Posts Tagged ‘Ken and Robin Consume Media’
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Megalopolis, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Substance
October 1st, 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.
Recommended
Heat Lightning (Film, US, Mervyn LeRoy, 1934) The arrival of her fugitive ex (Preston Foster) disturbs the settled life of the proprietor of a desert service station (Aline MacMahon.) Sweltering crime melodrama, unusually snappy for a stage adaptation of its era, gives MacMahon a rare chance to anchor a film.—RDL
King of Kings: Chasing Edward Jones (Film, US/France, Harriet Marin Jones, 2022) French documentarian pieces together the life story of her seldom-discussed grandfather, who turns out to have been the king of Chicago numbers rackets from 1930 to 1946. As good as a talking-head doc can get, with clever animation and as much location shooting as HMJ can manage; the talking heads also include a wide range of Chicago accents and Quincy Jones (no relation), which is nice. My personal interest was more in the rackets; HMJ’s more in her grandfather’s story in American racial context.—KH
Kingdom 2: Far and Away (Film, Japan, Shinsuke Sato, 2022) Pursuing his goal of future generalship, Shin (Kento Yamakazi) takes his superhuman martial arts prowess to the decisive battle between the Qin and the Wei, forming a tentative alliance with an equally puissant but standoffish vengeance-seeker (Nana Seino.) Part two of this manga adaptation ups the ante into a thrilling, clearly explicated, full-blown war movie.—RDL
Still the Water (Film, Japan, Naomi Kawase, 2014) On the idyllic island of Amami Ōshima, a teen mourning her shaman mother’s approaching death wins a declaration of love from her withdrawn sweetheart, but struggles to break through his emotional barriers. Beautiful observational drama underpinned by a quiet attention to place and community.—RDL
The Substance (Film, France/UK, Coralie Fargeat, 2024) When fading star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is fired from her workout show, she starts using a substance that grows a younger, hotter self (Margaret Qualley) from her back. It also has some bad effects. Stanislas Reydellet’s production design and Raffertie’s score follow writer-director Fargeat’s lead in never just doing when you can overdo, but it’s Moore’s unflinching performance that keeps this Jekyll & Hyde morality play upright.—KH
Good
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Film, US, Tim Burton, 2024) Accompanied by her disaffected daughter (Jenna Ortega) and manipulative boyfriend/manager (Justin Theroux), TV ghost hunter Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) returns to the home where an ebullient trickster demon (Michael Keaton) once plotted to marry her. Burton movies rise or fall on the coherence and momentum their screenplays impose on him; this containment unit for goth kookiness is made from a satisfying ratio of new to recycled material.—RDL
Okay
Three Musketeers – Part I: D’Artagnan (Film, France, Martin Bourboulon, 2023) Dashing young provincial (François Civil) arrives in Paris to join the King’s Musketeers, winning a spot among his heroes Athos (Vincent Cassel), Porthos (Pio Marmaï), and Aramis (Romain Duris), and a central role in deadly royal intrigue. Dour retelling less interested in swashing buckles than in placing Dumas’ novel in historical context.—RDL
Fascinatingly Terrible
Megalopolis (Film, US, Francis Ford Coppola, 2024) Visionary architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) tries to build a new city from the miracle metal Megalon despite opposition from mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), whose daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) falls for Cesar. We explained this film to ourselves, sort of, as an adaptation of a multivolume manga based on The Fountainhead. Driver and much of the stacked cast thespiate in all directions, many of them compelling if not convincing, and there are moments of pure kino throughout. Reading too much into its “fascism but make it couture” message is probably a mistake, but so was spending your winery fortune making a hero out of Psychic Robert Moses.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Substance, Dali’s Tarot, Evil, and The Twelve
September 24th, 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.
