Podcast Like It’s …
NewThe Golden Compass with Joanna Robinson and Chris Weitz
- Episodes
- 601
- Released
- weekly
- Latest episode
- Nov 13, 2026
About the podcast
Through Podcast Like It's... writers Phillip Iscove (Co-Creator of FOX's Sleepy Hollow), Kenny Neibart (Entourage, Hindsight) and now Emily St. James explore some of the best years in film, music and television. It all started in 1999, then 1989, then 2009 and now 1992! Follow Phil, Kenny and Emily as they dive into some of your favorite movies, TV shows and musicians!
Episodes 601
The Golden Compass with Joanna Robinson and Chris Weitz
Phil and Emily are joined by Ringer podcaster and cultural critic Joanna Robinson (House of R, The Prestige TV Podcast) to continue their 2000s YA fantasy miniseries with Chris Weitz's The Golden Compass …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Ringer podcaster and cultural critic Joanna Robinson (House of R, The Prestige TV Podcast) to continue their 2000s YA fantasy miniseries with Chris Weitz's The Golden Compass (2007). Dakota Blue Richards plays Lyra, a girl who sets off for the far north to find kidnapped children, with Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Coulter), Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel), Eva Green, Sam Elliott, and Ian McKellen as a very large armored polar bear along for the ride. It was New Line's big swing at the next Lord of the Rings, and it opened against Enchanted and No Country for Old Men.
The three dig into the Philip Pullman books, the ending the studio cut (the one Emily can't stop thinking about), the religious right boycott, Tom Stoppard's rejected script, and how much better the His Dark Materials TV show handled it all. Daemons, polar bears, and a visual effects Oscar all make an appearance. There's a real case here for reading The Golden Compass as better than its reputation and still a casualty of a studio that lost its nerve and cut the one ending that would have made the story matter. Handsome, hobbled, and weirdly watchable same as the movie.
Stick around after the sign-off for a bonus conversation with the man himself. Chris Weitz wrote and directed the film, and he talks about how he found Pullman's books in the first place and what it was like to look back on making the movie.
Follow the show & guests:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Joanna Robinson - https://www.instagram.com/jowrotethis
Chris Weitz - https://www.instagram.com/weitz_chris
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits119: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with Patrick Cotnoir
Phil and Emily are joined by Hey, That's Me co-host and George Lucas Talk Show producer Patrick Cotnoir to kick off a brand new 2000s YA fantasy miniseries with Brad Silberling's Lemony Snicket's A Series of …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Hey, That's Me co-host and George Lucas Talk Show producer Patrick Cotnoir to kick off a brand new 2000s YA fantasy miniseries with Brad Silberling's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). Jim Carrey (as Count Olaf, in three different disguises) tries to get his hands on the fortune of three newly orphaned Baudelaires (Emily Browning, Liam Aiken, and a very bitey baby), while Meryl Streep and Billy Connolly play the guardians he keeps showing up to ruin. It opened against Ocean's Twelve and The Polar Express, and it never found the legs a Christmas movie needs.
The three dig into why the books worked for seven year olds, the Daniel Handler of it all, and the directors who almost made this movie (Barry Sonnenfeld, Tim Burton with Johnny Depp, and the wild-card names Terry Gilliam and Guy Maddin). They also get into the Netflix show, three books crammed into one script, Carrey's improv, and the stacked Sleepy Hollow crew behind the camera. There's a real case here for reading A Series of Unfortunate Events as a gorgeous set of dark ideas that needed a director who could find the dial for them. Gorgeous, overstuffed, and never quite scary same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Patrick Cotnoir - https://www.instagram.com/cotnoirHellboy II: The Golden Army with Amelia Emberwing
Phil and Emily are joined by entertainment journalist, critic, and editor Amelia Emberwing to wrap up their Guillermo del Toro mini series with Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). Ron Perlman's red-skinned …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by entertainment journalist, critic, and editor Amelia Emberwing to wrap up their Guillermo del Toro mini series with Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). Ron Perlman's red-skinned demon (with Selma Blair and Doug Jones as Liz and Abe) goes up against an elven prince (Luke Goss) who wants to wake an unstoppable mechanical army and end the truce between humans and everything that lives in the shadows. It's bigger, stranger, and a lot more crowded with trolls, fairies, and tooth-hungry swarms than the first one, and it opened right into The Dark Knight.
The three dig into why these movies feel like a Hellboy comic instead of a Marvel or DC film, David Hyde Pierce as the voice of Abe Sapien (and what that says about Frasier fanfic), Luke Goss, the changing voice of Johann Krauss, and the one story beat they can't quite buy. VFX houses, wrestling, and a Lord of the Rings tangent all make an appearance. There's a real case here for reading The Golden Army as del Toro finally making it up to Abe Sapien. Loud, tender, and a little goofy same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Amelia Emberwing - https://www.instagram.com/thatwitchmia
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits117: Pan's Labyrinth with Sonia Saraiya
Phil and Emily are joined by critic Sonia Saraiya, back for the first time since Charlie Wilson's War, for Pan's Labyrinth (2006), the fourth stop in the October Guillermo del Toro mini-series. In 1944 Spain …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by critic Sonia Saraiya, back for the first time since Charlie Wilson's War, for Pan's Labyrinth (2006), the fourth stop in the October Guillermo del Toro mini-series. In 1944 Spain, eleven-year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) arrives at a rural outpost with her pregnant mother to live under Captain Vidal (Sergi López), a Francoist officer hunting the last Republican guerrillas, and finds a faun in the ruins who tells her she is a lost princess with three tasks to complete. It earned six Oscar nominations and won three, got four stars from Ebert and a 98 on Metacritic, and lost Best Foreign Language Film to The Lives of Others, which Phil is still relitigating.
