April « 2018 « Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Archive for April, 2018

Episode 290: Leaves Don’t Work on PayPal

April 27th, 2018 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we cover ways to design monsters to star in investigative scenarios.

We tromp into the Command Hut at the behest of Patreon backer Thomas Vallejos, who wants to know the deep secrets behind a proposal to revive the US Army’s iconic WWII-era uniform style.

In Ask Ken and Robin, backer Daniel Krauklis asks about writing scenarios featuring underrepresented groups.

Finally, hold onto your library cards as, thanks to a query from backer Michael Parker, the Consulting Occultist investigates the theft of an Isaac Newton manuscript from the Carnegie Rare Books room.

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: america, Ask Ken and Robin, bookhounds, Command Hut, Consulting Occultist, elves, Gaming hut, investigation, library theft, monsters, Newton, pinks and greens, underrepresented groups, uniforms

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Time Travel, Zora Neale Hurston and the Russian Mob

April 24th, 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.

Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story (Comics, Peter Bagge, 2017) Straight-up biography in (well-endnoted) comics form of anthropologist, novelist, folklorist Hurston, the most glorious maverick of the Harlem Renaissance. Bagge doesn’t try to find a through-line except in Hurston’s mercurial personality, which is probably for the best as her prose can’t be condensed to comics and her politics shouldn’t be. –KH

Source Code (Film, US/France, Duncan Jones, 2011) U.S. Army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakens on a commuter train headed for Chicago, sitting across from a stranger (Michelle Monaghan) who seems to know him. And then he does it again. A tasty blend of thriller, science fiction, and Groundhog Day that just plain works — everybody does a great job filming a script that moves more than fast enough to deliver the Dickian mindscrew at its core. –KH

Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia (Nonfiction, Mark Galeotti, 2018) Traces the evolution of organized crime in Russia from pre-WWI horse thieves to Stalin’s bandit pals, and on to gulag-hardened recalcitrants, the regime-favored trusties who violently broke them, the trigger-happy turf-grabbers of the wild 90s and the finally the hybrid businessman-gangsters of today. Punchy subtitle notwithstanding, this admirably focused, engagingly written survey looks at its subject matter through a demythologizing lens.—RDL (Full Disclosure: In his time off from interviewing Chechen hit men, the author is One of Us, and a KARTAS Patreon backer.)

Wild Wild Country (Television, Netflix, Chapman Way & Maclain Way, 2018) Docuseries recounts the rise and fall of the free-loving, gun-toting, salmonella-weaponizing Rajneeshpuram religious community in rural Oregon. A rippling score by Brocker Way adds tension to the archival footage/modern interview format, as the artifacting of deteriorated video footage underline a chaos of conflicting perspectives.—RDL

Good

Cash on Demand (Film, UK, Quentin Lawrence, 1961) Persnickety, dare I say Scrooge-like, bank manager Fordyce (Peter Cushing) learns what’s really important when a roguish bank robber (Andre Morell) uses him in a clockwork heist. Real-time tension counterpoints Cushing’s superb portrayal of a man disintegrating under pressure. I would not disagree if other viewers’ temperament upgrades it to Recommended. –KH

White God (Film, Hungary, Kornél Mundruczó, 2014) Tossed out on the side of a highway road by his adoring owner’s loser dad, Hagen the mixed-breed suffers mistreatment, including a stint as a fighting dog, before leading a city-wide canine kill spree against his oppressors. Allegorical drama with arthouse style and an exploitation heart.—RDL

Okay

The Deadly Companions (Film, US, Sam Peckinpah, 1961) After accidentally shooting her child in a gunfight with outlaws, a tortured Union veteran (Brian Keith) delays his mission of vengeance to make himself an unwelcome bodyguard to a dance hall performer (Maureen O’Hara.) In his first directorial outing, Peckinpah introduces a bracing moral grottiness unusual for a studio western of the period, but shows little affinity for the script’s central hostility-to-affection romantic arc.—RDL

Kodachrome (Film, US, Mark Raso, 2018) Struggling A&R guy (Jason Sudeikis) reluctantly agrees to a road trip with his estranged, dying famous photographer dad (Ed Harris) and his nurse (Elizabeth Olsen.) RIYL strong performances and obvious story developments.—RDL

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Episode 289: CHRONOCA$H

April 20th, 2018 | Robin

Picking up a thread left hanging a few episodes back, the Gaming Hut looks at ways to make a mundane solution to an apparently occult mystery work satisfyingly for your players.

