This week on @podcastlikeits The 2000s @emilystjams and I started a brand new miniseries on Angelina Jolie’s 2000s Action Films by talking Gone in 60 Seconds with @thelafergs ! We discuss The Fast and Furious, Nicolas Cage, Angelina’s 90s, her Oscar and her wig in this movie.
Katie has a type of cinema she loves and she named it perfectly: preposterous absurdity.
The opening of Daylight has neon piles of toxic waste. A docker deadpanning "That's a lot of toxic waste pal." Mid-90s punks stealing diamonds who are, as the group agrees, straight out of Demolition Man. A guy saying "Rump it in New Jersey." Keystone Cops energy. Everything smashing into everything for no reason except that it is the mid-90s and this movie earned it.
The consensus: it is glorious. They wanted more of the punks. They are grieving the one who died. One punk surviving and joining the group would have made this a completely different and arguably better movie.
Phil also makes the case for the underrated genre of 90s action films set in New York, surrounded by grumpy blue collar people who have absolutely no patience for whatever catastrophe is unfolding around them. He is right and someone should bring that back.
This is Episode 65 of Podcast Like It's the 1990s. Phil is joined by Tom Mison and Katie McGrath to revisit Daylight and Judge Dredd. Full video on Patreon now. Link in profile.
Two things happened in this clip.
First: a genuinely great breakdown of what separates Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Katie nailed it. Arnold always understands the assignment. He knows exactly who he is and never tries to go outside the box of what he is good at. Stallone tried to chase that same lane and it went badly. Rhinestone. Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. And then there's the rumor that Arnold talked up the Stop or My Mom script to Stallone on purpose, knowing it was a disaster, as part of their long rivalry.
Second: Katie joined the Zoom from what appeared to be Mordor. She is sick. In pajamas. Hooded. Surrounded by greenery. Phil told her she looked like a hobbit. Tom pointed out she Googles slower than Phil. She told us she is on her way to Mordor. It was a whole thing.
This is Episode 68 of Podcast Like It's the 1990s. Phil is joined by Tom Mison and Katie McGrath to revisit Daylight and Judge Dredd. Full video is on Patreon now. Link in profile.
🎬 "It's a great film. It might not be a film for children."
That's how film critic Drew McWeeny describes Where the Wild Things Are (2009). And he's been sitting with this one longer than almost anyone.
Drew saw a rough cut in Pasadena before a single effects shot was finished. The monster suits had faces that didn't move. The creature heads Jim Henson built were 50 pounds and got scrapped six weeks before filming. Thomas Tull personally called him after that screening hoping Drew would help pressure Spike Jonze to change the film. Drew said he thought it was great. That ended his relationship with Legendary Pictures.
On Episode 93 of Podcast Like It's 2000s, Phil and Emily sit down with Drew to dig into everything: the troubled production, the practical genius of shooting fully handheld with no green screens or tracking dots, why James Gandolfini was the perfect Carol, and what it means to watch this movie as a parent who's been the angry one in the room.
This is one of the most personal conversations we've ever had on the show. New episode drops tomorrow on Patreon. Link in profile.
#WhereTheWildThingsAre #SpikeJonze
Two working actors breaking down exactly how stunt work actually functions on set. 🎬
Katie McGrath and Tom Mison get into something that rarely gets discussed: the collaboration between an actor and their stunt team isn't just physical. Every stunt performer who knows what they're doing watches the actor first. They study the character. They want the transition between their work and the actor's to be completely invisible.
Katie puts it plainly: she'll always do as much as she can. But she's genuinely happy to hand it off to people who've dedicated their entire lives to making a character look exactly right.
And both of them have real admiration for Geena Davis wanting to do all of it on Cutthroat Island. Not for the glory. Because that's how you serve the film.
