Book and Film Globe Podcast

This is the final episode of the BFG Podcast. We're as sad to see it go as you are, but editor and host Neal Pollack has a new job at the U.S. edition of The Spectator, the world's oldest magazine, and will no longer be seeing and talking about movies for a living. We had an extraordinary four years on the podcast, bringing you news and commentary nearly every week on a shoestring budget, but it's time to end our amazing little show.Neal welcomes his one and only guest this week, film critic Stephen Garrett, to discuss two new films and a bunch of older ones. First up, Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, which both Neal and Stephen agree stands above the usual fare that Anderson has been producing in recent years. That has a less to do with Anderson's endlessly arch visual style and more to do with emotional and fun performances from the film's three leads, Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera. There's also a fun basketball segment in the middle, and a poignant ending that makes this feel more like a movie and less like an art-school experiment.There's nothing particularly art-school about Ballerina, a side-sequel of sorts to the John Wick saga. Stephen and Neal both were able to see past the self-seriousness of John Wick and Wick-adjacent movies to see the slapstick heart at the film's center. There's an extended flamethrower battle toward the end that is one of the zaniest action sequences ever put to film. And Ana de Armas, while about the size of a peanut, has enough movie-star charm to hold it all together. Plus, there's an extended Keanu Reeves cameo. This is pretty fun.Finally, Neal and Stephen reconsider the hundreds of movies they've reviewed since 2018, when Neal took over the reigns. Mostly, they focus on the five-star movies, films that are good, but that reviewers reacted to in a personal way. They argue extensively about Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, which Neal likes way more than Stephen, and First Man and Ad Astra, which Stephen likes way more than Neal. If you can take any one thing away from Neal Pollack's tenure at BFG, it's that he doesn't like movies where astronauts cry. Astronauts should never cry. They are in space. It is their dream.That's all from us at the BFG podcast. Thank you so much for listening over the years, and enjoy our final episode!

After a two-week hiatus, the BFG Podcast is back, and the culture belongs to us as usual. Host Neal Pollack has returned from his anniversary trip to the Continent, and Stephen Garrett was in Europe as well, covering the Cannes Film Festival like he has done every year since before he can remember. This year, Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi won the Palme D'Or for his film 'It Was Just An Accident,' the sixth straight year a film distributed by Neon has taken the prize. Neal and Stephen discuss that and then Stephen does a speedy run-through of the festival, covering all the awards winners and other significant films, including the new Spike Lee movie, which he gets in just under the wire as Neal attempts to close out the segment.Nathan Fielder delivered a brilliant six episodes of television with Season 2 of The Rehearsal, which ostensibly is about airplane safety, and is about airplane safety, but is also about so much more. Omar Gallaga appears to talk with Neal about The Rehearsal's narrative sleight-of-hand, which they both love. But there's a curious phenomenon: It's mostly men who jibe with Nathan Fielder's comedy. Neal and Omar, or actors playing them, try to break down this curious situation. In the tradition of Nathan Fielder, they both fail and succeed at the same time.Stephen Garrett is back, to discuss Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, which he saw at Cannes and which Neal saw at his usual spot, the Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline in Austin. Either way, it's a bombastic edition of the long-running action franchise. Both Neal and Stephen loved the extended submarine action sequence in the middle, and enjoyed a taste of the biplane action scene toward the end, but found the overwrought dialogue tiring, the characters thin at best, and some of the plot laughably stupid. It's about as subtle as a hammer to the face or a nuclear bomb that must be defused in five minutes.Did we mention that the podcast is back? Enjoy!

Hollywood in crisis! When is Hollywood not in crisis? This week on the podcast, the tariffs have come home to roost in Tinseltown. Neal Pollack hosts Richard Rushfield of The Ankler to discuss what in the hell is going on. Why couldn't Jon Voight stop Trump from issuing tariff threats? Is Trump serious? Maybe it's good to have a President who's actually engaging in issues that threaten the movie industry. Maybe he wants to help? No one has any idea what's happening, which makes it all suspenseful and vaguely fun, like a good studio genre picture. Richard empties what's left of his brain and he and Neal try to break down the issues.There are no issues with 'Thunderbolts,' a current hit from that underdog Marvel Studios. Richard went to the world premiere in Los Angeles, and, frankly, he found the buffet kind of wanting. I mean, it tasted good, but was maybe a little skimpy. You could say the same about Thunderbolts, which, let's face it, is trying to sell us some C-list heroes as A-list heroes and it's hard to tell if people are going to bite permanently or not. There's so much Bob, so little Spider-Man. And that buffet? My lord.Matthew Ehrlich makes a late-episode appearance to absolutely ravage Tina Fey's remake of a very dated Alan Alda movie called 'The Four Seasons.' Except that this isn't a movie. It's a four-hour miniseries on Netflix. No one cares about these three couples who are somehow supposed to be able to afford to take four luxury vacations a year. Together. Matthew wonders why the gay couple, half of whom is Colman Domingo, would even consider going on holiday with such boring straight people. Once, maybe, because they went to Vassar together. But four times? In a year? What are we doing here, people. Everyone loved Alan Alda back in the day, but Matthew broaches the unthinkable: That maybe Tina Fey has peaked. We will rue such words, I'm sure.Enjoy the podcast!

In the past on this podcast, host Neal Pollack and guest Scott Gold have occasionally steered listeners awry, we'll admit it. After watching the first couple episodes of genre shows like The Acolyte or Daredevil: Born Again, they've encouraged people to watch the shows, and then had to sit back and cringe for weeks as the shows not only failed to stick the landing, but flopped entirely. With pretty good confidence, we can say that's not going to be the case with Season 2 of 'Andor,' which will surely be one of the best TV shows of the year when all is said and done.While it may sometimes be a little too "grownup" for its own good, 'Andor' is still thrilling and intelligent entertainment, a Star Wars not really for kids, with great action scenes, a skilled cast, nuanced writing, and gorgeous costumes. It's about the best you could hope for out of a TV show, particularly a Star Wars one. Neal and Scott feel no shame.Stephen Garrett pops into the pod-dome to discuss the surprisingly popular 'The Accountant 2,' which Stephen didn't really like much. It takes a brotastic genre turn away from the moody character piece that was the first 'Accountant' movie several years ago. While Stephen admires it when a sequel breaks so far from the original source material, he found this one just plain goofy.Unable to comment on 'The Shrouds' from David Cronenberg because of a professional conflict of interest, Stephen mostly lets Neal have at this film, which is weird and awkward and stiff and throws away cool ideas and amazing future tech on a weird conspiracy plotline about sinister Chinese doctors helping the CCP throw a surveillance blanket over the entire world--by using dead bodies. It's not a bad conceit for the movie, but there's lots of telling, not showing. Stephen breaks character to say he thinks The Shrouds is a profound meditation on mortality and grief. That's true, but it buries its depth beneath six feet of plot exposition.Meanwhile, Neal and Stephen are celebrating, because the box-office is through the roof. It's a glorious time to go to the movies, and to be a movie fan. At last, movies are back. We never lost faith at the BFG podcast. Just please keep your devices silent and out of sight, and no talking unless you're at a special screening of A Minecraft Movie.Enjoy the show!

No half-measures on the podcast this week as we cover some of the year's best content. On the movie side, we talk about 'Sinners,' Ryan Coogler's mind-blowing 1930s historical Delta blues movie–with vampires. Stephen Garrett hadn't even heard of this movie until about two weeks ago, and it was a five-star shocker for him. Neal Pollack, equally skeptical, equally and totally blown away. Coogler delivers a show-stopping musical number at the movie's midpoint, at which point a ton of vampire mayhem sets in and completely transforms the narrative. But it's testimony to how amazing Sinners is that the movie is perfectly entertaining even before the vampires take over.And then, once they do, it's as thrilling a horror movie as you'll ever see. Michael B. Jordan gives a career-defining performance as the twins at the center of the narrative. Hallee Steinfeld absolutely steams off the screen as a femme fatale for the ages. Jack O'Connell is one of the most sinister and compelling movie villains that we've seen in a long time, and Delroy Lindo lands a sure Oscar nomination as an old Delta bluesman who's comic relief, except when he's not. This is one of the best American movies in a long while, and it will be certain to be a huge contender for an awards season that doesn't start for another nine months. Sinners gets the BFG podcast's highest recommendation.Also heavily in the plus column, though maybe not quite as heavily, is the new season of Black Mirror. Omar Gallaga swoops into the pod dome to talk to Neal about the seventh season of Charlie Brooker's tech dystopia sci-fi anthology show. By this point we're all comfortable enough with Black Mirror's twists and tropes that they've ceased to be shocking, but there are few things on TV as satisfying as a well-executed Black Mirror episode. And this season is well-executed even by Black Mirror standards. Omar thinks that some of them run a bit long, but there are still plenty of twists and and thought-provoking ideas about tech, as well as some dark laughs and plenty of Easter eggs for true fans.It's a great week to be a fan of pop culture, and to listen to the BFG Podcast!

On this week's BFG Podcast, we welcome in our friend Richard Rushfield, who takes time away from his deli-going schedule from time to time to stop by to talk to host Neal Pollack about issues and trends in Hollywood. Richard is recently back from Cinemcon, the annual Las Vegas convention for theater owners, who always have one question: "Does your movie star Dwayne Johnson, or does it star Ryan Reynolds?" Headier artistic questions don't concern them.For the first time in many years, Richard says, major franchises had no representation at Cinema Con. There was no Fast and Furious movie to tout. Even superhero offerings seemed kind of muted. The idea of a 90-day theatrical window went out the, well, window during COVID, and now they're trying to claw back a 45-day theatrical window. That seems highly unlikely. Finally, the conversation turns to what all of America has been waiting to hear about: Richard Rushfield's sleep apnea. It's a major problem for, we assume, his wife, but also for theatergoers around him when he takes his traditional nap an hour into a turkey. Neal and Richard try to find a workaround.BFG has also given near round-the-clock coverage of 'Drop,' an unserious thriller about cell phone misuse and bad dates that has been bombing at the box office since it released two years ago. Pablo Gallaga joins Neal to talk about 'Drop,' as the two of them continue to try to sell the public on the fact that this is the genre of the moment, the blood-soaked violence picture with a bit of cheeky comedy. We will write retrospectives about this genre, if not songs. Drop is pretty bad, they both agree, and it also accelerates a trend in modern pictures of extreme violence against women played as entertainment. How many females slammed into coffee tables do we really need to see?These are the important questions we ask at the BFG Podcast. Enjoy the show!