The three dig into why Vidal works as a fairy-tale monster who happens to be a real fascist, the idea that fascism is itself a fairy tale about making the world what it "should" be, the Pale Man (Doug Jones under the most painful prosthetics of his career, and a critique of the Church del Toro has been explicit about), and the mandrake root as the film's whole thesis in one wriggling prop. Emily debuts her Oscar-nominated song "Monster With the Eyes in His Hands," Stephen King squirming in his seat gets ranked alongside the Oscar as del Toro's proudest moment, and the ending gets argued from both sides: is Ofelia going home to the underworld or dying in the dirt at peace with what she chose? There's a real case here for Pan's Labyrinth as the movie where everything del Toro tried in The Devil's Backbone finally lands at once. Brutal, tender, and certain the fairies are real. Same as the movie. Next week: Hellboy II.
Follow the show & guest:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Sonia Saraiya - https://www.instagram.com/soniasaraiya
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits116: Hellboy with Lin Codega
Phil and Emily are joined by author and journalist Lin Codega, co-founder of Rascal News, to continue their Guillermo del Toro mini series with Hellboy (2004). Ron Perlman plays a demon raised by the Bureau of …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by author and journalist Lin Codega, co-founder of Rascal News, to continue their Guillermo del Toro mini series with Hellboy (2004). Ron Perlman plays a demon raised by the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (John Hurt, Selma Blair, Rupert Evans, Jeffrey Tambor), and when Rasputin is dragged back from the dead to bring on the apocalypse, the world's most reluctant harbinger of doom has to decide who he wants to be. Doug Jones is Abe Sapien, and yes, the panel has opinions on that.
The three dig into steampunk and who it was really for, Abe Sapien's place in the del Toro monster-crush canon, and what 2004 casting could have made the love triangle work. Tom Hardy gets pitched. So does Noah Wyle. Tabletop games come up more than once, including the Hellboy-flavored RPG Apocalypse Keys. There's a real case here for reading Hellboy as a movie about a guy handed a destiny he decides to tear off along with his own horns. Weird, warm, and a little nerdy same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Lin Codega - https://www.instagram.com/lincodega115: Blade II with Roxana Hadadi
Phil and Emily are joined by Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi for the second stop in the October Guillermo del Toro mini-series, Blade II (2002). Wesley Snipes's half-vampire Daywalker teams up with the …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi for the second stop in the October Guillermo del Toro mini-series, Blade II (2002). Wesley Snipes's half-vampire Daywalker teams up with the Bloodpack, an elite vampire hit squad built to kill him (Ron Perlman and Donnie Yen among them), to hunt the Reapers, a mutant strain that feeds on vampires and humans alike. It opened March 22, 2002 against Ice Age and the E.T. re-release, made $155 million on a $55 million budget, and got three and a half stars from Ebert, who called it a brilliant vomitorium of viscera.
The three dig into how del Toro took a David Goyer script and a New Line paycheck and used them to build the Reaper design that changed what a movie vampire's mouth could do, Snipes shooting three other movies during production so the crew shot around him with doubles and over-the-shoulder angles, the blood rave that opens the whole franchise's imagination, and why the Bloodpack getting wrecked is the most satisfying thing in the movie. Roxana makes the case that Luke Goss's Nomak is the hot vampire prince the genre owes her, the three poke at Ebert's soft spot for del Toro, and everyone agrees the last shot (sword, head, credits) is a flex. There's a real case here for Blade II as the movie where del Toro proved he could work inside the studio machine without filing down a single tooth. Gnarly, silly, and gorgeous about it. Same as the movie. Next week: Hellboy.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Roxana Hadadi - https://www.instagram.com/roxana.z.hadadi
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits114: The Devil's Backbone with Monica Castillo
Phil and Emily are joined by Monica Castillo, film critic for The A.V. Club, to open a Halloween-season mini-series on all five of Guillermo del Toro's 2000s films with The Devil's Backbone (2001). In the last …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Monica Castillo, film critic for The A.V. Club, to open a Halloween-season mini-series on all five of Guillermo del Toro's 2000s films with The Devil's Backbone (2001). In the last week of the Spanish Civil War, twelve-year-old Carlos is left at a remote orphanage run by Carmen (Marisa Paredes) and Dr. Casares (Federico Luppi), where an unexploded bomb sits in the courtyard, the groundskeeper Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) is hunting for hidden Republican gold, and a drowned boy named Santi is still whispering in the halls. It opened against Harry Potter and Monsters, Inc. and made $6.5 million on a $4.5 million budget, and Phil is watching it for the first time.
The three dig into why del Toro's ghosts are sad rather than shock machines (Ebert's line that ghosts should have their reasons comes up more than once), the Carlos-and-Santi chase at the midpoint as one of the scariest sequences in his whole filmography, and the film's argument that the real monster is the man with the keys, not the boy in the water. They also get into the limbo-water fetus jars, the 19th-century ghost story bones under the Civil War setting, and how this movie sets up Pan's Labyrinth five years early. There's a real case here for The Devil's Backbone as the purest version of what del Toro does: a haunting where the injustice is the point and the ghost is just asking for it to be seen. Mournful, beautiful, and quietly furious. Same as the movie. Next week: Blade II with Roxana Hadadi.
