March « 2025 « Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff

Archive for March, 2025

Episode 642: Radicalized by a Fish

March 28th, 2025 | Robin

In Gaming Hut we discuss organizing one’s game mastering notes.

At the behest of beloved Patreon backer Sam Rutzick, the Horror Hut asks if Jacobin oppressor turned Napoleonic secret policeman Joseph Fouché was a vampire, and why he committed all those acts of vampirism.

Only the combined efforts of the Cinema Hut and the Tradecraft Hut can cover the kidnapping of South Korean director Shin Sang-ok and his movie star wife Choi Eun-hie by North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, who pressed them into service making films for him.

Finally our resident chrononaut reveals the role played by Ken’s Time Machine in the discovery of the Cambridge book fish.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

The sorrowful solo gamebook Unhappy Birthday at Castle Slogar now dolefully awaits you from the frightening folks of Atlas Games. Packed with maps, riddles and dire dilemmas, it is sure to lure you to a delightfully solitary spiral of gloom!

Fear Itself, Pelgrane Press’ groundbreaking GUMSHOE game of personal and psychological horror, has returned from the swirling torment of the Outer Dark in a hauntingly beautiful premium hardcover format. With The Shattered Veil Edition, stunningly beautiful full-color artwork brings fresh terror to your table. Grab it alongside the highly anticipated Ocean Game expansion in its current Gamefound campaign.

Brace for more Delta Green Mythos horror with Dead Drops, Arc Dream’s latest bone-chilling anthology of black bag scenarios. From a secret Missouri church to a frozen Alabama town, the top secret terrors keep on unfolding. Acquire the 288 page full color hardback from the Arc Dream store, or purchase, download, rate and review the PDF at DriveThru.

Turn your digital dials to Gen Con TV, The Best Four Days in Gaming – All Year Long. Entirely free and streaming your way on Twitch, Gen Con TV offers actual plays, reviews, dramatized gaming shorts, minis painting and its flagship show, Table Talk, beaming to you Fridays at 2 pm with polyhedral news you’re dying to use.

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: A Different Man, Will & Harper, and Ghost Stories from a POW Camp

March 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.

The Pinnacle

Danton (Film, France/Poland, Andrzej Wajda, 1983) In the second year of the revolutionary Republic, charismatic faction leader Georges Danton (Gerard Depardieu) challenges the tightening grip on power held by his icy, ruthless rival Maximilien Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak.) Stirring historical political thriller doomed by its incisiveness to a state of perpetual timeliness..—RDL

The Alabaster Hand and Other Stories (Fiction, A.N.L. Munby, 1949) Collection of Jamesian horror tales written while Munby (an antiquarian bookseller by trade) was held in a German POW camp unsurprisingly amps up the nostalgic tone of James’ work, sometimes at the expense of horror. Munby’s ghosts prove more susceptible to laying than James’ do, but several of the stories (especially “Herodes Redivivus” and “The White Sack”) transmit real dread, and even the “happy ending” tales pass through excellent grue.—KH

A Different Man (Film, US, Aaron Schimberg, 2024) Would-be actor with extensive facial tumors (Sebastian Stan) undergoes treatment rendering him traditionally handsome, only to lose the playwright (Renate Reinsve) and starring role of his dreams to a chipper bon vivant (Adam Pearson) unfazed by his own similar condition. Mordant satire of inner versus outer acceptance with a 90s NYC indie vibe.—RDL

Trial Run (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1978) Bounced from the turf by a “no glasses” safety rule, astigmatic gentleman farmer and former steeplechaser Randall Drew succumbs to royal pressure and travels to Moscow to quash a rumor ahead of the Olympics. Francis’ thriller pace and well-sketched characters keep this not-quite-spy story intriguing, and make for a zippy read to boot.—KH

Will & Harper (Film, US, Josh Greenbaum, 2024) Will Ferrell goes on a heartland road trip with longtime co-writer Harper Steele to check on the status of their friendship, and her relationship to the down and dirty haunts she used to favor, now that she has come out as trans. Warm, funny buddy road documentary of awareness and acceptance triggers halcyon recollections of the late Biden era.—RDL

