Watch This With Rick Ramos

Inventing the Past; Creating the Future; Controlling the Present - George Orwell's 1984 & V for Vendetta On this week's cinematic adventure, Mr. Chavez & I sit down and continue our stroll through Politics, exploring cinema as a way of better understanding this strange and dangerous world. This week we take a look at one of the great works of literature, George Orwell's 1948 masterpiece 1984 . Thi...

"There's Nothing As Trustworthy . . . As The Ordinary Mind-Of The Ordinary Man" - Lonesome Rhodes November Goddammit! We're starting our dive into politics with one of the greatest looks into the media end of the political system - The Elia Kazan directed, Bud Schulberg scripted 1957 Classic    A Face in the Crowd . This is an incredibly important film that feels essential to our understanding of...

"Made me from dead. I love dead . . . hate living." On this week's episode of WatchThis W/Rickramos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss one of the great stories of cinema, the James Whale directed Fankenstein (1931) & The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The legend of Baron Victor (Henry in the original film) Frankenstein has enraptured audiences since it's first publication as Frankenstein, or The Mode...

There Are Things to Fear - Ten Horror Films to Go Back to On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Mr. Chavez is absent so Mr. Ramos is forced to fly solo and talk "Ten Films That Continue to Scare the Hell Out of Him". Horror, Serial Killers, Thrillers, Chillers, Chainsaws, Sideshows, Monsters & Mad Scientists . . . the Horror Genre has never been one to shy away from doing what is necess...

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - Is a Scare Ever Really Just a Scare?  On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to talk one of the great films of Modern Horror Cinema - Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining (1980). It's important to recognize Stephen King's role in this film. So often Kubrick is given sole credit for all that is on screen. Even if K...

A Modern-Day Ghost Story - John Carpenter's: The Fog On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I return to one of the great filmmakers of the 70's & 80's and a Master of the Horror Genre . . . John Carpenter's The Fog. This is a film that neither of your reviewers had seen before this episode. With the power of Carpenter's surrounding filmography, there are certainly expectations...

The Nostalgia of Scares - George A. Romero & Stephen King Come Together For Creepshow On this first episode of October, Mr. Chavez & I celebrate the Halloween season by looking back at a classic of our mutual childhoods . . . 1982's Horror Anthology, Creephshow . A Dream Team collaboration between two of the biggest names in Horror - From the Page: Stephen King; From the Screen: George A. Romero....

Lies & Paranoia/Fact & Conspiracy: 9/11 and the Mysteries of Truth On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Mr. Chavez and I sit down to continue discussing the wave of documentaries that flooded social media after the September 11th Attacks. On this episode we look at documentaries that examine the attacks from multiple societal angles and discuss their virtues and faults. We profile Dani...

A Master is Gone - Remembering Michael Chapman (November 21, 1935 - September 20, 2020) The great cinematographer Michael Chapman has passed away at the age of 84. Join me on this solo episode where I pay tribute to the man who lensed Hal Ashby's The Last Detail (1973), Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Carl Reiner's Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) & The Man with Two Brains...

When It All Changed - Remembering September 11th - WatchThis W/RickRamos On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss the 19 year anniversary of the September 11th attacks which took the lives of nearly 3,000 people. We give our own recollections of that day as well as discuss the movies that depict these events and were inspired by that day. We discuss Oliver S...

Evil Hides in Plain Sight - Tim Roth's The War Zone On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, I welcome Mr. Chavez back to the podcast to discuss one of the most unjustly overlooked films of the 1990's - TimRoth's look at a family slowly disintegrating. Featuring a cast led by Ray Winston as Dad, Tilda Swinton as Mum, and Lara Belmont and Freddie Cunlieffe as their teenage kids. We can't sa...

Painting with Light - The Art of John Alton On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos I go solo to talk one of the greatest cinematographers the industry has ever known - John Alton. Looking at three of his classic Noir films- T-Men (1947), and Raw Deal & He Walked By Night (Both 1948), I break down what is truly great about Film Noir. The magic of smoke, fog, shadows, and - especially - Bla...

" It's like weighing air . . . " - Wayne Wang & Paul Auster's Smoke & Blue in the Face On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss a forgotten classic of 90's Independent Cinema, Director Wayne Wang and Writer and Co-Director, Paul Auster's Smoke - a beautifully nuanced look at the inhabitants of a Brooklyn neighborhood and the cigar shop that so many of them c...

