Book and Film Globe Podcast

As part of the legendary first-ever Book and Film Globe Festival, we recorded an episode of our legendary podcast at The Book House in Long Branch, New Jersey, the hottest new bookstore on the Jersey Shore. Host Neal Pollack traveled thousands of miles to talk to some of his favorite contributors about the important cultural products of the day. It was delightful, and we drank much Pelican Punch.Stephen Garrett and Neal reunited on a couch to talk about Alex Garland's 'Civil War.' Neal appreciated the aesthetics of the movie but despised its politics. Stephen didn't mind the politics but didn't really think the story works. Neal says the movie is an absolute projection of liberal neurosis about the possible re-election of Donald Trump. Neal likens it to 'Red Dawn,' which Stephen thinks is vaguely ridiculous, but the comparison is apt. What kind of American are you? Hopefully not the kind of American who thinks 'Civil War' is a documentary. Does this movie imagine what a Civil War would be like in modern America? Sure. But it's still a paranoid fantasy.On the opposite end of the cultural spectrum is the fun and funny Girls 5Eva. we suppose your mileage may vary on this Tina Fey comedy about an aging 90s girl group. Contributor Matthew Ehrlich journeyed from New York City to the Jersey Shore to have a delightful conversation with Neal about the Tina Fey comedy factor, the fabulous Renée Elise Goldsberry, and who sings the Fuck the Police parody, "Ducks Are Mean Geese."Thanks to Stephen and Matthew for making the trip, and thanks for Sea of Reeds Media for operating such amazing bookstores. This will not be our last live recording ever. Thanks for listening at all times, and in all formats!

It's a vibrant BFG podcast this week, as host Neal Pollack just keeps on having opinions about things. Stephen Garrett pops into the scene to discuss 'Monkey Man,' directed, written, and starting Dev Patel. They both find the movie stylish, fun, and exciting, but maybe Dev Patel could have used someone telling him no, and could have used an editor, and could have given some of his characters name. But for everything that's wrong with Monkey Man, there's a lot that's right, and Neal, who went to yoga school, reads a lot into the serious critique of Indian society that Patel offers up. It's not just a John Wick-style knockoff. If only it didn't have so many flashbacks.Rachel Llewellyn appears to talk with Neal about 'Ripley,' the new eight-hour black-and-white adaptation of 'The Talented Mr. Ripley,' now airing on Netflix. Neal finds the new 'Ripley' way too self-consciously literary. A lot of people have been asking Neal if he's been watching Ripley, and he has been watching Ripley. Though he finds the black-and-white cinematography quite gorgeous, and has no issues with Andrew Scott's performance as Ripley, this "Ripleyist Ripley" ever made might be a little too much. It's a TV show for people who still subscribe to the New York Review of Books. Our memories of the 1990s 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' loom large. The new one looks gorgeous, but lacks glamour.'X-Men '97' also likes glamour, but it's not supposed to be glamorous. It's supposed to bring back a classic 1990s Marvel Saturday morning cartoon. Scott Gold joins Neal to wax geekily about this fantastic reboot of a very influential show. The new X-Men cartoon is so true to the old X-Men cartoon that it feels like a direct continuation. But in a lot of ways, it's better, telling classic comic-book stories in a way that old cartoons just simply couldn't. If you like weird comics lore, this is the show of the year.And this is the podcast of the year! Enjoy.

Neal Pollack is recovering from gout but still delivers a whopper of a podcast this week, with three familiar guests and a great variety of topics. Stephen Garrett comes in to chat about the bizarre 'Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,' which features his new favorite scene in a movie: King Kong using Baby King Kong as a club to beat up some other super underground apes. What a weird movie this is, perfect for a 10- year-old boy, essentially a Transformers movie starring King Kong and Godzilla (and Mother!) and Dan Stevens as the world's coolest animal dentist.Not as good or as fun is '3 Body Problem' on Netflix, which guest William Schwartz describes as being about how great scientists are but not really actually caring about what science does. That sums up a big problem in our culture, and in the show, which is about a super-team of super-scientists who get together to be attractive and stop a global threat, but does not even begin to approach the philosophical depth of the Chinese novel series on which it's based. We consider this a shallow disappointment over at BFG.We talk about food on the podcast, as we often do. Robert Dean stops by to praise and also make fun of 'Guy Fieri's Tournament of Champions,' which both he and Neal find entertaining, but they also find themselves wondering: What are we doing here? Why are we watching this? No one actually has the skill to cook like this in real life? Why is cooking now a sport, and not a daily activity for nourishment? And what's with all the nicknames?We ask the important questions on the BFG podcast. Thanks for listening.