Good

Aavesham (Film, India, Jithu Madhavan, 2024) Seeking help against bullying upper classmen, three engineering students (Roshan Shanavas, Mithun Jai Shankar, Hipzster) establish a surprising bond with a flashy but insecure gang kingpin (Fahadh Faasil.) Punchy action comedy finds, in the neediness of its leading frenemy, a fresh spin on the in-too-deep-with-the-mob trope.—RDL

Korea: The Impossible Country (Nonfiction, Daniel Tudor, 2012/2018) Introductory survey of all things South Korean, from film to K-pop, from shamanism to an economy built from nothing to powerhouse on a structure of centrally-planned mercantilist capitalism. Useful and illuminating, though its arrangement by topic results in considerable repetition, as so many elements of South Korean life owe their character to the same events.—RDL

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Film, US, Christopher McQuarrie, 2023) Ethan (Tom Cruise) and his team pursue a McGuffin granting control over a rogue AI which has hired an old enemy (Esai Morales) to counter him. McQuarrie expertly performs the mission he has assigned himself in his run on the series, to configure bedrock genre elements for maximum momentum and brio. Ironically this, the movie audiences decided to punish for two-parter syndrome, could have, with the merest of tweaks, stood on its own.—RDL

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Episode 641: Consolation Mummy

March 21st, 2025 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we ask what it means for a rule to work.

At the behest of beloved Patreon backer Nicola Wilson, the Archaeology Hut investigates the chopping up of the alleged mummy of Constantine XI.

Anyone who has Fun with Science knows the weird phenomenon of species with dwarf males. Ken and Robin wonder which Mythos creature has dwarf males and how that causes problems for Trail of Cthulhu characters.

Finally the Eliptony Hut recounts the nightmarish tale of the Blaenavon horse humanoid.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

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Tags: Archaeology Hut, Eliptony Hut, Fun with Science, Gaming hut

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Black Bag, A Noir Mambo Musical, and The John the Balladeer Movie

March 18th, 2025 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Black Bag (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2025) Impassive, lie-hating MI6 agent (Michael Fassbender) conducts a mole hunt in which his blithely assured wife (Cate Blanchett) numbers among the suspects. Formally rigorous, mysteriously powerful—but I said Soderbergh already—chamber spy thriller built around a sly, incisive script by David Koepp that plays like a collaboration between John LeCarré and Alan Ayckbourn.—RDL

Black Bag (Film, US, Steven Soderbergh, 2025) MI6 counter-intelligence prodigy George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) investigates the theft of a dangerous software exploit, with his also-MI6 wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) an increasingly likely suspect. Perfect puzzlebox script masters the repeated revelation while the film actually rotates around the nature of loyalty (and marriage). A delight on every level, a controlled polygraph rather than the triphammer of his other near-Pinnacle spy flick, Haywire.—KH

A Lion is in the Streets (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1953) Rabble-rousing traveling salesman (James Cagney) cuts ethical corners as he discovers his flair for populist demagoguery during a run for Louisiana governor. Walsh’s energy and affection for the unruly common man propel this Technicolor political drama.—RDL

Victims of Sin (Film, Mexico, Emilio Hernandez, 1953) Vivacious cabaret dancer (Ninón Sevilla) sacrifices her promising career to adopt the abandoned infant son of a dangerous pimp (Rodolfo Acosta.) Potent mix of exhilarating mambo musical and gut-punching social melodrama.—RDL

Wild at Heart (Fiction, Barry Gifford, 1990) Released convict Sailor violates parole to skip town with his beloved Lula, pursued by her obsessed mother and her private detective beau. A tone poem of loopy Southern dialogue and storytelling, without the nightmarish noir elements added by David Lynch for his film adaptation.—RDL

Good

City of the Dead (Film, UK, John Llewellyn Moxey, 1960) Curiously intense history professor Driscoll (Christopher Lee) inspires his plucky student Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson) to visit witch-haunted Whitewood, Mass. in search of primary data about the cult. British actors doing American accents (and gallons of fake fog) notwithstanding, this is a nice little corker of proto-folk-horror hamstrung mostly by a micro budget and a fairly predictable script.—KH

