joescirehall

July 6, 2021July 8, 2021

Episode 55 – Zola (2021)

The “American” dream is the dream of a new memory.

“Ya’ll want to hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out???????? It’s kind of long but full of suspense.”

And so Zola begins. Based on an epic, viral 2015 Twitter thread written by A’Ziah King and dubbed by fans as #TheStory, Zola is INTENSE. We talk through the movie’s representation of sex work, its multiple tonal registers, the stellar performances, and this new era (?) of social media-sourced movie making.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

From its poets to its industry of spectacle, from Whitman, Pound, and Olson to the Hollywood blockbusters both pre and post-9/11, at the center of the USAmerican imaginary is the dream of creating an artificial memory. -Heriberto Yépez, The Empire of Neomemory.

July 1, 2021

Episode 54 – Reality Bites (1994)

A poet is wounded into speech, and he examines these wounds meticulously, to discover how to heal them. The bad poet harangues at the pain and yowls at the weapons that lacerate him

Reality fucking BITES. It did in 1994, and it does in 2021 (maybe? That’s debatable). We took a stroll down memory lane to watch the definitive Gen X movie and discussed the waning appeal of Troy Dyer, the enduring charm of Winona Ryder. and the cynicism of the post-9/11 moviescape.

the great poet explores the inflamed lips of ruined flesh with ice-covered fingers, glittering and precise; but ultimately their poem is the echoing, dual voice reporting the damage” – Vol Nonik, City of a Thousand Suns (1965)

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

June 21, 2021June 21, 2021

Episode 53 – Minari (2020)

We drove an hour out of Buffalo to spend the weekend in Rochester. We walked, we ate, we gawked, we frolicked. We watched Minari, a tender portrait of a Korean family trying their damnedest to start a farm in Arkansas without completely falling apart. An unbelievably cute little boy and a very funny grandma steal the show. Warning: we workshopped the ending (!).

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or Spotify.

Bad Times

Meanwhile

June 7, 2021June 14, 2021

Episode 52 – Norma Rae (1979)

What if we all will have one moment in each of our lives that is the equivalent of Norma Rae standing on top of a table in the middle of a textile factory silently holding above her head a cardboard sign on which she scrawled in black marker the single word “UNION”?
Let’s be ready for that, ok?

See the other episodes in our labor series: Harlan County, U.S.A (1976), The Assistant (2019), American Factory (2019), Matewan (1987), & our interview with Chanelle Gallant.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or Google Play.

Please contact us if you have any information wtf this poster is supposed to be. Was there a Polish body horror cut?

Typical search result for Norma Rae Gif. Solid.

June 1, 2021June 1, 2021

Episode 51 – Mare of Easttown (2021)

Apparently on May 31, the evening of the final episode of Mare of Easttown, HBO Max’s servers crashed for several hours because the show’s popularity had grown so much that more people were logging on than the servers could handle. That’s successful word of mouth, babyyyy!!

We couldn’t help but get caught up in this mystery / police procedural / small town tragedy / family drama too. In this episode we cover nailing dialects, career-topping performances, copaganda, trauma’s aftermath, and the need for more amateur sleuth stories. And Wawa!

ACT 1 : Frustration

ACT 2: Sorrow (Sad Hoagie)

ACT 3: Resolution

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021

Episode 50 – Stowaway (2021)

“The Cold Equations,” the 1954 science fiction story by Tom Godwin, was a genre-defining work that looked hard at the impersonal efficiency of modern technologies, the types of sacrifice we find acceptable in the name of “progress,” and the inevitability of death. The 2021 film Stowaway, directed by Joe Penna and starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson, and Toni Collette (inspired by the story) has similar ambitions, but falls about 200 light-years short of truly tackling any of it. It’s a diverting field trip into outer space, but we didn’t find it to be the philosophical challenge it thought it was being. We ain’t easy to please!

HERE IS A GIF

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, invitations to join a cult, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

May 10, 2021

Episode 49 – Nomadland (2020)

Minimalist chic, Instagrammable #vanlyfe, Nomadland is not. It’s also not a portrait of a struggling itinerant worker, or a larger story about post-recession America as it slips through a fraying social safety net (or else, it does neither of these things successfully).
So what is it? We’re not entirely sure, but we have some fun talking about what it wants to be, lobbing some sharp-tongued critiques, and thinking through the stories we tell ourselves while living through crisis.

The director’s dad is a billionaire.

We should have talked more about FMcD’s physical acting.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, invitations to join a cult, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

April 15, 2021April 15, 2021

Episode 48 – Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets And, Also, Some Bars We Remember

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets replicates the feeling of being in a crowded, boozy, pre-COVID dive bar so well that we were already dreading the next day’s hangover as the movie was winding down. BN, EP has some issues, which we did our best to unpack, but we also really digressed at points and got to talking about the bars of our youth and what life is like now as a couple of olds. Gotta say — happy to still be around.

April 5, 2021April 5, 2021

Episode 47 – Godzilla vs. Kong

It was late and we were too tired to sleep so we watched Godzilla vs. Kong and it felt like walking into Earth’s hollow center where big things go smash and reasons don’t exist. Join us there.

