March « 2018 « Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Archive for March, 2018

Episode 286: Guy Across the Stupid Mountain

March 30th, 2018 | Robin

Keep a close eye on your open beverage as the Gaming Hut spins a Fall of DELTA GREEN arc from that most notorious of covert programs, MKULTRA.

The Food Hut goes sequel for Instant Pot II: The Instant Pottening.

Look over your shoulder for copycats as the Horror Hut investigates doppelgangers and body snatchers.

One more warning: keep swords safely stored in their stones as the Eliptony Hut gives the 101 on historical Arthur theories. [Here’s Dr. Caitlin Green’s superb fun-ruiner deluxe/grownup literature review as mentioned at the end of this segment: “The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur” –KH]

Want to pose a question to the show?

Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon! Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

In Atlas Games’ wickedly different cooperative deck-building game Witches of the Revolution, you and your doughty coven fight the American Revolution the way it was really fought: with spells aplenty! Resurrect Ben Franklin, cure Paul Revere of lycanthropy and keep those red-coated witch hunters at bay.

Ken’s latest roleplaying game, The Fall of Delta Green, is now available for preorder from Atlas Games. Journey to the head-spinning chaos of the late 1960s, back when everyone’s favorite anti-Cthulhu special ops agent hadn’t gone rogue yet, for this pulse-pounding GUMSHOE game of war, covert action, and Mythos horror.

Grab the translated riches of FENIX magazine in a special bundle deal from our friends at Askfageln, over at Indie Press Revolution. Score metric oodles of Ken Hite gaming goodness, a cornucopia of articles, complete games, plus the cartoon antics of Bernard the Barbarian. Warning: in English, not in Swedish. In English, not Swedish.

With your Handlers Guide already at your side, it’s time to assemble some operations to spiral your Delta Green operatives into paranoia and Mythos horror. Delta Green: A Night at the Opera features six terrifying adventures from the conspiratorial minds of Dennis Detwiller, Shane Ivey, and Greg Stolze. Preorder before it’s desperately too late!

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Tags: body snatchers, britain, CIA, doppelgangers, Eliptony Hut, Food Hut, Gaming hut, Horror Hut, Instant Pot, King Arthur, MKULTRA, The Fall of DELTA GREEN

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Raidin’ Tombs and Retailin’ Games

March 27th, 2018 | 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 Arena (Fiction, William Haggard, 1961) Colonel Russell of the Security Executive must protect a radar company from acquisition by a foreign industrial combine. The banker opposed to the deal takes center stage in this third of Haggard’s cozy spy thrillers, the plot turning on the state of his marriage and health as much as on the machinations of Germans and (brrr) arrivistes. The result is affecting and original, if not quite thrilling per se. –KH

The Death of Stalin (Film, France/UK/Belgium, Armando Iannucci, 2018) Contemptible, monstrous weasels Beria (Simon Russell Beale), Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), and Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) maneuver for power following the titular death of Stalin in 1953. This black farce unspools at a lickety-split pace, with dialogue as crackling as it is craven. Iannucci’s decision to forego cod-Russian accents keeps comic delivery on key while adding just the right surreal tinge to the dramatically collapsed historical events. Jason Isaacs’ Yorkshire-voiced bully Marshal Zhukov steals every scene, but Michael Palin’s heartbreakingly sad and funny turn as true believer Molotov may be the best in show. –KH

The Moving Target (Fiction, Ross Macdonald, 1949) LA private eye Lew Archer investigates a wayward businessman’s disappearance at the behest of a wife who only half wants him back. In the first of his 18 Archer novels, Macdonald follows the Chandler hardboiled template, but with less stylized prose and characterization. GMs looking for inspiration for their own Cthulhu Confidential scenarios might stroke their chins at the crooked astrologer and the shady Mithras cultist.—RDL

Good

Friendly Local Game Store (Nonfiction, Gary L. Ray, 2018) The owner of Black Diamond Games in Concord, CA clearly lays out the basics of what it takes to create, run, and manage a retail hobby game store as a small business, sharing both the airy “bistro math” of small business plans and some real costs and revenues (and narratives) from his own million-dollar-a-year emporium. Everyone in gaming should know what it takes to keep pumping those cards and dice and players and other corpuscles into the body of this idiosyncratic (to say the least) industry. If you’re a hobby retailer, or interested in starting a game store yourself (or in buying one from someone less interested) vault this book up to highly Recommended. –KH

