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 


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114: The Devil's Backbone with Monica Castillo

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

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113: Public Enemies with Blake Howard

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.


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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

Emma Stefansky - https://www.instagram.com/stefabsky


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

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112: National Treasure: Book of Secrets with Emma Stefansky

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/podcastlikeits

Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove

Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams

Teri Gamble - https://www.instagram.com/theterigamble


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits



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111: Penelope with Teri Gamble

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/podcastlikeits

Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove

Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams

Joe Reid - https://www.instagram.com/joereid21


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

110: The Black Dahlia with Joe Reid

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.


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

Kristen Lopez - https://www.instagram.com/kristenlopez88


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

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109: Aeon Flux with Kristen Lopez

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.


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

Lucia Aniello - https://www.instagram.com/luciaaniellosetfits


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits



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108: Dogville with Lucia Aniello

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/podcastlikeits

Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove

Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams

Brooke Solomon - https://www.instagram.com/brookebsolomon

Jordan Gustafson - https://www.instagram.com/jordan_gustafson

The Queer Quadrant - https://www.instagram.com/queerquadrant


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

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107: Die Another Day with Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson

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.


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




💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

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106: America's Sweethearts with Katharine LaRonde

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.


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

April Wolfe - https://www.instagram.com/awolfeful


💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

105: The Gift with April Wolfe

Rebel Talk Network is the choice for podcast creators looking to take control of their content.

In a lot of ways 1999 was the year that changed movies. From “The Matrix” and “The Blair Witch Project” to “American Beauty” and “The Sixth Sense”, the last year of the millennium was transformative f

Podcast Like It's 1999 · Zencastr

Podcast Like It's 1999

In a lot of ways 1999 was the year that changed movies. From “The Matrix” and “The Blair Witch Project” to “American Beauty” and “The Sixth Sense”, the last year of the millennium was transformative for Hollywood. Through "Podcast Like It's 1999" writers Phillip Iscove (co-creator of FOX's Sleepy Hollow) and Kenny Neibart (Entourage, Hindsight) examine this apex of Cinema, before television took over, before Reality TV, before TMZ and Twitter but also after the internet, after Clinton, after OJ, after Howard Stern and Jerry Springer. This podcast will cover the over 250 exciting, funny and influential movies produced that year. Get excited to do a deep dive into all things 1999.


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