We finish our Terry Gilliam miniseries by discussing Tideland, The Legend of Hallowdega, The Wholly Family, The Zero Theorem, and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

Every week David and Dean search for the best pair of films for their double feature picture show.  

This week on the double feature there are interdimensional bureaucrats, the face of god, and Brad Pitt's sweet cheeks, and much more.    

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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, Ian Holm, Peter Vaughn, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, and Robert DeNiro (in one of his earliest cameo performances). From the struggles in getting it made, the brilliance of what was created, and the subsequent attempts by Universal Studios (specifically President & CEO, Sid Sheinberg) to wrestle the film from Gilliam and shape it into a more palatable and audience-friendly product. 

This was a great discussion between someone who loves the film and has seen it numerous times and someone who is viewing it for the very first time. Take a listen and let us know if you have us much fun listening as we had in discussing it. Questions, Comments, Complaints, & Suggestions can be directed to gondoramos@yahoo.com. Our Continued Love & Thanks. 

[From February through March 22, 2020 (his last day hosting Think Again) Jason will be revisiting favorite past episodes. Jason's new show, starting May 12th, is Clever Creature with Jason Gots.]

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Faith in anything is its own special form of madness.

It’s a challenge to entropy, and entropy takes no challenge lightly. If there’s any better metaphor for this struggle than trying to make a big budget movie with even a shred of integrity, I haven’t found it.

On the one hand, you’ve got this impossible dream. This faith in the beautiful thing that’s supposed to emerge at at the end of the process. On the other hand, the process is a hellish sausage-making machine of studio bosses, financing, and acts of god like four days of flash flooding in the middle of your big shoot. You might as well be Don Quixote, doing battle with a windmill.

What kind of masochist would put themselves through that?

My guest today, Terry Gilliam, is that very masochist. And we should be grateful, because his stomach for the fight has given us movies like THE FISHER KING, BRAZIL, 12 MONKEYS and MONTY PYTHON’s THE LIFE OF BRIAN. And now, almost 30 years after his first, biblically disastrous attempt to make it, THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE. Starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce, the movie is as funny, thrilling, and unpretentiously deep as the best of Gilliam’s work. It’s also kind of like one of those Russian matryoshka dolls: a film inside a film inside a film, all of them metaphors for the holy folly of believing in anything at all.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is out April 19th in select theaters and on demand video.

Surprise conversation starters in this episode:

Michelle Thaller on whether time is real or an illusion

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This week Rick and Patrick are joined by former Sound on Sight/Sordid Cinema Podcast co-host Simon Howell to talk about Terry Gilliam’s 1985 ambitious dark satire, Brazil. From its incredible vision and art design to the cavalcade of quirky supporting performances by the likes of Robert De Niro, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, and Jim Broadbent (among others), there’s plenty to gush over. Sure, the romantic subplot is a bit of a dud (despite some Freudian overtones), but Gilliam’s story of a low-level government employee who meets the literal girl of his dreams while trying to escape a monotonous life of over-complicated machinery and stacks of paperwork resulting from a totalitarian authority is still just as potent and refreshingly unique today as it was back then.

Join us as we discuss just what makes Brazil so special even to this day, marvel over the inventive and often seamless practical effects, suggest some alternative ways to implement the character of Jill Layton, and rank where this entry stands in Gilliam’s filmography. For those dreaming of movies that escape the standard story formula and aesthetic, it doesn’t get much better than this. Have a listen!