Tomb Raider (Film, US, Roar Uthaug, 2018) Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) travels to the mysterious island of Yamatai in search of her vanished father (Dominic West) only to discover a tomb in the process of being raided by Matthias Vogel (Walton Goggins). Vikander plays the role with a sort of wounded curiosity rather than Angelina Jolie’s feral confidence, but she plays her weaker part well and jungle archaeology adventure remains wonderful whoever wears the blue tank top (or the fedora). Not quite the juicy pulp of the 2001 film, but it manages to infuse the depressing reboot of the game with a modicum of joy. –KH

The Unquiet Sleep (Fiction, William Haggard, 1962) Colonel Russell of the Security Executive must deal with a nascent drug ring peddling a not-yet-illegal pharmaceutical that implicates a government official. Haggard slightly titrates this cozy spy thriller with action, but gives in a bit too much to the temptation to vindicate his worldview through his protagonists to sell the emotional weight he wants. –KH

Okay

Death Watch (Film, France/UK, Bertrand Tavernier, 1980) Outfitted with camera eyes by his shifty reality TV producer (Harry Dean Stanton), a hard-knuckle reporter (Harvey Keitel) surreptitiously records a novelist (Romy Schneider) as she undergoes a rare event—death by disease. Listless 70s pacing drains the energy from this prescient, low-tech SF drama.—RDL

Death Wish (Film, US, Eli Roth, 2018) Chicago surgeon Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis) becomes a murderous vigilante after home invaders kill his wife and leave his daughter in a coma. Though it nods toward the traumatized protagonist of Brian Garfield’s original novel, the script eventually becomes a straight-up revenge hunt. Despite his clear love of 70s film, Roth shies away from the anarchic power of the 1974 Charles Bronson movie in favor of competent domestic drama. Worse yet, he aims in so many more interesting directions in passing: Kersey as surgeon of society’s ills, vigilantism as meme, or even Kersey as cinematic serial killer. –KH

The X-Files Season 11 (Television, US, Chris Carter, FOX, 2018) Mulder and Scully continue to investigate eliptonic threats as the Cigarette Smoking Man hunts for their long-lost genetic hybrid son. With episodes ranging from middling to atrocious—and premise-violating—this faded reprise ekes its way to mediocrity with its sweet portrayal of the middle-aged Scully-Mulder relationship and a less-awful capper to the saga than we’ve had to date.—RDL

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Episode 285: 2) Get In Too Deep

March 23rd, 2018 | Robin

You have nothing to lose but your chains, and also your handcuffs, and possibly also your orange prison scrubs, as the Gaming Hut shows you what to do the next time your PC gets captured.

The Tradecraft Hut probes off-books financial arrangements in covert operations, as inspired by a request from Patreon backer Chris Sellers. Chris wants us to turn this real-life ATF finagle into fodder for Night’s Black Agents and Fall of Delta Green.

Backer Michael Maneval, meanwhile, wants the PCs to become meddling kids. In Ask Ken and Robin we mull the ingredients needed to run a Scooby-Doo game.

Finally, in Ken’s Time Machine, backer Daniel Fidelman gets back to the classic premise of the segment to ask what our chrono-hero would have to do to add native American states to the American map.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

Navigate your love of the Lone Wolf game books and/or fantasy inspired by medieval Italy with the Sommerlund Map set Kickstarter from Askfageln. Revel in 1o gorgeous maps inspired by Joe Dever’s classic fantasy setting and the city of Bologna.

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Tags: america, American Indians, Ask Ken and Robin, ATF, captured PCs, Gaming hut, Ken's Time Machine, Scooby-Doo, Tradecraft Hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Cozy Spies and Underground Bunkers

March 20th, 2018 | 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.

Brigsby Bear (Film, US, Dave McCary, 2017) Man (Kyle Mooney) reunited with his biological family after being raised in an underground bunker by the couple (Mark Hamill, Jane Adams) who kidnapped him as a baby resolves to create a final episode of the weirdo kid’s show they made to mold him into a mathematician. Dark, bizarre comedy premise realized with a surprising sweetness and generosity of characterization.—RDL

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Film, US, Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014) In a desolate Iranian city, a young man with a junkie father crosses paths with a chador-clad, skateboarding vampire girl. Hip and haunting mood piece scores with commanding widescreen compositions, tension-filled stillness, and b&w photography done right.—RDL

