Ken and Robin Consume Media: An Under-Celebrated Horror Writer and New Films by Yuen Woo-Ping and Zhang Yimou

February 24th, 2026 | 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

Blades of the Guardians (Film, China, Yuen Woo-ping, 2026) Imperial guardsman turned bounty hunter and surrogate dad (Wu Jing) agrees to escort a revolutionary (Sun Yizhou) and a khan’s archer daughter (Liya Tong) on a journey to the capital. The non-combat parts of Yuen’s directorial efforts can be uneven, but that’s not at all the case in this wuxia epic, where story and thrilling fight choreography fully mesh. With Tony Leung Ka Fai and, in what is billed as a final role, Jet Li.—RDL

Lord Peter Wimsey (all 5 series) (TV, BBC, Richard Beynon and Bill Sellars, 1972-1975) Ian Carmichael’s sprightly but layered performance as Wimsey keeps all five of these series more than watchable despite their visible budgetary (and videotape) limitations; the scripts uniformly respect both Sayers’ originals and the audience’s intelligence. Murder Must Advertise is the best of the five, tight plot surrounded by wonderful character work, Five Red Herrings the weakest, but still very respectable (and mostly shot on film) despite a bit of a fall-off and a parade of comic Scots suspects.—KH

Randalls Round (Fiction, Eleanor Scott, 1929) The only horror collection published by Scott comprises nine stories of generally Jamesian intent and good-to-superb execution. “Randalls Round” and “The Cure” both strongly prefigure folk horror, and “Celui-Là” echoes Lovecraft into the bargain. The linked edition includes two other pseudonymous tales by “N. Dennett” that editor Aaron Worth believes may also be by Scott, of which “The Old Woman” is another minor masterpiece.—KH

Scare Out (Film, China, Zhang Yimou, 2026) Counterintelligence squad leader (Yilong Zhu) and his loyal second in command (Jackson Yee) become the prime suspects in a mole hunt. It goes without saying to any serious student of the spy genre that a technothriller melodrama with American adversaries from the grandmaster of mainland Chinese film is required viewing.—RDL

The Secret Agent (Film, Brazil, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025) A scientific researcher (Walter Moura) goes underground in authoritarian 1970s Brazil to escape the wrath of a regime-connected industrialist. Confident, multi-layered political thriller in which withheld information is both subject matter and narrative strategy.—RDL

Such a Pretty Little Beach (Film, France, Yves Allégret, 1949) A melancholy young man (Gérard Philipe) arrives in a rain-drenched off-season resort town with a need for rest, a fishy story, and an equally enigmatic pursuer (Jean Servais.) Regret-soaked existential noir centered around a small ensemble and constrained set of locations.—RDL

Good

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Film, Italy/France, Dario Argento, 1971) Prog-rock drummer Roberto (Michael Brandon) accidentally stabs the man he catches following him, an act photographed by a masked tormentor who tightens the noose around our frankly unappealing hero. Argento cares only for the wonderful camera stunts, set-piece stalks, and kills here, filling the rest of the script with comic hobos, a camp gay P.I., and a bit of nudity to pass the time. Morricone’s score seems like an afterthought, and as a giallo this is perhaps best viewed through Argento’s frustration with the straight crime thriller.—KH

Marty Supreme (Film, US, Josh Safdie, 2025) Narcissistic hustler (Timothée Chalamet) sucks both of the married women he’s sleeping with, childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and faded movie star Kay (Gwyneth Paltrow) into his vortex of chaos as he tries to raise the scratch for a trip to a Tokyo ping pong championship. Antidote to the inspirational sports biopic makes big, wild swings without unifying its stew pot of elements—particularly the choice to score, edit and shoot it as if Alan Parker made this in 1983. Release the vampire cut you cowards!—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Pluribus, It Was Just an Accident, and Nature vs Our Rules

February 17th, 2026 | 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

Blood and Sand (Film, US, Rouben Mamoulian, 1941) The force of will that propels a poor young boy to acclaim as a superstar matador (Tyrone Power) pulls him from his worshipful wife (Linda Darnell) into the arms of a fickle aristocrat (Rita Hayworth.) Cast and director commit unironically to the sort of theatrical Technicolor melodrama they literally don’t make anymore.—RDL

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (Nonfiction, Mary Roach, 2021) From apex predators who occasionally attack us to the various species who eat our crops, with a brief digression to exploding trees and toxic beans, Roach surveys the ways in which we attempt to manage conflicts between people and wildlife. Written in the casual, you-are-there style that grinds my gears whenever anyone else does it, because her imitators lack her discernment and wit.—RDL

It Was Just an Accident (Film, Iran, Jafar Panahi, 2025) A random run-in leads an impulsive former political prisoner (Vahid Mobasseri) to kidnap the man (Ebrahim Azizi) whose squeaking prosthetic leg sure sounds like that of his torturer. Naturalistic thriller jabs at the traumatized moral conundrum left by generations of oppression.—RDL

Mr. Scorsese (Television, US, Apple, Rebecca Miller, 2025) I thought I knew all the Martin Scorsese lore but by bringing in additional informants to her celebratory biodocuseries Miller finds fresh angles on its subject’s journey from seething Hollywood outsider to avuncular patron saint of auteurism.—RDL