Recommended
Dalí. Tarot. (Tarot, Salvador Dalí, 1984; Nonfiction, Johannes Feibig, 2019) An oversized deck packed in a velveteen slipcase with a full guide to each card in the accompanying guidebook, this is a Tarot for showing off first and using second or never. Fortunately, Dali’s interpretations of the cards (generally involving collages from bits of older paintings) are worth showing off: the best images truly unlock something personal in the archetype, and even the laziest ones (Dali was forced to finish the deck by a lawsuit) show a playful irony absent from most decks (and from the po-faced guidebook). The book tries its best to source the collages and talk Jungian bafflegab, which is really all you want from it, and the whole production almost justifies its hefty pricetag.—KH
Evil Season 1 (Television, US, CBS, Robert and Michelle King, 2019) Forensic psychologist with four young girls and a badass dark side (Katja Herbers) teams with empathetic, psilocybin-ingesting priest in training (Mike Colter) and sardonic techie (Aasif Mandvi) to evaluate potential possession cases for New York’s Catholic diocese. Brings exorcism horror to the occult investigation procedural with puckish humor and a cunningly interwoven case-of-the-week and continuity elements.—RDL
Ponniyin Selvan Part 2 (Film, India, Mani Ratnam, 2023) Swashbuckling princeling (Vikram) races to stop a complex conspiracy to assassinate the Chola emperor and his warrior sons. Though a couple of its many plot threads could have been more neatly tied off, the conclusion of this stunning-looking action adventure historical epic thoroughly blockbusts all the same.—RDL
The Substance (Film, France/UK, Coralie Fargeat, 2024) When her crass producer (Dennis Quaid) decides to replace her, a celebrity fitness instructor (Demi Moore) undergoes a weird science treatment that horribly replicates a younger counterpart (Margaret Qualley.) High focus photography and moist sound design fuse into a tactile filmgoing experience in a gleefully unsubtle Kubrickian body horror satire portraying beauty standards as a social force prompting women to make war on themselves.—RDL
The Twelve: The Complete Series (Comics, J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Weston, 2008-2012) Twelve random third-tier superheroes succumb to a Nazi suspended-animation booby trap in 1945 Berlin only to wake up in 2008 as curiosities. Straczynski tries with some success to get inside the head of the Twelve and their diverse responses to their condition, while plotting a good old-fashioned superhero mystery story around their group. Weston’s clean, unfussy art perfectly complements JMS’ post-Watchmen narrative.—KH
Good
Dangerous Crossing (Film, US, Joseph M. Newman, 1953) When a woman’s (Jeanne Crain) new husband goes suddenly missing after their embarkation on a transatlantic honeymoon cruise, the ship’s doctor (Michael Rennie) doesn’t entirely buy his colleagues’ assumption that she is delusional or pulling a scam. Shipbound psychological film noir rooted more than most in 50s sexual politics, based on a John Dickson Carr story.—RDL
The Princess Warrior (Film, Mongolia, S. Baasanjargal & Shuudertsetseg Baatarsuren, 2021) Determined Mongol princess Khutulun (Tsedoo Munkhbat) defies patriarchal expectations to recover the Golden Sutras, symbols of her family’s legitimacy, from the treacherous forces of the Yuan Empire. Ambitious martial arts historical epic from an emerging national cinema, with ninjas. Aka Princess Khutulun.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: More from Noir City Chicago and an Artisanal Counterfeiter
September 18th, 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.
The Pinnacle
Le Trou (Film, France, Jacques Becker, 1960) New cellmate Claude (Marc Michel) falls in with a quartet of prisoners with a plan to escape La Santé Prison. From Hawksian hangout to real-time tension, this absolute masterpiece draws the viewer into the prison world and the escape plan of competent, experienced Roland (real-life prison breaker Roland Barbat, playing himself with DeNiro-esque power). Becker’s eye for detail pays off in gritty realism that also triumphs as archetypal drama.—KH
Recommended
A Gun For Sale (Fiction, Graham Greene, 1936) Hairlipped hit man Raven kills a Czech cabinet minister, bringing Europe to the brink of war—but his only concern is that his employer stiffed him with hot banknotes. Far more cruel (in every dimension) than the (also-Recommended) 1942 film adaptation, this shows Greene’s contempt for all of British society more clearly than most of his work. But his mastery of plot and tension keep the “entertainment” going despite your suspicion that the girl and the detective on Raven’s trail barely exist even to themselves. [CW: Not-very-veiled antisemitism.]—KH