Spring is here and we have a fun and light spring menu this week on the podcast. Stephen Garrett hops into frame and tries to answer host Neal Pollack's question: Why do we need a Ghostbusters: The Next Generation? Stephen says that 'Frozen Empire' is far better and more fun than the previous maudlin Ghostbusters reboot, but there are too many busters, too much lore, too much reverence. Neal makes the point that the original Ghostbusters was irreverent and almost conservative in its middle finger to the liberal Hollywood establishment. Stephen points out that it was a shit-talking working-man hangout movie. 'Frozen Empire' is awash in nostalgia for culture it doesn't even begin to understand.'Top Chef' has managed to reboot itself without its host Padma Lakshmi, replacing her with former champion Kristin Kish. Rachel Llewellyn joins Neal and they basically have nothing but nice things to say about Kish's vibe on the show, about the production quality, and about the quality of the cooking, the competition, and of its narrative abilities. In a food-media world oversaturated with cooking competitions, Top Chef remains state of the art, and we're glad to have it back.Magically, Stephen Garrett returns to the podcast to wax enthusiastically about the reboot of 'Road House.' Neal points out that the movie basically has no plot and no real character development, but Stephen doesn't seem to think those things are necessary in a movie. He argues that we should accept Road House on its own terms and just let the dumb wide-angle action carry us along. They agree to disagree, then bash each other over the head with a chair.Enjoy the show!

It's an excellent and thoughtful podcast this week. Host Neal Pollack welcomes Sharyn Vane and Michael Washburn to discuss their recent articles about questionable attitudes toward Israel and Jewish people in general in the literary world. Sharyn discusses the cancellation of actor Brett Gelman's recent book tour, tying it to how progressives don't want to approach the Israel-Hamas conflict with anything even close to nuance. Michael, who wrote about a South African writer returning a prestigious literary medal in protest of the German government's support of Israel, says that antisemitism on the left is a real problem. Neal is just concerned about anti-Jewish sentiment in general among writers, who have, at least in his lifetime, been strong allies of the Jewish people. That calculus has clearly changed, and we will continue to cover this change on Book and Film Globe.We will also continue to cover lesbian road-trip crime movies if they make any more, which they probably won't. Regardless, Stephen Garrett is here so he and Neal can be two straight guys talking about lesbian road-trip crime movies. Stephen makes the interesting point that 'Love Lies Bleeding' and 'Drive Away Dolls' both take place in the past, because only in the past would gay female relationships be an issue that would create any kind of dramatic tension. They both praise Katy O'Brien's magnetic performance in Love Lies Bleeding, and Neal liked the ironic ending, but Stephen found the movie too self-satisfied and didn't really admire the empty artistic flourishes.'Drive Away Dolls' from Ethan Coen, on the other hand, is the kind of embarrassing lesbian movie "grandpa" would make, Stephen says, though, like Neal, he found the central relationship sweet and Margaret Qualley's lead performance really compelling. Both these movies suffer from script problems and relevance problems, though they're relevant enough for us to talk about.Enjoy our show, which is always relevant!

We are finally clear of the Oscars, and host Neal Pollack leads off this week's podcast with an audio version of his rant we published early this week. The Oscars are for the special people, not for the regulars of life. And yet we keep falling into their trap, because we love to watch movies.We do not, however, love to watch 'Spaceman' starring Adam Sandler. Omar Gallaga reviewed Spaceman for us and just does not buy Adam Sandler as a sad Czech astronaut in an alternative 1980s. Dan Friedman actually read the book upon which Spaceman is based, and he says the movie doesn't even come close to approximating the book's satire of post-Cold War Czech identity. Dan also had trouble with the Carey Mulligan wife character, who's stuck back on Earth with nothing to do. They both kind of liked the odd imaginary space spider, voiced by Paul Dano, but this movie is a big miss overall.Not missing is 'The Tourist,' whose second season is on Netflix right now. Jenny Parrott joins Neal to talk about The Tourist, a show that she likes and that our dad likes. It's a deep dive into identity and consciousness, and also a great adventure show and a surprisingly moving romance. Neal senses comic elements of the Coen Brothers in The Tourist, and he thanks Jenny for bringing this fun show to our attention.And we hope you enjoy this podcast as well!