Good

Confession (Film, US, Joe May, 1937) Nightclub chanteuse (Kay Francis) refuses to reveal why she shot a caddish composer (Basil Rathbone) as he made a play for a naive music student (Jane Bryan.) Swirling his camera positions like a proto-Scorsese, May lets the melodrama fly, arcing from fizzy Continental confection to expressionistic dread . When Basil Rathbone gets shot dead by a woman at the end of the first act, the question is not whether he deserved it, but how.—RDL

Slow Burner (Fiction, William Haggard, 1958) Colonel Russell of the Security Executive must trace the source of a mysterious radiation signal near London despite bureaucratic interference. If there is a spy novel equivalent of the “cozy mystery” this is it, concerned as much with suits, furniture, and good breeding as it is with the almost abstract threat of Russians or nuclear science. Haggard was praised for writing “Bond novels from M’s perspective” — his first novel doesn’t live up to that billing, but the tone shows originality and the plot shows promise. –KH

This is Not What I Expected (Film, Hong Kong/China, Derek Hui, 2017) Control freak hotel tycoon (Takeshi Kaneshiro) doesn’t suspect that the chef whose food obsesses him is also the irrepressible young woman (Dongyu Zhou) who draws him into a chaos and humiliation whenever they meet. Movie stars being charming, mouth-watering food scenes and an adorable pooch—what else do you need from a romantic comedy?—RDL

Venetian Blind (Fiction, William Haggard, 1959) Colonel Russell of the Security Executive must find the source of the leak in Britain’s Negative Gravity research, while training his own replacement — the secret rival of the program’s lead engineer. Another cozy spy thriller, with the same abstract air and focus on personalities and bureaucracy over action as his debut. This one has a strong plot with rather a nice ending. –KH

Okay

10 Cloverfield Lane (Film, US, Dan Trachtenberg, 2016) Aspiring fashion designer (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up in an underground bunker, whose tightly-wound prepper owner (John Goodman) claims that civilization has been destroyed above them. Not so much a genre mash-up as three acts of expected confinement thriller beats duct-taped to the end of a kaiju flick. Great to see Goodman given the space to layer one of his ogre characters, though.—RDL

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Episode 284: There’s Always a Worse Writer Death

March 16th, 2018 | Robin

Ken dons raffish 60s-vintage headgear to give The Fall of DELTA GREEN, now available for preorder, the Among My Many Hats treatment.

Robin reviews ways to shape a dramatic scene in How to Write Good.

We look at the science of choice and its implications for tabletop design in the Gaming Hut. Referenced in this segment: The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar.

Finally the Consulting Occultist finds another Nazi mystic to talk about, as Patreon backer Bret Kramer asks for a profile on Savitri Devi.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

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Tags: Among my many hats, choice theory, cognitive science, Consulting Occultist, dramatic scenes, Gaming hut, How To Write Good, Nazi occult, Savitri Devi, shaping scenes, The Fall of DELTA GREEN

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Jessica Jones and the Battle of Cannae

March 13th, 2018 | Robin

The Fire Within (Film, France, Louis Malle, 1963) Finished rehab but still consumed by depression, a raffish writer heads to Paris to look up all the old friends who love, but can’t help, him. Unlike most films about this subject, Malle fills this piece with movement and a sense of life—albeit one the protagonist can see but not take part in. Updated adaptation of a novel by the fascist writer Drieu La Rochelle—or, as the surrealists knew him, the hated Drieu La Rochelle.—RDL

Jessica Jones Season 2 (Television, US, Netflix, Melissa Rosenberg, 2017) At Trish’s urging, Jessica (Krysten Ritter) reluctantly investigates the accident that gave her powers, sparking a murderous cover-up. The serialized storytelling goes up a notch in structural cohesion while exploring themes of female rage that don’t get addressed much of anywhere, let alone in a superhero show.—RDL

Mosaic (Television, US, Steven Soderbergh, HBO, 2017) The murder of a rich and vulnerable children’s author (Sharon Stone) spurs the sister of the man convicted of the crime to enlist an alternate suspect (Garrett Hedlund) and a local police chief in her search for the real killer. Boasts sterling dramatic scene crafting, Soderberghian elan, and a breakout performance by Devin Ratray as the everyman cop. An anticlimactic ending,, the result of its origin as a multimedia app allowing the viewer to choose which characters to follow, keeps it a notch shy of Pinnacle status.—RDL

The Night Watch (Fiction, Patrick Modiano, 1971) Young burglar who has infiltrated the Resistance for the Carlingue (French Gestapo) spirals toward the inevitable doom of the double agent. WWII spy novel as filtered through the consciousness of a mentally deteriorating narrator. By the winner of the 2014 Nobel for Literature.—RDL