BFG film critic Lani Gonzalez saw 'A Minecraft Movie' at 4 PM on a Friday with her kids, and it wasn't one of the more raucous Minecraft screenings. But it definitely doesn't surprise her that the movie made a tremendous amount of money. Minecraft is the most popular game in the world right now. "The youth of America and the world are bringing energy to the theater," she tells Neal Pollack on this week's podcast. "It gives me hope," Neal says. That said, Lani tells Neal, it was not the best possible movie they could have made, despite Jack Black's tremendous energy. Strangely, Jared Hess, who also made Napoleon Dynamite, directed A Minecraft Movie. What an unusual culture phenomenon.Meanwhile, in the real world, American museums are facing tremendous budget cuts from the Trump Administration. Sharyn Vane joins Neal to talk about this disturbing trend, and highlights the struggles of a basically apolitical children's museum in Madison, Wisconsin, which, like so many other people and institutions, is finding itself caught up in the winds of massive political change. It may not be as dire as we think, or it might be more dire.Val Kilmer died last week at age 65, and Stephen Garrett joins Neal to talk about the work and legacy of one of our more eccentric and talented screen actors. Neal, as is his tendency, pretty much just talks about Top Secret! the entire time, but Stephen broadens the scope a bit and discussions Kilmer's unique filmography and his life as a truly strange and beautiful man of California. RIP Val Kilmer, the world will miss and remember you.This episode is pure BFG: cinematic history, a little politics, a little light pop culture. If you listened to this show, you'd understand everything that's going on. So listen! Thank you very much.

TV, movies, and politics get the full BFG Podcast treatment this week. First up, Omar Gallaga stops by the podcast dome to talk with Neal Pollack about 'The Studio,' Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's terrific Apple+ satire about Hollywood and the movie business. Neal calls it "the best constructed TV comedy since Veep.' Omar compares this "ongoing panic attack" to The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's a fine lineage, and it features the best Martin Scorsese cameo you'll ever see. Omar points out how "cinematic" the show is, and it's hard to disagree. This is peak streaming. What will the 'Kool-Aid Movie' look like.Death of a Unicorn does not reach peak cinema. Stephen Garrett pretty much hated this horror comedy about, well, killer unicorns. Neal saw Death of a Unicorn at South By Southwest, whose audience responded to it as though they were seeing Ghostbusters for the first time. Well, this is not Ghostbusters. It is Death of a Unicorn, and it is a huge bomb. Stephen found himself sympathizing with the so-called "villains". Sometimes you have to kill a unicorn, he says. Neal is a little less heartless. He just doesn't much like Jenna Ortega. Death of a A Unicorn is a footnote. A unicorn-shaped footnote.Bill Burr is on a tear lately, boosting the legend of accused healthcare CEO murderer Luigi Mangione, giving the business to Elon Musk, and generally excoriating billionaires even though he himself is quite wealthy. Bobby Hilliard is all about Bill Burr. He calls him the heir to George Carlin. Whereas Neal thinks that though Burr is a top-end comedian, he also thinks that Luigi is a murderer. Therein lies the debate. Bobby is an avowed socialist. Neal is an avowed not socialist. Bill Burr and his magic helicopter are getting rich all the way to the banking app, and on the way back, too.Enjoy the show!

Reality TV, or at least TV that vaguely resembles reality, takes over the podcast this week. First, Neal Pollack welcomes in Rick Ellis, from the Too Much TV sub stack, to discuss Neal's thesis that TV food competitions have reached their "decadent endgame." Rick doesn't quite agree. His thesis is that Jeffrey Zaslav and the other Warner Brothers Discovery executives who run the Food Network have just realized they can make more profit by producing fewer episodes.They both criticize, somewhat lightly, that Top Chef has become little more than a feeder ramp for bad Food Network shows. Rick, much to Neal's surprise, has little bad to say about 'House of Knives,' which Neal considers to be the absolute nadir of the food competition genre. Neither of them are willing to offer any praise to 'Wildcard Kitchen,' which feels phony and derivative. Regardless, this is the deepest dive into the politics and machinations of food competition TV as you're ever likely to hear anywhere.More discussed in the zeitgeist is 'Love Is Blind,' which recently concluded its 8th season with a couple of high-profile jiltings, one at the altar itself, because the betrothed couldn't agree on politics. In both cases, it was liberal women rejecting conservative or at least apolitical men. Neal and guest Rachel Llewellyn parse what this actually portends for society. It used to be the case that people in romantic relationships could disagree on politics, at least as regards some issues. Love Is Blind is really just a symptom of a larger societal illness where people are no longer allowed to disagree. Many of them simply exist in different realities entirely. These are sad times, especially if you're competing in a cooking show against someone who you might want to marry but cannot because you hold different political opinions than they do on important issues of the day.Enjoy the podcast!

Has Steven Soderbergh retired? Because his retirement looks an awful lot like making two movies a year. BFG Chief film critic Stephen Garrett, who knows more about film on Tuesday than you'll know in a lifetime, has interviewed Soderbergh several times and says that "retirement" is really more of a euphemism for DIY filmmaking. With 'Black Bag', an admittedly $50 million studio picture, he brings the DIY mentality to a star-studded spy drama that's loaded with wit and sexiness and everything else that's missing from movies for adults these days. Stephen and Neal Pollack liked it somewhat, even though it's really a condensed version of a clever streaming show about spies.Stephen feels like the stars, Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, have zero sexual chemistry, but Neal feels the heat from Rege Jean Page and especially Marisa Abela, who plays a horny young surveillance analyst. It's a clever, fun, tight thriller. And modest. Enjoy.South By Southwest (SXSW) is in the past now, and despite what you might hear, it's not dead. But the Austin-based cultural festival has trimmed back the bloat somewhat, condensing the struggling tech and music festivals and placing the booming film and TV festival more front and center. That's certainly not a problem for veteran SXSW heads Neal Pollack and Pablo Gallaga, who between them saw more than a dozen movies and waited in more than a dozen lines.Tune in for Neal and Pablo's comprehensive breakdown of where SXSW is going, and where it's been, and also a very detailed breakdown of the new Tim Robinson movie 'Friendship.' They liked it, maybe they wanted to like it more. If you meet Neal anywhere in public after May, when the movie comes out, you will have to have a similar conversation. That's why you need to follow BFG. You'll be able to talk about anything in the culture.Enjoy the podcast!

We lead off this week's podcast with a detailed discussion of what works and what doesn't work in Bong Joon-ho's sci-fi satire 'Mickey 17.' On the one hand, it's a Bong Joon-ho movie, his first feature since winning the Oscar for 'Parasite.' This film, says Stephen Garrett, is well on the spectrum with his other over-the-top sci-fi satires, 'Snowpiercer' and 'Okja.' It's a big swing. Neal Pollack really disliked Mark Ruffalo's villain performance, and really didn't care for the excessive voiceover by Robert Pattison, though he agrees with Stephen that Pattinson carries the movie as Mickey, a poor schmuck in the future who allows himself to become a corporate clone slave. This movie is the definition of a "March release," somewhere between Oscar bait and summer blockbuster. They don't always hit.Daredevil is on Disney+ now, but this is no Disney-friendly show. 'Daredevil: Born Again' is the most violent and brutal content the Marvel Cinematic Universe has yet produced, which is actually completely necessary. Daredevil is a violent character, trying to protect a violent city. Scott Gold joins Neal to break down all that's good about 'Born Again,' which is a lot, but in particular they single out Charlie Cox, as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and Vincent D'Onofrio, once again owning his role as Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. If you're Marveled out, you're Marveled out, but this is still peak Daredevil.Enjoy the podcast!

This is how good the Book and Film Globe podcast is: five days before Sean Baker stood in front of the world and used his glorious Oscar moment to urge people to see movies in the theaters, host Neal Pollack and guest Jacob Harper discussed Sean Baker's campaign to get people to see movies in theaters. It was also a great relief to hear Neal say that Anora was the "favorite" to win Best Picture, because obviously it did. But the quest to return people to the theaters–and to have them behave themselves once they get there–continues. We will continue to support a push for a 90-day theatrical window. It will help us arrange our schedules.In addition to his great conversation with Harper, Pollack welcomes in Stephen Garrett, as he does almost every week. Pollack and Garrett discuss the amazing career, and very strange death, of the actor Gene Hackman. Hackman was one of the greatest of the Greatest Generation, a paragon of gruff, realistic acting in an era where film actors feel more plastic than ever. The celebration of his life, and the mourning of his death, gives us some hope.Our hope is a bit more muted for James Bond, now the intellectual property of Amazon. But contributor Jamie Mason isn't quite as worked up as the rest of the world. Bond has become a bit too self-serious over the years, and maybe this changing of the guard will give us all a chance to rediscover what is fun and kitschy about Bond. We can get some period pieces. The spinoff shows won't necessarily be a disaster. James Bond is not George Smiley, and Sir Ian Fleming was not John LeCarré. Make James Bond fun again, that's what we say.Enjoy the podcast!