One pop-culture phenomenon blots out the sun over Arrakis this week, and Stephen Garrett joins Neal Pollack on the podcast to talk about Denis Villennueve's 'Dune 2'. Not surprisingly, Stephen likes 'Dune 2' much more than Neal does, though Neal grudgingly admits that you're not going to get a better adaptation of Frank Herbert's 'Dune' novels than this. It is a monumental achievement of pop culture and is the best sci-fi epic of our time. That doesn't mean it's not pretentious and boring in places. Neal likes Léa Seydoux's cameo as a witch-spy, and Austin Butler as a charismatically weird bald antagonist. Stephen makes apologies for Timothée Chalamet's stiff performance, Neal has no time for that. Regardless, the spice is flowing, the worms are zooming through the sand, the interstellar political intrigues are intriguing.Bonus: Neal complains at great length about the eating habits of the woman who sat next to him at the Alamo Drafthouse during his screening!Finally this week, Michael Washburn enters the podcast dome to school Neal on the historical realities behind the excellent FX miniseries remake of Shōgun, currently running. The series, to its credit, doesn't shy away from some of the more ethnocentric aspects of feudal Japanese culture, and paints both its Asian and Western protagonists as complicated and flawed. For straightforward historical drama, you don't get much better than this. It's an epic saga of the world on the brink of modernity, and it's well worth your hours.Enjoy the podcast!

This week's show gets right into what's important in our culture. Host Neal Pollack welcomes Jennifer Lopez obsessive Adam Hirschfelder to the podcast, and he is all about 'This Is Me...Now,' J. Lo's music video and album that has recast J. Lo's image as someone who's both ironically and unironically finding herself. She has learned to love herself and Ben Affleck, and the video, airing on Amazon Prime, features her in therapy and also dancing on the set of Singin' In The Rain. Neal can't quite suss out what the big deal is about J. Lo, but Adam, who has some regional identification with the former Jenny from the Block, says her great subject is the nature of celebrity itself. We don't know if it's that calculated, but maybe it is.Ryan Murphy is back doing Ryan Murphy things in 'Feud: Capote Versus the Swans,' and Neal and Matthew Ehrlich break it down. Matthew's main criticism is that Capote had plenty of feuds in his life, but his feud with the swans was really more like an excommunication. They examine the various actors doing their various swan schticks, and while Matthew thinks that Tom Hollander does a pitch-perfect Capote impression, he finds this version of Truman quite creepy and not at all magnetic and compelling.Kingsley Ben-Adir's Bob Marley is the opposite of creepy. Adam Hirschfelder returns to the show to discuss Bob Marley: One Love, which he likens to the posters for Bob Marley's Legend greatest hits album that adorned the walls of many white people in college dorms in the 1980s and 1990s. The film, which Marley's estate made in full consultation with the director, is a continuation of Marley's hagiography. Adam wanted more explanation and information, Neal wanted either more or less religion, but audiences seem not to care, as the music is a huge hit, because Marley's music is eternal.Enjoy the podcast!

Our podcast has resumed production, though it also never ceased production, which is good because it continues to be an amazing show with an increasingly worldwide reach. This week we talk about 'Madame Web,' the most important bad-good movie of the year so far. Host Neal Pollack welcomes London Faust, an avowed Dakota Johnson fanatic, who did not find succor in the Dakota Johnson-heavy 'Madame Web.' London marvels at the movie's bad voice-dubbing and misuse of Zosia Mamet and Sydney Sweeney. Neal points all all the inconsistencies in the Spider-Verse world building. And they barely scratch the surface of how bad this movie actually is.On a more positive note, JP Quinn drops by to talk to Neal about 'Mr. And Mrs. Smith,' which Donald Glover produced and stars in along with Maya Erskine. This is a long way off from the Brangelina action movie of the aughts, yet it still has glamorous locations and exciting action. It's sexy but also deeply ironic, able to embrace the spy genre while also deconstruction yet. Donald Glover is the smartest person in the room as usual.Jon Stewart is also the smartest person in the room and he is back with new Monday episodes of The Daily Show. Jake Harris shows up to discuss with Neal the backlast to Stewart's first monologue, which was absurd, and also about how it's a huge relief to have Stewart back in the TDS chair and to see that he has not lost a step, even as he implores you to look deep into his eyes to see how much he's aged.Enjoy the show!

