We've all seen a hero rise, but what happens when their ascent is built on a foundation of loss? El Mariachi's story in 'Desperado' is a masterclass in the tragic hero archetype. Join us as we dissect his gripping evolution from a dreamer with a guitar to a vengeance-fueled legend, and uncover the heartbreaking truth behind his iconic journey.

Desperado is a 1995 American neo-Western action film written, co-produced, edited, and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is the second part of Rodriguez's Mexico Trilogy. It stars Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi, who seeks revenge on the drug lord who killed his lover. The film was screened out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. Desperado grossed $58 million worldwide, and received mixed to positive reviews. Co-starring Salma Hayek, it has been cited as her breakout role in anglophonic American film

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The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 reboot of the legendary character Zorro for the modern day. The Mask of Zorro places Antonio Banderas as the titular character mentored by Sir. Anthony Hopkins. A wild and adventurous ride for sure!

The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American Western swashbuckler film based on the fictional character Zorro by Johnston McCulley. Directed by Martin Campbell from a screenplay by John Eskow, Ted Elliott, and Terry Rossio, it stars Antonio Banderas in the main role, with Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson co-starring in supporting roles. The film features the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega (Hopkins), escaping from prison to find his long-lost daughter (Zeta-Jones) and avenge the death of his wife at the hands of the corrupt governor Rafael Montero (Wilson). He is aided by his successor (Banderas), who is pursuing his own vendetta against the governor's right-hand man while falling in love with de la Vega's daughter.

Executive producer Steven Spielberg had initially developed the film for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez, before Campbell signed on in 1996. Salomon cast Sean Connery as Don Diego de la Vega, while Rodriguez brought Banderas in the lead role. Connery dropped out and was replaced with Hopkins, and The Mask of Zorro began filming in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, Mexico.

The Mask of Zorro was released in the United States on July 17, 1998, to critical and commercial success, grossing $250.3 million against a $95 million budget. The film was nominated for two awards at the 71st Academy Awards, and two awards at the 56th Golden Globe Awards. A sequel, The Legend of Zorro, also starring Banderas and Zeta-Jones and directed by Campbell, was released in 2005, but did not fare as well as its predecessor.

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We join the trend of Letterboxd's top four movies of all time. CheeseFilm, Hecubus and Randy all discuss their top four movies of all time. Some are classics, some are underrated treasures but all are great in our opinion.

We encourage each and every single filmbro\ciniephile\movie lover to join in the conversation. This podcast wasfounded on the grounds of spreading love for movies of all quality and genera,to promote the film industry and the smaller love letters to the art of moviemaking. Please join us here and on all social media platforms and spread the positiveside of the film community. Spread the creativity. Spread the voices ofartists and the passion behind the canvas!

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What do you get when you combine one of the most outlandish actors with the most outlandish directors? You get Wild at Heart. A David Lynch movie starring Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern that is guaranteed to keep you questioning how this is a romantic crime drama.

Wild at Heart is a 1990 American black comedy romantic crime drama thriller film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Barry Gifford. Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe, Crispin Glover, Diane Ladd, Isabella Rossellini, and Harry Dean Stanton, the film follows Sailor Ripley and Lula Fortune, a young couple who go on the run from Lula's domineering mother and the criminals she hires to kill Sailor.

Lynch intended only to produce the film, but after reading Gifford's book, he decided to write and direct it as well. He disliked the ending of the novel and decided to change it to fit his vision of the main characters. The film is noted for its allusions to The Wizard of Oz and Elvis Presley. Early test screenings for the film were poorly received, with Lynch estimating that at least 300 people walked out due to its sexual and violent content.

Wild at Heart won the Palme d'Or at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, which at the time was considered a controversial decision. The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 17, 1990, to polarized reviews from critics and grossed $14 million against its $10 million budget. At the 6th Independent Spirit Awards, Dafoe was nominated for Best Supporting Male and Elmes won for Best Cinematography. Ladd was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture at the 63rd Academy Awards and the 48th Golden Globe Awards, respectively. The film has been positively reevaluated by critics in the years since its release.