This week on the BFG podcast, Stephen Garrett is stateside to offer his totally objective opinion on this year's Oscar nominees. He and Neal Pollack get into it right away because Stephen insists that 'Emilia Perez' is an actual Oscar contender. Neal insists that there has never been a more canceled movie in Oscar movie. Everyone hates Emilia Perez. Neal is convinced that Timothée Chalamet is going to win best actor, though Stephen asks him to throw on the brakes. They both think that Demi Moore is going to win Best Actress, the closest we get to a sure thing this year. The Oscars are actually kind of a tossup, Neal and Stephen know more than the average person but also no more than anyone else. Get in your bathrobe, pour some wine, and watch along with us.A couple of Max (HBO?) shows are on the table this week. Matthew Ehrlich is here to dish with Neal about the incredible Season 3 from 'The White Lotus'. Who is going to die? What's up with Patrick Schwarzenegger's abs and Parker Posey's accent? What is Lisa from BlackPink doing here? Where did Greg get all his money? Why do we talk about this show like these are real people? The White Lotus is so back!As far as real people go on TV, they don't get any realer than the people on 'The Pitt,' Max's hit medical drama that is so much like ER, it stars Noah Wyle and was basically created by the same team, minus Michael Crichton. Paula Shaffer, sounding fabulous, joins Neal on the podcast to discuss this new frontier of "competence porn." It is gripping and emotional. They have their favorite doctors. Paula likes Noah Wyle, who doesn't, but is also partial to intern Trinity. Neal is considering spraining his ankle or something just to have a few minutes getting to know Dr. McKay. This show is so realistic, it almost makes you want to go to the emergency room. In Pittsburgh. Almost.Enjoy the podcast!

At the Book And Film Globe podcast, we rarely take a particular political stance–with the exception of campaigning to keep movie theaters open during COVID and decrying all kinds of censorship. We'll be encouraging you to read books, watch movies, and enjoy streaming TV as the nuclear winter hits. Culture marches on.Therefore, it's with complete neutrality that we report that Donald Trump has taking charge of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, along with taking charge of America, The Gulf of America, and, to some extent, the rest of the world. Neal Pollack welcomes Michael Washburn to discuss the cultural implications of Trump taking over the Kennedy Center. Michael says "there are other voices out there in America" that have not had the opportunity to appear at the Kennedy Center. Neal is unsure about what those voices might be. "What is a Donald Trump-run cultural center going to look like?" he wonders. We'll spend the next four years trying to unravel the answer for that question.It's not that mysterious, on the other hand, what the MCU is going to look like the next four years. It will look exactly the same as it always has, and will continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars a movie no matter how inconsistent the narrative or the quality of its movies. Neal and Stephen Garrett don't make any claim that 'Captain America: Brave New World.' This "very non film-festival movie" kicks off the MCU's 2025. Neal wonders why they changed the name from "New World Order" to "Brave New World." "Oh no," he says. "You might make Donald Rumsfeld's ghost mad.""This is a new movie and there's a brave new hero," Stephen says. We guess that's technically true, though as Neal points out, it's really a stealth sequel to a 2008 Hulk movie that happens to feature a new Captain America. Anthony Mackie is actually kind of a dour new hero, and the movie continually moves away from potentially interesting storylines to focus on Harrison Ford turning into a Red Hulk. Spoiler alert, it's in every trailer and on every poster. And it features a villain who has a cauliflower head.Enjoy the podcast!

It's a typically great show this week as host Neal Pollack welcomes the heavily compromised but still insightful Stephen Garrett, who worked on the trailer for the Brazilian Oscar nominee I'm Still Here. But Stephen would have to have a heart of stone to not like this beautiful and thoughtful movie, and he doesn't. Neal is full of praise for the film's passionate defense of human rights, and its beautiful elegy for a time and place that's no more. And they are both enthralled, as is everyone else, by the lead performance of Fernanda Torres, who, like her character in the movie, has called attention to herself through sheer force of will. A great film.Also great, though much less serious, is Companion, a new Black Mirror-style robot sex thriller-comedy (yes, that's a genre now) from writer-director Drew Hancock. Neal welcomes Pablo Gallaga to the podcast for a chat about Companion, and neither of them can find much to criticize, though Neal, still a relative horror noob, seems to like it a bit more than Pablo. But neither of them have anything negative at all to say about Sophie Thatcher, the film's star, who gives a smashing, star-making performance as Iris, a thinking, murderous sex android with a heart of gold, or at least a heart.No one knows what to think about Severance, now streaming in its second season on Apple+, other than that it's the most interesting show on TV right now. Scott Gold joins Neal on the podcast to talk about Ben Stiller's puzzlebox, to praise the cast, particularly Britt Lower and John Turturro, and to hope against hope that Severance doesn't go the way of Lost and that Stiller knows where he's going with this incredibly surreal, and funny, workplace comedy that is about way more than being a workplace comedy. Your innie will love it, and so will your outie. We will allow you both to listen to this episode.

It's a typically great show this week as host Neal Pollack welcomes the heavily compromised but still insightful Stephen Garrett, who worked on the trailer for the Brazilian Oscar nominee I'm Still Here. But Stephen would have to have a heart of stone to not like this beautiful and thoughtful movie, and he doesn't. Neal is full of praise for the film's passionate defense of human rights, and its beautiful elegy for a time and place that's no more. And they are both enthralled, as is everyone else, by the lead performance of Fernanda Torres, who, like her character in the movie, has called attention to herself through sheer force of will. A great film.Also great, though much less serious, is Companion, a new Black Mirror-style robot sex thriller-comedy (yes, that's a genre now) from writer-director Drew Hancock. Neal welcomes Pablo Gallaga to the podcast for a chat about Companion, and neither of them can find much to criticize, though Neal, still a relative horror noob, seems to like it a bit more than Pablo. But neither of them have anything negative at all to say about Sophie Thatcher, the film's star, who gives a smashing, star-making performance as Iris, a thinking, murderous sex android with a heart of gold, or at least a heart.No one knows what to think about Severance, now streaming in its second season on Apple+, other than that it's the most interesting show on TV right now. Scott Gold joins Neal on the podcast to talk about Ben Stiller's puzzlebox, to praise the cast, particularly Britt Lower and John Turturro, and to hope against hope that Severance doesn't go the way of Lost and that Stiller knows where he's going with this incredibly surreal, and funny, workplace comedy that is about way more than being a workplace comedy. Your innie will love it, and so will your outie. We will allow you both to listen to this episode.[audio mp3="https://bookandfilmglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/BFG-PODCAST-186-021125.mp3"][/audio]

The entertainment world doesn't stop moving just because of political upheaval. It marches on! On this week's podcast, host Neal Pollack talks with contributor Stephen Macaulay about the ever-changing world of AI and how it's affecting Hollywood productions. Topics covered include The Brutalist AI language-enhancement "controversy" and a new ruling from the U.S. Copyright Office that will influence how Hollywood uses AI going forward. Nuance is good when it comes to issues like this, and few entertainment business reporters are more nuanced than Macaulay. A great conversation, well worth your ears.Our other Stephen, one Stephen Garrett, went to the Sundance Film Festival this year, like he does every year. It's the second-to-last Sundance, and it was a cold Sundance to boot, so there's a kind of wistfulness to his report. Some of the Sundance content will be coming to TVs and movie theaters soon, and Stephen is on top of what you should see, or shouldn't see. But mostly, you should see everything. That's kind of the BFG mantra.Enjoy the podcast!

This week's podcast goes back in time in more ways than one. Gillian Gaar meets Neal Pollack in the pod-dome to discuss her terrific piece about the movies of 1975. Among the topics discussed: How 'The Godfather, Part II' is still incredibly watchable today, how the stars of Robert Altman's 'Nashville' wrote and performed their own songs, how 'Jaws' birthed the blockbuster movie but still featured long scenes of guys talking on a boat, and how Norman Jewison's 'Rollerball' managed to make a fake sport exciting and visceral while still providing a pointed critique of our cultural acceptance of violence. It was an important year from movies, the year the industry really started to pivot from one era to another.'Star Wars: Skeleton Crew', a TV show on Disney+, hearkens back to a time when new Star Wars content was fresh and exciting and filled kids with wonder. Scott Gold joins Neal to talk about the ultimate tween Star Wars pirate adventure, a fun, exciting romp through a fictional galaxy that doesn't take itself too seriously, and features Jude Law chewing every ounce of scenery imaginable. "Space Goonies," directed by leading Hollywood talent. No notes.Enjoy the podcast!

This week, the BFG Podcast pays tribute to David Lynch, of whom there is nothing bad to say. Stephen Garrett's wife and daughter may not be into Lynch, but Stephen and Neal Pollack (and Neal's wife Regina) loved him, and so does most of the rest of the world. Stephen buries the lead and talks about the time he interviewed Lynch at a film festival, and the story is as idiosyncratic as the rest of Lynch's work. We cover as many bases as we can, from 'Mullholland Drive' to 'Dune' to 'Wild at Heart,' spending some time lingering on Lynch's relationship with Steven Spielberg. It's a great conversation about a great American artist.Not so great is 'Wolf Man,' a sad horror dud from Leigh Whannell, who made the entertaining 'Invisible Man' reboot in 2020. But this is not entertaining, says Pablo Gallaga, despite decent performances and good visual effects. It's just not entertaining, and not scary enough. And Neal continues to warn the world that werewolves are real and should not be used for our amusement. But is the world listening? No!Enjoy the podcast. And for god's sake, watch a David Lynch movie!

From the highbrow to the lowbrow, it's a veritable brow rollercoaster on this week's podcast. First, we go high. Neal Pollack welcomes in Stephen Garrett to discuss Brady Corbet's 'The Brutalist,' the most fun you'll have at a three-and-a-half hour movie about architecture and Holocaust trauma this year. Neither Neal nor Stephen have a cross word about this thoroughgoing work of art, starring, according to Nikki Glazer, "two-time Holocaust survivor" Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce, giving a signature performance as a weird Pennsylvania industrialist. Neal also points out that, in this era of heightened antisemitism, it's nice to see a movie that pays respect to the trauma of Holocaust victims and that treats the founding of the state of Israel as something that was politically good and necessary. It's a great film, with great music, and it includes a 15-minute intermission!Now our brows dip low as Neal welcomes Paula Shaffer to discuss the recent crossover episode between 'Abbott Elementary' and "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia,' which surprisingly go together as well as chocolate and peanut butter. Paula and Neal then go down the rabbit hole of TV crossover history. She introduces him to Poobala.com, the rabbit hole of rabbit holes. Did you know that Mr. Carlin from 'The Bob Newhart Show' was also a patient on 'St. Elsewhere?' That's correct. And since St. Elsewhere, we later learned, existed only in the imagination of an autistic middle schooler, that means that The Bob Newhart Show, along with Cheers, Frasier, and hundreds of other shows, also only existed in his imagination. To further tangle the web, it was later revealed that 'Newhart' was just a dream that existed in the world of The Bob Newhart Show. So was Newhart also in Tommy Westphall's imagination? Or was St. Elsewhere part of Bob Newhart's dream life? Are we nothing but a dream ourselves?These are the kinds of questions we try to answer on Book and Film Globe. Enjoy the show!

