This week on Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily kick off a brand-new Valentine’s miniseries on the films of Wong Kar-wai with one of the most celebrated movies of the century: In the Mood for Love. Joining them are Katie McGrath and Tom Mison, making their first appearance on the main feed after many beloved appearances on Podcast Like It’s the 90s (the Patreon-exclusive show).

The conversation explores why In the Mood for Love has become the defining cinematic text of longing, memory, and restraint. The group digs into Wong Kar-wai’s sensual, dialogue-light approach; the role of ambiguity and audience interpretation; the film’s obsession with time, repetition, and missed connection; and how Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung deliver one of the most emotionally charged screen romances ever filmed without ever fully consummating it.

They also discuss the film’s slow critical “glow-up,” its influence on filmmakers like Sofia Coppola and Barry Jenkins, the role of Criterion in canon-building, and why this movie works as pure cinema something that couldn’t exist in any other medium. Along the way: conversations about memory, performance without dialogue, and what it means for a film to trust its audience completely.

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Phil Iscove

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Podcast Like It’s the 2000s

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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

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Hosts:

Phil Iscove

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Emily St. James

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Show:

Podcast Like It’s the 2000s

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On this episode of Podcast Like It’s the 2000s, Phil and Emily continue their Pixar 2000s miniseries by finally pulling into Radiator Springs to talk Cars with critic and scholar Myles McNutt.

Often dismissed as “the lesser Pixar,” Cars is also one of the studio’s most commercially dominant films and one of its strangest cultural phenomena. The trio digs into why this movie connected so deeply with kids, how Disney merchandising helped shape its legacy, and why Cars feels philosophically out of step with Pixar’s more emotionally precise storytelling. They also explore the film’s obsession with nostalgia, small-town Americana, Route 66 iconography, and the uneasy politics lurking under its warm glow.

Along the way, they discuss Pixar’s evolving reputation, the film’s place in the studio’s broader lineage, Cars Land as a theme-park response to Harry Potter, and why even if it’s flawed Cars might still be essential viewing to understand Pixar’s 2000s run.

Ka-chow!

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