The Power of Soul - Alan Parker's The Commitments On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos I go solo to remember the late English filmmaker Alan Parker who passed away this July 31st at the age of 76. With a filmmaking career that begin in the early 1970's, Parker would be a force in cinema for nearly a quarter of a century. He created such exemplary films as Bugsy Malone (1976), Midnight E...

Coffee & Cigarettes & Conversation: Jim Jarmusch's Coffee & Cigarettes (1986 - 2004) On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss That Poet of Independent Cinema Jim Jarmusch. In 1986 Jarmusch began shooting a series of short films that would ultimately evolve into eleven films all centered around the cultural staple of Coffee & Cigarettes . Featuring Roberto Be...

Always The Last to Know: Gene Hackman as Harry Moseby in Arthur Penn's Night Moves (1975) Take a listen as Rick Ramos flies solo to talk Gene Hackman in Arthur Penn's classic Neo-Noir Thriller Night Moves (1975). A bravado showcase for Gene Hackman's subtlety. It is exactly this type of performance that has flown Hackman under the radar of great actors for so many decades. Never given the recognit...

My Dark Places - Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place ( 1950) On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, I go solo to give my opinions on Nicholas Ray's touching and tragic In a Lonely Place (1950) with a character-defining performance by the iconic Humprhey Bogart. With a supporting performance from Academy Award winning actress Gloria Grahame (The Bold & the Beautiful - Brilliant!), Ray's film...

Nineteen-Eighty-Four & A Half:  Terry Gilliam's Brazil  On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss Terry Gilliam's masterful take on Totalitarian Rule and Orwellian Dystopia in 1985's Brazil. Featuring a great lead role by character actor Jonathan Pryce and a wonderful supporting cast including: Katherine Helmond, Jim Broadbent, Charles McKeown, Kim Greist, Ia...

Addio Maestro: Ennio Morricone (November 10, 1928 - July 06, 2020) On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to talk the passing of a giant in the world of cinema - Ennio Morricone. From his genre-defining work with Italian director Sergio Leone in A Fistful of Dollars , A Few Dollars More , The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly , as well as Once Upon a Time in the West and Onc...

" We Gotta Eat Away At Ourselves " - Bad Lieutenant & Uncut Gems This week on WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I jump back into The Darkness with a look at Excess and Addiction in two great performances, Harvey Keitel playing the titular character in Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (1992) and Adam Sandler in The Safdie Brothers' Uncut Gems (2019). Two of the most powerful depictions of addiction and...

" If it bleeds . . . we can kill it. " - The Predator Saga On this episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I have a fun time sitting down to discuss one of the great movie monsters in cinema history. - Predator . After a rocky start (replacing Jean Claude Van Damme in a rubber suit) the great Stan Winston was given the opportunity to create a classic of make-up and animatronics. A character th...

" Have Fun Stormin' The Castle. " - The Beauty, Humor, & Magic of Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to talk one of the great fantasy/adventure/comedies in all of cinema (and certainly the best of the 1980's) - Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride (1987). A film that displays romance, comedy, action,  a princess (Robin Wright), an over-...

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same - John Carpenter's Escape From New York/Escape From LA On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss a favorite - "Snake" Plissken in John Carpenter's Escape From New York (1981) & Escape From LA . A classic action hero, Kurt Russell and Carpenter (with co-writer Nick Castle) created one of the greatest cinema h...

Black Man's Burden: The Vietnam War - A Spike Lee Joint On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I dive into Netflix to look at Spike Lee's newest - Da 5 Bloods . Featuring Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock, Norm Lewis, Jean Reno, Jonathan Majors, with Chadwick Boseman, and an Oscar caliber Delroy Lindo. One of only two films that we can think of that looks at the African-American ex...

This is America - Los Angeles Burns: 1965/1992/2020 On this week's episode of WatchThis W/RickRamos, Ibrahim & I sit down to discuss the current social and political climate as well as how it's only more of the same. To do this right we take a look at two documentaries L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later (2017) & LA '92 (2013). From a narrative vantage we discuss Ron Shelton's Dark Blue (2002)...