Inferno (Film, US, Roy Ward Baker, 1953) Dodgy prospector Duncan (William Lundergan) and millionaire’s wife Geraldine (Rhonda Fleming) leave millionaire Donald Carson (Robert Ryan) to die in the Nevada desert, but Carson doesn’t cooperate. Insanely overperforming B-picture blends gripping survival drama with daylight color noir, punctuated by actually good use of 3-D establishing the vast depths and dangerous cliffsides of the desert landscape.—KH
The Last Counterfeiter: The Story of Fake Money, Real Art, and Forging the Impossible $100 Bill (Nonfiction, Jason Kersten, 2009/2024) Family ties bring strength and downfall for Art Williams Jr., a scion of Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood who with painstaking craftsmanship devises a way to fake the supposedly uncrackable 1996 US New Note. Grippingly told true crime yarn of hubris and temptation, with the Secret Service in the role of avenging deity.—RDL
Good
Black Tuesday (Film, US, Hugo Fregonese, 1954) Gang boss “King” Canelli (Edward G. Robinson) breaks out of Death Row, bringing along fellow inmate Manning (Peter Graves) to get his hidden loot. It’s great fun to watch Robinson sneer and brutalize, and the procedural elements tick along nicely, but the film stifles somewhat in its police standoff third act.—KH
Okay
Man in the Dark (Film, US, Lew Landers, 1953) Payroll robber Steve Rawley (Edmond O’Brien) is paroled to a surgeon who removes his criminal tendencies, along with his memory of where he hid the loot. When his old gang breaks him out of the hospital, that last bit becomes a problem. Columbia “won” the race to exhibit a 3-D feature with this amiable clunker, featuring lots of scalpels and cigars and spiders and why not a rollercoaster zooming into the audience’s faces, and very little in the way of cleverness or production value.—KH
Ken Consumes Media: Classics and Rarities from Noir City Chicago
September 10th, 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.
The Pinnacle
Odd Man Out (Film, UK, Carol Reed, 1947) Wounded in a Belfast payroll robbery, IRA leader Johnny McQueen (James Mason) tries to survive and escape the hated British police cordon. Begins as crime thriller and ends up in wild Expressionist passion play, so you have to hold on for the run and trust Reed in the many key change-ups. A superlative cast, shot mostly on location by Robert Krasker (his first cinematographer gig), superb but never intrusive musical score, and a nearly impossible blend of existential comedy and agony.—KH
Recommended
Brute Force (Film, US, Jules Dassin, 1947) Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) is determined to escape Westgate Prison, and sadistic guard captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn) is determined to break him, or worse. A crew of Hey It’s That Guys given life and individuality by a terse, economical Richard Brooks script keep the “society is prison” theme from lumbering what in the end remains a super-violent (for the era), compellingly watchable (for any era) thriller.—KH
Hardly a Criminal (Film, Argentina, Hugo Fregonese, 1949) Impatient gambler José Moran (Jorge Salcedo) defrauds his company for a big payoff, counting on doing his maximum six-year sentence and coming back for the dough. Salcedo deftly and charmingly walks the scoundrel-scumbag line through a film that likewise dodges between neo-realism and noir for 88 packed minutes.—KH
Ossessione (Film, Italy, Luchino Visconti, 1943) Tramp Gino (Massimo Girroti) stops at a roadside trattoria to seduce Giovanna (Clara Calamai), the wife of the loutish owner Giuseppe (Juan de Landa), and the lovers plot his murder. Uncredited adaptation of the James M. Cain novel The Postman Always Rings Twice deletes the legal subplot in favor of giving Gino a foil (Elio Marcuzzo) representing male freedom through irresponsible homosociality (at least). The result is an oddly formalist melodrama shot in neo-Realist style, which works much better than it sounds like it should.—KH
The Postman Always Rings Twice (Film, US, Tay Garnett, 1946) Tramp Frank (John Garfield) stops at a roadside diner to seduce Cora (Lana Turner), the wife of the cheap owner Nick (Cecil Kellaway), and the lovers plot his murder. Untangles the James M. Cain source novel somewhat, at the cost of narrative clarity and breathing room, but remains a foundational feast of noir. Hume Cronyn almost walks away with the part of Keats the lawyer, but this is Lana Turner’s film throughout.—KH