Games take the podium on this week's edition of the BFG Podcast. Show host and perennial game-show contestant Neal Pollack welcomes Jessica Babbitt, who was recently his opponent (or at least their teams faced each other) on Amazon Prime's 'Pop Culture Jeopardy!' This is a unique view into the sick and twisted minds of game-show contestants. Just kidding, it is about as wholesome a conversation as you'll ever hear. But you will learn how to prepare for a quiz show, how to work with a team on a quiz show, and how impossible it is to ring in on the buzzer in Jeopardy when you're up against eight other players. Neal and Jessica are two of the most delightful dorks you'll ever meet, and this is a nice audio treat for people who love Jeopardy! and want to someday realize their Jeopardy! (or Pop Culture Jeopardy!" dreams.But only the sickest and most desperate among us would want to play 'Squid Game,' which is kind of the point of the mega-hit Netflix show. Season 2 of Squid Game is now available. Omar Gallaga joins Neal on the podcast to talk about the many ways in which the sequel to one of the most popular streaming shows of all time follows up, and even improves on, the original. There hasn't been a drop-off in quality at all, which is kind of amazing. Squid Game 2 heightens the stakes, ramps up the tension, and adds even creepier and more original games than the first season. We offer no advice to surviving Squid Game other than: Stay alive, and hide under your bed at night.Come to think of it, that might be decent advice to succeeding at Jeopardy! as well. But Jeopardy! is more fun, and you can usually grab drinks with your opponents after the taping.Enjoy the show![audio mp3="https://bookandfilmglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/BFG-PODCAST-181-010725.mp3"][/audio]

Movies are back. Even though for some of us they never went anywhere, now they are really back. The holidays were a buffet of filmgoing fun. But at BFG, we mostly ignore the children's fare and focus on what the grownups like.No one is more grown-up than Count Orlok, Nosferatu himself. He's a real oldy-moldy. Two night dwellers themselves, Neal Pollack and Stephen Garrett find a lot to admire in Robert Eggers's atmospheric take on the vampire legend. But Stephen finds the movie kind of silly and not very scary, and neither of them are really down with Lily-Rose Depp's literally convulsive performance as the vampyr's eternal love object. But then Willem Dafoe shows up and seems realize what kind of movie he's in, and things get kind of fun anyway.A Complete Unknown, the Bob Dylan biopic, is pretty fun from the outset. Jim Arndorfer joins Neal on the podcast to pick some nits at the Dylan legend as James Mangold tells it, but even the crankiest Dylanologist has to admit that the movie hums along on a vibe of good feeling and great music and really magnetic performances from pretty much the entire cast. Neal thinks it's going to be Best Picture. It's hard to argue. It's always hard to argue with him.Things get pretty sexy when Stephen Garrett returns to the Pod Dome to talk about 'Babygirl,' a sort-of comedy starring Nicole Kidman as a robotics CEO with some pretty repressed kinky desires. A foxy intern shows up and gives her what she wants and then some. The move is sort of provocative but also kind of ridiculous. In the end, it's thin characters stuck in a fun conceit, but the screenplay never quite delivers and the sex, frankly, isn't kinky enough to carry the premise So sayeth our male critics who always satisfy every desire.Enjoy the show!

Let's have some real talk: This was not the best year ever at the movies. When you combine lingering production delays from the pandemic with the very real aftereffects of the Hollywood strikes, you had pretty slender pickings when it comes to big-studio pictures. That said: BFG still went to the movies, all year long! We covered all the film festivals, and saw every film we could, major-release and indie. There are still directors giving us intense personal visions and entertaining us with giant tentpoles. The world of entertainment is changing, but this year's relatively weak crop could still be just a blip.Stephen Garrett, who sees every movie in the world, and Sara Stewart, who used to but has backed off to attend graduate school and pursue an actual career, join perpetual cinephile Neal Pollack to talk about their picks. Everyone loved Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Stephen and Sara try to persuade Neal that Dune 2 is great. Sorry, Neal finds Dune 2 boring. Neal himself loved The Apprentice and Challengers. For his art-house pick, he went with La Chimera. Stephen loved The Brutalist and Queer. Sara goes hard in the paint for Dev Patel's Monkey Man.And because this is Book and Film Globe, Jewish-themed movies came up. Sara was a big fan of Between the Temples, which we've discussed exhaustively on this site. Neal and Stephen went for the more Oscar-friendly 'A Real Pain.' Other movies, selected by our critics but not discussed on this episode, include 'I Saw the TV Glow,' Dahomey,' 'Eno,' and 'His Three Daughters.' Finally, Neal gets real squeamish about 'The Substance.' Sara and Stephen both loved it, but Neal cannot tolerate movies where things come out of other things. It's a lot for him. And if movies in 2025 feature things coming out of other things, he'll assign them elsewhere.Enjoy the show!

The year has ended, somewhat mercifully, and it wasn't the best year for TV, either. Strikes, endless streaming service turnover, and leftover COVID production and script delays led to one of the oddest and most scattershot years in TV history. Our TV critics, Matthew Ehrlich, Omar Gallaga, Scott Gold, and Neal Pollack cover it all.There is plenty of good to mine. Omar loved shows like 'Fallout' and 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith', but he and Neal talk in detail about Julio Torres's 'Fantomas' and John Mulaney's 'Everybody's In L.A.' Scott pops in to join the Shōgun discourse. Neal had problems with the Anglo lead, Cosmo Jarvis, but Scott and Omar both assure him that the Japanese cast takes over by the end.Scott's favorites included Guy Ritchie's 'The Gentlemen,' and both he and Neal fanboy over Theo James for a few minutes. It's the rare TV continuation of a movie that actually improves on the original. Neal's picks include the Australian sitcom 'Colin From Accounts,' which he and Omar both agree is totally delightful.Now for the bad news. Matthew Ehrlich thinks 'The Perfect Couple' is ridiculous, a bad Netflix version of Succession that includes a cheesy murder mystery. He's also not high on the new network procedurals, like 'Elspeth,' 'High Potential,' and 'Matlock,' which like AI wrote them. In addition, he offers a counter-attack on 'Hacks,' which does a disservice to the memory of Joan Rivers, and he offers the perspective that Rivers was actually friends with Donald Trump and might have been a victim of cancel culture if she had lived to see the day.Omar likes Hacks, but has his pans too, and he and Matthew take turns battering the "icky" and weird and unappealing Baby Reindeer, which is getting praise around the joint but does not meet our approval.Neal then goes off on several shows, including 'Last Bite Hotel,' a weird semi-horror-themed Food Network show starring Titus Burgess, 'The Acolyte,' and especially the new season of Doctor Who, which featured a character who was literally the spirit of Christmas, and some gross, weird, "Space Babies."Here's hoping for a better 2025 for all TV viewers! A new season of The White Lotus is coming.

As we lurch toward 2025, our podcast continues to cover the waterfront of 2024's pop culture. First up, Scott Gold joins Neal Pollack to talk about 'Dune: Prophecy.' Neal wonders, why does this Max show have to take place 10,000 years before the Dune movies. That seems like a long time. Scott says it is but a grain in sand in the vastness of the universe. How would he know that? But he's also definitely right. And the show is not boring, full of palace intrigue and creepy space witches and genuine moments of horror to go along with the incredibly expensive and vivid set design and Shakespeare-level performances. Dune: Prophecy will not be for everyone, but it's definitely Game of Thrones set in space.Decidedly not Game of Thrones in space, but almost as weird (in a different way) than Dune: Prophecy is Queer, the new William S. Burroughs adaptation from director Luca Guadagnino, who's never afraid of a challenge. Stephen Garrett joins Neal on the podcast to talk about Daniel Craig's radiant performance as a midlife seeker who desperately wants love, and also drugs. There is plenty of unrequited love in the film, and plenty of requited drugs. The really amazing part is that everyone in 1948 could just afford to kind of hang out and do whatever they wanted. This is the dream, really, and also kind of the nightmare. A brilliant adaptation of an unadaptable book.And that's all of the podcast for this week. Isn't that enough?[audio mp3="https://bookandfilmglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/BFG-PODCAST-177-121024.mp3"][/audio]

Neal Pollack sounds the alarm on this week's episode of the BFG Podcast, and brings in the big guns in the form of Richard Rushfield, columnist for The Ankler. Together they form a united front against the scourge of people talking, singing, texting, and otherwise being rude in movie theaters. Shame on Cynthia Erivo and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson for encouraging people to misbehave during their smash hit blockbusters. Cringe as Neal and Richard discuss their strategies to humiliate offenders. Imagine what it must be like to be members of their family. Glory is theirs, but a hero walks a lonely road.Writer and comedian Sheri Flanders joins Neal next to discuss yoga. That's right, yoga, in the form of 'Breath of Fire,' a compelling Max documentary about the cultish kundalini yoga. The documentary needed an edit and the cult of kundalini needed a bucket of cold water dumped on its head. But it's a tragedy and a story worth knowing. Come to listen to Neal talk about the true meaning of yoga. Sheri wisely does not follow Neal into the light. She has three crystals and that's all she needs.Omar Gallaga is very disappointed in the syrupy mess that is 'A Man on the Inside,' the Ted Danson Netflix "sadcom" based on an Oscar-nominated documentary. Both Omar and Neal have a lot of negativity toward this show, which, despite an amusing setup, quickly sinks into stereotype and refuses to engage realistically with the problems that seniors actually face in our society, which paradoxically might have made it funnier. Instead, Neal recommends the movie 'Thelma', airing on Hulu, which has a similarly high-concept premise but is in fact much more grounded in the real lives of senior citizens who outlive their friends, their spouses, and pretty much everyone else. It's a problem without an easy solution, and 'A Man On The Inside' just pours on the sap.What a great episode! Thanks for listening to the pod.