Follow the show & guest:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Monica Castillo - https://www.instagram.com/mcastimovies
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits113: Public Enemies with Blake Howard
Phil and Emily are joined by film journalist and podcaster Blake Howard (One Heat Minute Productions) to close out the 2000s Best Actress Oscar follow-ups mini-series with Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009) …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by film journalist and podcaster Blake Howard (One Heat Minute Productions) to close out the 2000s Best Actress Oscar follow-ups mini-series with Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009). Johnny Depp's John Dillinger robs Depression-era banks and romances Marion Cotillard's Billie Frechette while Christian Bale's Melvin Purvis and Billy Crudup's J. Edgar Hoover build the modern FBI around catching him. It opened July 3, 2009 against Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and made $214 million on a $100 million budget, and Phil, who left the theater disappointed that summer expecting Heat meets The Untouchables, has come all the way around on it.
The three dig into the early digital photography everyone hated in 2009 and why it plays so much better now that projectors can actually show it, Mann's refusal to sentimentalize his outlaw (Ebert's read that the movie shrugs off myth gets a workout), Bale's understated Purvis in the year after The Dark Knight, Crudup's version of Hoover as the guy who quietly wins the movie, and the Depp-and-Bale on-set story that may or may not have happened. Blake makes the case for Public Enemies as the best film in the whole mini-series, and Phil agrees, then ranks the whole run, from this one at the top down to Pay It Forward dead last. There's a real case here for Public Enemies as the Michael Mann movie that got caught between the audience he had and the one he was about to find. Cold, beautiful, and stubborn about it. Same as the movie.
Follow the show & guest:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits
Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove
Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams
Blake Howard - https://www.instagram.com/oneblakeminute
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits112: National Treasure: Book of Secrets with Emma Stefansky
Phil and Emily are joined by writer Emma Stefansky for Jon Turteltaub's National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007). Nicolas Cage's Ben Gates kidnaps the President (Bruce Greenwood) and chases a hidden city of …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by writer Emma Stefansky for Jon Turteltaub's National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007). Nicolas Cage's Ben Gates kidnaps the President (Bruce Greenwood) and chases a hidden city of gold to clear his great-great-grandfather's name in the Lincoln assassination. Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Jon Voight, Ed Harris, and a scene-stealing Helen Mirren carry her Queen Best Actress Oscar straight into big, dumb, wonderful blockbuster hokum.
The three dig into the Nic Cage escalation from the first film, the franchise's cheerfully unhinged relationship with American history, and why this brand of mid-budget, all-ages adventure has basically vanished from theaters. There's a real case here for reading Book of Secrets as the last gasp of the pre-Marvel four-quadrant treasure hunt. Silly, sturdy, and weirdly comforting same as the movie.
Follow the show & guest:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsEmma Stefansky - https://www.instagram.com/stefabsky
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits111: Penelope with Teri Gamble
Phil and Emily are joined by writer, actor, and Horror Movie Survival Guide host Teri Gamble for Mark Palansky's Penelope (2006). Christina Ricci is an heiress born with a pig's nose thanks to a family curse …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by writer, actor, and Horror Movie Survival Guide host Teri Gamble for Mark Palansky's Penelope (2006). Christina Ricci is an heiress born with a pig's nose thanks to a family curse, kept out of sight while her mother (Catherine O'Hara) hunts for a blue blood willing to marry her, which is how a broke gambler played by James McAvoy ends up being paid to get close. Reese Witherspoon produced it and takes a supporting role, making this the strangest imaginable follow up to the Oscar she had just won for Walk the Line.
The three get into why the film sat on a shelf for two years between its late 2006 festival premiere and its actual release, how badly the movie undersells its own premise (nobody is buying Christina Ricci as the most hideous woman alive, no matter how many people scream and leap out of windows), and Reese Witherspoon's long run as the defining uptight blonde of the era. There's a real case here for Penelope as the point where the post-Oscar passion project stopped reading as a prestige move and started reading as a fairy tale nobody had asked for. Teri also arrives with fresh FernGully intelligence, as Teri always does.
Follow the show & guests:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsTeri Gamble - https://www.instagram.com/theterigamble
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits110: The Black Dahlia with Joe Reid
The Black Dahlia (2006) is one of Hollywood's most infamous true crime stories brought to screen a labyrinthine noir that refuses easy answers. Directed by Brian De Palma, the film weaves the 1947 unsolved …
Show notes
The Black Dahlia (2006) is one of Hollywood's most infamous true crime stories brought to screen a labyrinthine noir that refuses easy answers. Directed by Brian De Palma, the film weaves the 1947 unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short through the lives of two LAPD detectives, tangling glamour with corruption, obsession with justice, and the cold machinery of Los Angeles ambition. Starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, and Scarlett Johansson, it's a film that asks: How many layers of deception can you peel back before you lose the truth?
Host Phil Iscove and guests Emily St. James and Joe Reid dig into whether this adaptation of James Ellroy's novel holds up and whether its byzantine plot and moral fog land as intended or collapse under the weight of their own complexity. They explore how De Palma's stylistic flourishes, the ensemble's commitment to the murk, and the film's refusal to absolve anyone of blame read in 2026.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsJoe Reid - https://www.instagram.com/joereid21
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits109: Aeon Flux with Kristen Lopez
Phil and Emily are joined by film critic and historian Kristen Lopez to break down Karyn Kusama's Æon Flux (2005). Charlize Theron plays the title assassin, sent by the rebel Monicans to kill the ruling …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by film critic and historian Kristen Lopez to break down Karyn Kusama's Æon Flux (2005). Charlize Theron plays the title assassin, sent by the rebel Monicans to kill the ruling Chairman of the last walled city on Earth (Marton Csokas), only to find a conspiracy about cloning and memory that goes back generations (Frances McDormand, Sophie Okonedo, Jonny Lee Miller). What starts as a straightforward hit spirals into questions about who's actually still human under all that latex.