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Dancer in the Dark is a 2000 musical psychological tragedy film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It stars Icelandic musician Björk as a factory worker who suffers from a degenerative eye condition and is saving for an operation to prevent her young son from suffering the same fate. Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Cara Seymour, Peter Stormare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Joel Grey also star. The soundtrack for the film, Selmasongs, was written mainly by Björk, but a number of songs featured contributions from Mark Bell and some of the lyrics were written by von Trier and Sjón.Dancer in the Dark is the third and final installment in von Trier's second trilogy "Golden Heart", following Breaking the Waves (1996) and The Idiots (1998). It was an international co-production among companies based in thirteen European and North American countries and regions.[9] Like the first installment, it was shot with a handheld camera inspired by Dogme 95.Dancer in the Dark premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and won the Palme d'Or, along with the Best Actress Award for Björk. The film received generally positive reviews, with Björk's performance being widely praised.The song "I've Seen It All" performed and co-written by Björk, with Sjón and von Trier, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "Things Have Changed" by Bob Dylan from Wonder Boys.Check out or Merch! https://grindhouse-merch.printify.me/ Watch Last Weeks Episode! https://youtu.be/v-DApH-SJ5AFacebook @thegrindhousepodcast Instagram @thegrindhousepodcast

A Science Fiction movie featuring the mighty USS Nimitz and real workings of an Aircraft Carrier. The Final Countdown joins us in a more grounded take on a science fiction story.

The Final Countdown is a 1980 American science fiction war film about a modern, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. It was produced by Peter Douglas and Lloyd Kaufman (founder of Troma Entertainment) and was the last film directed by Don Taylor; Kaufman also had a minor acting role. The film contains an ensemble cast starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katharine Ross, Ron O'Neal, and Charles Durning.

The film was produced with the cooperation of the United States Navy's naval aviation branch and the United States Department of Defense. It was set and filmed on board USS Nimitz (CVN-68), filming operations of the modern, nuclear warship, which had been launched in the early 1970s. The Final Countdown received mixed reviews from critics, however, it was a moderate success at the box office.

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The sequel to the story Bakshi told, Rankin and Bass came in to finish the story of The Lord of the Rings! Having already done The Hobbit, it came all too natural for the pair! The Return of the King (also known as The Return of the King: A Story of the Hobbits) is a 1980 American-Japanese animated musical fantasy television film created by Rankin/Bass and Topcraft. It is an adaptation of part of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1955 high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. It takes its name from The Return of the King, the third and final volume of the novel, and is a sequel to the 1977 film The Hobbit. The first two parts of Tolkien's story, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, are not covered in this release and are only briefly summarized at the beginning of the movie (the also animated The Lord of the Rings film by Ralph Bakshi from 1978 is an unrelated project, although the two were later marketed together by Warner Bros.).The special aired on ABC on Sunday, May 11, 1980 after a legal challenge filed by the Tolkien Estate and Fantasy Films was settled. Both critics and fans gave The Return of the King a lukewarm welcome.Check out or Merch! https://grindhouse-merch.printify.me/ Watch Last Weeks Episode! https://youtu.be/pZlkcv9rHRU Facebook @thegrindhousepodcast Instagram @thegrindhousepodcast TikTok @thegrindhousepodcast Check out New Episodes Every Saturday At 3:00pm EST

The first ever depiction of the amazing world of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ralf Bakshi creates an enchanting world surrounded by The evil of Sauron! Can the Fellowship bring the ring back to Mount Doom? Will the powers of evil stop our hero's? All this and more only here on, The Gringhouse Podcast!The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 animated epic fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi from a screenplay by Chris Conkling and Peter S. Beagle. It is based on the novel of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien, adapting from the volumes The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers.[6] Set in Middle-earth, the film follows a group of fantasy races—Hobbits, Men, an Elf, a Dwarf and a wizard—who form a fellowship to destroy a magical ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron, the main antagonist.Bakshi encountered Tolkien's writing early in his career. He had made several attempts to produce The Lord of the Rings as an animated film before producer Saul Zaentz and distributor United Artists provided funding. The film is notable for its extensive use of rotoscoping, a technique in which scenes are first shot in live-action, then traced onto animation cels. It uses a hybrid of traditional cel animation and rotoscoped live-action footage.The Lord of the Rings was released in the United States on November 15, 1978, and in the United Kingdom on July 5, 1979. Although the film received mixed reviews from critics, and hostility from disappointed viewers who felt that it was incomplete, it was a financial success. There was no official sequel to cover the remainder of the story. However, the film has retained a cult following and was a major inspiration for New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson.Check out or Merch! https://grindhouse-merch.printify.me/ Watch Last Weeks Episode! https://youtu.be/pZlkcv9rHRU Facebook @thegrindhousepodcast Instagram @thegrindhousepodcast TikTok @thegrindhousepodcast Check out New Episodes Every Saturday At 3:00pm EST

