Podcast Like It's ...

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/Podcastlikeits Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 endlessly messy) Chow Mo-wan.Early in the episode, Phil provides context for listeners who may not have seen the film, walking through its fractured narrative, a futuristic train that takes passengers to a place where memories can be reclaimed, and a writer blurring fiction and reality as he drifts through the Oriental Hotel and the ghosts of love past.The conversation explores how 2046 expands Wong’s romantic universe into something colder, more reflective, and more haunted. Is it a sequel? A remix? A sci-fi epilogue? A man trying to freeze time so he never has to grow up? The trio discusses the film’s nonlinear structure, its lush visual language, recurring musical motifs, and the way longing becomes both theme and architecture.They also touch on the film’s limited U.S. release, its evolving critical reputation, and how it fits into Wong Kar-wai’s broader body of work. Along the way, the episode offers a brief glimpse behind the scenes of this Valentine’s miniseries and how close to release these conversations sometimes are.🎙️ Guests & HostsClay Keller📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claykellerPhil Iscove📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams🎧 Follow Podcast Like It’s🎙 Main Feed (The 2000s / The 90s)Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-like-its/id1369075017Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Hh2n0eZxJ9V0XHnHh1SxP💜 Patreon (Bonus Episodes + The 1990s feed + Video):https://www.patreon.com/podcastlikeits📸 Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits🐦 X / Twitter:https://twitter.com/podcastlikeits🧵 Threads:https://www.threads.net/@podcastlikeits🔷 Bluesky:https://bsky.app/profile/podcastlikeits.bsky.social🎥 YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@podcastlikeits Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 worldview; the cultural impact of “ratatouilling” someone; and why the movie asks us to accept its reality completely or not at all. Plus: gay rat discourse, cursed 2007 box office math, and why this might be Pixar at the absolute height of its powers.Brooke Solomon & Jordan Gustafson co-hosts of The Queer Quadrant🎧 Podcast: https://www.thequeerquadrant.com📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thequeerquadrantHosts:Phil Iscove📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsShow:Podcast Like It’s the 2000s🎧 Listen & subscribe: https://linktr.ee/podcastlikeits📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeits💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): https://www.patreon.com/podcastlikeits Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Hollywood. Phil, Emily, and Libby unpack why the film’s action sequences double as character studies, how its superpowers function as metaphors for family roles, and why the movie still feels sharper than most modern comic-book adaptations. They also discuss the film’s complicated nostalgia, its cultural blind spots, and why The Incredibles managed to “get away with” things that live-action superhero movies still struggle to pull off.Along the way, the conversation touches on Brad Bird’s direction, Pixar’s voice-acting process, the film’s critical and commercial legacy, and where The Incredibles sits in the larger Pixar pantheon especially when compared to its sequel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 roots, and how it turns corporate systems, energy consumption, and fear itself into something legible for kids without flattening the ideas for adults. They talk Sulley as an unusually gentle Pixar protagonist, Mike Wazowski as both comic engine and emotional fulcrum, and Boo as a character whose impact far outweighs her screen time.They also explore where Monsters, Inc. sits in Pixar’s creative timeline, how its humor is engineered, why its ending lands as hard as it does, and how the film reflects early-2000s anxieties about work, productivity, and empathy. Along the way, the group discusses the studio’s voice-casting philosophy, the film’s visual softness compared to later Pixar titles, and why its central message still plays cleanly more than two decades later.Whether this was your childhood Pixar favorite or one you’ve come to appreciate more as an adult, this episode reframes Monsters, Inc. as a quietly radical movie about fear, care, and choosing connection over efficiency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.