The three dig into adapting a cult MTV animated series for a studio tentpole, the mid-2000s dystopian sci-fi boom, and how much style a blockbuster can get away with before critics turn on it. There's a real case here for reading Æon Flux as a genuinely strange studio experiment that got buried by its own rushed release. Sleek, weird, and a little sad, same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsKristen Lopez - https://www.instagram.com/kristenlopez88
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits108: Dogville with Lucia Aniello
Phil and Emily are joined by Emmy-winning Hacks creator Lucia Aniello for Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003). Nicole Kidman's fugitive Grace hides out in a Depression-era Rocky Mountain town staged entirely with …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Emmy-winning Hacks creator Lucia Aniello for Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003). Nicole Kidman's fugitive Grace hides out in a Depression-era Rocky Mountain town staged entirely with chalk outlines on a bare soundstage, and the townsfolk's charity slowly curdles into something monstrous. Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Patricia Clarkson, and James Caan fill out von Trier's three-hour moral experiment, narrated with dry glee by John Hurt.
The three dig into the chalk-outline staging as both radical theater and pure provocation, Kidman spending her post-Hours Oscar heat on the least commercial project imaginable, and where the film's brutal final turn lands two decades on. There's a real case here for reading Dogville as the most savage thing ever built to look like a filmed stage play. Cruel, funny, and unlike anything else same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsLucia Aniello - https://www.instagram.com/luciaaniellosetfits
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits107: Die Another Day with Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson
Phil and Emily are joined by Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson, hosts of The Queer Quadrant, for Lee Tamahori's Die Another Day (2002). Pierce Brosnan's last outing as James Bond runs from a North Korean …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson, hosts of The Queer Quadrant, for Lee Tamahori's Die Another Day (2002). Pierce Brosnan's last outing as James Bond runs from a North Korean prison to an Icelandic ice palace, with Halle Berry surfacing as NSA agent Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson in the follow-up to her Monster's Ball Best Actress win. Rosamund Pike (in her screen debut), Toby Stephens, a Madonna theme song, and a famously invisible Aston Martin fill out the most gadget-drunk Bond of the early CGI era.
The four dig into Jinx as the almost-spinoff that never happened, how a 40th-anniversary Bond tips all the way into digital excess, and why this particular entry burned itself so vividly into their childhood memories. There's a real case here for reading Die Another Day as the exact moment the Brosnan era buckles under its own kitesurfing, para-sailing weight. Gaudy, campy, and gloriously overblown same as the movie.
Follow the show & guests:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsBrooke Solomon - https://www.instagram.com/brookebsolomonJordan Gustafson - https://www.instagram.com/jordan_gustafsonThe Queer Quadrant - https://www.instagram.com/queerquadrant
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits106: America's Sweethearts with Katharine LaRonde
Phil and Emily are joined by writer and podcaster Katharine LaRonde to dig into Joe Roth's America's Sweethearts (2001). Julia Roberts plays the overlooked assistant stuck managing the press junket for her …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by writer and podcaster Katharine LaRonde to dig into Joe Roth's America's Sweethearts (2001). Julia Roberts plays the overlooked assistant stuck managing the press junket for her superstar sister (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and her sister's washed-up, soon-to-be-ex-husband (John Cusack), whose divorce turns out to be the only story the reporters actually want. It spirals into a movie that can't decide if it's mocking the junket circus or just running one.
The three dig into the film's Hollywood-satire instincts that never quite land a punch, John Cusack playing a guy who's spent a year and a half hiding from his own life at Alan Arkin's wellness retreat, and Roger Ebert's read on the movie as a watered-down Singin' in the Rain. There's a real case here for reading America's Sweethearts as the movie that wanted to skewer Hollywood but fell in love with it instead. Promising, self-conscious, and never quite committed, same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsKatharine LaRonde - https://www.instagram.com/katlaronde/
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits105: The Gift with April Wolfe
Phil and Emily are joined by writer and critic April Wolfe for Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000). Cate Blanchett plays a widowed Georgia fortune teller who reads cards to keep her family afloat and gets pulled into a …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by writer and critic April Wolfe for Sam Raimi's The Gift (2000). Cate Blanchett plays a widowed Georgia fortune teller who reads cards to keep her family afloat and gets pulled into a murder when a local woman (Katie Holmes) goes missing. Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank, and Greg Kinnear round out a stacked Southern-gothic ensemble.
The three dig into Raimi working in a minor key between the Evil Dead films and Spider-Man, Blanchett anchoring a lurid pulp thriller with total conviction, the movie's very year-2000 ideas about class and the South, and the simple pleasure of a mid-budget, star-packed genre picture that basically nobody makes anymore. April brings a horror writer's eye to what works, what's silly, and what quietly holds up.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsApril Wolfe - https://www.instagram.com/awolfeful
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits104: Pay It Forward with Carson Olshansly
Phil and Emily are joined by comedian Carson Olshansky for Mimi Leder's Pay It Forward (2000). Haley Joel Osment plays a seventh-grader who answers a social-studies assignment think of a way to change the world …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by comedian Carson Olshansky for Mimi Leder's Pay It Forward (2000). Haley Joel Osment plays a seventh-grader who answers a social-studies assignment think of a way to change the world by inventing a simple chain reaction: do a big favor for three people, and ask each of them to "pay it forward." Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt orbit as the scarred teacher and the struggling single mom the plan quietly sets out to fix.
