Book and Film Globe Podcast

Is this the twilight of Boomer Hollywood? The three movies Neal Pollack and Stephen Garrett discuss on the podcast this week might point toward yes. First, they discuss the most OK Boomer movie of the year, Aaron Sorkin's laughable The Social Reckoning, his panicked response over Facebook content moderation debates from six years ago. It contains none of the charm, mystery, or urgency of The Social Network, but does contain a lot of scenes of wet Mikey Madison, about which Sorkin might want to consult a therapist. The Social Reckoning serves up howler after howler. It's a film conceived by your Dem-donating uncle's Facebook feed.

Next is Alejandro Inarritu's inexplicable bomb Digger, starring Tom Cruise as an oil tycoon, an actor, or both, in a "satire" about global warming embedded in a satire about global warming. A grating soundbath of pretension, Digger does have a few interesting ideas and good set design, and Cruise tries his damndest to win an Oscar, which adds to the amusement.

More mixed is Primetime, a film about the life and death of the infamous NBC show To Catch a Predator. Neal actually liked this film more than Stephen, who found it sleazy. But it's probably the best of the three. Given that we're in the waning years of human-made film, these three movies provide an argument that that might not be such a bad thing.

Enjoy the show! It is good!

Stephen Garrett is back from Venice, Neal Pollack was in Venice earlier this year. And the one thing they can agree on: Venice is very hot in the summer. But only Stephen attended the Venice International Film Festival, and man, did he see some great movies. We should watch out for Ink, the new Danny Boyle movie about the Rupert Murdoch assault on London's stodgy Fleet Street newspapers in 1969, a new 1973-set CIA thriller comedy from Martin McDonagh, starring John Malkovich, and NAZA, a documentary about the IDF's activities in Gaza that we're certain will be the topic of nuanced debate online.

Also playing in Venice (and Austin, where Neal saw it) is Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger, a fantastic documentary about Oasis' 2025 world reunion tour. Neal was already a fan, and Stephen, well, he's a lad now. Beautifully made, with great sound, this is a hallmark of rock documentary filmmaking. More divisive is Hope, a South Korean monster movie that's also a sci-fi movie. Or is it an absurd character comedy. This movie changes gears every hour, and it's almost three hours long. Neal and Stephen loved the first hour, and the rest, well, you'll just have to listen to the episode.

Every so often, we witness a great screen performance that generations to come will remember. That's happened this week with the arrival of Coyote Vs. Acme, the long-shelved Looney Tunes-live action hybrid. Wile E. Coyote plays his signature role--himself--in the long-awaited movie, which Warner Brothers tried to deny us, taking a tax writeoff instead. Host Neal Pollack and guest Rob Kutner unpack the meaning of that private-equity move, and parse the utter hilarity of Coyote Vs. Acme, unleashing a Rube Goldberg-like segment that will hit you on the head like a hammer.

But first, Nick Tangborn joins Neal to talk about Lanterns, which Sam Porteous wrote about on BFG. Admittedly, Neal and Nick talked about Lanterns before the HBO Max/DC Universe show dropped its controversial race-tinged episode three, which didn't bother Neal because of the race tinging, but rather because of the unnecessary non-linear narrative structure. Not everything has to be a puzzlebox, and certainly not everything about a cosmic struggle for the powers of a magical intergalactic ring has to be a puzzlebox. Still, there's plenty in Lanterns to keep comic-book fans happy. Lovers of linear narratives should apply elsewhere.

Enjoy the show!

It's August, my dudes, and you know what that means: August movies! The last month of summer is always a mixed bag of genre trash and uncategorizable indie films, and 2026 is no exception. Host Neal Pollack and chief critic Stephen Garrett team up to review two of the Augustest movies that have ever Augusted.

First there's One Night Only, a kind of Purge-themed romcom that postulates a right-wing government making it illegal for single people to have sex except for 12 hours a year. It's a bizarre premise that the movie wears lightly, and Neal and Stephen found themselves strangely charmed by it. Either that, or they're hoping that star Monica Barbaro hears their praise for her and gives them a call. Highly unlikely.

