Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Golden Dawn, Chekhov at Tunguska, and Daffy & Porky

April 28th, 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

Bellflower (Film, US, Evan Glodell, 2011) Shy slacker (Evan Glodell) who with his more outgoing buddy (Tyler Dawson) is building a Mad Max car and homemade flamethrower falls for an outgoing blond (Jessie Wiseman) who warns him she’ll hurt him. Disturbing indie drama with artfully degraded cinematography turns the misfit buddy movie into a spiraling alcoholic nightmare.—RDL

Chekhov’s Journey (Fiction, Ian Watson, 1983) An attempt to hypnotize an actor into narrating the life of Anton Chekhov for a Soviet film on his 1890 journey to Sakhalin goes awry when he starts narrating Chekhov’s journey to the Tunguska blast 18 years before it happened. Watson enjoys his big concept almost as much as he enjoys his version of carping, doubtful Chekhov narration, and the intertwining of both (plus more weirdness as things get going) remain enjoyable to the slightly anticlimactic end.—KH

Ginza Cosmetics (Film, Japan, Mikio Naruse, 1951) Overly generous, middle-aged single mom who works as a hostess in a fading bar (Kinuyo Tanaka) perseveres as prospects for a better life elude her. Drama of beautiful disappointment favors realistic character study over heightened stakes.—RDL

Naked Ambition (Film, US, Dennis Scholl & Kareem Tabsch, 2023) Arts documentary profiles cheesecake photographer Bunny Yeager, who helped define the early Playboy style and took the shots that made Bettie Page iconic. Parallels an argument for Yeager’s importance in photography history with a family story of rise and fall and rise synchronized to changing sexual mores.—RDL

Good

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (Film, US, Peter Browngardt, 2024) Taking jobs at a chewing gum factory, adoptive brothers Daffy and Porky (Eric Bauza) stumble into a zombie plan from outer space. A team that deeply loves and understands the source material draws on the 30s Bob Clampett versions of the characters, not quite overcoming the fact that they were built to be enjoyed in seven-minute bursts.—RDL

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn: Magic Arts and the Occult Revival (Nonfiction, Felix John Taylor, 2026) Taylor attempts to tell the story of the Golden Dawn as artistic movement, mostly sticking to the “greatest hits”: Florence Farr, Yeats, Crowley, Machen, Waite, Dion Fortune (plus welcome sidelights on Pamela Colman Smith and Charles Williams). The trouble is that this is still a “greatest hits” book on the GD, which means that if this is your first such book, it’s Recommended for its narrative thrust, plentiful illustrations, and relative clarity, but if not, it’s a Good effort that leaves you wanting more about the art: not just of Yeats or Machen, but much more on the less-picked-over GDs, e.g., J.W. Brodie-Innes, or Algernon Blackwood, or Isabelle de Steiger, or the Pagets.—KH

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Fight or Flight, Queen of Chess, Rental Family

April 21st, 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

Fight or Flight (Film, US, James Madigan, 2024) Booze-soaked, cashiered Secret Service agent (Josh Hartnett) is reactivated to apprehend a prolific hacktivist (Charithra Chandran) on a plane of assassins seeking to kill her. Yep, it’s 2022’s Bullet Train on a plane, with superb fight choreography and Hartnett fully morphed into his rumpled charmer Pokémon form.—RDL

Rental Family (Film, Japan/US, Hikari, 2025) Isolated expat actor living in Tokyo (Brendan Fraser) reluctantly accepts a gig at an agency that supplies performers to insert themselves into client’s personal lives. Fraser brings his reservoir of sadness to a reassuring, well-judged drama based on a heightened version of an actual Japanese phenomenon.—RDL

Queen of Chess (Film, US, Rory Kennedy, 2026) Trailblazing chess great Judit Polgár, raised alongside her sisters by a dad determined to mold them into champions, doggedly battles over many years to best nemesis-turned-mentor Garry Kasparov. Documentary profile invests its game recreations with energy and suspense.—RDL

Okay

Tee Yai: Born to be Bad (Film, Thailand, Nonzee Nimibutr, 2025) A notorious armed robber with reputed supernatural powers (Apo Nattawin Wattanagitiphat) stays a step ahead of the cops as his running buddy (Wisarut Himmarat) falls for an abused sex worker (Supassra Thanachat). Thailand’s answer to John Dillinger gets a down-the-middle treatment in a crime docudrama that flirts with heroic bloodshed themes but never releases the doves.—RDL

Ken was on the road this week.

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Deathstalker, Two Thrillers by J. Jefferson Farjeon, and the Queen of Indonesian Horror

April 14th, 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

The 5.18 Mystery (Fiction, J. Jefferson Farjeon, 1929) A young man falls for a woman on the train to Norfolk and blunders into the middle of a kidnapping plot. Edgar Wallace-style (or Hitchcock-style, in film) thriller rather than an actual mystery keeps the plot moving propulsively despite a delightful authorial tendency to wander from the point and chat with the reader. This “amiable fathead” sort of hero also helps keep the suspense far more real than the competence-porn rescuer a thriller has to have nowadays.—KH

Deathstalker (Film, Canada, Steven Kostanski, 2025) An act of murder hoboism binds a sword-slinging adventurer (Daniel Bernhardt) to a cursed amulet from a doomsday prophecy, sending him on a quest accompanied by a good-hearted thief (Christina Orjalo) and semi-competent kobold wizard (Patton Oswalt/Laurie Field.) Spoofy celebration of VHS-era sword and sorcery flicks loads up on gloriously gory and gruesome creature effects.—RDL

Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer (Television, US, Hulu, Abigail Fuller, 2024) Three-part true crime docuseries surveys the multiple careers of soft-spoken juggernaut Ann Burgess, who put the science in the FBI’s Behavioral Science (profiling) Unit, centered victims in the study of sex crimes, and helped bring down Bill Cosby.—RDL