The three get into how a movie this earnest slowly curdles into something else, the infamous ending and whether it earns a single second of it, Spacey and Hunt doing an enormous amount of Very Serious Acting, and what it's like to revisit a turn-of-the-millennium prestige weepie with fresh, unsentimental eyes. Affectionate and merciless in roughly equal measure.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsCarson Olshansky - https://www.instagram.com/carsonolshansky
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits103: The Box with Jude Ellison Doyle
Phil and Emily are joined by writer Jude Ellison Doyle to open up Richard Kelly's The Box (2009). Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play a cash-strapped 1976 couple handed a simple, horrible deal by a scarred …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by writer Jude Ellison Doyle to open up Richard Kelly's The Box (2009). Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play a cash-strapped 1976 couple handed a simple, horrible deal by a scarred stranger (Frank Langella): press the button on the box, collect a million dollars, and somebody you don't know dies. What starts as a Twilight Zone morality test (via Richard Matheson's "Button, Button") spirals into NASA, Mars, and a very literary sense of damnation.
The three dig into Kelly's whole deranged sensibility after Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, whether he's fully in on his own material, how he writes women, and why a studio thriller this strange even got made. There's a real case here for reading The Box as a big, glossy panic attack about being broke in America. Heady, funny, and a little unhinged same as the movie.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsJude Ellison Doyle - https://www.instagram.com/byjudedoyle
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits102: “Wendy & Lucy” with Mitchell Beaupre
Phil and Emily are joined by Mitchell Beaupre, editor and podcast host at Letterboxd, to dig into Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy (2008). Michelle Williams stars as a woman driving to Alaska for work who gets …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Mitchell Beaupre, editor and podcast host at Letterboxd, to dig into Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy (2008). Michelle Williams stars as a woman driving to Alaska for work who gets stranded in a small Oregon town when her car dies and she loses her dog, and the film turns that small catastrophe into one of the quietest, most devastating portraits of American poverty the 2000s gave us.
The three of them get into why Reichardt is so good at trapping her characters, and us, in situations that tighten without anyone noticing, how the movie looks at the unhoused with a clear eye instead of pity, and where it lands in the show's Reichardt run. There's a detour into Richard Kelly and The Box, a bit on how Williams does more with a single look than most actors manage with a monologue, and Mitchell's case for why this one stays with you long after the credits.
Follow the show & guests:
Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsMitchell Beaupre - https://www.instagram.com/mitchellbeaupre
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits101: Southland Tales with Josie Riesman
Phil and Emily are joined by journalist and author Josephine Riesman to continue their Richard Kelly Reichardt mini-series with the magnificent disaster that is Southland Tales (2006). And there is no better …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by journalist and author Josephine Riesman to continue their Richard Kelly Reichardt mini-series with the magnificent disaster that is Southland Tales (2006). And there is no better guest for it: Josie wrote the definitive deep-dive on this movie and once spent three hours walking Venice Beach interviewing Richard Kelly himself.
Set in an alternate 2008 where nuclear attacks on Texas have tipped America into a surveillance-state apocalypse, Southland Tales unleashes Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, and a cast of SNL alumni across a sprawling, end-of-days Los Angeles on the Fourth of July. It premiered at Cannes as an unfinished cut on DVD, got booed into oblivion, made a legendary $374,000 against a $17 million budget, and then quietly became the cult object that fans swear is more true than the reality we actually got..
The gang digs into why a movie this incoherent is also this irresistible. Emily makes her case that it is what you would get if Philip K. Dick novelized Robert Altman's Nashville, while Phil counters with "Magnolia with a head injury." Josie reveals what Kelly told her about that surreal Justin Timberlake lip-sync to The Killers, the tie-in graphic novels, the Cannes catastrophe, and why he has a reason for every baffling choice, even the ones that never made the final cut. Plus its eerie kinship with Children of Men and The Handmaid's Tale, and the thin line between satire and prophecy.
Misunderstood masterpiece or beautiful trainwreck? On America's 250th birthday, it might be the only movie that fits. This is the way the world ends.
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Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsJosephine Riesman - https://www.instagram.com/josie.zone💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits100: Old Joy with Isaac Feldberg
Phil and Emily are joined by critic and editor Isaac Feldberg to continue their Richard Kelly Reichardt mini-series with Kelly Reichardt's quiet breakthrough, Old Joy (2006). Isaac edits at Letterboxd Journal …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by critic and editor Isaac Feldberg to continue their Richard Kelly Reichardt mini-series with Kelly Reichardt's quiet breakthrough, Old Joy (2006). Isaac edits at Letterboxd Journal and writes for RogerEbert.com and Fangoria, and as a former Eagle Scout, he might be the perfect guide to a movie about two guys going camping.
Made for roughly $30,000 and shot in the forests east of Portland, Old Joy follows old friends Kurt (Will Oldham) and Mark (Daniel London) on a weekend trip to a hot spring deep in the Cascades. Almost nothing happens, and somehow everything does. It became Reichardt's calling card, earned rapturous reviews including four stars from Roger Ebert, and announced one of American cinema's most quietly essential filmmakers.