Good

The Ghosts of Cannae (Nonfiction, Robert L. O’Connell, 2010) A solid example of post-Keegan “you were there” military history covering the epochal — but not at all decisive — defeat of the Roman legions in 216 B.C. by Hannibal in a model double envelopment. O’Connell is rather better at reconstructing the battle than at putting it into its strategic context, and his chapter on the pernicious effect of Cannae on ambitious military men in the millennia since promises more than he has space (or support) for. But if you want a book about Cannae, this is the book you want. –KH

Okay

The Next Voice You Hear (Film, US, William A. Wellman, 1950) Put-upon factory worker (James Whitmore) and his pregnant wife (Nancy Davis) react with trepidation when God starts briefly interrupting worldwide radio broadcasts. One of those movies about faith that cheats by having God do things. Wellman’s direction stages a rearguard action against the sentimental text by portraying 50s domestic life as a crucible of fury and dread.—RDL

Shambolically Orthogonal to Our Categories

Capone Cries a Lot (Film, Japan, Seijun Suzuki, 1985) Entangled with the adulterous Kosome (Yuko Tanaka) neophyte naniwa-bushi singer Umeimon (Kenichi Hagiwara) leaves Japan with her for 1920s America where his dream is to perform naniwa-bushi for the President, Al Capone (Chuck Wilson). Suzuki blends his contempt for narrative with his surrealistic eye to create a latter-day samurai gangster Chaplin film full of grotesque racial humor, music, and carousels. (He filmed the San Francisco scenes in an abandoned, American-themed amusement park.) Its wild tone-shifting, terrible white actors, and tiring length make me hesitant to recommend seeing it, but you’ll know you’ve seen something if you do. –KH

Not Recommended

Stanley and Livingstone (Film, US, Henry King, 1939) Hard-charging journalist (Spencer Tracy), accompanied by trusty frontier coot (Walter Brennan), undertakes an arduous multi-year journey into the African interior in search of famous missionary (Cedric Hardwicke.) The decades have not been kind to this earnest hymn to coloniaIism.—RDL

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Episode 283: It’s Just a Tumor Tree

March 9th, 2018 | Robin

We gather suspiciously in the Gaming Hut to ask if and how GMs can assist players in horror games who want their characters to exercise a Scully-like skepticism.

We break into the History Hut at the behest of Patreon backer Andy Young, who seeks the scoop on fresh-faced 19th century burglar Edward Jones.

In Ask Ken and Robin Andy Bates seeks help incorporating the Witches Tree, which haunts his hometown of Louisville, into his gaming.

Speaking of mysteries, how the heck have we done 283 episodes without getting around to Springheeled Jack? We finally remedy that oversight in the Eliptony Hut.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

It wasn’t on the maps. No one talked about it. But now you live there. Cthulhu City. Where the mayor goes everywhere with twin sacred jaguars, and the chief of police blinks at your with fishy eyes. Where the cultists run city hall and the investigators are hunted criminals. Cthulhu City, the new Trail of Cthulhu sourcebook from Pelgrane Press, by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.

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Tags: Ask Ken and Robin, britain, Eliptony Hut, Gaming hut, History Hut, horror, Kentucky, London, Louisville, Scully, Springheeled Jack, the boy Jones, Victoriana, witches, Witches' Tree

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Double Annihilation

March 6th, 2018 | Robin

Annihilation (Film, US, Alex Garland, 2018) After her spec-op husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) emerges near death from an alien ecosystem, biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) joins an expedition into the heart of the Shimmer. Loosely based on the novel by Jeff Vandermeer and more closely modeled on Tarkovsky’s Stalker, this film captures the weird sublime in a palette (and sound design) all its own. Performances are of course excellent, although casting Jennifer Jason Leigh as a closed-off martinet plays frustratingly against her strengths. –KH

Annihilation (Film, US, Alex Garland, 2018) After her husband (Oscar Isaac) returns from a mission strangely altered, a cancer researcher (Natalie Portman) follows in his footsteps to explore an eerie contaminated zone. Employs Tarkovsky’s palette and Cronenberg’s motifs to intermingle the DNA of The Lost Patrol with “Colour Out of Space.”—RDL