The Tradecraft Hut peers behind the headlines of the Skripal poisoning case.

In the Cinema Hut Patreon backer Chris Camfield asks for the 101 on heist flicks.

Then Ken’s Time Machine gets back to its core business, the alternate timeline, by finding out what would happen when William Duer’s 1791 attempt to take control of the Bank of the United States succeeds.

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: america, Cinema hut, Gaming hut, Heist Films 101, Ken's Time Machine, mundane horror, russian espionage, Scooby-Doo, Skripal poisoning, Tradecraft Hut, William Duer

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Deadites and Samurai

April 17th, 2018 | Robin

Ash vs. Evil Dead Season 2 (Television, US, STARZ, Craig DiGregorio, 2017) Ash (Bruce Campbell), now allied with Ruby, returns to his hometown and a certain cabin in the woods to battle a new, more human-like threat, the demon Baal. Season 2 moves closer to the spirit of the original, including more sympathetic portrayal of Ash, while gleefully topping itself in the gore department. The ending, apparently a last minute creative shift, leaves a headscratcher for Season 3 to redeem . —RDL

Commandos Strike at Dawn (Film, US, John Farrow, 1942) After the Nazi takeover of Norway, a mild-mannered fisheries scientist (Paul Muni) forms a resistance cell. Gripping drama pulls no propaganda punches, as was typical of the films Hollywood made about the war, during the war. With story by C. S. Forester.—RDL

Eleven Samurai (Film, Japan, Eiichi Kudo, 1967) Retainers of a falsely punished clan realize that the man responsible for their fate, the heedless and violent son of the shogun, needs killing. Tense and moody mix of Edo politics and samurai action.—RDL

In Order of Disappearance (Film, Norway, Hans Petter Moland, 2016) When drug dealers kill his son, a taciturn snow plow operator (Stellan Skarsgard) starts killing his way up the local gangster food chain, sparking an ever-widening cycle of violence. Wintry, mordant take on the vigilante revenge genre.—RDL

The Power House (Fiction, William Haggard, 1967) A left-wing MP’s failed defection leads to a war between London gambling houses, and Colonel Russell of the Security Executive must keep the lid on all of it. Crime and party politics burst in on Haggard’s cozy world, to the benefit of pacing. Haggard also changes up his standard class signifiers somewhat in the interest of properly blackguarding a thinly-disguised Harold Wilson. The resulting discord makes Haggard’s plotting even more satisfying. –KH

Good

A Cool Day For Killing (Fiction, William Haggard, 1968) Colonel Russell of the Security Executive must protect the English heirs to the ruling family of the Sultanate of Shahaddin from Chinese agents in this genuinely thrilling yarn. Although the two sympathetic heirs are female and half-Malay, respectively, 21st-century audiences may jib at Haggard’s gender and ethnic essentialism; spy-fi fans may cavil at the relative lack of challenge posed by Russell’s Chinese opposite number. –KH

Okay

Baadshaho (Film, India, Milan Luthria, 2017) During the Emergency in 1975, Princess Gitanjali (Ileana d’Cruz) depends on her loyal bodyguard Bhawani (Ajay Devgan) to heist her fortune in gold when crooked government officials seize it. Relatively competent, if leisurely paced, period heist thriller literally goes up in a cloud of dust in the abrupt and opaque final act. –KH

Truffle Boy: My Unexpected Journey Through the Exotic Food Underground (Nonfiction, Ian Purkayastha with Kevin West, 2016) Truffle supplier to the NYC restaurant elite recounts his quest for high-end fungus in an industry rife with risk and deception. Requires the reader to sniff out salient nuggets of food biz info from a field of anodyne autobiography.—RDL

Two Evil Eyes (Film, Italy/US, George Romero and Dario Argento, 1990) Two hour-long films based on Poe stories: in Romero’s “Facts in the Case of Mr Valdemar,” he ties Poe’s grotesque to an EC Horror-style crime-comeuppance story, while Argento’s “The Black Cat” nestles the title story amidst ample other Poe callouts. Romero’s half is competent enough, even Good, albeit mostly marking time to the weird end; Argento neither provides Poe’s portrait of a madman (Harvey Keitel) nor digs into the notion of a Poe universe unspooling around him. Especially for Argento fans, this is Not Recommended. –KH

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Episode 288: Grift the Pope

April 13th, 2018 | Robin

Another all-request episode begins in the Gaming Hut, as Patreon backer Ruth Tillman asks us how we might game Annihilation in both its film and novel iterations.