The gang gets into why Reichardt remains a beloved secret, the kind of filmmaker fans swear will one day get a Criterion box and a wave of "how did we not know about this?" They dig into the ache underneath the film's radical simplicity, the suspense of a friendship that can't quite say what it means, the tender and unspoken queerness running through it, and why these two men sound less like a Richard Linklater hangout and more like real life. Plus Lucy the dog, "the John Cazale of canine performers," the perfect Old Joy double feature, and the image of a slug on a mossy boulder that Ebert never forgot.
Why do we remember the small moments more than the big ones? Old Joy has a few answers. Come sit with it.
Follow the show & guests:Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsIsaac Feldberg —https://www.instagram.com/ijfeldberg
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits99: Donnie Darko with Fiona Dourif
Phil and Emily are joined by actress Fiona Dourif to launch a brand new mini-series, Richard Kelly Reichardt, with the cult classic that started a thousand dorm-room arguments: Donnie Darko (2001).Richard …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by actress Fiona Dourif to launch a brand new mini-series, Richard Kelly Reichardt, with the cult classic that started a thousand dorm-room arguments: Donnie Darko (2001).
Richard Kelly's debut premiered at Sundance, opened the same day the Patriot Act was signed into law, and promptly bombed in theaters before Drew Barrymore's Flower Films, a $4.5 million budget, and a generation of video-store rentals turned it into a phenomenon. The gang digs into why it became the movie every college bro swore was a misunderstood masterpiece, and whether it actually holds up a quarter century later.
They get into the big stuff: the tall bunny named Frank, the pocket-universe time-loop mechanics, and that gut-punch ending where Donnie chooses to sacrifice himself. Emily, who has seen this more times than almost any movie in her life, untangles Kelly's "ironclad" explanation, why she prefers the simpler emotional read, and why the director's cut overexplains everything. Fiona connects it to American Beauty and Magnolia, the search for God after religion, and her own time-bending turn in Christopher Nolan's Tenet. And the whole table takes on modern film-discussion culture's obsession with mapping every rule instead of just living inside a story that doesn't quite make sense.
Plus: baby Noah Wyle, the most unhinged high-school teacher ever written, and a stacked early-2000s cast that keeps making you hit pause. Does Donnie Darko hold up, or did it age like the 25-year-old screenwriter dialogue it's built on? Listen and decide.
Follow the show & guests:
Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsFiona Dourif — https://www.instagram.com/fionadourif💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits98: Wanted with Elias Isquith
Phil and Emily are joined by writer Elias Isquith (Necessary Fictions blog) to close out the Angelina Jolie Action Films of the 2000s miniseries with the loudest, messiest entry yet: Timur Bekmambetov's Wanted …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by writer Elias Isquith (Necessary Fictions blog) to close out the Angelina Jolie Action Films of the 2000s miniseries with the loudest, messiest entry yet: Timur Bekmambetov's Wanted (2008).
James McAvoy plays a cubicle drone recruited by Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman into a secret fraternity of assassins that takes its orders from a magical loom. Yes, a loom. The movie was a surprise hit the summer it opened alongside WALL-E, weeks before The Dark Knight blew everything away, and none of them had seen it since theaters. Rewatching it in 2026 was a very different experience.
The conversation digs into how Wanted plays like a proto-incel power fantasy, a movie that negs its audience for 110 minutes and then stares into the camera asking "what the fuck have you done lately?" They trace the line from Fight Club and The Matrix to this film's confused politics, where the message is "be free and take charge of your life" but also "obey the magic loom or die." Emily breaks down the gendered self-loathing baked into so many films aimed at young men, and Elias connects the movie's hyper-individualism to the toxic masculinity pipeline that would migrate to social media just a year later. They also talk about Angelina Jolie's decision to kill off her own character, why the film's structure feels like a video game with half-assed cutscenes, and how Zack Snyder somehow handles this same territory with more nuance.
Follow the show & guests:
Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsElias Isquith — NecessaryFictions.blog - https://www.instagram.com/eliasisquith💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits97: Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Lindsey Romain
Phil and Emily bring in writer Lindsey Romain for the fourth installment of the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries, and it is the one LaToya Ferguson was promised. Lindsey's work has appeared in the Chicago …
Show notes
Phil and Emily bring in writer Lindsey Romain for the fourth installment of the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries, and it is the one LaToya Ferguson was promised. Lindsey's work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Vulture, and Bright Wall/Dark Room, and she saw this movie four times in theaters as a teenager. She still has the promotional pin from when she worked at a movie theater in high school. She is the right person for this.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith follows two upper-class assassins who are also, it turns out, married to each other and working for rival agencies. It opened June 10th, 2005 against Madagascar, Star Wars Episode III, The Longest Yard, and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D, and made $487 million on a $110 million budget. The script originated as Simon Kinberg's graduate thesis. Carrie Fisher, Akiva Goldsman, Jez and John Henry Butterworth, Ted Griffin, and Terrence Winter all took passes at it. Angela Bassett and Keith David filmed scenes that were cut entirely. What remained was Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, which Roger Ebert correctly identified as the only thing that needed to remain.
The conversation covers the Doug Liman of it all, specifically his "we'll make it up as we go along" approach and what that costs the film in its final act. Emily identifies the half hour from when they can't kill each other through the home improvement store sequence as the movie locking in completely, and the final action sequence as where it loses her. Phil compares the last scene to Eyes Wide Shut. The group also gets into how the affair backdrop has shifted what it feels like to watch now, the surprisingly durable premise and its various attempted adaptations, who was responsible for the ex-wife jealousy beat, and where exactly 2005 Brad Pitt ranks in the full Brad Pitt hotness timeline. The answer is not first.
This is the fourth installment of the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries. Wanted is next.