We go big on the podcast this week as the biggest movie week of the year is upon us. Neal Pollack and Stephen Garrett, childhood best friends turned mortal film-critic enemies, come together to discuss 'Wicked,' the blockbusteriest blockbuster of the year. Battle lines draw immediately as Neal favors the performance of Ariana Grande, a theater kid who is clearly playing her dream role. Stephen prefers the more nuanced performance of Cynthia Erivo, who Neal finds a bit pretentious. They both agree that there's no reason on Earth why this needs to be two movies, and that there's a lot of filler set in a "Hogwarts without magic." But some of the musical numbers are lavish and fun. Neal is also disappointed that the monkeys do not wear diapers.There's no such disappointment when it comes to 'Gladiator II.' Stephen thought the sequel was fun but unnecessary. Neal, on the other hand, really appreciates a movie that features CGI baboons, sharks, an angry rhino, Denzel Washington, and a monkey wearing a diaper. He calls star Paul Mescal an "angry barista". An instant camp classic, that's what we say.Bobby Hilliard joins Neal to discuss something very disgusting, the 'Terrifier' movies, which Neal is too scared to see. Bobby worries, and with good reason, that the antics of Art the Clown are desensitizing audiences to the worst possible violence imaginable. There are things in the 'Terrifier' movie so horrible, you couldn't begin to imagine them. Bobby warns Neal that there's nothing even remotely humanizing about Art the Clown. He has no Freddy Krueger, Jason Vorhees, or Michael Myers backstory. It's irredeemable gore, with absolutely no reason to exist other than to make audiences go "ewwww". Terrifier 3 made more than $80 million at the box office. Someone is digging it.Our podcast is unlimited. Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!

As we continue to process the cultural fallout from the 2024 Presidential election, writer and podcaster Meghan Daum stops by the pod-dome to talk to Neal Pollack about the strange phenomenon of writers and creative people leaving Twitter for Bluesky, seeking a safe space from the MAGA storm. But there's no escape, Meghan and Neal conclude, and then proceed to talk shit about people getting MFAs, and about how the world has labeled them ideological traitors. But whatever the trend is, Neal concludes, he's going to miss that train and fail to cash in. That's the one constant in life.Meghan and Neal pivot to talking about the rise of Justine Bateman, who Meghan thinks is doing witty work right now on Twitter, providing "director's notes" for liberals having crying meltdowns over the Trump election. But let's be clear, Meghan says, Justine is one phone call away from being on Joe Rogan. She is not our friend. She has moved far beyond our reach. That's another important lesson to glean from recent weeks.Onward to less self-deprecating topics. Stephen Garrett appears to discuss 'Anora,' which both he and Neal agree is a funny but also serious modern take on the hooker with a heart of gold motif, a kind of hyper-realistic Pretty Woman set in Coney Island. Neal considers this an Oscar contender, Stephen is maybe a little more reluctant to hand off the statuette. But they both agree that Anora is a real crowd-pleaser.As is 'A Real Pain', from writer-director-actor Jesse Eisenberg. Neal takes the lead on this one, saying it's nice to see a movie that takes generational Holocaust trauma seriously, yet is also still funny and meaningful. And both he and Stephen agree that Kieran Culkin steals the show and deserves the praise that's about to rain down on him for the next few months.Justine Bateman does not then make a surprise appearance on the podcast.Enjoy the show!

Today we bring you an audio podcast edition of the excellent cultural coverage we've been doing since the Second Coming of President Trump. Explaining political trends lies outside our core mission, but understanding cultural currents is why we exist.Bobby Hilliard joins host Neal Pollack to discuss the outsized impact that the Austin comedy and podcasting scene had on this election. Bobby, a comedy-scene insider, explains to Neal that even though figures like Joe Rogan and Tony Hinchcliffe are millionaires many times over, they have an unfiltered, no-bullshit casual tone that appeals to the modern audience that is tired of the artifice of the news and entertainment industries. After the pandemic, hundreds if not thousands of comedians moved to Austin because it was less expensive, restrictive, and dangerous than other American metro areas. And the city, which was dealing with a downturn in the music industry caused by an upturn in the tech industry, had a ton of empty performance spaces to host them. Elon Musk appeared on Rogan, said, "this place is cool," and the modern Republican cultural ethos was born.Neal ends the segment by telling Bobby that he, too, is going to start doing standup comedy. Bobby warns him that it's tough out there.But not as tough as it is in Hollywood. Richard Rushfield, columnist and founding light of The Ankler, joins Neal to discuss Hollywood's disastrous participation in this election. From the condescending tone of the Julia Roberts ad telling liberal women to defy their MAGA husbands in the voting booth, to the weird twerking of Megan Thee Stallion at a Kamala Harris rally, to the endless, clueless online endorsements, the traditional entertainment industry revealed itself as completely out of touch with reality. Richard talks about how young people don't respond to movies and TV like they once did. They like their celebrities unscripted and unfiltered. Neal points out that may have something to do with the success of Donald Trump. He's a celebrity, but he's a different kind of celebrity, kind of a proto viral celebrity. Oprah Winfrey just can't compete.You will understand everything after listening to this podcast. Thanks for joining us.

This week we will not be discussing the seismic impact on the cultural world of the re-election of Donald Trump to the Presidency. That's for next week. We already recorded this amazing episode, and are discussing other issues of huge important in the literary world.First-time guest and first-time BFG contributor Shana Burg joins Neal Pollack to discuss her new book Poof! The Disappearance of a Writer in the Age of AI. Shana has had a fascinating journey through her writer's life. She worked in publishing in her 20s, put out three young-adult historical novels, and then, when that market dried up, transitioned into being a content creator who wrote about her lifelong love...of taking baths. But then, just as it looked like she was going to be able to make a permanent living, AI reared its head, making her type of content creation obsolete. She and Neal discuss if it's possible to still make a living as a writer in this day and age, and what the path might be going forward.Sharyn Vane comes by the pod dome to talk to Neal about the growing trend of "literary" writers speaking out against Israel's war in Gaza. Unfortunately, that trend has expanded to the cancellation of literary events, and now, a petition boycotting "Israeli cultural institutions." Neal Pollack, himself a writer of extreme renown, has signed a counter petition, and is firmly against canceling any Jewish writer for any reason, even if those doing the canceling are also Jewish. Look, it's a huge mess, but we will continue to try to clean it up on Book and Film Globe.Tune in this week, and next week, when we will be the only people on Earth talking about the aftermath of the United States Presidential election. Thanks, all, for listening!

It's October, that special time of the movie year where quality awards-bait shares space with horror flicks and other genre fare. We have space to write about it all on BFG, but barely have enough time to talk about it. So this week chief film critic Stephen Garrett joins Neal Pollack for a kind of speed-round to catch each other and all of you up on what's in theaters and also on the way out of theaters.First up is 'Conclave,' a pulpy not-quite-murder mystery set in the Vatican. Apparently there's more intrigue surrounding the election of a new Pope than there is surrounding the selection of the new head of a Mafia crime family. Maybe they're actually the same thing, Conclave posits. Stephen calls Conclave director Edward Berger the king of "empty prestige" pictures. Neal sort of agrees with him but still enjoyed Ralph Fiennes's campy lead performance as a Cardinal-detective who's undergoing a crisis of faith.On a less serious note, we have 'Venom: The Last Dance,' which Stephen points out has the same creator as the previous two Venom movies, both of which he also reviewed for us. While he absolutely hated the first Venom, Stephen has warmed to each subsequent installment, and he's almost a fan. At this point, we have to wonder if a Venom symbiote isn't inhabiting his body, or at least his reviews.Parker Finn, the creator of Smile 2, is almost like a horror auteur at this point. The sequel is flashier than the first installment, and it's also a huge hit. Stephen found it a bit too long and maybe a bit too full of itself, but it's also genuinely creepy and also has some deliciously nasty ideas about how deep-seated psychological trauma can haunt people, and even kill them. But even if it doesn't, the franchise is a hit and it's here to stay.With the election approaching, The Apprentice should be required viewing. Neal calls the Donald Trump origin story, set in the 1970s and 80s, "one of the best movies I've seen all year." Stephen won't go that far, but he has nothing but praise for Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stand as Donald Trump. This movie is more popular overseas than in the U.S. Neal thinks it's not pro-Trump enough for MAGA types and not anti-Trump for people who are anti-Trump. But for people who love good movies, it's perfect.We can't say the same about 'We Live In Time,' a completely dopey romantic drama about cancer and chefs and who knows what else. Stephen calls this Florence Pugh/Andrew Garfield movie "so dumb," and Neal and Stephen both marvel at the millennial uber-beta-male who is Garfield's character. Then there's the non-linear narrative, a curse on the world that hopefully this movie will end. But we wouldn't count on thatEnjoy the show!

Art the Clown from 'Terrifier' three could not join host Neal Pollack for this week's BFG podcast because of various disgusting commitments, but Stephen Garrett is always available. He stops by the Pod Dome to talk about 'Saturday Night,' Jason Reitman's ode to the opening night of Saturday Night Live. Stephen liked the film, he enjoyed its ramshackle "let's put on a show" vibe and has warm, fuzzy memories of the early days of watching the program. Neal found the movie twitchy and annoying and overly reverential, though he did admire some of the celebrity impersonations and loved the cheap shots at Milton Berle. It's a film that celebrates something that doesn't really need to be celebrated.'English Teacher,' now streaming on Hulu since its initial run on FX has ended, is one of the best-reviewed and least-watched shows of the year. Critic Matthew Ehrlich takes time out from digging a swimming pool in his backyard by hand to praise the show and its creator Brian Jordan Alvarez for one of the best and least woke depictions of gay life ever put to screen. Neal also really digs the show and the Texas setting and finds the side characters charming and delightful. Above all else, the show is funny, and it's also short, and it's something you really should watch.Your opinion about 'Megalopolis' will vary from frame to frame. Neal and Stephen Garrett have a blast picking apart the weird phenomenon of a $100 million boondoggle made by Francis Ford Coppola, an 85-year-old man. Coppola is doing things that we haven't seen in movies since the 1930s. Whether or not that's a good thing will widely depend on the viewer. But we can all agree that Aubrey Plaza knows exactly what kind of a movie she's in, and boyo, does she deliver the goods as a character named Wow Platinum.Thanks for listening to the BFG Podcast, with your new host, Wow Platinum.