We head into the Book Hut at the behest of backer Sean Gomez, who wants to know more about Ken’s recent William Haggard fixation and spy thriller inspiration for Fall of DELTA GREEN more generally.

In Ask Ken and Robin backer Louis Sylvester asks Robin, and also Ken, about devices to incorporate weird sounds and other subtle horror moments into games and fiction.

Finally, in the History Hut, with indulgences purchased by backer Jacob Ansari, we investigate the career of the pretender-monk Paul Palaiologos Tagaris.

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: Annihilation, Ask Ken and Robin, Book hut, Gaming hut, History Hut, horror, nonvisual horror, Paul Palaiologos Tagaris, spy novels, William Haggard

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: More Dogs, More Stalin, More Haggard

April 10th, 2018 | Robin

The Death of Stalin (Film, UK, Armando Iannucci, 2017) As they prepare for Stalin’s funeral (spoiler),, frantic members of his inner circle, portrayed with comic relish by Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Isaacs and Michael Palin, scheme for survival as the power vacuum closes. Iannucci’s “The Thick of It” / “Veep” style achieves apotheosis by tackling a circumstance where the stakes go all the way up to murder.—RDL

The Hard Sell (Fiction, William Haggard, 1965) Colonel Russell of the Security Executive investigates sabotage and delays of a British jet prototype being built in Italy — where he has no jurisdiction. A judicious blend of political machinations and policier maneuver steadily speeds the pace of this novel into genuine thriller territory, albeit at the discreet remove Haggard prefers. Maybe the ending wraps up a little too neatly, but that’s hardly a deal breaker. –KH

Isle of Dogs (Film, US, Wes Anderson, 2018) Exiled to Trash Island off the coast of Megasaki in retrofuture Japan, a pack of dogs (Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Murray) help crashed 12-year-old pilot Atari (Kyou Rankin) search for his own exiled dog. Over and above the strong script and metronomically quirky Anderson-company performances, the most impressive thing about this stop-motion animation adventure quest is its sheer crafted beauty. Anderson surpasses Fantastic Mr. Fox and turns his obsessive-compulsive auteurism into a strength instead of a crutch. –KH

A Man and a Woman (Film, France, Claude Lelouch, 1966) Attraction sparks between two single parents whose kids attend the same boarding school, a script supervisor (Anouk Aimée) and a race car driver (Jean-Louis Trintignant.) Beguiling romance in which the obstacles keeping the lovers apart take a back seat to New Wave formal experimentation and early 60s chic.—RDL

The Yacoubian Building (Fiction, Alaa Al Aswany, 2002) As Gulf War I begins elsewhere in the region, Cairo residents of high and low status, united by a connection to the titular building, find their daily struggles worsened by the brushes with dictatorial power. Revisits the social realist tradition of Egyptian fiction within the context of recent politics.—RDL

The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling (Television, HBO, Judd Apatow, 2018) Documentary miniseries lovingly portrays the rise and ensuing struggle of Shandling, creator of the seminal Larry Sanders Show and previous cult hit It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Hilarious and heartbreaking bio of a wounded guy who sought solace in perfectionism, and found it in Buddhist meditation.—RDL.

Okay

The Emperor’s Candlesticks (Film, US, George Fitzmaurice, 1937) Russian spy (Luise Rainer) and Polish agent (William Powell) fall in love while racing to deliver competing messages to the czar. Frothy Continental espionage confection expends much screen time on the complexities of its titular McGuffin. Rainer is always a bit of a dud, especially when contrasted with the infinitely more present Maureen O’Sullivan, who appears in a secondary role.—RDL

I, Vampire (Comics, DC, Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino, 2011-2013) Collected in three trade paperbacks, this relaunch of J.M. deMatteis’ emo action vampire hero Andrew Bennett overlaps a literally apocalyptic story of Andrew and his murderous lover Mary with DC’s magical supers and John Constantine and Batman and Stormwatch for some reason. The result is a cascading series of dei ex machina and over-the-top writing that vitiates the characters’ humanity while not selling their epic status. –KH

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Episode 287: In League With Leopard Seals

April 6th, 2018 | Robin

Robin tries out a new maxim in That Thing I Always Say: in a game RPG session, the only way to go off track is a dead end.

In The Culture of Gaming, we look at gatekeeping, which rears its head once more with the rise of streamed play.

Finally, in Ken’s Bookshelf, our resident bibliomane caresses the teetering pile of books he liberated from Moe’s Books in the Bay Area.