Good

The House Opposite (Fiction, J. Jefferson Farjeon, 1931) Ben the tramp sees strange happenings in the house opposite the abandoned house he’s squatting in, but it’s a girl in danger that spurs him to interfere. The first half of this crime thriller follows Ben’s viewpoint (with plenty of Farjeonian discursion), the second half follows the people in the house opposite and fills in the blanks. Intriguing format and a welcome lower-class hero; somewhat marred by the villain being an entirely stereotypical Indian.—KH

The Queen of Black Magic (Film, Indonesia, Liliek Sudjio, 1981) When the rich louse (Alan Nuary) who seduced her accuses her of witchcraft and rouses a mob to kill her, a young woman (Suzzanna) learns black magic for real and exacts visceral revenge. Root for Indonesia’s answer to Barbara Steele or Robert Englund as she dishes out inventive no-budget kills.—RDL

Okay

Berlin Express (Film, US, Jacques Tourneur, 1948) An assassination attempt on a Berlin-bound train sets an American nutrition consultant (Robert Ryan) and an ad hoc party of his fellow Allied occupying officials in pursuit of revanchist plotters. Interweaves expressionistic spy thrills with invasively narrated quasi-newsreel segments on the state of postwar Germany.—RDL

The Secret Bride (Film, US, William Dieterle, 1934) Dedicated attorney general (Warren William) and devoted governor’s daughter (Barbara Stanwyck) conceal their marriage while they race to clear her father of bribery charges. Plot-driven legal thriller confines its stars to expository dialogue.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Blossoms Shanghai, Ben-Hur, Mel Brooks

April 7th, 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.

The Pinnacle

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’s early stock market years. Wong’s lyrically rendered, nostalgic melancholy underpins a slick, gorgeous, food-loving, business soap.—RDL

Recommended

Ben-Hur (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 “a tale of the Christ,” 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’s uncredited dialogue rewrites. The chariot race is, in fact, everything you’ve heard: one of the ten, or maybe five, best action sequences ever filmed. See it on the big screen next Easter if you can.—KH

Death of a Corrupt Man (Film, France, George Lautner, 1977) Cops and conspirators target a crooked legislator’s 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.—RDL

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.—RDL

Green Rain (Film, South Korea, Jung Jin-woo, 1966) Smitten young maid (Hie Mun) allows a rich swain (Shin Seong-il) to think she’s an ambassador’s daughter, scarcely suspecting that he’s 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.—RDL

Mel Brooks: the 99 Year Old Man! (Television, US, HBO, Judd Apatow & Michael Bonfiglio, 2026) Celebratory two-part biodoc covers Brooks’ 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.—RDL

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Nirvanna the Band, Sirāt, The Perfect Neighbor

March 31st, 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

Keep in Touch: the Serendipitous Life of Canadian Arts Icon David Silcox (Nonfiction, Nancy Silcox, 2025) Confident, accident-prone young lad raised in hardscrabble locations as a preacher’s kid grows up to become a glamorous, personable arts administrator, including top posts in both the federal and provincial culture ministries. Admiring, deeply researched biography by the subject’s sister-in-law provides a glimpse into the personal relationships behind the funding of artists and institutions.—RDL

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Film, Canada, Matt Johnson) In a bid to get themselves booked at a prestigious music club, two perennial wannabes, voluble Matt (Matt Johnson) and reserved Jay (Jay McCarrol) attempt a dangerous stunt at the CN Tower and time travel to 2008. Audacious, surprising comedy made on a shoestring budget, incorporating real bystanders and situations into the action, joins the select sub-genre of films shot in my neighborhood.—RDL

The Perfect Neighbor (Film,  US, Geeta Gandbhir, 2025) Bodycam footage reveals months of incidents in which a pathologically territorial Florida woman calls police to complain that neighborhood children are playing on an adjacent property, culminating in her fatally shooting one of their mothers. A masterful formal achievement in documentary construction examines American fear culture while honoring the community devastated by its impact.—RDL

Sirāt (Film, Spain/France, Óliver Laxe, 2025) Searching for his missing daughter, Luis (Sergi López) and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) follow two bands of ravers into the Moroccan desert. This existential road movie seems simultaneously real and fantastic, an onslaught of cinematographer Mauro Herce’s images and techno composer Kangding Ray’s soundtrack battering the viewer and enveloping them at the same time. Try and see it in a theater with a good sound system; like EDM it needs a crowd and amplifiers to work.—KH

Good

Fascination (Film, France, Jean Rollin, 1979) On the run from ex-accomplices, an arrogant thief (Jean-Marie Lemaire) hides out at a chateau inhabited by a pair of mysterious, alluring lovers (Franca Maï, Brigitte Lahaie). Gothic horror sexploitation powerfully reminds us to believe women when they make it abundantly clear they are blood cultists and we should leave  before their guests arrive.—RDL

Who Killed Dick Whittington? and Death of a Frightened Editor (Fiction, E. & M.A. Radford, 1947 and 1959) The sixth and eleventh in the “Doctor Manson” series, featuring the head of Scotland Yard’s Crime Research Laboratory, both feature seemingly impossible poisonings: on stage during a “Dick Whittington” pantomime, and in a Pullman carriage. The language is stilted, especially for the postwar era, and Doctor Manson hearkens back to the Doctor Thorndyke model of the pre-WWI era, full of smugness and amply-described chemical tests. But the stories themselves have a sprightly tone even if they don’t move as rapidly (or puzzle as fairly) as a classic Golden Age novel: the Radfords were apparently feeling their way toward the procedural, which makes the books interesting in themselves.—KH