Podcast Like It's ...

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/Podcastlikeits

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/Podcastlikeits

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/Podcastlikeits

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/Podcastlikeits

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.
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/emilystjamsJoe Reid - https://www.instagram.com/joereid21
💜 Patreon (bonus episodes & video): http://patreon.com/Podcastlikeits