The sequel to one of the most influential movies made. A movie that fights for civil rights and equality. A movie that to this day is still as relevant. This is the sequel of Night of the Living Dead Return of the Living Dead! A less serious and more comedic take on the zombie apocalypse, Return of the Living dead Stays one of the most popular cult classics to this day!

The Return of the Living Dead is a 1985 American comedy horror film written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (in his directorial debut) from a story by Rudy Ricci, John Russo, and Russell Streiner, and starring Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Mathews, and Don Calfa. The film tells the story of how a warehouse owner, accompanied by his two employees, mortician friend and a group of teenage punks, deal with the accidental release of a horde of unkillable, brain-hungry zombies onto an unsuspecting town.

The film, described as a "mordant punk comedy," is known for introducing multiple popular concepts to the zombie genre: zombies eating specifically brains, as opposed to eating any form of human flesh; and zombies being invulnerable to a gunshot to the head. Additionally, the film's soundtrack was noteworthy, as it featured several Los Angeles-based deathrock and punk rock bands of the era.

The Return of the Living Dead released in the United States on August 16, 1985, by Orion Pictures. The film received critical acclaim and performed moderately well at the box office. It spawned five sequels, the sixth film being the direct sequel to the original, ignoring the sequels' continuity and scheduled for release Christmas 2025, with the trailer revealing The Tarman dragging a Christmas tree through what is determined to either be snow, or nuclear ash from the bombing at the end of the first film. An upcoming seventh film in the series has also been announced, entitled "Trash's Revenge".

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Before there was a Spiderman Trilogy, Before Doctor Strange 2, There was a little indie movie shot right here in Tennessee. The Evil Dead re-sparked the zombie/Demond trope in Hollywood. Written and Directed by Sam Raimi, and toted as one of the scariest movies of all time, The Evil Dead found its audience in all of us dirty and grimy film fans! 

The Evil Dead is a 1981 American independent supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi (in his feature directorial debut). The film stars Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly as five college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in the woods, where they find an audio tape that, when played, releases a legion of demons and spirits. Four members of the group suffer from demonic possession, forcing the fifth member, Ash Williams (Campbell), to survive an onslaught of increasingly gory mayhem.

Raimi, Campbell, producer Robert G. Tapert, and their friends produced the 1978 short film Within the Woods as a proof of concept to build the interest of potential investors, which secured US$90,000 to begin work on The Evil Dead. Principal photography took place on location in a remote cabin in Morristown, Tennessee, in a filming process that proved extremely uncomfortable for the cast and crew. The film's extensive prosthetic makeup and stop-motion effects were created by artist Tom Sullivan. The completed film had its first, private screening for friends and family at the Redford Theatre in Detroit on October 15, 1981, which attracted the interest of producer Irvin Shapiro, who helped screen the film at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. Horror author Stephen King gave a rave review of the film, which resulted in New Line Cinema acquiring its distribution rights and giving it a wide theatrical release on April 15, 1983.

The Evil Dead grossed $2.4 million in the United States and $27 million overseas, for a worldwide gross of $29.4 million. Both early and later critical reception were universally positive; in the years since its release, the film has developed a reputation as one of the most significant cult classics, having been cited among the greatest horror films of all time, and one of the most successful independent films. It launched the careers of Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell, who have continued to collaborate on several films together, such as Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.

The Evil Dead spawned a media franchise, beginning with two direct sequels written and directed by Raimi, Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992), a fourth film, Evil Dead (2013), which serves as a soft reboot and continuation, a follow-up television series, Ash vs Evil Dead, which aired from 2015 to 2018, and a fifth film, Evil Dead Rise (2023); the franchise also includes video games and comic books. The film's protagonist Ash Williams is considered to be a cultural icon.

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