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: gatekeeping, Ken's Bookshelf, Moe's Books, off track, That Thing I Always Say, The Culture of Gaming

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Futura Dogs

April 3rd, 2018 | Robin

Annihilation (Fiction, Jeff VanderMeer, 2014) A nameless biologist encounters the mysteries of Area X, including the mystery of its effect on her. Not many Gothics focus on ennui and introversion, for obvious reasons, and it’s a tribute to VanderMeer’s prose style and inventive blend of nature writing and the eerie that this one remains compelling. High concepts of free will, perception, and other dimensions surface briefly and vanish again, much like the creatures in the swamps of the Southern Reach. –KH

The Arena (Fiction, William Haggard, 1961) Soft-spoken spymaster works discreetly behind the scenes to prevent a foreign enemy from acquiring an old-school merchant bank, which in turn controls the firm behind a strategic radar technology. Coolly unheightened spy thriller elements provide a vessel for an examination of class mores and mannerisms as minutely detailed as anything this side of Jane Austen.—RDL

Franca: Chaos and Creation (Film, US/Italy, Francesco Carrozzini, 2016) Documentarian profiles his mother, Franca Sozzani, who remade Vogue Italia into a showcase for striking, often disturbing art photography blending fashion with provocation. The family relationship lends emotional throughline to a rich barrage of challenging, glamourous images tinged with a latent weird horror sensibility.—RDL

Isle of Dogs (Film, US, Wes Anderson, 2018) Pack of canines exiled to a trash island off retrofuture Japan help the plucky distant nephew of a sinister politico search for his beloved short-haired Oceanic speckle-eared sport hound. Stop-motion animated adventure is both Anderson’s most conventionally structured film, and the most whimsical and charming parable about the ever-present specter of genocide one could imagine. —RDL

Legion Season 1 (Television, US, FX, 2017) Mental patient David Haller (Dan Stevens) slowly discovers his mutant heritage while forces outside and inside attempt to use him and/or kill him. Formally audacious and beautifully styled, and best of all exactly the right length, Legion could not be more different from the molasses-and-murk Netflix school of Marvel TV. Outside Stevens and his anima (played by Aubrey Plaza) the casting is uneven, but the writing and the production design carry each episode from strength to strength. –KH

Texts From Jane Eyre (Nonfiction, Mallory Ortberg, 2014) Ortberg reduces the great works of literature (and the Sweet Valley High novels) to childish, needy, downright insane text messages — usually to another character who responds with befuddlement, disinterest, or codependent mania. The gag shouldn’t work twice, but in the hands of possibly the greatest humorist of the 21st century, it almost always lands. Reading the texts all straight through is like eating a whole pie — unhealthy, but sooo much fun. –KH

Tom at the Farm (Film, Canada, Xavier Dolan, 2013) Young Montrealer (Xavier Dolan) in rural Quebec to attend the funeral of his boyfriend falls into a twisted relationship with the dead man’s menacing brother. The fear of gay-bashing adds a layer of logic to the French rural horror sub-genre in his moody, arresting journey into Hitchcockian dread.—RDL

Good

TV (The Book) (Nonfiction, Mark Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz, 2016) Under the guise of listing “the 100 greatest American shows of all time,” (from The Simpsons to Terriers, since you asked) Sepinwall and Seitz compile an attempt at a canon for the least canonized of media. Much of their critical insight boils down to nothing much more than “we really liked it,” but TV criticism as a field is still in its infancy. The usual sins of presentism, me-tooism, and Bochco-ism notwithstanding, they do an acceptable job of it — they do pick the correct Star Trek as the best one, for example (TOS at #62). –KH

Not Recommended

Kidnapped (Film, Italy, Mario Bava, 1974) Ultraviolent knuckleheads on the run after an payroll robbery take a woman hostage, then hijack a car driven by a man with a sick child. When you take the politics out of poliziotteschi, all you have left is nihilistic depravity, here realized with unwelcome brio by horror master Bava. Better encapsulated by its alternate title, Rabid Dogs.—RDL

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Archive for April, 2018

Episode 290: Leaves Don’t Work on PayPal

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Time Travel, Zora Neale Hurston and the Russian Mob

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 289: CHRONOCA$H

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Deadites and Samurai

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 288: Grift the Pope

Ken and Robin Consume Media: More Dogs, More Stalin, More Haggard

Recommended

Okay

Episode 287: In League With Leopard Seals

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Futura Dogs

Recommended

Good

Not Recommended

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