Full episode on Patreon. Link in profile. 💜
#CutthroatIsland
"I don't know what's going on. But it just feels right. I'm just gonna ride it." 🎬
That's Angie Han on Synecdoche, NY, a film so surreal it sometimes felt more like real life than life itself. You stop trying to understand it and just let it carry you. The house is always on fire. You don't ask why. You just go.
Then Emily drops the real observation: they all exist somewhere in that warehouse. Caden Cotard's life-size reconstruction of New York is a place where we all just live, whether we like it or not.
Phil does not like it.
Phil is played by John Hawkes.
Full episode on Patreon. Link in profile. 💜
#SynecdocheNY #CharlieKaufman
Synecdoche, NY is one of the most searingly dark films ever made. Angie Han has seen it a dozen times and almost used its most devastating song as her wedding music. 🎬
That's the paradox at the heart of this movie. It's about loneliness, and bodies breaking down, and time disappearing, and all the things nobody wants to sit with. But Angie puts it better than any critic ever has: "We are literally all dealing with this. That is what the movie's about."
She still hasn't shown it to her husband of 20 years. Phil thinks it's time.
Full episode on Patreon. Link in profile. 💜
This week on @podcastlikeits The 2000s @emilystjams and I continue our Jonze/Kaufman miniseries by talking Synecdoche, New York with @hollywoodreporter critic @ajhan06 ! We discuss Philip Seymour Hoffman’s wonderful performance and career, the phenomenal supporting cast, Charlie Kaufman’s directorial efforts and his fascination with gender, creativity and, well, death. Such a great episode!
Roger Ebert called Synecdoche, NY the best film of the 2000s. It made $4.5 million at the box office. 🎬
Phil finds it deeply triggering. Angie Han has seen it a dozen times for comfort. Emily thinks it's one of Charlie Kaufman's greatest achievements. Nobody's wrong.
That's the thing about this film. It forces you to sit with the things you're most afraid of: your body breaking down, your relationships unraveling, time slipping away faster than you can hold onto it. And somehow, for a certain kind of viewer, that's not depressing. It's a relief.
Angie Han joins Phil and Emily to break down Kaufman's directorial debut. The full conversation is out tomorrow. 💜
Phil and Emily sit down with Katey Rich (Awards Editor, The Angler) to dig into one of the great glow-up stories in modern cinema. 🎬
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind landed in March 2004 to a shrug. No Best Picture nomination. Jim Carrey snubbed again. Kate Winslet left to fight it out in a weak year.
And now? It's #4 on Letterboxd. It cracked the Sight & Sound list. It's the blueprint that made Everything Everywhere All at Once possible.
Katey put it best: "The Academy wasn't ready for it. If it came out today, it'd get 10 nominations."
The full episode is on our Patreon. Link in profile. 🎥
#EternalSunshine #CharlieKaufman #MichelGondry #KateWinslet #JimCarrey
🎬 New episode drops TOMORROW.
Chuck Barris created The Dating Game and The Gong Show. He also claimed to have killed 33 people for the CIA.
Sam Rockwell plays him in George Clooney's directorial debut a Charlie Kaufman script that passed through Fincher, Aronofsky, Johnny Depp, and Ben Stiller before Clooney made it himself.
Film critic Jason Bailey joins us to break it down. 🎙️
Swipe and subscribe so you don't miss it 👉
#DoesItHoldUp
#ConfessionsOfADangerousMind
#CharlieKaufman
#SamRockwell
#GeorgeClooney
#ChuckBarris
#ClassicCinema
#Cinephile
#MoviePodcast
#2000sMovies
We continue our Spike Jonze / Charlie Kaufman miniseries with a deep dive into Adaptation.
Phil and Emily St. James are joined by screenwriters David Iserson and Dana Schwartz to talk about the writing process, twins, Oscars, orchids, and why this movie still feels unlike anything else from the 2000s.
Swipe through for highlights from the episode.
#podcastlikeits #adaptation #charliekaufman #spikejonze #filmpodcast #screenwriting #cinephile #moviepodcast #filmcommunity #2000smovies
