Podcast Like It's ...

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/Podcastlikeits

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.

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
Patrick Cotnoir - https://www.instagram.com/cotnoir

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.

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
Amelia Emberwing - https://www.instagram.com/thatwitchmia

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

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/Podcastlikeits

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.

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
Lin Codega - https://www.instagram.com/lincodega