Show Notes
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
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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.
Phil and Emily are joined by Vulture TV critic Roxana Hadadi for the second stop in the October Guillermo del Toro mini-series, Blade II (2002). Wesley Snipes's half-vampire Daywalker teams up with the Bloodpack, an elite vampire hit squad built to kill him (Ron Perlman and Donnie Yen among them), to hunt the Reapers, a mutant strain that feeds on vampires and humans alike. It opened March 22, 2002 against Ice Age and the E.T. re-release, made $155 million on a $55 million budget, and got three and a half stars from Ebert, who called it a brilliant vomitorium of viscera.
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.
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.
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