Watch This With Rick Ramos

A Humanistic Pairing: Harrison Ford & Peter Weir ( Witness and The Mosquito Coast )  Join me as we close out our Harrison Ford Tribute (tribute?) with a look at two exceptional Ford performances (one of which is his only Oscar nomination), 1985s Witness   and 1986s The Mosquito Coast .  In the first film a seemingly typical Ford character, Philadelphia Detective John Book finds himself protecting...

Indiana Jones: The Making of a Hero  This week Ibrahim & I continue to look at the world of Indiana Jones, first profiled in Raiders of the Lost Ark  (1981) and continued with  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade  (1989), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull  (2008), and  Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny (2023). On this episode Mr. Chavez...

Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark This week Mr. Chavez & I continue our look at one of the great cinematic heroes, The George Lucas/Steven Spielberg imagined, Harrison Ford realized Indiana Jones. For over forty years, five films (as well as novelizations, comic books, and a television show - which we will not be getting into) and countless adventures searching for historical, religious, and...

Yesterday Belongs to Us: Indiana Jones & The Dial of Destiny  This week Mr. Chavez & I welcome the return of Henry Walton Jones, Jr. better known as "Indiana" Jones. Fifteen years since  Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and 34 years since  The Last Crusade , Jones (the 80 years old Harrison Ford) is back in - possibly - his greatest role. James Mangold ( Walk the Line  and  Logan ) takes over directin...

Hidden in the Mind: Ken Russell's  Altered States  This week Mr. Chavez and I continue our exploration of mind-altering narratives with a look at Ken Russell's 1980 Hollywood debut,  Altered States .  While not a completely successful film, there are elements here that force the audience to look deeper into the subject of sensory deprivation, isolation tanks, hallucinogenic drugs and the controver...

The Suffering in Between: Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder This week Ibrahim & I continue looking into the world of challenging and painful cinema. In 1990 Adrian Lyne directed Bruce Joel Rubin's  screenplay (considered one of the great unfilmed screenplays for the ten years before the production) of  Jacob's Ladder (Rubin would also write that year's Ghost ). Filled with troubling imagery and an argu...

Tokyo Book of the Dead: Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void   This week Mr. Chavez and I examine the work of a controversial and polarizing director, Gaspar Noé. Noé made headlines in the early 2000s with  Irreversible , a film that continues to upset audiences and challenges filmmaking conventions. With  Enter the Void (2009),   Noé doubled down and created a film that divided critics calling it both "ca...

A Little Girl's Dream:   Terry Gilliam's  Tideland Troubled throughout his career for circumstances - oftentimes - beyond his control (inadequate budgets -  Munchausen , studio interference -  Brazil  and  The Brothers Grimm , flash floods -  Quixote , and death -  Parnassus ), Terry Gilliam has somehow been able to create some of the most incredible images ever committed to the big screen. From t...

Anti-Sci-Fi: Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris   This week Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss a film widely-heralded as a masterpiece of Science Fiction Cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris . In previous episodes, Ibrahim and I have discussed the brilliance of Tarkovsky's  Mirror   and  Stalker . Here we struggle to understand and critique a film (widely recognized as brilliant) that simply doesn't come toget...

Way of Nature, Way of Grace: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life  One of the greatest films ever commited to celluloid . . . Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life.  This is simply the greatest film about childhood; beautifully photographed, honestly acted, and briliantly realized, Malick is a true visionary whose five films up to this point (2011) are all considered spiritual, poetic, and beautiful. ...

Donkey Variations: Jerzy Skolimowski's EO This week Mr. Chavez and I travel to Cinematic Poland for Jerzy Skolimowski's EO - a beautiful and touching examination of the world through a donkey's eyes. Pain, Suffering, Beauty, and Resilience inspired by Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar , but with a modern vision. This is an inspired piece of cinema, one that Ibrahim and I are thrilled to introduce to y...

Virtual Girl & Sad Boy: Spike Jonez's Her On this week's episode, Mr. Chavez & I sit down to discuss Spike Jonez's  Her , a film particularly important and reflective of these times. With beautiful cinematography from Dutch/Swedish cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, and featuring touching performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, and the voice of Samantha - Scarlett Johansson, Jo...

Beast of Burden: Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar - WatchThis W/RickRamos  This week finds Mr. Chavez and myself continuing our dive into films with great reputations and few viewings. Bresson's 1966 French Classic, Au Hasard Balthazar , looks at life through the eyes of a donkey as it moves through the world being loved, abused, championed, worked, and - finally - sacrificed. A touching and b...