The Oscars are still a month away for some reason, but it's time for us to offer up our annual Oscar podcast preview episode. Stephen Garrett joins host Neal Pollack to admit that 'Oppenheimer' is going to run rampant over the major awards, though Neal offers up 'The Zone of Interest' as a value upset Best Picture picture and he and Stephen posit that maybe Sterling K. Brown's abs will defeat Robert Downey, Jr. for Best Supporting Actor. They also give love to Da'Vine Joy Randolph from 'The Holdovers' and Neal sort of persuades Stephen that Lily Gladstone will win Best Actress. In other news, 'Godzilla Minus One' got a nomination for best visual effects, but in a just world, it would have been nominated for Best Picture or at least Best International Feature.But that's not all! We also talk about the amazing Netflix narco crime drama 'Griselda.' First-time guest Jenny Parrott joins Neal to praise Sofia Vergara's amazing performance, her amazing jewelry and lipstick, and all the amazing narco gun-battle action on the cruel streets of 1970s Miami. It's a top-notch drug melodrama with more than faint echoes of 'Scarface, and it gets the BFG podcast's highest signal of approval.Enjoy the program!

Some weeks on the podcast, we discuss things that we love. Other weeks, we discuss things that we do not love, and this is one of those not-love weeks.First, Michael Washburn does not love the way SAG-AFTRA is trying to run cover for Alec Baldwin in the shooting case on the set of the movie 'Rust.' New Mexico brought new charges against Baldwin last week, and Michael breaks down the nature of the charges and the nature of how the Hollywood elite is trying to protect one of its own in one of the most tragic on-set disasters in Hollywood history.Matthew Ehrlich does love, or at least likes, the new 'True Detective' series 'Night Country,' but host Neal Pollack pretty much disagrees with him, as does the rest of the Internet. But Matthew has found himself drawn in by Jodie Foster's performance and by the puzzlebox nature of the show. He's on Reddit discussing Easter eggs with fellow obsessives, and maybe you will be too after listening to his take on the show.No one is on Reddit discussing 'Argylle,' least of all Stephen Garrett, who just despised the Matthew Vaughn action-spy comedy, which he found "exhausting," and he has no interest in spending any more time with that "damn expressionless cat in a backpack." Don't worry, Stephen, the cultural drought of January and early February is almost over. Movies and TV will get good again soon, and we'll be here soon enough to talk about things we love.Hope you love our show!

On a packed episode of this week's podcast, host Neal Pollack welcomes Sara Stewart to discuss the "snub" of Barbie director Greta Gerwig by the Academy. Neal plays devil's advocate, or maybe just the devil, and points out that Barbie DID get eight nominations. Sara recognizes that but also makes the strong point that only eight woman have been nominated for Best Director in Oscar history, and maybe the director of one of the biggest box-office hits of all time deserves a nod. But they both agree that the discourse went far off the rails when Hillary Clinton, always culturally tone-deaf, tweeted about it.Stephen Garrett is back from Sundance, and is feeling extremely inconvenienced! He had to wait for buses, sometimes for 20 minutes, to take him to his next movie. How inconvenient! He recommends films like 'A Real Pain,' directed by Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin, and 'Love Lies Bleeding,' a "lez-ploitation" bodybuilding and crime movie from director Rose Glass. Sounds good, as do documentaries about Devo and Brian Eno.Rachel Llewellyn stops by the Blue Zone to talk about the Netflix docuseries 'You Are What You Eat,' which she slams as an advertisement for the processed vegan-food industry. A hot take from the BFG Dietary Institute. Neal recommends a diet comprised of 80 percent movie-theater popcorn. It works for him!Enjoy the show.