Next is The End of Oak Street, which Neal positioned as a deliberately bad B dinosaur movie like what you would find in the backroom of Video Roundup in the 1980s. Stephen finds the whole thing an annoying genre pastiche and didn't have fun at all. Neal had a bit of fun and appreciated Anne Hathaway's committed, if ridiculous, performance given the absurdity of the material. An eighty-foot-long rubber slithering sea snake can't be all bad, can it?

Finally, Laura Pruden drops into the Pod Bay to discuss with Neal an actually good movie, Tony, a delightful and knowing 1970s coming-of-age story about young Anthony Bourdain, with fully committed performances by Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, and Leo Woodall. This is a film that gets youth right, gets summer right, and pretty much gets everything right. Director Matt Johnson is in charge from the opening shot. You could watch this film any month of the year.

Enjoy the program!

There's a new Spider-Man movie in the theaters, maybe you've heard about it? Our podcast host Neal Pollack is a believer, and he tries to talk a skeptical Stephen Garrett into believing as well. This is actually one of the best comic-book movies in years, because it contains a substantial Hulk fight, and lots of comic-book side characters doing comic-book side character things. Come for the banter, leave educated about why comic book movies still have a future.

Omar Gallaga joins Neal from the wilds of Montana to talk about the new season of House of the Dragon, which is better, at least somewhat, than the old season of House of the Dragon. It's still a bit muddled, and, as Omar points out, there's no actual novel on which to base the show, so it sometimes reads like notes that someone turned into a screenplay. But still, in a summer low on appointment TV, you have dragon fights, and we shouldn't discount that.

Enjoy the show! Excelsior!

Never too late to the discourse, the latest episode of the BFG podcast covers two of the most talked-about movies of the summer. Stephen Garrett sails into the picture to discuss Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Both host Neal Pollack and Stephen admire some of the set pieces and a couple of key performances, though Neal found the picture too self-serious, as all of Nolan's movies are. They disagree about Anne Hathaway, the true face that launched a thousand ships. At last, some Odyssey discourse! But ours is the best.

Then Neal invites BFG contributor Laura Pruden into his virtual apartment for a delightful chat about The Invite, director Olivia Wilde's four-character chamber comedy-drama about modern marriage and sexual mores. It's a movie for adults, by adults, and it's proof of concept that Wilde is a director worth watching, and that Rashida Jones is a screenwriter well worth watching. Neal and Laura disagree about Seth Rogen. She found him delightful, he found him distracting. Neal wonders when the next dinner party invite is coming his way.

Our new theme song and incidental music are by composer Matthew Sheffer and licensed for use by Sea of Reeds Media. All Rights Reserved.

Enjoy the show!

This week's podcast features a tense, thrilling narrative about the highly-competitive subculture of American pub trivia. Host Neal Pollack and frequent guest Jessica Babbitt, who consider themselves among the top one percent of trivia players in the country, tell the story of how their team, Post-Trebek Stress Disorder, pulled out an exciting and unlikely victory in this year's first ever national Jeopardy! Bar League championship. Intrigue! Rivalries! Answers! Pizza! And an unlikely solution to the problem: Friendship conquers all. A BFG near-exclusive.

Then Stephen Garrett drops into the pod-dome to take stock of this summer's movie offerings. Neal expresses extreme disappointment in Supergirl, which is way too grim-dark and not fun or sexy enough for his tastes. Why studios should be listening to the tastes of a 56-year-old man is an open question, but Supergirl was a huge bomb so they might as well hear what he has to say. Stephen, meanwhile, saw Toy Story 5, which was fine, Minions and Monsters, which was fine, and the new Jackass movie, which was also fine. The Jackass guys are in their 50s now, so none of their old activities are safe. But Neal and Stephen mostly go to the movies, which is perfectly safe, and probably will be until they're in their 80s.

Our new theme song and incidental music are by composer Matthew Sheffer and licensed for use by Sea of Reeds Media. All Rights Reserved.

Enjoy the show!

It’s Disclosure Day on the Book and Film Globe podcast, as host Neal Pollack and chief film critic Stephen Garrett disclose that they didn’t much care for Steven Spielberg’s new “the truth about aliens” film Disclosure Day. They both found the script poorly-paced and silly, and really disliked several of the film’s performances, including soggy turns from Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo. Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell, and especially Emily Blunt fare better, but they cannot get the best of a ham-handed scenario, bizarrely convoluted action sequences, and nonsensical world-building. What a mess.