Blaise Pascal (Film, Italy/France, Roberto Rossellini, 1972) Taxman’s son (Pierre Arditi) battles prevailing misconceptions and chronic ill health to advance the fields of physics and mathematics, plus a thick slice of Jansenist theology. Deliberately paced, painterly biopic keeps the conflict at the margins of the action to portray the mid 17th century as an alien thought-world.—RDL

A Futile and Stupid Gesture (Film, US, David Wain, 2018) Despite swirling self-doubt instilled in him by a disapproving father, writer Doug Kenney (Will Forte) shapes comedy for a generation as co-founder of the National Lampoon. Avoids the usual biopic pitfalls by conjuring the conquering wiseass style of 70s comedy and by spinning out an array of brilliant, surprising transitional devices. Among the many current comedy mainstays channeling their past counterparts, Thomas Lennon does a particularly memorable turn as nihilist legend Michael O’Donoghue.—RDL

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (Film, Italy, Ruggero Deodato, 1976) Model-handsome blond cop (Ray Lovelock) and model-handsome dark-haired cop (Marc Porel) wage urban warfare against a gambling kingpin and assorted other violent criminals. Absolutely bananas, covertly satirical poliziotteschi dishes up a jolly buddy cop tone even as its sublimated homoerotic heroes operate as a two-man death squad.—RDL

Paterson (Film, US, Jim Jarmusch, 2016) Bus driver (Adam Driver) who shares a name with his New Jersey hometown works, writes poems, and delights in his life with his adorable if unworldly wife Golshifteh Farahani. Ode to life’s quiet sublimity that only Jarmusch could make.—RDL

Valis (Fiction, Philip K. Dick, 1981) Writer Philip K. Dick recounts the efforts of his friend and alternate self Horselover Fat to uncover the real meaning behind a visionary experience and/or psychotic break he had in 1974. Depending on how you choose to interpret it, this is either an SF novel concerning an alien satellite directing the actions of mankind from outside time and space, or literary fiction about the after-effects of a consciousness-shattering neurological event.—RDL

Good

Black Empire (Fiction, George S. Schuyler, 1993 (critical ed.)) In “Black Internationale,” Dr. Henry Belsidus uses the knowhow of his global black secret society to conquer Africa; in “Black Empire” he defends the continent against white imperialism with terrorism, air power, and (yes!) a death ray. Journalist Schuyler, the “black Mencken,” serialized this sensational pulp “hokum” in 1936-1938 in the black Pittsburgh Courier. The serial betrays its slapdash composition, but the imaginative experience of a black Fu Manchu uplifting his race by genius and terror is almost as arresting to white readers now as it must have been to black readers then. –KH

The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs (Nonfiction, Douglas Valentine, 2004) A Thing I Always Say is that nothing beats an outraged lefty book on a topic for horror game research. Valentine paints a grim picture indeed of heroic drug agents constantly blocked from investigating the Establishment’s ties to narcotics trafficking. Although beginning with a pro forma discussion of the Rothstein ring in 1919, the majority of the book covers the FBN’s investigations in the 1950s and 1960s, ideal for Noir World or Fall of Delta Green Handlers looking for darkness in high places. –KH

Okay

Gun Runners (Film, Canada, Anjali Nayar, 2015) After a pair of Kenyan bandits turn in their AK-47s in exchange for amnesty, one pursues politics; the other, his dream of glory as a marathon runner. Documentary, intent on shaping a tale of redemption through perseverance, remains oddly incurious about key questions of policy, economics, and ethics behind its central situation.—RDL

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Episode 282: Haunted Anarchist Texts

March 2nd, 2018 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we put up our dukes and look at ways to frame fights that advance the story.

Oscar time is upon us, so as is our annual wont we pop into the Cinema Hut for a look back at our favorite films of 2017.

Recovering from the red carpet, we visit the Consulting Occultist, who has been checking out the initial offerings placed online by the Ritman Library of occult texts.

Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

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Tags: best films of 2017, Cinema hut, Consulting Occultist, f20, fight scenes, Gaming hut, Ritman Library, Top ten movies

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Archive for March, 2018

Episode 286: Guy Across the Stupid Mountain

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Raidin’ Tombs and Retailin’ Games

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 285: 2) Get In Too Deep

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Cozy Spies and Underground Bunkers

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 284: There’s Always a Worse Writer Death

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Jessica Jones and the Battle of Cannae

Recommended

Good

Okay

Shambolically Orthogonal to Our Categories

Not Recommended

Episode 283: It’s Just a Tumor Tree

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Double Annihilation

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 282: Haunted Anarchist Texts

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