"I have never been so happy to see a film flop at the box office," host Neal Pollack says of 'Joker: Folie a Deux,' which he discusses on this week's podcast with film critic Stephen Garrett. Stephen is a little kinder to the film than Neal is, but he agrees that not much in this movie works. Neal finds the courtroom sequences boring and cliched, the musical sequences uninspired, and the dark romance completely incompetent and unbelievable. Both Neal and Stephen agree that this deeply unpleasant movie deserves everything that's coming to it, and that Joaquin Phoenix can't sing even if Lady Gaga can. Todd Phillips should go straight to movie jail for this crime against cinema. So sayeth we.Rabbi Pollack (not an actual rabbi) invites Rebecca Kurson on the podcast to talk about 'Nobody Wants This,' the Netflix sitcom about a sex podcaster, played by Kristen Bell, who falls for a Jewish rabbi, played by Adam Brody. Boy, did Becky hate this show. It depicts a Judaism where no one talks about October 7, Israel, or the Holocaust. Neal argues that this is a Netflix sitcom about a sex podcaster so no one wants to hear characters talk about those things. Fair enough, Becky says, but this is still a morally questionable show about horrible people who don't deserve love. Neal just likes watching Brody and Justine Lupe, who plays Kristen Bell's sister, and also feels like it is a somewhat accurate depiction of a certain type of bourgeois Angeleno who he knows too well. This show does not hate Jews, Neal concludes. Maybe it's just kind of dumb.It is a contentious week on the BFG podcast! Give us a listen and find out why host Neal Pollack calls it "the number 4 rated entertainment news podcast in The Gambia."

Pop goes the podcast this week as Neal Pollack welcomes Scott Gold to talk about two very different comic book shows now streaming. First up, there's 'The Penguin,' starring Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti. Scott was curious as to whether or not a Gotham-set show without Batman would work. But both he and Neal have totally bought into The Penguin's gritty mix of street-level action, car chases, mob intrigue, and endless F-bombs. "It's dark, even for a Batman show," Scott says. But it's also crisply-written, well-paced, and brilliantly acted. It comes with our highest stamp of approval.'Agatha All Along,' the Halloween-themed witch show from Marvel, also gets extremely high marks from Neal and Scott. Unlike 'The Penguin,' this show, a spinoff of the groundbreaking 'Wandavision,' doesn't take itself too seriously. But it does delve deep into witch lore, and subsumes witchcraft into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe framework. Kathryn Hahn hams it up to great effect, and Marvel has surrounded her with a harmonious supporting cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Sameer Zamata, Debra Jo Rupp, and, in an incredible casting coup, Broadway megastar Patti LuPone. It's a star-stuffed ensemble even by Marvel standards, and the show is fun, a little scary, but still light enough to watch with your eyes fully open.We can't say the same thing about 'The Substance,' the new feminist body horror movie from French director Coralie Fargeat. Neal couldn't actually watch this movie because he hates things coming out of other things. But Stephen Garrett is mercifully not so squeamish, and he appreciated the over-the-top metaphor about female aging and how our society treats women over 50. Demi Moore gives a signature performance, Margaret Qualley plays a villain with unhinged vigor, and Dennis Quaid gorges on shrimp in the most disgusting way. And this is the year's most disgusting movie, but people are digging it so we give it high marks even though Neal Pollack is a total coward.Enjoy the show!

It's a podcast ripped straight from the headlines this week, or at least the extremely-online headlines. Elisa Albert joins Neal Pollack to discuss the recent cancellation of a book panel at the Albany Book Festival. Two young writers didn't want to appear with Albert because she's a "Zionist." This is the latest and most appalling act of antisemitism yet in the literary world. Even though Albert admits that she is "very much a Zionist, and proudly so," the panel was about coming-of-age novels. Pollack and Albert call out this act of disgusting cowardice. "It's a lot of ignorance and a lot of performativity," Albert says. "There are a lot of opportunists. You can really fake it as an artist in many ways...this year has exposed a lot of garbage behavior from a lot of garbage people."Writer Meghan Daum, the founder of the Unspeakeasy community for women who have dangerous thoughts, joins Neal to talk about the dangerous-thinking movie 'Am I Racist?' a documentary from conservative online personality Matt Walsh that takes on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion industry. Neal has his criticisms of Am I Racist? as a movie, but neither he nor Meghan can find much fault with his taking the piss out of DEI hustlers. Meghan has actually interviewed Saira Rao and Regina Jackson, two of the people that the movie calls out, and she has some insider-baseball insight about why they're successful. It has something to do with the "weaponization of female rage," or maybe grievance, which Neal knows nothing about but Meghan does.This is a great episode, the reason we do what we do, featuring two of the smartest and most contrarian thinkers in the literary world. If this doesn't put our podcast at the top of the conversational board, then nothing will. Enjoy the show, and share it with Zionist friends.

This week, our hero and host, Neal Pollack, welcomes back Greg Ford to the podcast to talk about 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.' It's the second season of The Rings of Power, and the makers of that show have doubled down on what was bad about the first season: Boring characters, slow storylines, and nonsensical world building. For resident Tolkien fans, it's a real disappointment, though the show does look terrific despite the extremely mediocre acting and lame fan service. We cannot recommend it with good conscience.But Stephen Garrett can recommend many of the films coming out of this year's Toronto International Film Festival with good conscience. There was tons of crowd-pleasing Oscar bait this year, including the Papal succession movie Conclave, Babygirl, starring Nicole Kidman on all fours, a documentary about Pharrell Williams where everyone is a Lego figure, and a biopic about Robbie Williams where the star is played by a chimpanzee. You heard it here first! Listen up and get your fall movie viewing calendar ready. It should be fun.Why does this new Ronald Reagan biopic feature a narrator, played by Jon Voight, who's an ex-KGB agent? If you're trying to turn nonbelievers into Reagan fans, this is not the way to do it. Contributor Adam Hirschfelder joins Neal to talk about the strange trip that is 'Reagan.' Dennis Quaid plays Ronald Reagan, a good bit of casting. Apparently, Ronald Reagan single-handedly defeated Communism and had nothing to do with the Iran-Contra Affair. Is that true? It's not up for this podcast to decide. But we can certainly decide that 'Reagan' is a silly film, an unintentional comedy that plays like a sketch-show parody of a Reagan biopic.OK, that's all we wrote. We thank you for listening, this week and every week!

BFG Podcast! BFG Podcast! BFG Podcast! Host Neal Pollack once again summons up the world's finest pop-culture critics to talk about culture high and low this week. First up is Stephen Garrett, appearing from the film-critic underworld to discuss Tim Burton's new hit sequel 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.' It's messy and too stuffed with exposition, but both Neal and Stephen think it's kind of fun, even if they don't like Justin Theroux in it at all. The major point of dispute comes over Willem Dafoe, who plays a TV cop in the underworld. Neal found it hilarious, Stephen thought it was stupid and unnecessary. Let's remember, after all, that this is a 'Beetlejuice' movie. Let's not overthink it.It's possible, however, to overthink 'Strange Darling,' now playing at a grind house near you. Neal saw 'Strange Darling' at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles, appropriate since JT Mollner's film owes such a huge debt to Quentin Tarantino. Pablo Gallaga, who has seen Strange Darling TWICE, has nothing but praise for the film, for first-time cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi, and especially for the film's star, Willa Fitzgerald. Both he and Neal agree that Fitzgerald is a major actor in the making, and that this odd serial killer love story with an unconventional narrative structure could be her signature role.Then there's Jeff Goldblum as Zeus in the Netflix show 'Kaos.' Critic Samuel Porteous joins Neal to deconstruct this "very British" take on the Greek gods. Sam enjoys the "world building" of the show, but wishes there were more grandeur and less overtly, or at least less obvious, political posturing. It all tries a little bit too hard and is a little bit less fun than it should be. Kaos is less of a "masterpiece" and more of an interesting failure, he says.Unlike the BFG Podcast, which is always a success. Enjoy!

It's a Jewish-themed episode of the BFG Podcast this week. What else is new, you're asking, and you will be right to some extent, but that's just how the dreidel fell, content-wise. First up, host Neal Pollack visits the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, and finds the Jewish content extremely wanting, particularly in the 'Hollywoodland' exhibit, which purports to be about the Jewish founders of the eight major studios of Hollywood's golden age but quickly descends into stereotypes, calling the studio heads "predators" and tyrants" and not spending any time interested in their actual Judaism. Neal laments the lack of pride in Jewish identity in the exhibit.Special guest Michael Kaplan, a former writer for Roseanne and Frasier (not Friends), part of a group of L.A. writers who have protested the exhibit, laments the obvious tokenism of the museum display, as well as its smallness and lack of consequence. Not once, he points out, does the exhibit celebrate the Jewish tradition of storytelling that led the founders to establish the movie business in the first place. The exhibit is a cryin' shame, and both Neal and Michael worry about the imprint it will have on the many thousands of schoolchildren who march through the museum every year.Speaking of Jewish storytelling, Rebecca Kurson drops in to talk to Neal about 'Between the Temples,' a new movie that celebrates ordinary Judaism in all its messy glory. Becky saw Between the Temples on the date that we learned Hamas had murdered six Jewish hostages, and boy did she need this tonic, which depicts American Jewish life and celebrates it as not only normal, but necessary. Carol Kane, in full Ruth Gordon mode, is an older lady who decides, late in life, to become a Bat Mitzvah. Despite some twitchy direction, this is one of the best and most accurate depictions of Jewish devotional life in recent memory. If only the Academy Museum would have done the same.If you're listening this week, then Mazel tov!

