Phil and Emily wrap up their Oscar-winning Best Director follow-ups mini series with Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading. They’re joined by Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson, from the podcast The Queer Quadrant, to dig into this razor-sharp dark comedy that skewers espionage, bureaucracy, and human foolishness in equal measure.

From the Coens’ tonal whiplash to the film’s biting satire of post-9/11 paranoia, the conversation unpacks the brilliance of a story where no one really knows what they’re doing but the chaos still matters. Along the way, they revisit the stacked ensemble of Clooney, Pitt, McDormand, and Malkovich, while situating the film within the Coens’ endlessly inventive career.

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Phil and Emily continue their Oscar-Winning Best Director Follow-Ups miniseries with Ang Lee’s provocative espionage drama Lust, Caution. Joined by Danette Chavez (Editor-in-Chief of The A.V. Club), they dig into the film’s bold mix of eroticism, politics, and moral ambiguity, exploring how Lee followed Brokeback Mountain with a risky and divisive project that tested both audiences and censors. From the performances of Tony Leung and Tang Wei to the film’s place in Lee’s eclectic career, this conversation examines the ways Lust, Caution both fulfills and defies the expectations of a “prestige” follow-up.

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Phil and Emily continue their mini series on Oscar-winning Best Director follow-ups from the 2000s with Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers. Joined by Mitchell Beaupre, editor and podcast host at Letterboxd, they dig into Eastwood’s haunting take on the Battle of Iwo Jima and the myth making around Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph of soldiers raising the flag.

The conversation unpacks Eastwood’s bold decision to explore both the battlefield and the uneasy homefront tours, the fractured narrative structure, and the film’s relationship to its companion piece, Letters from Iwo Jima. Along the way, they discuss Eastwood’s casting instincts, his recurring themes of masculinity, guilt, and heroism, and how the movie reflects broader questions about American war films and cultural memory.

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