Poets Joe Hall and Cheryl Quimba go to the movies—usually pop culture movies—then go back to their house near Buffalo, NY, and talk about what they watched.
We watched Crazy Rich Asians then discussed it in a car during a rainstorm.
We watched Krisha, the debut feature from new-on-the-scene director Trey Edward Shults, on the recommendation of John Waters (or, specifically, his Top 10 Films of 2016 list), which honestly is not a bad way to pick out a movie (we’ll get to you next time, Tickled). Krisha takes place over the course of one harrowing Thanksgiving, when the titular character […]
We’re baaack! And after our accidental hiatus, we’ve decided to change things up around here. Rather than focusing on new and recent movie releases, we’re expanding our scope to include older films, movies by directors we love or want to learn more about, more indie, weirdo, and art house stuff, clusters of movies centered around […]
Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan is a movie about revolution that, for a large portion of its running time, shows people making sandwiches, milling around a public square, and shoveling debris. These shots are punctuated by scenes of violence, with protesters physically clashing with riot police amid billows of tears gas and flaming barricades. There is no […]
Somehow ELLE, the newest film from the gloriously ever-surprising Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Total Recall, Showgirls, Starship Troopers) is tagged in IMDB as a comedy, drama, and thriller. Drama and thriller we can understand, yes, but…comedy? Whatever humor there is in ELLE is dark and bleak, the bits of dialogue you chuckle at with your nails […]
Who doesn’t love a good ol’ linguist-saves-humanity-from-self-destruction flick??? On the first day of 2017 we watched Arrival, a movie about making utterances, deciphering symbols, and forging understanding with wholly foreign beings when nearly all hope is lost. The good news: it’s possible. Here’s to a brighter year, world.
We watched Robert Eggers’s The Witch a very long time ago but didn’t post our talk because soon after a dangerous, desiccated apricot was elected to the highest office in the land and it felt weird and wrong to be talking about an invented horror while a real one was unfolding. But after a while we (mostly […]
British director Andrea Arnold’s vision of contemporary middle America is young, fragile, hopeful, precarious, and achingly lovely. American Honey joins the long illustrious list of “American ___” movies (Beauty, Psycho, Gigolo, Pie), and tells the story of Star, an 18-year-old girl with nothing to lose, who joins a ragtag crew of teenagers that roam the country in […]
We wanted to shake things up a little so this weekend we went to see Don't Breathe, the Fede Alvarez horror-thriller flick that's currently getting butts into movie theater seats across the nation. Cheryl admits to not having seen a horror movie since 1999's The Blair Witch Project (oh how the time goes, apparently they're making a second one?) because she gets nightmares like a small, frightened child. Joe is tougher but probably still wouldn't break into a blind Gulf War veteran's home on a block of abandoned houses in the middle of the night to steal $300,000. But maybe the opportunity just hasn't come up yet.
Joe and Cheryl made a huge mistake and watched Dinesh D’Souza’s “documentary” Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party. Or they watched the first 40 minutes, which was all they could stomach. Cheryl just looked up the movie on IMDB, where the plot keywords include “critically bashed” and “historically inaccurate.” Anyway, if you want to […]
Joe and Cheryl watched the new Ghostbusters (which passed the Bechdel test with flying colors), and talked reboots, the supernatural, and their personal views on ghosts.
Paul Dano. Daniel Radcliffe. A farting corpse. Obviously, we’re front and center for this one.
Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster presents a world in which it is illegal to be single, and if you’re unable to find a partner, you get turned into an animal of your choosing. So — a gritty, hyper-realistic drama, basically. Joe and Cheryl watched Colin Farrell struggle to find love (“love”?) in a weird-ass hotel, and […]
Joe and Cheryl watched Captain America: Civil War and discussed that horrorshow of a summer blockbuster, then talked about Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, without any attempts to tie the two together (thankfully). They're trying a new thing where they talk about other pieces of cultural ephemera in addition to the movie reviews. Warning: wine-induced unwieldiness ahead.
Joe and Cheryl watch Keanu, the first feature film outing from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, and talk kittens, code-switching, and the comedic bro.
Hello, my name is Cheryl (and Joe). We watched Hello, My Name is Doris and talked all about older people desire, inter-generational comedy, effectively miming sex acts, and oh so much more.
"The more far-fetched you make something, the more reality-based it is because life is totally like that." -- Paul Reubens Come along for the ride as Joe and Cheryl talk all about Pee-Wee's Big Holiday, and cover topics as varied as gender, the fantastic, nostalgia, and the word of the day. THE WORD OF THE DAY!!!
Joe and I and our friend Carra went to see the newest Todd Haynes movie, starring the always impeccable Cate Blanchett and a doe-eyed Rooney Mara. It's an understated study of two women who fall in love in the 1950s, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, The Price of Salt. We left the theater wrung dry. Isn't this why we see movies? Isn't it?????
Joe and Cheryl sojourned to Maryland for Jesus's birthday and watched the newest Star Wars installment. They talked all about daddy issues, the difficulties of representing impersonal suffering, the bureaucratic face of evil, nostalgia, girl warriors, and just why Stars Wars makes bajilliions of dollars.
Joe and Cheryl watched Crimson Peak, the new spooky Gothic romance from Guillermo del Toro, just in time for Thanksgiving. They talked about being scared, not being scared, and friendly ghosts.
We all live in paper towns. Or something. Cheryl and Joe watch the comedy-drama-coming-of-age-mystery Paper Towns and talk YA, marketing to teenagers, manic pixie dream girls, and that time some guys in the park at night gave us free juice in mason jars (last weekend). This movie was Cheryl’s pick. Also, Cheryl eats a bowl of cereal […]
This week we saw Ridley Scott's The Martian. Spoiler: Matt Damon does not drive off a cliff in a blaze of patriarchy defying glory. He counts potatoes, alone.
Joe and Cheryl spent Labor Day weekend lesson-planning, sewing throw pillows, and watching Noah Baumbach’s newest film, MISTRESS AMERICA. Starring Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke, the movie follows a college freshman in NYC who tries to be a little less lonely by befriending her older, zanier, future stepsister. Hijinks ensue. Check it out, then have a […]
In this week’s episode, Cheryl and Joe discuss the psychological thriller The Gift and devote serious intellectual energy to where this move flies off the rails and what exactly the main characters’ names are. This was Joe’s pick. As always, send movie suggestions, comments, inquiries, and critiques to movietimeswithjoeandcheryl@gmail.com.
In this episode we discuss Joe's movie pick, Magic Mike XXL, male bodies, female desire, and whether or not Joe should shave his chest and learn to dance.
In this episode, Joe and Cheryl discuss "Inside Out."