Podcast Like It's ...

Phil and Emily are joined by film critic and author Jason Bailey to revisit Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, George Clooney's 2002 directorial debut based on Chuck Barris' unauthorized autobiography. Jason is the author of Gandolfini: The Real Life of the Man Who Made Tony Soprano, now available in paperback. Chuck Barris created The Dating Game and The Gong Show. He also claimed to have secretly...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s , Phil Iscove is joined by writer David Iserson ( Ponies ) and author/podcaster Dana Schwartz ( Noble Blood , Anatomy: A Love Story ) to unpack one of the most inventive films of the decade: Adaptation . Part of our Spike Jonze & Charlie Kaufman mini-series, the group explores Kaufman’s famously meta screenplay, Nicolas Cage’s dual performance as Charli...

Phil and Emily are joined by Colby Day to discuss Human Nature (2001), Michel Gondry's feature directorial debut and Charlie Kaufman's second produced screenplay. The trio dives into this offbeat comedy about a woman with hypertrichosis, a scientist obsessed with teaching table manners to mice, and a feral man raised in the wild. They explore how Kaufman and Gondry use this absurd love triangle to...

Phil and Emily are joined by Adam B. Vary to discuss For Your Consideration (2006), Christopher Guest’s razor-sharp satire of Hollywood awards campaigns and the strange machinery behind Oscar buzz. As actors, publicists, and studios chase nominations, the film hilariously exposes how quickly hype can spiral into ego, anxiety, and manufactured prestige. This episode also wraps up our brief three-fi...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily continue their Christopher Guest 2000s miniseries with A Mighty Wind, joined by writer and author Carrie Courogen. They break down Guest’s uniquely gentle mockumentary style, the film’s satirical take on folk music culture, and why its characters feel both absurd and deeply human. Plus, a closer look at the performances, the emotional underc...

Phil and Emily continue their journey through the 2000s with Christopher Guest’s beloved mockumentary Best in Show . Joined by critic Kathryn VanArendonk, they discuss the film’s improvisational comedy, its incredible ensemble cast—including Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, and Fred Willard—and why the world of competitive dog shows created one of the funniest comedies of the decade. T...

On this episode of Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily are joined by film critics Josh Spiegel and Scott Renshaw to discuss Pixar’s emotional adventure about Carl Fredricksen, a widowed balloon salesman who lifts his house into the sky in search of Paradise Falls only to discover an unexpected stowaway along the way. The group breaks down the film’s famous opening montage, its unusual elde...

Phil Iscove and Emily St. James continue their Pixar 2000s miniseries with a deep dive into WALL·E , Andrew Stanton’s 2008 animated sci-fi romance about a lonely trash-compacting robot left behind on Earth. Joined by Justin and Laura Khoo, they break down the film’s near-silent first act, Ben Burtt’s groundbreaking sound design, the Axiom’s consumerist dystopia, and why WALL·E may be Pixar’s most...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s , Phil and Emily wrap up their Valentine’s Day Wong Kar-wai miniseries with a deep dive into My Blueberry Nights (2007), joined by David Sims ( Blank Check ). They discuss Norah Jones’ debut performance, Jude Law’s rom-com era, the film’s Cannes premiere, its American road movie structure, and why this English-language detour feels so different from In the...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily continue their Valentine’s miniseries on the films of Wong Kar-wai with a deep dive into his dreamy, decadent, and divisive follow-up to In the Mood for Love: 2046. Joining them is Screen Drafts co-host Clay Keller to unpack memory, desire, sci-fi metaphors, hotel rooms, and the many women orbiting Tony Leung’s endlessly romantic (and endles...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily kick off a brand-new Valentine’s miniseries on the films of Wong Kar-wai with one of the most celebrated movies of the century: In the Mood for Love. Joining them are Katie McGrath and Tom Mison, making their first appearance on the main feed after many beloved appearances on Podcast Like It’s the 90s (the Patreon-exclusive show). The conver...

We continue our Pixar 2000s miniseries with one of the studio’s most unexpectedly profound films: Ratatouille. Joined by Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson of The Queer Quadrant, we dig into why this movie about a rat who cooks somehow became one of Pixar’s most emotionally resonant works. We talk about Ratatouille as a love letter to food, Paris, and creative ambition; the film’s quietly radical...