Follow the show and guests:
Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsLindsey Romain — https://www.instagram.com/lindseyromain
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits96: Tomb Raider 2 with Caroline Thompson & Carson Betts
Phil and Emily continue the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider — The Cradle of Life (2003), joined by Carson Betts and Caroline Thompson, co-hosts of the How Have You Not Seen …
Show notes
Phil and Emily continue the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider — The Cradle of Life (2003), joined by Carson Betts and Caroline Thompson, co-hosts of the How Have You Not Seen It podcast. All four participants are watching this film for the first time. This is relevant information.
The Cradle of Life follows Lara Croft racing to find Pandora's Box before a rogue scientist with strong Peter Thiel energy can use it as a biological weapon, with complications provided by her ex-lover Terry Sheridan, played by Gerard Butler. It cost $95 million, grossed $160 million worldwide, and opened July 25th, 2003 against Spy Kids 3D, Pirates of the Caribbean, Bad Boys 2, and Seabiscuit. It received three stars from Roger Ebert, which nearly convinced Emily to see it in theaters that summer. She saw The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen instead. Phil does not believe she made the better choice. The film was also banned in China for giving the impression of a country in chaos overrun by secret societies. Hollywood had not yet figured that out.
The consensus is that this movie is more competent than the first Tomb Raider along nearly every axis, which somehow makes it less enjoyable. Phil calls it dumb and not fun, as opposed to the first film, which was dumb and fun. Emily notes the big action set piece in the middle is a shootout in a lab, which she finds strange given the title. The group also covers Jan de Bont's filmography and what it means that this was his final film, the Sasquatch creatures that the script introduces and then declines to explain, and the actual Cradle of Life, which turns out to be visually underwhelming in a way that Carson compares to a YouTube video that will not load.
The true climax, Carson argues, was always going to be in Lara's heart.
This is the third installment of the miniseries on Angelina Jolie's 2000s action films, following Gone in 60 Seconds and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.
Follow the show and guests:
Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsCarson Betts — https://www.instagram.com/carsonlbettsCaroline Thompson — https://www.instagram.com/sportclimbbarbieHow Have You Not Seen It — https://www.instagram.com/hhynspod💜 Patreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits95: Tomb Raider with BJ & Harmony Colangelo
Phil and Emily continue the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), joined by BJ Colangelo and Harmony Colangelo, co-hosts of the This Ends at Prom podcast. BJ and Harmony …
Show notes
Phil and Emily continue the Angelina Jolie action films miniseries with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), joined by BJ Colangelo and Harmony Colangelo, co-hosts of the This Ends at Prom podcast. BJ and Harmony previously joined the show for Hard-Boiled, which Phil describes as a superior action movie. Harmony agrees with everything about that sentence.
Tomb Raider follows aristocrat archaeologist Lara Croft racing against the villainous Illuminati to retrieve the two halves of the Triangle of Light before a rare planetary alignment allows them to unlock its power over time. It cost $150 million, grossed $274 million worldwide, and opened June 15th, 2001 against Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Shrek, Swordfish, Pearl Harbor, and Evolution. Paramount had purchased the video game rights in 1998. No fewer than seven screenwriters took a pass at the script before Simon West stitched something together and pointed a camera at Angelina Jolie.
The group agrees on several things: Jolie is perfectly cast, clearly having a blast, and simply is Lara Croft in a way that very few actors embody a character that completely. They do not agree on much else. Phil's issues are with the script, specifically a 45-minute delay before the film bothers to explain what is actually at stake. Harmony's defense is that this is video game logic, anything is possible, and sometimes you just want to watch someone cool do cool things. Emily ran into Angelina Jolie at a grocery store once and has thoughts.
Daniel Craig is also in this movie. Nobody can identify what accent he is doing. Emily has a theory involving one specific block in Lincoln, Nebraska.This is the second installment of the miniseries on Angelina Jolie's 2000s action films, following Gone in 60 Seconds.
Follow the show and guests:Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsBJ Colangelo — https://www.instagram.com/bjcolangeloHarmony Colangelo — https://www.instagram.com/harmonycolangeloThis Ends at Prom — https://www.instagram.com/thisendsatprom💜 Patreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits94: Gone in 60 Seconds with LaToya Ferguson
Phil and Emily are joined by LaToya Ferguson to kick off a new miniseries on Angelina Jolie's action films of the 2000s, beginning with Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). LaToya is a TV writer, critic, and co-host of …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by LaToya Ferguson to kick off a new miniseries on Angelina Jolie's action films of the 2000s, beginning with Gone in 60 Seconds (2000). LaToya is a TV writer, critic, and co-host of the Empire Diaries podcast. She has appeared on the show before, covering The Other Sister and Ladybugs on previous installments. She wanted to cover Mr. and Mrs. Smith. She did not get Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Gone in 60 Seconds follows retired master car thief Memphis Raines, forced back into the game to steal 50 high-end cars in one night to save his brother from a ruthless crime boss. It cost $100 million, grossed $237 million worldwide, outperforming both Remember the Titans and Coyote Ugly from the same Bruckheimer production year. Angelina Jolie had just won the Oscar. The film was sold entirely on her. She is barely in it. Nicolas Cage plays the lead, does not radiate car energy, and shares with Jolie what Emily describes as the opposite of chemistry. The movie goes dull at exactly the moment it should not, Frances Fisher has less screen time than the dog, and Christopher Eccleston delivers the villain line "it never rains, but it pours" with complete conviction.
