Book and Film Globe Podcast

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 Do...

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 In...

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...

Can you feel it? Summer movie season is rumbling down the tracks. And this week BFG Podcast host Neal Pollack puts his ear to the ground for the last major releases before the real blockbusters start. First up is Michael , the bizarrely popular Michael Jackson biopic that has the world forgetting how weird and sinister late-era Michael Jackson really was. This is a hero's origin story, from the be...

The Book and Film Globe podcast is back with a Spring Movie Roundup, or at least a First Half of Spring Movie Roundup, as there have been some other movies in the second half of spring, which we'll talk about next week. Stephen Garrett returns to talk with host Neal Pollack about a grab-bag of movies, including Project Hail Mary , which we'd previously discussed, but it's also the only film everyo...

We have a Caucasian male, late 50s, presenting as overly snarky and cynical, complaining of excessive exposure to hot doctors on TV. Another white male, approximately the same age, somewhat less cynical. And a Caucasian woman in her 30s, quite optimistic, some would even call her a fan. They're here to comprehensively discuss Season 2 of The Pitt , which just concluded it run on HBO Max. Editor-in...

In this edition of the new and improved but also exactly the same BFG Podcast, Neal Pollack welcomes his trivia teammate, former trivia rival, and pop-culture savant Jessica Babbitt into the podcast dome to talk about variety pack of topics. First, Jessica, who runs a specialty TikTok where she data-analyzes reality-TV trends, picks apart Survivor 's 50th season. Despite a lot of enthusiasm going...

On this edition of the totally revived BFG Podcast, host Neal Pollack brings back more of his beloved guests. First up, contributor Omar Gallaga reports from South By Southwest in Austin. Even though Austin has torn down the convention center, leaving SXSW without a clear central point or identity, Omar still had a blast at the festival, catching surprise musical performances, watching movies , an...

In the most stunning return since MacArthur landed at Inchon, former Book and Film Globe editor Neal Pollack has come back with a new episode of the beloved Book and Film Globe podcast. Pollack welcomes back the Sancho Panza to his Don Quixote, chief film critic Stephen Garrett, so they can preview this weekend's Oscars together. In surgical fashion, they whittle the list of 10 Best Picture nomine...

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'...

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...

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 i...

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 prett...

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 d...

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 Re...

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 th...

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 Yo...

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 hav...

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 bring...

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 Pollac...

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, b...

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 goin...

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 tak...

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...

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...