One of more ho-hum moments.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

March 15, 2021March 15, 2021

Episode 46 – Good Time (2017)

Alternate, more accurate titles for Good Time:

Extremely Stressful Time

Nerve-Wracking Time

On Edge Time

Don’t-Watch-This-Alone Time

Apparently, the title of Benny & Josh Safdie’s 2017 film, starring Robert Pattinson, is prison slang and refers to the reduction in an inmate’s sentence for good behavior. The life you lead after you’re released is your “good time.”

It does not refer to the experience that a viewer might have in watching this movie. Good Time is a tense, increasingly disturbing couple hours that follows Pattinson’s character during one night in New York City as he tries to get his younger brother out of jail after a bank robbery gone wrong. It’s a maddening descent into chaos and immorality. It’s Pattinson at his very best. We were wholly unprepared. But we had fun talking it out!

^DO NOT LET BORROW CAR TO RETRIEVE ACID

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or Google Play.

March 7, 2021March 7, 2021

Episode 45 – Caste (2020) (Book Club)

We took a break from movies this week to discuss Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, published in August 2020 by Random House. In it, Wilkerson contends that racism in the United States is closely akin to the caste system in India and the violence of Nazi Germany. The book’s reception has been overwhelmingly positive since its release. It was a #1 New York Times bestseller, has won or been nominated for numerous awards, has sold over half a million copies by year’s end, and Netflix has plans to produce an adaptation directed by Ava DuVernay.

We……did not receive it as warmly. The book gave us a LOT to dig into, however. Charisse Burden-Stelly’s review, “Caste Does Not Explain Race” offers an extremely sharp critique of the book that helped inform our thinking on Wilkerson’s arguments, and we highly recommend you read her piece (even if you don’t plan to read the book!).

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

February 23, 2021February 23, 2021

Episode 44 – Malcolm & Marie (2021)

SHORT VERSION OF OUR REVIEW

Sam Levinson’s 2021 Malcolm & Marie is a pandemic movie in that it’s about two people at home who fight, cry, and make mac & cheese. It’s also not a pandemic movie in that it opens with them returning from Malcolm’s movie premiere, presumably with lots of people hugging and breathing on each other. Also, they both stay in their fancy clothes entirely too long after getting home.

We get waaay off course during this conversation and spend some time talking about their gorgeous floor-to-ceiling windows and the general nature of sadness. But that’s what you’re here for, right???

February 15, 2021February 21, 2021

Episode 43 – Space Sweepers (2021)

We were in the mood for something FUN for a change so we watched the 2021 Korean space action-adventure flick, Space Sweepers. It’s got scavenger space trucks, a motley crew of likable misfits, a Jeff Bezos/Elon Musk-type on steroids, and a cute little girl who just might be a weapon of mass destruction. We, of course, love that the heroes are ordinary folk, and that at the center of all the adventuring is a strong ethic of care. Would recommend!

Ok this is the best we could do: Song Joong-ki GIFing from some other movie.

January 19, 2021

Episode 41 – Bacurau (2019)

All we have to say is WATCH THIS MOVIE!

Actually, here’s a little more:

Bacurau is one of the best movies we’ve seen in years. This 2019 Brazilian film is strange, funny, dark, and galvanizing, and it’s impossible to adequately capture its brilliance with a few choice adjectives. At first blush, it’s the story of a small village in Brazil (set sometime in the near future) grappling with things like lack of access to water and a corrupt and annoyingly unhelpful mayor. Not a lot of surprises there. But about halfway through the movie, the story starts to swerve off the rails in a direction that we just did not see coming, and the ending is a first-rate lesson on crafting the perfect cinematic third act.
There are a lot of surprises that we completely spoil in our conversation, so if you have any intention of watching this movie, wait to listen to this episode until after you watch.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

January 11, 2021January 19, 2021

Episode 40 – First Cow (2019)

Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow is a Western like no other, an immigrant story like no other, and a moving, funny, tragic tale of friendship born out of the need to survive and some stolen milk. It was just the movie to watch as we huddled up in a snow-covered cabin and turned the calendar page to 2021.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

Write us?

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

January 4, 2021January 19, 2021

Episode 39 – They Live (1988)

We took a sharp left turn and watched John Carpenter‘s 1988 action/sci-fi flick, They Live.
The movie’s IMDB description is all you really need by way of introduction:

“They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live.”

And by “they,” we mean…media savvy aliens with fancy watches that look like Skeletor. It was a wild ride!!

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

What are other critics saying? “No offense, but They Live is probably the stupidest film ever to take ideology as its explicit subject. It’s also probably the most fun.” –Jonathan Lethem

Now, a GIF dump.

ACT 3. The back half of the movie is not memorable. No GIFs.

December 16, 2020December 16, 2020

Episode 38 – Residue (2020)

We were long overdue to watch a truly good movie, and Merawi Gerima‘s poetic, quietly moving Residue, about a young filmmaker who returns home to DC to write a script about his neighborhood after being away for years, is a truly good movie. It’s an ode to childhood, an elegy for a city, and the best examination of gentrification we’ve seen yet.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.

November 30, 2020January 3, 2021

Episode 37 – Hillbilly Elegy

Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy, based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by J.D. Vance, is bullshit, and we take a little time to talk about why.

Referenced:

Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy edited by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll

An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Of special note:Amy Adams and Glenn Close have been nominated 13 times for an Academy Award between them, but neither have won yet.

Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

As always, send yr comments, questions, and movie suggestions to twoforspacejamplease @ gmail.com and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you do your podcast business.