Episode 209: There is Mooching To Be Done
September 23rd, 2016 | Robin
Take a reality check before you dare to enter the Gaming Hut, as we answer Patreon backer Bryan’s request to devise a campaign based on flawed perceptions.
Time for another intro course in the Cinema Hut as Ken and Robin give your their film noir 101.
Coriander meets pate as the Food Hut investigates the banh mi, a sandwich whose flavors are as complex as its history.
Finally Ken’s Time Machine revs up at the behest of backer Rick Neal, who wants to know just what was up when Jack Parsons met L. Ron Hubbard to attempt the Babylon Working.
Get trapped in Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Cthulhu” in Atlas Games’ addictive new card game Lost in R’lyeh. Take a selfie with your purchased copy of the game at your brick and mortar game retailer and send it to Atlas to claim your special Ken and Robin promo card. 
Do intervals between Ken’s Time Machine segments leave you listless, bored, and itchy? Then you’re in luck, because TimeWatch, the wild and woolly GUMSHOE game of chrono-hopping adventure has now blasted its way into our reality. Brought to you by master of over-the-top fast-paced fun Kevin Kulp and our reality-maintaining overlords at Pelgrane Press. 
For those seeking yet more Ken content, his brilliant pieces on parasitic gaming, alternate Newtons, Dacian werewolves and more now lurk among the sparkling bounty of The Best of FENIX Volumes 1-3, from returning sponsors Askfageln. Yes, it’s Sweden’s favorite RPG magazine, now beautifully collected. Warning: not in Swedish. 
Attention, operatives of Delta Green, the ultra-covert agency charged with battling the contemporary forces of the Cthulhu Mythos! Now everything you need to know to play Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, perhaps extending your valiantly short field life, can be found in the Delta Green Agent’s Handbook. 
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If you’re in New Orleans and don’t mind driving half an hour for lunch, the best banh mi in town (and in my opinion the best banh mi anywhere) is way out in the eastern end of the city near the Michoud Space Center, at Dong Phuong on Chef Menteur Highway. How good are they? Other sandwich shops in the city make a point of advertising that they use Dong Phuong bread.
I can’t believe neither of you guys put THE THIRD MAN on your Noir 101 curricula! Excellent lists otherwise, I would have thrown THE BIG HEAT, THIS GUN FOR HIRE, NIGHT AND THE CITY, and Kubrick’s THE KILLING into the Classic Noir mix, BLADE RUNNER into the 1970s-1980s Transitional Noir category, and BOUND, LA CONFIDENTIAL, and THE GRIFTERS into the Neo Noir bin. Out of left field suggestion: WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.
I would put Jacques Tourneur’s “Out of the Past” in my top 10 list — Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and an absolutely terrifying young Kirk Douglas as the villain. Also, I think you referred to but forgot to actually mention “D.O.A.”
A documentary on the noir genre I saw some years ago whose title escapes me asserted that the noir “look” — at least for the B-movie examples — was because they had such a limited budget they could only afford one camera, simple sets, and a few lights.
This meant there tended to be more than one face in the frame at once because they didn’t have the setups to do reaction shots, and deep focus so that action in the background didn’t also need a new setup. Few lights meant they were forced to highlight faces, and I imagine that limitation plus the influence of Expressionism led to unusual lighting angles, venetian blind shadows, etc.
I love _Out of the Past_. Also very much second _The Last Seduction_.
This the sixth or seventh week in a row where I’ve thought “wow, this is the best episode in a long while” 🙂
Definitely do a Noir 201.
I have been recently binging on the so called Nordic Noir of the likes of “The Bridge” and would be interested in a K & R take on Noir influenced media in which I would put LA Confindential and The Usual Suspects.
Here in Portland (and I assume many other places) we are starting to see the gentrification of Bahn Mi. Still plenty of hole in the wall places that are great and cheap but now a few chains and also hipster run bahn mi places that charge 9-12 dollars per sandwich and some grocery stores are selling a versions that is only sort of connected to the concept.
I always get extra pate. It is worth it.
Culture Pedant says: “Cops got better things to do than get killed” was not a Jack Burton line. Wang said it.
Culture Pedant is wrong. Both Wang Chi and Jack Burton say that line in the film.
Culture Pedant is chastised and will settle for being half-right.
There’s a play about the Babalon working by Paul Green. We saw it’s one performance seven years ago: http://www.marysia.com/theatre/babalon.html
You can hear Paul talk about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzZqk_s7Jvc
And you can hear part of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq6mqi_5XyM
I think I still have, somewhere, a magical glyph that was given to me at the time.