Red Peony Gambler (Film, Japan, Kōsaku Yamashita, 1968) Her shoulder tattooed to mark her mission of vengeance, a refined 19th century yakuza (Junko Fuji) follows the trail of her father’s killer. Classically staged period action flick delivers in the first and last acts but sags in the middle with the doings of irrelevant tertiary characters. Start of a seven part series, newly restored by Eureka.—RDL

Ten Cents a Dance (Film, US, Lionel Barrymore, 1931) Good-hearted taxi dancer (Barbara Stanwyck) picks the wrong guy when she goes for a luckless striver (Monroe Owlsley) over a world-weary millionaire (Ricardo Cortez.) The secret to an early 30s romantic melodrama is to have Barbara Stanwyck in it.—RDL

Who Fears the Devil? (Film, US, John Newland, 1972) After the Devil beats his grandpappy (Denver Pyle) in a Defy, young John (Hedges Capers) sets out to defy the Devil’s servants with a silver-stringed guitar. Based on two of Manly Wade Wellman’s Pinnacle John the Balladeer stories, this hippified version still rings somewhat true to the Appalachian rhythms and folkloric horror of the original. The end kind of trails off, but a surprising number of great scenes and effective character moments go a long way; there’s not enough Hoyt Axton music, but there’s more than none. [Also released as The Legend of Hillbilly John.]—KH

Okay

Tombs of the Blind Dead (Film, Spain/Portugal, Amando de Ossorio, 1971) A woman’s pal and ex-girlfriend investigate her strange murder in an abandoned town allegedly haunted by the revenants of a Satan-worshipping Templars. On one hand, cool creepy zombie knights; on the other, exploitatively depicted sexual assaults.—RDL

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Episode 640: Smooth-Fingered Dystopia

March 14th, 2025 | Robin

At the behest of beloved Patreon backer Lauberfen we gather the suspects in the Gaming Hut to ask how to make the revelation as compelling as the mystery.

Estimable backer Benjamin Rawls beckons us into the Narrative Hut to wonder why some genres assume certain plot structures yet others do not.

If you live in the Maryland area you may have noticed some empty shelves at your local bookshops. Ken’s Bookshelf steps up to solve that mystery.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

Don your pallid mask and get all the Ken, Carcosa, and footnotes you require now that Arc Dream’s The King in Yellow: Annotated Edition is now available in paperback and ebook formats. With stunning art by Samuel Araya, this lavish tome of terror earns a space on any shelf.

A global mythos conspiracy ensnares the player characters in The Borellus Connection, Pelgrane Press’ new Fall of DELTA Green mega-campaign by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and Kenneth Hite. Journey in the guise of federal narcotics agents to Saigon, Beirut, Prague and Bozukepe. Buy it for your GM and demand that she run it today!

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Tags: Gaming hut, Ken's Bookshelf, Narrative Hut

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mickey 17, Superman: Space Age, Legends of the Condor Heroes

March 11th, 2025 | Robin

It’s What’s Inside (Film, US, Greg Jardin, 2024) Young couple with relationship problems (Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini) attends a gathering of old college friends where a long-estranged pal (David Thompson) proposes a game using his top secret body-switching machine. Fast-paced single location SF ensemble thriller dares the audience to keep up with its twists and convolutions.—RDL

Lee (Film, UK/US, Ellen Kuras, 2024) Captivating, abrasive ex-model and fashion photographer Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) sweeps the rules aside to cover WWII, from combat in France to the discovery of the Dachau death camp, as a war correspondent. Though its storytelling devices are overly wordy and literary, perhaps inescapably so due to Miller’s story and the many renowned figures who populate it, Winslet’s fierce commitment to the role holds its pieces together.—RDL

Mickey 17 (Film, US, Bong Joon-ho, 2025) Expendable operative and guinea pig (Robert Pattinson) used by a project to colonize the frosty world of Niflheim survives a mission only to discover that his next self has already been bio-printed and implanted with his memories. Pattinson gets to play two character roles in an emphatic, satirical SF look at identity, alien contact, and authoritarian malfeasance. Mark Ruffalo and Toni Colette play the despotic villains as ridiculously cartoonish, which is to say with absolute documentary accuracy.—RDL