We're charting! Did you know that this podcast regularly earns a spot on the lists of top entertainment podcasts in several countries, including Sweden, Gambia, Poland, Australia and Canada? It's true. The Book and Film Globe podcast has even cracked the Top 200 in the US a couple times, as well as UK. We are grateful to all our fans, everywhere—thanks for listening.We've got a shortish episode this week as Neal Pollack, our site's fearless editor — and this podcast's host — embarks on an odyssey of non-trivial consequence. But as Peter Parker's uncle said, with great brevity comes great wit. Or something like that.Neal speaks about Alien: Romulus with Pablo Gallaga, who feels that the Fede Alvarez installation to the series can't quite make up its mind about what it wants to be.[caption id="attachment_25944" align="alignright" width="269"] Photo of Jennifer Shirk courtesy of the author.[/caption]Next up is Laura Roberts, who gets into it about It Ends with Us, the new Justin Baldoni-directed romantic drama with Blake Lively based on the novel by Colleen Hoover. If you're wondering where to buy Colleen Hoover's books, you've come to the right place -- our indie book store The Book House sells a ton of It Ends With Us and all of Ms. Hoover's considerable output. With just a few weeks left of summer, head to Millburn or Long Branch to stock up on this prolific author's paperbacks.And speaking of The Book House …When you finish The Book and Film Globe podcast, please give our new podcast a spin. The Book House podcast is hosted by journalist and author Liz Alterman, who every week opens a window on the business of publishing, interviewing a different author or editor. In this week's episode, Liz talks to Jennifer Shirk, the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of 12 sweet and funny romance novels. Jennifer's latest, Resorting to Romance, was released on July 2. The South Jersey author actually got her bachelor's degree in pharmacy and was contemplating a doctorate before turning to fiction. Listen to The Book House podcast on Apple or Spotify.And don't forget to like, review and follow the Book and Film Globe podcast, also on Apple and Spotify.

Podcast host Neal Pollack revisits his roots this week as he interviews his old friend Arthur Bradford, the director of 'To Be Destroyed', a new short documentary about the efforts of the school district of Rapid City, South Dakota, to ban a bunch of books, including the novel 'The Circle' by Dave Eggers.If you mess with Dave Eggers, you'd best not miss. And they did miss. Arthur was once a writer but is now a documentary filmmaker. He and Eggers had been talking about doing a documentary, but this was the obvious topic. Eggers went to South Dakota and met with students, and Arthur accompanied him. A crusade against injustice ensued. Neal and Arthur talk about the film and the issues at hand, and also about Neal's "psychological issues" surrounding his former colleague and mentor Eggers. A revealing conversation ensues about the realities of book banning and why Neal wants a camera crew to "follow me to Trader Joe's."A more conventional but still insightful segment follows. Contributor Greg Ford joins Neal to talk about the strange new adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio's 'The Decameron', now airing on Netflix. They both enjoyed the performance of main character Tanya Reynolds but also found the adaptation to be overly long and needlessly silly. Greg, who has actually read 'The Decameron,' also notes that the show isn't nearly as bawdy as the book itself, which was controversial in its time for its overtly sexual and anti-clerical content, two issues that are not a problem today.Enjoy the show!

The fourth-most-popular entertainment news podcast in The Gambia returns this week with a great dog days of summer episode. First up, host Neal Pollack welcomes Sharyn Vane for another important eat-your-veggies segment. Apparently, the literary world has decided that apolitical writer Gabrielle Zevin, author of the bestselling 'Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow' is a "Zionist" because her novel features an Israel character and she once gave an interview to Hadassah magazine. This is annoying at the least, and quite dangerous at the most, and Book and Film Globe will continue to stand strong against forces in the literary world that insist on marginalizing and discriminating against Jewish authors. We should be long past this as a society.But we are not long past M. Night Shyamalan movies, and JonPaul Guinn joins our Rotten Tomatoes-approved editor-in-chief to discuss M. Night's wacky new locked-room serial-killer movie 'Trap,' which is almost a comedy, and is quite a lot of fun. JP way prefers Trap to Longlegs, and both he and Neal way prefer it to the previous Shyamalan movie A Knock At The Cabin, which collapsed under the weight of its own pretentiousness. There's nothing pretentious about Trap, it's fun. You will have fun. Have fun at it.There's also nothing pretentious about the Apple+ TV adaptation of Time Bandits, though Scott Gold, our resident Time Bandits effort, admits that showrunners Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement lack the artistry of Terry Gilliam, who made the original Time Bandits. But for men of a certain age, which Scott and Neal most definitely are, a Time Bandits reboot is nostalgic catnip. Scott says the show is funny, if not a surrealist masterpiece like the original. A little warm glow of time-traveling nostalgia. No pop-culture product ever really dies, and the new Time Bandits is no exception.Enjoy the show!

We discuss the most popular movie in the world on this week's podcast, and also discuss two...books. We are BOOK and Film Globe, after all. You can't pigeonhole us.Frequent sci-fi and fantasy reviewer Dan Friedman joins Neal Pollack on the podcast to discuss 'The Bright Sword,' a very modern retelling of the Arthurian legend from Lev Grossman, who wrote The Magicians series. Did you know Sir Bedivere was gay? Lev Grossman does! In any case, The Bright Sword is quite engaging and fun to read, and both Dan and Neal reserve praise for this book, which injects fresh life into a moldy mythology.'The Book of Elsewhere,' by China Mieville and, we guess, Keanu Reeves, is a bit more of a lift, despite being half the length. Based on an ultra-violent comic book series by Reeves, this is the story of 'B,' an 80,000-year-old immortal warrior who cannot die, or who at least comes back to life after he dies. Think John Wick meets Highlander. It's not as much fun as it sounds, if it sounds fun at all. Mieville fills the pages between grisly action sequences with philosophical rumination on the meaning of identity, approach at your own risk. Both Dan and Neal found this book to be a bit much.Stephen Garrett crosses over from another realm in the multiverse to discuss 'Deadpool & Wolverine' with Neal. They both found this meta-entry in the MCU to be kind of cheap and a load of fun. There's not much else to say about the #1 movie in the world, other than "Marvel is back," and nothing is going to stop it from reasserting its dominance over the pop-culture landscape. They also discuss, along those lines, the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU. The years of Dr. Doom are in front of us. It's Marvel's multiverse, and we just live in it.Enjoy the show, people of The Gambia!

Politics and culture intersect bigly on this week's podcast. Adam Hirschfelder, a pundit-in-the-wings, joins host Neal Pollack to talk about the J.D. Vance phenomenon. Specifically, they discuss how 'Hillbilly Elegy,' Vance's memoir, was once the publishing-industry standard bearer for understanding Appalachia and the "Trump voter." "This book was embraced by liberals across the country," Adam says. Boy, have times changed. Neal points out the irony that a memoirist is potentially one step away from the Presidency. Neal compares Vance to Barack Obama, but Obama's memoirs, while well-written "actual books" were clearly part of a political strategy. No one saw Vance coming at the time in 2016. Maybe Vance did."It's as if one of my memoirs had become a huge best-seller, and then I became a Senator from Texas, and now was Kamala Harris's Vice-President." That would be quite a multiverse timeline. Meanwhile, 'Hillbilly Elegy' is "off the chains." "Those houses in the Hamptons don't build themselves," Adam says.Meanwhile, Donald Trump cannot stop invoking "the late, great Hannibal Lecter" on the campaign trail. Not much to say here other than it's hilarious and ridiculous. Also, Hannibal Lecter is a fictional character. And he's not dead even in his fictional universe.Jake Harris joins the podcast to talk about 'Twisters.' He saw it in a screening in Dallas with a bunch of meteorologists. Talk about a receptive audiences! 'Twisters' has a strong female protagonist, weather porn, lots of trucks and red-dirt country music, beautiful Oklahoma landscapes, and a realistic rodeo scene. It's the perfect summer blockbuster to appeal to Red and Blue America alike, the film that will bring us all together. Neal refers to costar Glen Powell as the "emotional support dog" for the protagonist, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones. If you feel it, chase it!Adam Hirschfelder returns after 10 minutes in the green room to talk about his favorite subject, Kevin Costner. Why did Costner leave 'Yellowstone' to make 'Horizon,' a 12-hour Western epic? We don't know. Adam sat through the first three hours in a theater, the second three hours remains unreleased, and the fate of the saga's back end is unknown. Does 'Horizon' do anything differently than 'Centennial,' 'Lonesome Dove,' 'Dances With Wolves,' 'Unforgiven,' 'Deadwood,' or any other modern Western. It does not. Kevin Costner, you have broken Adam Hirschfelder's heart.It's a great episode. Please enjoy!

The Book and Film Globe podcast returns this week with another fantastic episode. The world of American politics may be roiling, but we continue to cover the culture, because politics is downstream from culture, or something along those lines.First, we travel north of the border, where Canadian literary society is in crisis after the Nobel Prize-winning writer Alice Munro finds herself posthumously embroiled in a terrible scandal. She essentially attempted to cover up the alleged sexual abuse of her own daughter. Host Neal Pollack and contributor Michael Washburn in no way condone Munro's actions, but they wonder why the literary world is so quick to pass judgment on someone who, when she died a couple of months ago, they hailed as the greatest short-story writer of all time. What are we actually doing here? The BFG podcast wants us all to slow our roll.Stephen Garrett stops by to talk to Neal about the lousy space-race comedy 'Fly Me To The Moon,' though he balks when Neal refers to co-star Channing Tatum as a "himbo." It is highly unlikely that the government would have been able to set up a fake moon landing in an empty hangar on the site of the Apollo 11 launch. Neal spends a lot of time pointing out the outfits of Scarlett Johansson and her assistant, which is a real problem when you're talking about a movie about the moon landing. What a turkey.However, we do recommend 'Longlegs,' or at least Pablo Gallaga does. Neal gets scared easily at movies, and Pablo tells him that Longlegs is, in fact scary. But it's scary in the way that 'Zodiac' is scary. Neal does not find Zodiac scary. Look, who knows, this is a horror movie. Pablo likes it. It's a huge hit. And we're on top of things here at BFG.Enjoy this episode!