On this episode of Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily continue their Pixar 2000s miniseries by finally pulling into Radiator Springs to talk Cars with critic and scholar Myles McNutt. Often dismissed as “the lesser Pixar,” Cars is also one of the studio’s most commercially dominant films and one of its strangest cultural phenomena. The trio digs into why this movie connected so deeply wit...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil Iscove and Emily St. James continue their Pixar of the 2000s miniseries by diving into Brad Bird’s The Incredibles with critic and writer Libby Hill. Released in 2004, The Incredibles sits at a fascinating crossroads for Pixar part family sitcom, part mid-century spy fantasy, and part superhero deconstruction years before the genre would dominate Holl...

This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily continue their deep dive into Pixar’s 2000s run with Finding Nemo, joined by critic and writer Caroline Framke. Released in 2003, Finding Nemo marked a major turning point for Pixar pairing cutting-edge animation with a surprisingly emotional story about parenthood, fear, and letting go. The group breaks down how revolutionary the film felt...

Phil and Emily head back to early-2000s Pixar with Monsters, Inc., a movie that feels deceptively simple until you realize how much emotional and thematic weight it’s quietly carrying. Joining them is Griffin Newman for a deep dive into why this film has endured as one of Pixar’s most humane, rewatchable achievements. The conversation unpacks the movie’s elegant world-building, its labor-comedy ro...

Every year on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily pick one Chaos Pick a movie that doesn’t quite fit into any miniseries, but demands to be talked about anyway. This year’s selection is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the ambitious 2004 pulp-sci-fi experiment that looked like the future of filmmaking… and then quietly disappeared. Joining the conversation is Emma Stefansky, here to...

We close out our holiday run It’s Christmas and the Boys Are Sad with Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, a film that balances brutal violence, pitch-black comedy, and unexpected tenderness against a fairy-tale Christmas backdrop. Phil & Emily joined by writers and podcasters Clay Keller and Alan Sepinwall to unpack why this movie has only grown more beloved and more emotionally complicated over time...

Our holiday miniseries It’s Christmas and the Boys Are Sad continues with Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, a movie that feels breezy and charming on the surface and quietly devastating underneath. Phil and Emily are joined by author, video essayist, and YouTuber Lindsay Ellis to unpack why this film has only grown richer with time. The conversation explores the movie’s deceptive simplicity,...

Our 2000s Holiday Noir miniseries kicks off with a film that helped relaunch Robert Downey Jr.’s career and reintroduced Shane Black to a new generation: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang . Phil and Emily are joined by film critic and historian Alonso Duralde to unpack why this meta-crime-comedy still feels like lightning in a bottle. The trio digs into the movie’s razor-sharp script, its chaotic but affectiona...

Our Mike Nichols 2000s miniseries continues with one of the director’s strangest career anomalies: Charlie Wilson’s War. Phil and Emily are joined by critic and writer Sonia Saraiya to unpack how Nichols, Aaron Sorkin, Tom Hanks, and Julia Roberts came together to make a political dramedy that feels breezy on the surface but carries enormous historical weight underneath. The conversation digs into...

This week, we continue our Mike Nichols miniseries with a deep dive into Closer (2004), joined by Sean Fennessey of The Big Picture . It’s a film that captivated many of us in our early 20s only to unravel under rewatch with age, perspective, and healthier emotional boundaries. We unpack why Closer once felt like “grown-up cinema,” how its theatrical origins shape its structure, and why its four l...

In the conclusion to their Mike Nichols miniseries, Phil and Emily welcome Joe Reid (Vulture, This Had Oscar Buzz) to unpack Angels in America: Part Two Perestroika. The trio dives deep into how Nichols translated Tony Kushner’s monumental stage play into one of HBO’s most ambitious miniseries exploring its themes of prophecy, identity, queer resilience, and the intersection of politics and spirit...

This week on Podcast Like It’s The 2000s , Phil and Emily begin their deep dive into Mike Nichols’ monumental HBO miniseries, Angels in America with special guest Adam B. Vary (Variety). Together, they unpack Tony Kushner’s sweeping adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize winning play, exploring how Nichols brought the AIDS crisis, politics, and spirituality to television with raw emotional power. From M...

This week on Podcast Like It’s The 2000s , Phil and Emily welcome writer Emily Hughes to discuss Paranormal Activity — the micro-budget phenomenon that redefined horror for a generation. Together they dig into the film’s scrappy origins, the ingenious use of found footage to build dread, and how Oren Peli’s minimalist approach reshaped studio thinking about what a blockbuster could be. From its DI...