Pluribus Season 1 (Television, US, Apple, Vince Gilligan, 2025) When a virus coded from space turns the world’s population into a blissed-out hivemind, a dyspeptic romantasy author (Rhea Seehorn) realizes she’s one of a handful of surviving individuals. Seehorn’s ability to hold the screen centers an atmospheric Twilight Zone-ish SF serial whose extended pure cinema sequences defy the current assumption that the audience isn’t really paying attention.—RDL

Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost (Film, US, Ben Stiller  2025) Prompted by the need to empty their longtime NYC apartment, Ben Stiller profiles his parents, actors and comedy team members Jerry Stiller and Anne. The mystery of parents when seen from an adult child’s perspective, coupled with the director’s uncomfortable realizations about himself, surpass the limitations of the family album documentary.—RDL

Ken is on the road.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Sentimental Value, More Locked Room Mysteries, and the Submarine Movie that Obsessed Howard Hughes

January 27th, 2026 | 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

Coherence (Film, US, James Ward Byrkit, 2013) Dinner party attendees suffer reality entanglement after a passing comet knocks out power in an LA neighborhood. Indie-budget SF makes the most of its deliciously twisty premise.—RDL

The Inheritance (Film, Japan, Masaki Kobayashi, 1962) Restrained secretary (Keiko Kishi) waits for opportunity when her dying boss (Sô Yamamura) bids her and other underlings to find the three illegitimate children he might want to include in his will. Chilly, acidic drama of greed and skulduggery.—RDL

The Reader is Warned (Fiction John Dickson Carr, 1939) When thought-reader Herman Pennik predicts the killing of his host Sam Constable, Sir Henry Merrivale is typically too late to prevent the murder. A truly brilliant tour-de-force of misdirection, only slightly marred by Merrivale’s dramatics and a farcical “international crisis” side plot, although both of those also count as misdirection, so touché, JDC. [CW: Weirdly unnecessary racism right at the end.]—KH

Sentimental Value (Film, Norway, Joachim Trier, 2026) Anxiety-prone actress (Renate Reinsve) refuses her long absent auteur father (Stellan Skarsgård) when he drops back into her life to offer her a leading role he has written for her. Observant, trenchantly acted family drama leaves room for viewers to find their own understanding of its characters.—RDL

The Ten Teacups (Fiction, John Dickson Carr, 1937) Vance Keating is shot twice in an attic room with a policeman outside the only door and ten teacups on the table with him, echoing an earlier unsolved crime. Sir Henry Merrivale reasons it out bumptiously, but the addition of Sergeant Pollard (the man outside the door) as well as Merrivale’s regular foil Chief Inspector Masters makes much more entertaining detection. Carr’s abilities with atmosphere and puzzlecraft take point here, as does (sadly) his occasional disinterest in realistic characters.—KH

Under Capricorn (Film, US, Alfred Hitchcock, 1949) Seeking a new start in Sydney, a charming Dublin failson (Michael Dublin) falls in with a gruff ex-con made good (Joseph Cotten) and tries to revive his depressed, alcoholic wife (Ingrid Bergman), who he remembers from his childhood. Class-conscious period melodrama features a tangled, ambiguous love triangle and only a brief sequence of Hitchockian suspense. Despite the characters’ supposed Irish upbringing, the actors mercifully stick with their English, American and Swedish accents. —RDL

Good

Building Material (Nonfiction, Stephen Bruno, 2024) Young man tames the wild streak he earned growing up in a demon-believing Dominican-Puerto Rican household by becoming a Park Avenue doorman. At its most interesting when focused on its insider view of a rarefied world of class interaction, where the workers most value tenants who are kind to them and know what is expected of the rich.—RDL

Ice Station Zebra (Film, US, John Sturges, 1968) U.S. sub commander James Ferraday (Rock Hudson) and British agent “Jones” (Patrick McGoohan) clash on a supposed mission to rescue a British Arctic research station. McGoohan is great in this, as is a lengthy sub-in-danger sequence, but Sturges can’t keep the tension up in this two-and-a-half-hour wannabe spy movie that ignores or avoids its own plot. It’s really more a filmic meditation on how cool submarines are, and the Oscar-nominated Daniel Fapp cinematography and swelling Michel Legrand score bring it up to Good periscope depth.—KH

Okay

See How They Run (Film, UK/US, Tom George, 2022) In 1953 London, Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell and about a third of a British accent) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) investigate the murder of film director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody) in the theater where Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap has just hit 100 performances. If you think naming the detective Stoppard is hilarious, then you will love this movie. If you want jokes to be funny and mysteries to be interesting, well, Saoirse Ronan is in there swinging for the fences.—KH

Not Recommended

Ballad of a Small Player (Film, UK/Germany, Edward Berger, 2025) Spiraling gambler (Colin Farrell) wheedles for one last chance in Macau, pursued by oddball private investigator (Tilda Swinton.) Ditches the most interesting element of the Lawrence Osborne source novel, its precise observation of a marginal social milieu, making the rest glossier, bigger, and dumber.—RDL