It's six degrees of Kevin Bacon and J.K. Rowling on this week's podcast, as we discuss two movies that feature Kevin Bacon and one online controversy that definitely features J.K. Rowling.First up, special guest Kat Rosenfield, a columnist for the Free Press, appears to talk about her recent column on last week's ridiculous online tumult that went down after a millennial on X discovered an old Rowling interview where Rowling called Vladimir Nabokov a "love story." That's about as stupid as it sounds, but Kat and host Neal Pollack pick it apart quite intelligently. The conversation is a riff on Rosenfield's take: "People, in their fervor for recreational hatred, are rendering themselves functionally illiterate." Amen to that.Stephen Garrett shows up on the podcast like he does nearly every week. This time, he and Neal discuss 'MaXXine,' the "thesis" movie from director Ti West, if a thesis movie can be an artsy riff on 1980s direct-to-video horror movies and also the sleaziness of the 1980s porn industry. Needless to say, this is not a family film. Stephen thinks it's a little cold, studied, and pretentious, but there's no denying that MaXXXine is true to its pulp sensibility, and it really captures a certain kind of 1980s vibe. Highly recommended, or not, depending on your sensibility.Eddie Murphy is back, not on the podcast, but in 'Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F'. Resident Beverly Hills Cop JP Guinn joins Neal to sass-talk the ultimate cinematic sass-talker. JP places this new Netflix number somewhere between Beverly Hills Cop 2 and the disastrous Beverly Hills Cop 3 on the Axel Foley timeline. There's not much good to say here, though "Neutron Dance" remains a fun song for a dumb action sequence, even if that action sequence involves a snowplow destroying downtown Detroit. "What are we really being nostalgic for here?" Neal asks. Good question.From high to low, we cover it all on BFG. Enjoy the show!

BFG serves up an unpretentious meal of pop-culture criticism in this week's podcast. Stephen Garrett enters the room quietly to talk to noisy host Neal Pollack about 'A Quiet Place: Day One.' After dodging brief accusations of misogynoir, Stephen admits that the prequel is well-made and that Lupita Nyong'o is beautiful and talented, but he just cannot get around how stupid the aliens are in the movie. They don't eat anything. They just hate noise. It's a jump-scare franchise and nothing else. If you like that sort of thing, you will like this flick. Stephen does not like this sort of thing.Greg Ford doesn't like The Bear at all. He tried, oh he tried. Neal also really wanted to like The Bear, but in Season 3, the show is clearly high on its own supply, over-enamored with its own artistry and gorging on self-importance. We are not alone in taking on The Bear here. Critical opinion has flipped quickly. Our beloved new TV restaurant changed its menu, and people don't like what it's serving. Neal and Greg certainly do not.But Neal and Stephen DO like Kinds of Kindness, the new film from Yorgos Lanthimos, starring a "fearless" and occasionally naked Emma Stone. Neal likens the film to a short-fiction anthology, sort of a sexy Kafka set in Louisiana, with sex cults. It's kind of a great film, Neal and Stephen agree. Willem Dafoe also gets naked.Enjoy the podcast!

Host and editor Neal Pollack has returned from the World Series of Poker, where he did pretty well, not great, but pretty well, to deliver steaming-hot pop-culture takes on a new episode of the BFG podcast.Neal came home from Las Vegas and immediately started mainlining as much TV as possible. The first priority was a new season of House of the Dragon, now airing on Max. Omar Gallaga, the world's greatest House of the Dragon recapper, joins Neal to talk about season 2. Neal loves HOD, he finds it reminiscent of the early seasons of Game of Thrones, when we were all much younger and the world was a happier, more innocent place. Omar is entertained, in the classical sense, but he also sees HOD as more of a faux-Shakespearian history and less of a faux-Shakespearian tragedy. It's based on a fake history book by George RR Martin, as opposed to GOT, which was a novel adaptation, so Omar regrets that the characters don't have the rich interior lives they need to make this show great. Neal just wants dragon fights.William Schwartz joins Neal to talk about the new season of The Boys. They parse the "controversy" surrounding the show. The right-wing expresses outrage that The Boys satirizes the right wing, which it always has. But stupid liberals also come under the microscope. As do corporate diversity programs. The Boys takes the piss out of our superhero-saturated culture like no other cultural property ever could, and any critique of it is essentially invalid. Season 4 is just as wild and gross and outrageous as ever, and Neal and William both love it.Meanwhile, at the movies, The Bikeriders has opened Stephen Garrett saw this film a year ago and barely remembers it, but Neal saw it last week and found it surprisingly effective. Jodie Comer is as Midwestern as a British woman has ever been, and Tom Hardy and Austin Butler give filthy greaser biker-guy star turns. As Neal said in his review, The Bikeriders is a 1960s Village Voice article, but in movie form, and it's one of the entertainment year's most pleasant surprises.Enjoy our show!

On this week's podcast, guest host and site contributor Scott Gold discusses some of the biggest pop-culture recent releases from the big and small screen.First up, Scott and fellow Star Wars nerd, author and TV writer Rob Kutner discuss whether the latest Disney+ series to tap into a galaxy far, far away, The Acolyte, gets far enough away from the Skywalker saga to make things interesting again. Does switching the tone and theme to something darker and more mystery focused shed fresh light on what makes Jedi the way they are? And it it all enough to make casual fans as excited about this show as we all were when The Mandalorian exceeded expectations?Next, film critic Stephen Garrett gets in our heads with a discussion of Pixar's much-anticipated sequel Inside Out 2, which continues the story of Riley Andersen as puberty brings a whole new set of personified emotions including Anxiety and Ennui. How does it measure up the the beloved original? Did you happen to catch that Bing Bong Easter Egg?Last but not least, Sharyn Vane explores Netflix's wildly popular true-crime story Dancing for the Devil, a three-part docudrama about the 7M TikTok cult. Sharyn talks about the internet rabbit hole she fell down getting to know these personalities long before Netflix came to the party with its own twisty take on the church that was producing popular dance content.Enjoy the show!

This week, special guest Richard Rushfield, columnist for 'The Ankler' and one of the sharpest observers of the entertainment business, joins host Neal Pollack in the pod dome to discuss this summer's "catastrophic" box office. "What is Garfield to you?" Richard challenges Neal. "Is it not entertainment?" It is, but the summer box office performance for the adult-facing movies has been bad. But, Rushfield posits, in an average summer 'The Fall Guy' and 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes' wouldn't be considered disasters, they would be filler movies between blockbusters. But there are problems in the pipelines, studios are consolidating. The "ecosystem" depends on 120 movies a year, but will fall way short of that number.But the studios have only themselves to blame, Rushfield says. You can't blame the strikes. "It's like saying, I had to do my homework but went to the beach instead, so of course I didn't do my homework. What do you expect?"Later, Rushfield has praise for Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin and for 'Masters of Air,' and says that he is hate-watching Season 3 of 'Hacks,' though he does like Jean Smart essentially playing Joan Rivers. He finds the rest of the show "amateurish." His aesthetic judgment is golden. Neal also forces Rushfield to talk about 'For All Mankind' on Apple+, which hasn't aired new episodes since January but which Neal has been bingeing much to the chagrin of his wife. Rushfield considers For All Mankind one of the top 5 shows of the streaming era, and Pollack agrees.Two grumpy old Jewish dads discussing the entertainment industry. It's why podcasts exist! Check it out.

BFG goes to the movies this week even if no one else is. We cover three recent releases with the comprehensiveness they deserve.Stephen Garrett is back from Cannes to review 'Furiosa' with host Neal Pollack. He calls it "one of the great prequels ever made," and Neal can't really disagree. Yet there's an element of surprise missing from this 'Fury Road' origin story that has left it somewhat high and dry with audiences. Chris Hemsworth really chews the scenery, Anya Taylor-Joy does a lot of grunting, and there are plenty of exploding glider attacks on truck convoys if you like that sort of thing. We do!Gillian Gear returns to the show to talk with Neal about 'Back to Black,' the Amy Winehouse biopic. Gillian was bored by the movie. Neal said it pales in comparison with any Amy Winehouse documentary from a decade ago. It's a minor film trying and mostly failing to capitalize on the massive success of Bohemian Rhapsody from a few years back. The music isn't as central to Back in Black as it should be. Though Neal liked the two leads, Gillian was too bored to really care about them. This movie should go to rehab, HEYO.Saving the best movie for last, Omar Gallaga stops in to talk to fellow Austinite Pollack about 'Hit Man,' the years most Austin movie even though it takes place in New Orleans. Richard Linklater directs a script by himself and the movie's star Glen Powell, adapted from a Texas Monthly article. Powell and Adria Arjona steam up the screen in the hottest comedy crime-romance since Clooney and Lopez hooked up in Out of Sight, and that was a long time ago. It's a small-screen Netflix project in a lot of ways, but it still warrants a big-screen viewing if that's available to you. Highly recommended by us at BFG.Enjoy the show!

It's the end of the world and the end of an empire on this week's podcast. We know that sounds heavy, but host Neal Pollack and his guests, BFG contributors Omar Gallaga and Stephen Garrett, keep it relatively light.First up, Omar Gallaga joins Neal to talk about 'Nuclear War: A Scenario,' a book by Annie Jacobsen that scared the hell out of him, and will scare you, too. Jacobsen posits what would happen if a "Mad King," like, say, the one currently in North Korea, decided to test the limits of their nuclear arsenal. The answer: nothing good. There will be no hope. The only positive takeaway, Omar says, is that the Earth will regenerate without us. So let's all get on with our days, shall we?We could, for instance, watch 'Fallout' on Amazon Prime, which is based on a post-nuclear apocalypse video game and is a lot more fun to watch than the war-room scenarios depicted in Jacobsen's book. Omar was totally hooked on the show, which BFG recommends highly.As for Francis Ford Coppola's 'Megalopolis,' which debuted this week at Cannes, well, god bless him, Stephen Garrett says. The 40-year-old script is the equivalent, he says, of a pool shot that rips the fabric of the table and sends the ball flying into the wall. But it's also big and fun in a campy sort of way. Megalopolis is Coppola's moonshot, and at a press conference in Canness (which Stephen attended), he said he'll still be making movies in 20 years, which would make him 105 years old. Sure, why not? Go for it!Other highlights of Cannes include a new movie from 'Poor Things' director Yorgos Lanthimos, and a bunch of other stuff that sounds very depressing. Stephen will be spending the week seeing many more movies and drinking lukewarm rosé at beach parties. This is how he suffers for his art.Enjoy the show!