Phil makes the case for where this sits in the Bruckheimer era and why it signals the end of something, Emily misses the era of movies that made audiences want to steal cars, and LaToya has thoughts about Nicolas Cage, Billy Bob Thornton, and what actual dirtbag energy looks like on screen. They also get into whether Gone in 60 Seconds quietly paved the way for Fast and Furious, and why Phil rides for Sorcerer's Apprentice to the dismay of everyone present.
This episode opens the miniseries on Angelina Jolie's 2000s action films, with Lara Croft: Tomb Raider up next.
Follow the show and guests:Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsLaToya Ferguson — https://www.instagram.com/thelafergs💜 Patreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits93: Where the Wild Things Are with Drew McWeeny
Phil and Emily are joined by film critic, screenwriter, and Hip Pocket podcast host Drew McWeeny to discuss Where the Wild Things Are (2009), the Spike Jonze adaptation of Maurice Sendak's 85-word picture book …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by film critic, screenwriter, and Hip Pocket podcast host Drew McWeeny to discuss Where the Wild Things Are (2009), the Spike Jonze adaptation of Maurice Sendak's 85-word picture book that cost roughly $100 million, barely broke even, got one Blu-ray release, and has been sitting in a strange kind of limbo ever since.
Drew has been close to this film longer than almost anyone outside the production. He saw a rough cut in Pasadena before a single effects shot was completed, got a personal call from Legendary Pictures founder Thomas Tull asking for his honest reaction, and later sat down with Spike Jonze himself for two hours as the film fought to find its finish line. Phil thinks it's a miracle it exists at all. Emily finds it formally audacious and sometimes frustrating in equal measure. Drew thinks it's a great film. He also thinks it might not be a film for children.
The three dig into the full production story, from the Jim Henson Company's 50-pound creature heads that got scrapped six weeks before filming to Spike's decision to shoot everything handheld with no green screens and no tracking dots on any of the creatures. They talk about why James Gandolfini was the perfect choice for Carol, what the voice cast recorded running around a black box theater instead of isolated booths, and what it means to watch this movie as a parent who has been the angry one in the room.
This episode wraps up the show's Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman miniseries, following Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York.
Follow the show and guests:Podcast Like It's 2000s — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits2000sPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsDrew McWeeny — https://www.instagram.com/drewmcweeny💜 Patreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits92: Synecdoche, New York with Angie Han
Phil and Emily are joined by Angie Han, TV critic at The Hollywood Reporter, to discuss Synecdoche, NY (2008), Charlie Kaufman's audacious directorial debut and the film Roger Ebert called the best of the …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Angie Han, TV critic at The Hollywood Reporter, to discuss Synecdoche, NY (2008), Charlie Kaufman's audacious directorial debut and the film Roger Ebert called the best of the 2000s.
Kaufman wrote and directed this hallucinatory portrait of Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an ailing theater director who uses a MacArthur Fellowship to build a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse. As the decades pass and his art consumes his life, the film tunnels deeper into mortality, creative obsession, and the quiet horror of living in a body that won't cooperate. Originally conceived as a horror film with Spike Jonze, Synecdoche, NY opened in October 2008 against High School Musical 3 and Saw 5, made $4.5 million on a $20 million budget, and has since been ranked among the greatest films of the 21st century by the BBC, the Guardian, and Time.
Phil finds it deeply triggering as a self-described hypochondriac. Angie has seen it a dozen times and finds it weirdly soothing. Emily thinks it's funnier than people give it credit for. All three dig into why this film bombed commercially and became a critical touchstone, what it means to watch it in your 20s versus your 40s, and why it still doesn't have a Criterion edition.
Follow the show and guests:Podcast Like It's... — https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove — https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James — https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsAngie Han — https://www.instagram.com/ajhan06💜 Patreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits91: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Katey Rich
Phil and Emily are joined by Katey Rich, awards editor at The Ankler and host of the Prestige Junkie podcast, to discuss Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Michel Gondry's Charlie Kaufman-written …
Show notes
Phil and Emily are joined by Katey Rich, awards editor at The Ankler and host of the Prestige Junkie podcast, to discuss Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Michel Gondry's Charlie Kaufman-written love story and one of the defining films of its generation. This episode is part of the ongoing miniseries on the 2000s films of Charlie Kaufman and Michel Gondry.
Jim Carrey plays Joel and Kate Winslet plays Clementine, former partners who independently undergo a procedure to erase each other from their memories. The film also stars Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Kirsten Dunst, and Elijah Wood. Released March 19th, 2004, it opened against Dawn of the Dead, The Passion of the Christ, and Starsky and Hutch, earned only two Oscar nominations, and somehow still became Charlie Kaufman's highest-grossing film.
Phil, Emily, and Katey dig into how a movie that felt like a March dump release became a Sight and Sound list entry and a Letterboxd top 5 staple, why the Academy of 2004 simply wasn't ready for it, and how Jim Carrey managed to get overlooked by Oscar voters again six years after The Truman Show. They also get into how the Gondry and Kaufman collaboration works so much better here than it did on Human Nature, what the ending means when you come back to it older, and why Everything Everywhere All At Once couldn't exist without this film.
Katey saw it right after her first real breakup and was completely walloped by it. Emily has seen it over ten times and has been happily married since college. Phil was 24 when it came out and was in exactly the right kind of romantic chaos for it to hit hardest. Three very different relationships with the same movie.
Follow the show and guests:Podcast Like It's...: https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove: https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James: https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsKatey Rich: https://www.instagram.com/kateyrichtalkingPatreon (bonus episodes and video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits
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