Victims of Sin (Film, Mexico, Emilio Fernández, 1951) Nightclub dancer Violeta (Ninón Sevilla) takes in another dancer’s abandoned baby by pimp Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta) and destroys her life. Best-of-breed rumbera film (think “rhumba noir morality play”) provides plenty of dancing and musical numbers — seldom has the melos been better in any melodrama. The story, by contrast, expands and contracts at seeming random, accentuating the somewhat surreal feel established by cinematographer Miguel Figueroa.—KH
The Window (Film, US, Ted Tetzlaff, 1949) Perennial fibber Tommy (Bobby Driscoll) sees a murder from the fire escape but his parents don’t believe him. Driscoll’s Oscar-winning acting job propels a terrific juvenile version of the Hitchcock plot, this one based on a Cornell Woolrich story, through a Greenwich Village superbly shot on location. Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman excel as the murderers, although Hitch probably wouldn’t have let them turn quite so desperate and stupid quite so soon.—KH
Zero Focus (Film, Japan, Yoshitaro Nomura, 1961) When her ad-man husband Kenichi (Koji Nambara) disappears from a business trip to Kanazawa, newlywed Teiko (Yoshiko Kuga) unravels secrets of his past. Almost flawless noir mystery makes the most of the cold natural sea and snow of Ishikawa prefecture, along with Kuga’s restrained, internalized acting. Nomura’s focus on process, system, and trains puts one in mind of a Japanese David Fincher.—KH
Good
Cast a Dark Shadow (Film, UK, Lewis Gilbert, 1955) Edward “Teddy” Bare (Dirk Bogarde) murders his elderly wife and sets his sights on feisty barmaid-turned-rich-widow Freda Jeffries (Margaret Lockwood). Retains too much of the drawing-room staginess of its source material, but every so often achieves genuine grue or rich dark comedy. Enjoyable, if mostly predictable; Bogarde and Lockwood are by far the best things in it.—KH
Don’t Ever Open That Door (Film, Argentina, Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952) Two minor Cornell Woolrich stories become two halves of a portmanteau suspense thriller: a man’s sister driven to destruction by a mysterious phone caller, and a blind woman’s criminal son comes home at last. The surprise endings don’t, but the visuals stay hopping and inventive throughout thanks to cinematographer Pablo Tabernero.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Noir City Chicago 2024
September 10th, 2024 | KenH
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.
Robin is RVIFFing this week, as you can see by perusing his posts from the front couches.
The Pinnacle
Odd Man Out (Film, UK, Carol Reed, 1947) Wounded in a Belfast payroll robbery, IRA leader Johnny McQueen (James Mason) tries to survive and escape the hated British police cordon. Begins as crime thriller and ends up in wild Expressionist passion play, so you have to hold on for the run and trust Reed in the many key change-ups. A superlative cast, shot mostly on location by Robert Krasker (his first cinematographer gig), superb but never intrusive musical score, and a nearly impossible blend of existential comedy and agony.—KH
Recommended
Brute Force (Film, US, Jules Dassin, 1947) Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) is determined to escape Westgate Prison, and sadistic guard captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn) is determined to break him, or worse. A crew of Hey It’s That Guys given life and individuality by a terse, economical Richard Brooks script keep the “society is prison” theme from lumbering what in the end remains a super-violent (for the era), compellingly watchable (for any era) thriller.—KH
Hardly a Criminal (Film, Argentina, Hugo Fregonese, 1949) Impatient gambler José Moran (Jorge Salcedo) defrauds his company for a big payoff, counting on doing his maximum six-year sentence and coming back for the dough. Salcedo deftly and charmingly walks the scoundrel-scumbag line through a film that likewise dodges between neo-realism and noir for 88 packed minutes.—KH
Ossessione (Film, Italy, Luchino Visconti, 1943) Tramp Gino (Massimo Girroti) stops at a roadside trattoria to seduce Giovanna (Clara Calamai), the wife of the loutish owner Giuseppe (Juan de Landa), and the lovers plot his murder. Uncredited adaptation of the James M. Cain novel The Postman Always Rings Twice deletes the legal subplot in favor of giving Gino a foil (Elio Marcuzzo) representing male freedom through irresponsible homosociality (at least). The result is an oddly formalist melodrama shot in neo-Realist style, which works much better than it sounds like it should.—KH
