Ken and Robin Consume Media: Agatha All Along, Kinds of Kindness, and Deep Carnival Lore
November 19th, 2024 | 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.
Ken was on the road this week.
Recommended
Floyd Norman: an Animated Life (Film, US, Erik Sharkey, 2016) Documentary profiles Floyd Norman, Disney’s first Black animator, whose career spans working with Walt himself on the Jungle Book to Pixar and the present day, with detours along the way into documenting the Watts riots and drawing the accursed Scooby Doo. Inspiring portrait of an unassuming mensch and mentor who channels his anger into cartoons and comes out on top in the end.—RDL
It All Starts Today (Film, France, Bertrand Tavernier, 1999) Empathic director of a primary school (Philippe Torreton) in an economically devastated former mining region torches his relationship with the bureaucracy seeking social support for his young students. Thanks to committed performances and deft pacing, this is social realism without the boring bits.—RDL
Kinds of Kindness (Film, US, Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024) A submissive employee resists a life-endangering request from his dom boss; a neurotic cop decides that his wife rescued from a shipwreck has been replaced by an impostor; devotees of a water purity sex cult hunt for their prophesied savior. Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe and Hong Chao take multiple roles in an anthology of cruel tales, two of them arthouse horror, that play like Cornell Woolrich rewritten by Luis Buñuel.—RDL
Good
Carnie King: The Story of Patty Conklin and Conklin Shows (Nonfiction, John Thurston, 2024) Biography/business history about a German American who adopted an Irish identity and rose from mark-fleecing small time carnie to CEO of a multimillion dollar company and feted pillar of the Toronto establishment. The smell of corn dogs, cotton candy and lost cultural detail wafts through a research-packed account of particular resonance to anyone who remembers getting a discounted pass to the Canadian National Exhibition with their year-end report card.—RDL
Hollywood Signs (Film, US, Bill Fishman, 2021) Documentary comprehensively covers the autograph collecting hobby, from cultural history to the efforts of a ragtag band of enthusiasts to bag precious George Perez signatures, casting the celebrity convention scene in an affirming light.—RDL
Okay
Agatha All Along (Television, US, Disney+, Jac Schaeffer, 2024) Teen sorcery prodigy of mysterious origin (Joe Locke) frees Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) from an illusionary existence to drag a wary coven into the questing space known as the Witches’ Road. In the now endemic Marvel pattern, strong on showcasing the charm of its performers and weak on story architecture.—RDL
The Duke (Film, UK, Roger Michell, 2020) To the horror of his anxious wife (Helen Mirren), an opinionated Newcastle autodidact (Jim Broadbent) confesses to stealing Goya’s Duke of Wellington portrait from the National Gallery, in a bid to publicize his campaign against TV licensing fees. Comic underdog vs the establishment docudramedy, based on a 1961 case, gives Broadbent and Mirren room to shine, despite pat psychology and overdone cheerleading for the hero.—RDL