We get around to Backrooms this week as well. Critic Daniel Aaron joins Neal to discuss the Internet phenomenon turned box-office sensation. Backrooms is a completely fresh premise, sure to be ground down over time by bad sequels. But for now, it’s all about liminal spaces, and genuinely haunting performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, as two Californians in the early 1990s who get caught in another dimension in the back of a failing furniture store. Creepy, unsettling, and weirdly funny, Backrooms will have you thinking twice before entering a strange space.

Finally, Scott Gold is back on the podcast this week, talking to Neal about Spider Noir on Amazon Prime, featuring an iconic Nicolas Cage performance as a 1930s noir detective who also happens to have the power set of Spider-Man. The series is eight episodes when it should have been six, with its share of repetitive story beats. But that doesn’t take away from its core pleasures: watching Cage give it his all, in a spectacularly physical comic, and semi-tragic, performance. There are excellent supporting turns as well, and enough action scenes to keep this from becoming too dull. Recommended quite highly by our two non-superpowered contributors.

Regular listeners of the Book and Film Globe podcast will also notice that we have new theme music this! It’s by composer Matthew Sheffer and is 100 percent appropriately licensed for use by Sea of Reeds Media. All Rights Reserved.

Enjoy the show!

The BFG Podcast leans into the summer season this episode, with a heap of praise for one of the two surprise horror hits that have changed Hollywood forever (again). Host Neal Pollack and contributor Daniel Aaron break open their wish and have nothing but good things to say about the low-budget hit Obsession. It's the ultimate howl of Gen Z relationship agony, featuring a star-making turn from Inde Navarrette and a cavalcade of gory bad relationship decisions. An absolute classic that comes out of nowhere.

Stephen Garrett, on the other hand, comes straight from France, to report on a starless Cannes Festival, where studios spent millions of dollars to distribute films that you'll probably never see. That doesn't stop him from seeing them, though, and if you want to know everything that's going on in cinema, we advise you to give Stephen a listen. Pollack hasn't left his house in months, so you and he can virtually go to France, courtesy of Stephen, together.

We take that back, Neal did leave the house. Unfortunately, it was to see The Mandalorian and Grogu, the movie that might just be the lightsaber into the gut that kills the Star Wars franchise once and for all. Editor-in-chief Dan Friedman stops by the Pod Dome to talk to Neal about this two-hour action sequence that introduces us to the lamest Star Wars character since Jar Jar Binks. We're talking about Rotta the Hutt, Jabba's son, who's more jacked than Clavicular but talks like a laid-back skater bro, courtesy of an all-time bad vocal performance from Jeremy Allen White. April Fool's came early this year, or maybe late, depending on how you look at it.

Enjoy the show, and shield your eyes. Summer movie season is here.

It's Apple TV+ this week on the podcast, as that's the last place on TV, or at least one of them, that's still taking big creative swings and also releasing episodes serially. Longtime contributor Omar Gallaga joins Neal Pollack this week to discuss two Apple+ shows. The first, Margot's Got Money Troubles, based on a novel by Rufi Thorpe, comes to us from David E. Kelley, who's been making TV for decades. But this show feels fresh and modern thanks to a winning lead performance from Elle Fanning and a nuanced look at the Only Fans universe. The cast, which includes Nick Offerman, Greg Kinnear, Nicole Kidman, and Marcia Gay Harden, is uniformly excellent, but Michelle Pfeiffer steals the show with a late-career master turn as Margot's mother, a performance so fully realized it doesn't even feel like she's acting.

Much more stylized, but no less effective, is Widow's Bay, a new comedy-horror semi-anthology series from comedy writer Katie Dippold, which embraces and deconstructs horror tropes with unabashed delight. It's like the X-Files meets Northern Exposure, with a touch of Twin Peaks and Parks and Recreation. The cast includes Matthew Rhys, Kate O'Flynn, and Stephen Root, and a bevy of monsters and supernatural happenings that bedevils a cursed Massachusetts island. Four episodes in, and Widow's Bay is already a TV legend. Omar and Neal give it their highest recommendation, and no one has better taste than they do.

Enjoy the show!