The Postman Always Rings Twice (Film, US, Tay Garnett, 1946) Tramp Frank (John Garfield) stops at a roadside diner to seduce Cora (Lana Turner), the wife of the cheap owner Nick (Cecil Kellaway), and the lovers plot his murder. Untangles the James M. Cain source novel somewhat, at the cost of narrative clarity and breathing room, but remains a foundational feast of noir. Hume Cronyn almost walks away with the part of Keats the lawyer, but this is Lana Turner’s film throughout.—KH
Victims of Sin (Film, Mexico, Emilio Fernández, 1951) Nightclub dancer Violeta (Ninón Sevilla) takes in another dancer’s abandoned baby by pimp Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta) and destroys her life. Best-of-breed rumbera film (think “rhumba noir morality play”) provides plenty of dancing and musical numbers — seldom has the melos been better in any melodrama. The story, by contrast, expands and contracts at seeming random, accentuating the somewhat surreal feel established by cinematographer Miguel Figueroa.—KH
The Window (Film, US, Ted Tetzlaff, 1949) Perennial fibber Tommy (Bobby Driscoll) sees a murder from the fire escape but his parents don’t believe him. Driscoll’s Oscar-winning acting job propels a terrific juvenile version of the Hitchcock plot, this one based on a Cornell Woolrich story, through a Greenwich Village superbly shot on location. Paul Stewart and Ruth Roman excel as the murderers, although Hitch probably wouldn’t have let them turn quite so desperate and stupid quite so soon.—KH
Zero Focus (Film, Japan, Yoshitaro Nomura, 1961) When her ad-man husband Kenichi (Koji Nambara) disappears from a business trip to Kanazawa, newlywed Teiko (Yoshiko Kuga) unravels secrets of his past. Almost flawless noir mystery makes the most of the cold natural sea and snow of Ishikawa prefecture, along with Kuga’s restrained, internalized acting. Nomura’s focus on process, system, and trains puts one in mind of a Japanese David Fincher.—KH
Good
Cast a Dark Shadow (Film, UK, Lewis Gilbert, 1955) Edward “Teddy” Bare (Dirk Bogarde) murders his elderly wife and sets his sights on feisty barmaid-turned-rich-widow Freda Jeffries (Margaret Lockwood). Retains too much of the drawing-room staginess of its source material, but every so often achieves genuine grue or rich dark comedy. Enjoyable, if mostly predictable; Bogarde and Lockwood are by far the best things in it.—KH
Never Open That Door (Film, Argentina, Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952) Two minor Cornell Woolrich stories become two halves of a portmanteau suspense thriller: a man’s sister driven to destruction by a mysterious phone caller, and a blind woman’s criminal son comes home at last. The surprise endings don’t, but the visuals stay hopping and inventive throughout thanks to cinematographer Pablo Tabernero.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: The Killer (2024), Hundreds of Beavers, and Dench on Shakespeare
September 3rd, 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.
Recommended
Hundreds of Beavers (Film, US, Mike Cheslik, 2022) After beavers sabotage his cider operation, trapper Jean Kayak endures epic pain and humiliation to gather enough of their pelts to marry his trading post sweetheart. Fusing the aesthetics of Chuck Jones, National Film Board of Canada animation, and Guy Maddin, this surreal, bonkers black-and-white near-wordless slapstick comedy featuring actors in plush mascot outfits easily wins the title of most Canadian film ever made by an American.—RDL
Long Live the Missus (Film, China, Hu Sang, 1947) A woman propels her husband’s business career with a few strategic white lies, only to have him take up with a gold-digging girlfriend. Cynical comedy of manners from the last moments of the short-lived Shanghai commercial movie industry. Aka Long Live the Mistress! —RDL
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent (Nonfiction, Judi Dench & Brendan O’Hea, 2024) Longtime Shakespearean actor-director O’Hea prompts Dame Judi to discuss and divagate on every Shakespeare part she’s ever played, which is most of the female roles. Lovely blend of theater reminiscence, hard-headed acting advice, and the best kind of Bardolatry.—KH
Thelma (Film, US, Josh Margolin, 2024) Stubbornly independent nonagenarian (June Squibb) evades the scrutiny of her protective family to hunt down the scammers who ripped her off, with scooter-equipped old friend (Richard Roundtree) in tow as voice of reason. Affectionate, observant indie comedy doubles as sly parody of techno-thriller tropes.—RDL