A New Kind of Forgotten Western - Sam Raimi's  The Quick & the Dead This week Mr. Chavez continues to travel and I continue my exploration into the vast number of films that I've somehow missed in this lifetime. There are quite a few films on this list and this podcast allows me the opportunity to watch them and assess their value. This week's choice is the 1995 Sam Raimi-directed, Sharon Stone le...

Loser Row - David Mamet's American Buffalo  This week I go it alone to ramble on about losers, warped friendships, bad ideas, and hopelessness in David Mamet's 1975 play to 1996 film adaptation, American Buffalo. A three man showcase for Dennis Franz (Donny), Dustin Hoffman (Teach), and Sean Nelson (Bobby) in an angry portrait of loses who have no idea how desperate and ridiculous their ideas are....

"I Know You're There . . . " - Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire Ibrahim and I continue our dive into foreign, arthouse, and obscure films with this examination of Wim Wenders's 1987 cinematic elegy to angels, poetry, sacrifice, and love. With beautiful performances from Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Solveig Dommartin, and Peter Falk, Wings of Desire is a powerful, romantic, and inspiring film that leaves...

City of Solitude - Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels In the very late 80s and early 1990s, Hong Kong Cinema was evolving from the wuxia epic swordplay films of the Shaw Brothers, Bruce Lee's explosion and evolution into Jackie Chan's Golden Harvest heyday, John Woo's police and crime epics, and the emergence of Wong Kar-wai - a director of intense visual and thematic beauty. This week Ibrahim & I discu...

In Search of Goosebumps  Last week we looked at Rick Ramos, this week Mr. Chavez takes center stage, diving into the myriad influences that have created Ibrahim Chavez. Take a listen as we dig into Mr. Chavez's psyche and memories to understand him just a bit better. It's a hell of a fun conversation. We hope you enjoy.  Questions, Comments, Complaints, & Suggestions can be directed to gondoramos@...

Defining Rick Ramos  The Self-Indulgence is strong in this episode as Mr. Chavez and I break down our lives in movies over the next two episodes. From The Blues Brothers through Unforgiven and the concert films of George Carlin, it's a fun trip through the psychology of a movie lover. Take a listen; it's a fun conversation.  Questions, Comments, Complaints, and Suggestions can be directed to gondo...

Three Auteurs: DePalma , Friedkin Uncut , and by Sidney Lumet  When you have these three names there's little else that needs to be said. Take a listen as Mr. Chavez & I look at the careers and brilliance of three 1970s names that are sometimes left in the shadows of Scorsese, Spielberg, and Coppola - Brian DePalma, William Friedkin, and Sidney Lumet. It's a fun talk. We hope you enjoy it.  Questi...

A Dish Served Cold: Mark Mylod's The Menu  This week Ibrahim & I sit down to talk a film that has recently left theatres, Mark Mylod's The Menu . Featuring a wonderful slumming performance from Ralph Fiennes and a captivating Anya Taylor-Joy (both Golden Globe nominated), this film is the very definition of empty calorie cinema. Ibrahim & I differ greatly in our opinions of this film, but we had f...

The Colonel and The King - Baz Luhrman's Elvis  This week Ibrahim and I sit down to discuss the Academy Award nominated, Baz Luhrman directed, Elvis Presley Bio-Pic, Elvis . Definitely a visual assault on the senses, Luhrman has an incredible eye that re-creates the country from the 1950s thru the birth of the Vegas Lounge Act in the 1970s. Featuring an award-winning performance from star, Austin...

Monster Hunter - Todd Field's TÁR - WatchThis W/RickRamos  This week Mr. Chavez & I sit down to talk Academy Best Picture Contender, Tár, featuring a stand-out performance from Cate Blanchett. This is the kind of picture we only ever get to see at awards season. In a cinematic world filled with remakes, re-hashes, and action tent-poles, Tár delivers a wonderfully nuanced and brutal honest examinat...

Blue Dances with Wolves - James Cameron's  Avatar Films  In 2009 James Cameron took old soup and re-heated it in a familiar bowl. Equal parts Lawrence of Arabia , The Last Samurai , and (most glaringly) Kevin Costner's revisionist Western, Dances with Wolves , Cameron has gone back to the well-worn tradition of re-imagining Native Cultures, Colonialism, and the Trope of the White Saviour. This is...

Eating Images: Jordan Peele's Nope  On this episode, Mr. Chavez & I sit down to discuss one of the best directors to emerge from the late 2010s into the early 2020s, Jordan Peele. With three films under his belt, 2017s  Get Out ,  2019s  Us , and his latest - 2022s  Nope , Peele has established himself as one of the most creative and compelling voices in today's cinema. His films challenge convent...