Seasons: A Year of Movies Emma Ramirez and Jacob Benfell

Grace and Emma join together for this workplace comedy that is not quite what it seems and find a very funny movie with a lot going on. We discuss shifting violence to mythological, colonized others, the role and limits of comedies about working and living in capitalism, as well as some truly wild facts about this film.
Follow Grace on Twitter @grace_machine.
Follow Emma on Twitter @uofwhales.
Follow the show @seasonsmoviepod.
Podcast art by Cecil Smith. Follow him on Instagram at @ cecil_smith_
Email us questions at seasonspod@gmail.com
Our next movie is Man of Iron

Grace and Emma watched a movie two months ago, recorded an episode about it one month ago, and are finally presenting you with the gift of this short episode. Emma likes handsome men, Grace does not like the Stephen King short story “Battleground,” and we really just love Salt of the Earth. Watch this movie or don’t; it’s rough out there.
Follow Grace on Twitter @grace_machine
Follow Emma on Twitter @uofwhales
Follow the show @seasonsmoviepod
Podcast art by Cecil Smith. Follow him on Instagram at @ cecil_smith_
Email us questions at seasonspod@gmail.com
Our next movie is Nine to Five

Emma and Grace watched Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble the dehumanizing and humanizing process of filmmaking, the act of depicting labor on screen, and questions of what it means to watch a film that critiques non-capitalist societies. Emma makes a killer point about how abstract art is deployed in this film and Grace goes on a long tangent about Walter Benjamin.
Follow Grace on Twitter @grace_machine Follow Emma on Twitter @uofwhales Follow the show @seasonsmoviepod
Podcast art by Cecil Smith. Follow him on Instagram at @ cecil_smith_
Email us questions at seasonspod@gmail.com
Next movie is Norma Rae

Grace and Emma discuss the film the US Government didn't want you to see, Salt of the Earth!!! They loved this antithesis to How Green Was My Valley and talk about the material conditions of the movie, its honesty and intensity around gender dynamics, and the joy found in community organizing. You can watch this piece of union propaganda on YouTube, so you should just go ahead and do it.
Follow Grace on Twitter @grace_machineFollow Emma on Twitter @uofwhalesFollow the show @seasonsmoviepodPodcast art by Cecil Smith. Follow him on Instagram at @ cecil_smith_ Email us questions at seasonspod@gmail.com Next movie is Man of Marble

Grace and Emma talk about the 1941, John Ford directed classic that reeks of gender. We discuss the movie’s surprisingly absent labor politics, its compassion for working people, and its cruelty towards the disabled. In other news, Emma gets excited about birds and Grace thinks a lot about set design.Follow Grace on Twitter @grace_machineFollow Emma on Twitter @uofwhalesFollow the show @seasonsmoviepodPodcast art by Cecil Smith. Follow him on Instagram at @ cecil_smith_ Email us questions at seasonspod@gmail.com Next movie is Salt of the Earth

To start off our season about work and labor, we watched the 1936 Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times. By leaning into artifice and exaggeration, the movie is able to highlight the very real issues of its day (and ours). Grace notices the oppressive authority of sound, Emma notices a certain lack of shoes, and we both display an incomplete knowledge of how cocaine works. Get comfy and settle in for a piece of “communist propaganda” that yearns for the middle-class dream and that we both absolutely adored.

Follow Grace on Twitter @grace_machineFollow Emma on Twitter @uofwhalesFollow the show @seasonsmoviepod
Podcast art by Cecil Smith. Follow him on Instagram at @ cecil_smith_
Email us questions at seasonspod@gmail.com
Next movie is How Green Was My Valley