Wigs on the Green (Fiction, Nancy Mitford, 1935) An upper class office drudge, unwillingly accompanied by his charming weasel friend, head to the Cotswolds in search of heiresses to marry, setting their sights on a teen fascist nitwit. Laugh-out-loud satire of the romantic folkways and political obliviousness of the upper crust assumes the reader is capable of supplying the needed moral context.—RDL
Okay
The Killer (Film, US, John Woo, 2024) Pursued by a maverick Parisian cop (Omar Sy), a formidable assassin (Nathalie Emmanuel) protects a singer (Diana Silvers) she accidentally blinded during a hit. Reconfigures Woo’s 1989 heroic bloodshed classic by taking a handful of images and plot points and starting over, with more plot and talking, and much less momentum and melodrama.—RDL
Under Paris (Film, France, Xavier Gens, 2024) Mutant super-mako Lilith inexplicably follows traumatized marine biologist Sophia (Bérénice Bejo) to Paris, where idiot shark-simps and vaguely helpful cops get chomped around her. Paris looks nice, and I counted two effective shots, but this Netflix chum coasts on people’s love of shark cinema and nothing else.—KH
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Under Paris, and Cynical French Espionage
August 20th, 2024 | Robin
Recommended
Forgotten (Film, South Korea, Jang Hang-jun, 2017) Weird dreams alert a mentally fragile student (Kang Ha-Neul) that something is amiss in his family’s new home and with the older brother (Kim Mu-yeol) he idolizes. Reality-shifting twist on the wrong man thriller offers up a bleak puzzle box for those willing to forget how hypnosis works.—RDL
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Film, US, Wes Ball, 2024) Son of a chimp chieftain (Owen Teague) must take on the mantle of leadership when the soldiers of an ambitious gorilla king (Kevin Durand) interrupt their search for a knowledgeable human (Freya Allan) to enslave his clan. Refreshingly solid story construction reigns in a CGI-dominated adventure that builds its set pieces from a clear but not belabored character throughline and never stops to wink at the audience.—RDL
Le Silencieux (Film, France/Italy/UK, Claude Pinoteau, 1973) MI5 kidnaps Soviet physicist Anton Haliakov (Lino Ventura), born Clement Tibere, to force him to identify Soviet spies in the British fusion program in exchange for repatriation to France—from whence the KGB had kidnapped him 18 years previously. This provides the cynical setup for an existential thriller, pitting one man against a KGB kill notice. Ventura husbands his tough interiority against every kind of stimulus; his performance combines paranoia and desperation with intelligence, the only human response possible. [Released as Escape to Nowhere in the US.]—KH
Spectre: Sanity, Madness and the Family (Film, France, Para One, 2021) After receiving audio recordings of sessions between his family members, several of them schizophrenia suffers, and the musician and spiritual leader who subjected them to years of damaging experiments in altered consciousness, the filmmaker, himself a composer, undertakes a musical journey to understand their mysteries. Mesmerizing first-person documentary set on the borderland between avant garde culture, visionary experience, and cult abuse.—RDL
Under Paris (Film, France, Xavier Gens, 2024) Traumatized marine biologist (Bérénice Bejo) and jut-jawed river cop (Nassim Lyes) team up to save a pre-Olympic swimming event from a giant shark and her parthenogenetic brood, who have taken up residence in a flooded section of the Paris catacombs. Seine-based Jaws homage plays its finny, victim-chomping thrills without a hint of irony.—RDL
Okay
OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok (Film, France/Italy, André Hunebelle, 1964) America sends its most French agent, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath (Kerwin Matthews), to investigate chicanery with medical supplies in Bangkok orchestrated by fashionable psychiatrist Dr. Sinn (Robert Hossein). Lumbering second installment in the Bond-ripoff film series provides ample Bangkok location footage during the interminable interstitial scenes between anticlimactic faceoffs.—KH
Not Recommended
The Devil’s Bath (Film, Austria, Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz, 2024) Young peasant bride (Anja Plaschg) in 1750 rural Austria sinks into depression after failing to adjust to her new dreary life with her domineering mother-in-law (Maria Hofstätter) and ineffectual husband (David Scheid.) Historical realist folk horror takes much longer than needed to establish the conditions for its unforgettable final sequence.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Deadpool & Wolverine, Longlegs, and the Best Hong Kong Martial Arts Film in Years
August 13th, 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.
