelley deserves better than this two-dimensional travesty stitched together from her novel and Tumblr.—KH

Troll (Film, Norway, Roar Uthaug, 2022) Determined paleontologist (Ine Marie Wilmann) estranged from her eccentric folklorist father (Gard B. Eidsvold) becomes unlikely point person when a 40-foot troll released by a tunnel blast stomps toward Oslo. Every story point is hit squarely on the nose in this transposition of the kaiju genre to Nordic mythology.—RDL