Shell Games: Rogues, Smugglers, and the Hunt for Nature’s Bounty (Nonfiction, Craig Welch, 2010) In their pursuit of poachers overfishing the geoduck, an expensive clam of absurd phallic aspect, wildlife officers enlist a larger than life informant up to shenanigans of his own. Eye-opening, colorfully reported exposé reveals the mechanics of marine animal piracy.—RDL

Superman: Space Age (Comics, DC, Mark Russell and Mike Allred, 2022-2023) Soon after the JFK assassination brings Clark Kent off the farm, he learns from Pariah that the world will end in twenty years. Lexcorp and WayneTech dueling for Pentagon contracts is one of the better bits in this “DC Universe but with history in it” story, but the core is Superman figuring out what heroism means on a doomed planet. Mike Allred, of course, is born to do Silver Age art, and this is some of his best work.—KH

Wildcat (Film, US, Ethan Hawke, 2023) Worsening illness forces young aspiring writer Flannery O’Connor (Maya Hawke) to move from New York City to the small town Georgia home of her conventional, undermining mother (Laura Linney.) Hawke’s angry, thwarted dignity as O’Connor anchors a nonlinear biopic, which addresses the problem of its subject’s outwardly uneventful life by threading in dramatized excerpts of her most famous stories.—RDL

Woman of the Hour (Film, US, Anna Kendrick, 2024) Struggling actress Sheryl Bradshaw (Anna Kendrick) agrees to appear on The Dating Game in 1978, unaware that Bachelor #3 is serial killer Rodney Alcala (Daniel Zovatto). A solid true-crime flick that centers Kendrick’s Everywoman experience in the sexist vortex of LA, and does not romanticize the killer at all, which is the best commentary on The Dating Game (and LA) that one could ask for. Like many actor-directors, Kendrick prefers to shoot actors emoting rather than locations, which harshes her period vibe a bit.—KH

Good

Enquiry (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1969) Warned off the track for allegedly fixing a race, jockey Kelly Hughes goes about investigating and reversing the titular enquiry by the unfathomable tactic of asking direct questions. In Britain, this counts as hard-boiled detection. Not as polished as later Francis thrillers, this one still has the Swiss-watch pacing that a true thriller writer needs more than anything else. But it doesn’t really have surprise, shock, or particularly well drawn characters; Hughes seems a little more Mary Sue than Francis’ later protagonists.—KH

Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants (Film, China, Tsui Hark, 2025) Honorable martial artist raised by Mongols as an exile from the Song Dynasty (Zhang Xiao) seeks reunion with the love he unjustly scorned (Dafei Zhuang) and tries to prevent war between his ancestral and adopted peoples. Overly intent on epic scale, and ungainly, as attempts to squish the elaborately plotted fiction of Louis Cha into feature length often are, but the climactic action set piece is what you want from a Hark film. The same material has been made into three different TV series.—RDL

Okay

Mickey 17 (Film, US, Bong Joon-ho, 2025) On the run from a loan shark, whiny schlimazel Mickey (Robert Pattinson) joins a colony ship as an Expendable, to be killed and cloned and reprinted over and over at need. An interminable succession of ultimately toothless satire, tell-don’t-show storytelling, and random things Bong thought were neat (and many of them in fact are) follows. Nothing interesting gets followed up or built upon; the absolute best bit is Toni Collette committing to the role of sauce-obsessed Melania/Lady Macbeth manque, but that’s because Toni Collette is always great.—KH

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Episode 639: This Appendix Should Not Have Been Printed

March 7th, 2025 | Robin

In the Gaming Hut we look at optional rules. What does it mean to designate a rule as optional, and what rules are we likely to put in that bucket?

The History Hut profiles 19th century utopian sect leader Barthélemy-Prosper Enfantin, who advocated for free love and the Suez Canal.

Prompted from a question by beloved Patreon backer Ross Ireland, How to Write Good reveals the software tools and online resources we use in our work.