The Pinnacle
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Film, HK/China, Soi Cheang, 2024) Undocumented, hard-punching newcomer to 80s Hong Kong (Raymond Chan) washes up in Kowloon’s lawless Walled City tenement, where he gains a benefactor in a benevolent triad boss (Louis Koo) with dangerous peers (Sammo Hung, Aaron Kwok.) Gritty crime melodrama (with a touch of the supernatural thrown in, because hell yes) harks back to the 80s-90s classics to dish up the best Hong Kong martial arts movie in years.—RDL
Recommended
Deadpool & Wolverine (Film, US, Shawn Levy, 2024) To save his timeline from extermination by a rogue time agent (Matthew Macfadyen), Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) recruits the worst Wolverine variant (Hugh Jackman) and takes an unwanted journey to a void populated by heroes and villains from discarded continuities. Dials up the self-referential quips, comic ultraviolence, and veering tonal shifts worthy of 80s-90s Hong Kong cinema to prove that mocking fan service is the most powerful fan service of all.—RDL
Deadpool & Wolverine (Film, US, Shawn Levy, 2024) Rather than abandon his doomed timeline for the “sacred” Marvel timeline, Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) finds “the worst Logan” (Hugh Jackman) to serve as its new anchor. MCU continuity is finally garbage enough to let the original* Deadpool concept (mocking Marvel Comics continuity) work, and Levy has a meta-story big enough (Disney’s trashing of the Fox-Marvel franchises) to support a big quest picture. Lots of in-jokes and buddy murder-comedy bits fill in the run-time more than acceptably. [*Original to Keith Giffen, when it was called Ambush Bug.] —KH
Longlegs (Film, US, Osgood Perkins, 2024) Fledgling FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) joins veteran fed Bill Carter (Blair Underwood) to hunt a mysterious serial killer (Nicolas Cage) who instigates murder-suicides in Oregon. Perkins spends two acts building a thoroughly unsettling experience, full of too-wide angles and Monroe’s hyper twitchiness against an expressionist Nineties Northwest background, before kind of wrecking it with an over-expository final act. The performances (especially including Cage’s) and Andres Arochi’s camera work keep it Recommended even if it doesn’t achieve the full nightmare takeoff it maybe should have. —KH
Streetwalker (Film, Mexico, Matilde Landeta, 1951) Mercenary industrialist’s wife (Miroslava) toys with a lover (Ernesto Alonso), unaware that he is the pimp of the sister (Elda Peralta) she scorns. Noirish melodrama with skillful big acting reverses sex trade tropes.—RDL
Good
My Blueberry Nights (Film, France/Hong Kong, Wong Kar Wai, 2007) A break-up sets a young woman (Norah Jones) adrift and into the lives of a dreamy New York cafe owner (Jude Law), a Memphis cop (David Strathairn) trying to drink away the hurt of his failed marriage to an emotionally careless ex (Rachel Weisz) and a Vegas-bound poker ace (Natalie Portman.) The US setting and Anglo-American acting style mesh unevenly with Wong’s evanescent, hyper-romantic style but, boy, none of these performers has ever been better lit.—RDL
Okay
Living on Velvet (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1935) Romantic socialite (Kay Francis) tumbles into an impulsive marriage with a charming pilot (George Brent) whose survivor guilt has left him irresponsibly directionless. Gives the actors an interesting relationship to play but, like many 30s movies, tosses off its third act with a sudden and unconvincing external resolution.—RDL
Ken and Robin Consume Media: High-Strung Reality Horror, French New Wave Fantastic Realism, and the Dawn of Canadian Art Forgery
August 7th, 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.
