Two for Space Jam, Please

The one where we talk about J.Lo looking phenomenal at 50, the honesty of a lap dance, and how the whole world’s a strip club. After our discussion our comrade Chanelle recommended some reading–a piece by Kate Zen that adds some crucial context and insight into the film’s representation of Destiny: “Constance Wu’s real-life ‘Hustlers’ … Continue read...

We dip into the vault to watch John Sayles 1987 labor classic, Matewan, the based-on-fact story (and here’s a hilariously biased company version of the story for kicks) in which Mingo County coalminers enter a deadly struggle with their bosses and their thugs for improved conditions. We talk labor in cinema, dramatizing solidarity and organizing, … Continue reading "Episode 16 –...

Dearest listeners, we have returned from a short break to get freaked out by this summer’s horror-pastoral freakout, Midsommer. We discuss literary precedents, communitarian-phobia in cinema, grad students as villains (I hate that I’m linking to Slate but C pointed out that our point had been made), and more. Also, stay tuned for our first … Continue reading "Episode 15 – M...

We’re reading Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, written and gathered by adrienne maree brown. There was so much here to talk about but, for now, we’re turning to one essay in particular: Chanelle Gallant’s tremendous “Fuck You, Pay Me,” a myth-shattering case for the right of sex workers to use their sexuality to … Continue reading "Episode 13 &#8...

The responsible pop culture thing for us to do would have been for us to watch the Avengers. We were going to watch Us but then a lot of life stuff got in the way. We had one last chance this weekend but by that point every showing after 1:00 PM at our semi-rural theatre … Continue reading "Episode 12 – Bon Appétit, It’s Not the Avengers"

This week’s movie is a book. That’s how things go down here sometimes. Cheryl just read adrienne maree brown’s visionary self/society/galactic help book 2017 Emergent Strategy. Joe read it a year ago. We both are thinking about how to be in this f-ed up world, so we hit record and started talking. brown’s 2019 Pleasure … Continue reading "Episode 11: Emergent Strategy...

We didn't know we needed some beef in 2015.

After Green Book won an Oscar, we toyed w/hate-watching it since Feb cinema is a dumping ground for lame movies. We decided instead to return to Boots Riley’s powerhouse directorial debut Sorry to Bother You. We talk it over in an end-of-work-week fugue state, get wildly off topic, and work our way back to the … Continue reading "Episode 9: Sorry to Bother You (2018)"

It's back to the archives with a 2013 discussion of Cuarón's movie about what's keeping us down.

We watched 20,000 hours of GBBO material and definitely covered it all in under an hour.

We talked about this movie shortly after its release in 2012. 2019 internet tells me history hasn’t treated this one well, and I don’t think we would either. And we shouldn’t! Fortunately, there have been no shoot-and-cry flicks by American directors since. Right? –J

Roma led us back to Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 Children of Men. Will we keep going w/Cuarón? Maybe!

The snow is melting and we’re thinking about the warmth of American Honey.

We watched A Star is Born. Things take a turn.

When Joe asked me to choose an episode from the archive to kick off our special “From the Archives” series, One Direction: This is Us immediately sprung to mind. Our conversation about this little piece of cinema really cemented, for me at least, the tone and tenor and caliber of all our film conversations that followed. Meaning: … Continue reading "Episode 2: One Direc...