Finally, at the behest of estimable Patreon backer Steve Dempsey, the Consulting Occultist fulfills its Canadian content requirements with a look at William Lyon Mackenzie King, who served for a total of 21 years as Prime Minister while secretly engaged in spiritualist inquiry.

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

Gaming Hut

2nd segment

3rd segment

4th segment

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

Our Patreon-backed Letterboxd list of all films mentioned on the show is now up and running.

Also check out the Goodreads list of books mentioned on the show.

Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.

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Tags: Consulting Occultist, Gaming hut, History Hut, How To Write Good

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Ken and Robin Consume Media: Glowing TVs, Chic French Goddesses, Classic Costumes, and the Master of Horse Mysteries

March 4th, 2025 | Robin

The Pinnacle

The Violent Bear It Away (Fiction, Flannery O’Connor, 1955) When the deranged backwoods great-uncle who kidnapped him to raise as a prophet drops dead at the breakfast table, a sullen 14 year old heads to the city where his atheist uncle lives to embrace or reject his destiny. Disturbing literary noir of intergenerational mania told with sere omniscience.—RDL

Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion (Film, US, Matthew Miele, 2024) Warm-hearted arts profile documentary celebrates the six decade career of iconic costume designer Bob Mackie, whose works include Elton John’s Donald Duck, Pink’s Glitter in the Air Grammy outfit, Cher’s ‘86 Oscar dress and every costume and wig for all 11 seasons of the Carol Burnett Show.—RDL

Duelle (Film, France, Jacques Rivette, 1976) Chicly clad goddesses of day (Bulle Ogier) and night (Juliet Berto) draw fragile mortals into their deadly struggle to possess a powerful gem. Naturalistic fantasy, in which the performer’s stylized movements matter as much as conventional storytelling, demands submission to its eccentric rhythm.—RDL

I Saw the TV Glow (Film, US, Jane Schoenbrun, 2024) Withdrawn kid (Justice Smith) forges an intense connection to an older student (Jack Haven), bonded by their stepfather problems and obsession with a supernaturally themed TV show, which is either more or less than what it seems. Haunting, movingly acted weird tale in which the worst form of reality horror is suppressed gender dysphoria.—RDL

Longshot (Fiction, Dick Francis, 1990) Impoverished survival writer John Kendall takes a desperation job to write the commissioned biography of a racehorse trainer, and gets caught up in a murder investigation. Less of a mystery than a thriller, the novel nonetheless plays fair while hitting suspense beats with stopwatch precision. Francis unsurprisingly reaches his emotional and lyrical peak while describing horses, but his people look and act like humans, which is refreshing.—KH

Man’s Castle (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1933) Autonomy-seeking wanderer (Spencer Tracy) chafes at the unconditional adoration offered him by an angelic fellow shantytown resident (Loretta Young.) Tracy’s presence and Borzage’s mystical romanticism build sympathy for a character and central problem we could otherwise easily reject.—RDL

Maria (Film, Italy/Germany/Chile/US, Pablo Larrain, 2024) In the last week of her life, mercurial opera legend Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) recounts her life to a pharmaceutically hallucinated TV interviewer (Kodi Smit-McPhee), ducks an unwanted prognosis, and works with an English conductor (Stephen Ashby) to revive her ruined voice. In a moving, layered portrayal of a person no longer able to do the thing that defines her, Jolie reveals the pain behind sturdily built defense mechanisms.—RDL

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Archive for March, 2025

Episode 642: Radicalized by a Fish

Ken and Robin Consume Media: A Different Man, Will & Harper, and Ghost Stories from a POW Camp

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Episode 641: Consolation Mummy

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Black Bag, A Noir Mambo Musical, and The John the Balladeer Movie

The Pinnacle

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 640: Smooth-Fingered Dystopia

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Mickey 17, Superman: Space Age, Legends of the Condor Heroes

Recommended

Good

Okay

Episode 639: This Appendix Should Not Have Been Printed

Ken and Robin Consume Media: Glowing TVs, Chic French Goddesses, Classic Costumes, and the Master of Horse Mysteries

The Pinnacle

Recommended

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