Ken and Robin Consume Media: Neo-Poliziotteschi and Devonshire Rustication

September 4th, 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.

Recommended

The Glimpses of the Moon (Fiction, Edmund Crispin, 1977) Rusticating and procrastinating among eccentric neighbors in Devonshire, detective don Gervase Fen pokes into a local case of decapitation and mutilation. Crispin’s last novel was published posthumously, and given that Crispin himself had been rusticating in Devonshire for 20 years and retained his somewhat acidic irony throughout, it’s probably for the best that he escaped his neighbors’ discovery of his opinion of them. Like Crispin’s other works, it’s a classic mystery complete with locked room (or tent) and the occasional Wodehousian detour into minor characters’ manias. –KH

Let the Corpses Tan (Film, France, Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani) Armored car robbers shoot it out with a motorcycle cop in the ruined seaside villa of an eccentric artist (Elina Lowensohn.) Tribute to 70s Italian poliziotteschi in which every shot is an ostentatiously perfect image further amped by slamming sound design.—RDL, Seen at TIFF ‘17, Now in US theatrical release.

Sami Blood (Film, Sweden, Amanda Kernell, 2016) Sent to a residential school to become Swedish—but not too Swedish—a Sami teenager (Lene Cecilia Sparrok) runs off to the city, hellbent on full assimilation. Social realist drama draws its power from the performance of its young lead, who plays a swirling mix of rage, shame, vulnerability and determination while always ringing true.—RDL

Good

Desperate (Film, US, Anthony Mann, 1947) Young newlyweds go into hiding to escape the vengeance of a grudge-holding warehouse heister (Raymond Burr.) In his first in a classic cycle of crime dramas, Mann applies a heady layer of noir style to a straightforward tale of good pursued by evil.—RDL

Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War (Fiction, P.W. Singer and August Cole, 2015) In around 2026, China and Russia team up to decapitate America’s tech advantage, and (non-nuclear) war ensues. Technothrillers must contain tech and thrills, and Ghost Fleet contains heaps of both in spades. Cyberwar expert Singer and defense journalist Cole stick to their fields of expertise (and grind a few axes) to good effect, wisely sticking to bold, uncomplicated characters to carry the plentiful action. –KH

The Prime Ministers Who Never Were (Nonfiction, Francis Beckett, ed., 2011) Collection of alternate histories of alternate Prime Ministers running from Austen Chamberlain (leads the Tories out of coalition in 1922) to David Miliband (edges out Gordon Brown for Labour Party leadership in 2007). Although the two WWII-era guys we all want to read about show up (Oswald Mosley comes off, of all things, as more relatable and successful than Lord Halifax), many of the essays repeatedly if understandably alter the Thatcher and Blair eras, reinforcing a rather samey repertory theatre effect. (Nobody likes Peter Mandelson, apparently.) British readers with an ironic political appetite might even Recommend the collection; they will surely get more of the in-jokes than I did. –KH

Psychokinesis (Film, South Korea, Yeon Sang-ho, 2018) Loser security guard tries to use his new telekinetic abilities to reestablish a relationship with the daughter he abandoned, as she battles crooked developers intent on destroying her restaurant and neighboring businesses. Jab at endemic corruption in South Korea disarmingly wrapped as a broad, crowd-pleasing mix of comedy, sentiment and super powered action.—RDL