Recommended
The Creatures (Film, France, Agnes Varda, 1966) Staying in a seaside town after his reckless driving cost his pregnant wife (Catherine Deneuve) the use of her voice, a bluff science fiction writer (Michel Piccoli) discovers that a mysterious mood-altering device is affecting its residents. Quietly compelling blend of the fantastic with social realism achieves a tone so idiosyncratic it can only be described as Vardasian.—RDL
L.627 (Film, France, Bertrand Tavernier, 1992) Frustrated narcotics cop (Didier Bezace) keeps pursuing significant drug busts in a Paris police force plagued by incompetence, brutality, chronic underfunding and bureaucratic paralysis. Not a mystery or thriller but a naturalistic slice of life portrait of a man mired in, and compromised by, a system that has identified the wrong problem and is only trying to look like it’s sort of trying to solve it.—RDL
Possession (Film, France/Germany, Andrzej Żuławski, 1981) The psychic backwash from the marriage breakdown of an uptight spy (Sam Neill) and his emotionally disintegrating wife (Isabelle Adjani) destroys those around them, spawns monsters, and threatens reality itself. The relationship at the heart of this hysterically pitched reality horror is so agonizing that the eventual appearance of a slime-coated pupal abomination provides a note of relief. Be sure you’re watching the 2020 restoration, which fixes audio problems with the ADR that marred the previous digital print.—RDL
Good
The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case: The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson Forgeries (Nonfiction, Jon S. Dellandrea, 2022) A stolen box of ephemera once belonging to a forgotten Scots-Canadian painter puts the art collector author on the trail of an early sixties trial for flogging works bearing the forged signatures of iconic Canadian masters. Brings out the naivete of a suddenly blossoming art market and the brazenness of the gallerist and auctioneer who flooded it with sloppily disguised fakes.—RDL
The Vanished Elephant (Film, Peru, Javier Fuentes-León, 2014) Ex-cop crime writer (Salvador del Solar) investigates a mysterious stranger (Lucho Cáceres) posing as his detective protagonist and trying to frame him for a series of murders. Reality-bending neo-noir creates a Borgesian puzzle.—RDL
Ken and Robin were off at Gen Con but Robin had some reviews stockpiled.
Ken and Robin Consume Media: Classic SF, Classic Yuen Biao, and a Book About a Classic Vampire Film
July 23rd, 2024 | Robin
Recommended
Deathworld (Fiction, Harry Harrison, 1960) After its ambassador pressures him into breaking a casino, a psi-assisted gambler travels to a staggeringly hostile planet, finding that it is not what it seems. Type specimen for pulpy, action-packed problem-solving science fiction.—RDL
Dreadnaught (Film, Hong Kong, Yuen-Woo Ping, 1981) Cowardly laundry assistant (Yuen Biao) attracts the ire of a berserk fugitive in Peking opera makeup as the venerable Wong Fei-Hung (Kwan Tak-Hing) fends off the schemes of a rival martial arts instructor. Biao has never had a better showcase for his acrobatic prowess than this radically tone-shifting kung fu comedy. Kwan makes his 77th (?) and final appearance as iconic hero Wong Fei-Hung, a role he first took on in 1949.—RDL
Martin (Nonfiction, Jez Winship, 2016) Almost stream-of-consciousness narration of the 1977 George Romero near-Pinnacle film, providing production notes and critical observations along the way, reading more like a transcript of a really good DVD commentary track than a conventional work of film scholarship. If it has a flaw, it’s Winship’s desire to find ever more angles from which to admire the film; some of them seem a bit more forced than others.—KH
Sword of the Beast (Film, Japan, Hideo Gosha, 1965) On the run from his clan, a betrayed samurai (Mikijiro Hira) seeks the refuge of a mountain where prospectors risk the death penalty to pan for gold. Jidaigeki action with a noir sensibility, shot in stark 60s style.—RDL
Good
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (Film, US, Mark Molloy, 2024) Veteran maverick cop Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) receives a distress message from old pal Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold), leading him back to the west coast, an uneasy partnership with a local detective (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and a reckoning with his estranged defense lawyer daughter (Taylour Paige.) Smart craftsmanship and an understanding of the beloved original provides a solid baseline for this too-old-for-this-shit sequel.—RDL
The Gang’s All Here (Film, US, Busby Berkeley, 1943) Brash army officer (Phil Baker) woos charming singer (Alice Faye) but complications ensue when his financier father (Eugene Pallette) arranges for her show, topped by fruit-hatted sensation Dorita (Carmen Miranda) to rehearse at their Hamptons manor. Letting Berkeley, and his penchant for turning dance numbers into reality-breaking flights of abstraction, loose in Technicolor brings into focus his status as a key exponent of 20th century modernism.—RDL