As the Internet explodes with Barbie Oscars debate (a subject we will cover in full soon), our podcast has other interests right now. Host Neal Pollack welcomes in Rebecca Kurson to discuss 'The Zone of Interest,' a chilling and masterful Holocaust picture from director Jonathan Glazer. Both Neal and Rebecca are just amazed at the cold, documentary-style filmmaking, of the matter-of-fact script and performances, and, most importantly, of the film's eerie soundscape. The best, most morally-uncompromising movie you'll see all year, discussed on the best, most morally-uncompromising podcast.Scott Gold appears to talk about 'Echo,' the new Disney+ Marvel show that is part street-level violence, part warm-and-fuzzy Disney lady-powers show. Both he and Neal love Vincent D'Onofrio as the Kingpin, amazing as always, and have good things to say about the supporting cast. But they both agree that the lead actor, Alaqua Cox, could be a little better, the tone a little more consistent, and the ending action sequence a little sharper. Echo pays nice tribute to the Choctaw culture of Oklahoma, but as a superhero show, it's a little schizo.Robert Dean stops in to lambaste the new George Carlin AI special now available on YouTube. Neal plays devil's advocate, or maybe just the devil, and says he doesn't think that the AI is a bad imitation of George Carlin, and actually discusses contemporary topics in a relevant way. Robert wants nothing to do with AI, except for maybe to help him check his grammar, and says it's "destroying the middle class." Hard to argue with him. Support your local standups, and enjoy our podcast.

On this week's vital BFG podcast, host Neal Pollack welcomes Stephen Garrett to be two white guys talking about a black-directed movie making fun of liberal white people reacting to a black-written book. We're talking, of course, about 'American Fiction,' and while Stephen loved the warm, neurotic upper-middle-class black family saga that the literary satire was hiding, Neal wanted more satire and less family saga, because the trailer promised satire. Neal also wonders if the satire is a little dated, and they didn't even really talk about the ambiguous ending of the movie, which may or may not have worked brilliantly. Anyway, 'American Fiction' is definitely an NPR discussion piece, this is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross.Kristin Clifford shows up to discuss the somewhat less discussable 'Mean Girls' musical adaptation, which both she and Neal agree is fine but kind of a weak cash grab. It can't compare to the original 'Mean Girls' in terms of star power, and the songs, which are OK, take time away from some of the original movie's best jokes, and even end up kicking certain characters to the curb. It's kind of like a pretty good community theater production of 'Mean Girls,' fine if you like that sort of thing. We didn't, really.Neal is a mega-nerd, and so is Paula Shaffer, so their discussion of the 60th anniversary special episodes of 'Doctor Who' reach nerdy podcast heights. They both feel relief to have Russell T. Davies back in the showrunner chair instead of Chris Chibnall, are thrilled to see the brief return of David Tennant, and both have high hopes for the charming Ncuti Gatwa in the TARDIS for a few seasons. It's not the nerd-hip thrill of 1976 or 2007, the peaks of Doctor Who in popular culture, but the show has successfully regenerated for Gen Z, and we're here for it.And we're definitely here for you. Enjoy the show!

It's comedy and muscle this week on the BFG Podcast, why not? Host Neal Pollack leans heavily on the expertise of standup comedy expert Robert Dean to discuss the wildly popular new specials from Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais. Robert loves Chappelle but agrees with Neal that he's gotten so famous that he doesn't really need to work out new materials anymore, compared with, say, Joe Rogan, who spends years honing his set in small clubs, perfecting the joke structure. Gervais, Robert likens more to "Richard Dawkins with a laugh track." He then says something like "I'd rather hear a joke about a guy fucking a jar of peanut butter than listen to 20 minutes about why God doesn't exist." Fair enough! We break down the world of standup comedy, complete with dark-horse recommendations.Reacher is no longer a dark horse. JP Guinn steps in as a naysayer on Season 2 of the popular Amazon show, saying it lacks the snap and wit of the first season, features boring supporting characters, and has a questionable morality despite the fun side entertainment of watching Reacher mess up cars in creative ways. Something about the season makes JP feel uncomfortable, and JP is not a squeamish person. Regardless, BFG is your one-stop shop for all things Reacher.Neal likens the Canadian show Letterkenny to It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, but Robert Dean says, at its heart, Letterkenny is all about people who take care of one another even if they don't like each other, whereas It's Always Sunny is about total scumbags. But they are both long-running sitcoms that kind of came out of nowhere. Letterkenny emerged from a failed actor's YouTube show with his buddies. It's a beer-league hockey underdog success story. "It makes you interested in hockey," Robert says. That's an accomplishment. Letterkenny, now available to watch forever on Hulu.Enjoy the show, it is good!

This week on the BFG Podcast, we have a classical-music picture, a car-racing picture, and a wrestling picture. It's not like the 1930s where the studios would crank out dozens of movies in each genre every year, but regardless, these movies fold right into traditional genres. They are pictures, and on the podcast, we present the big picture.First up, darling, Steven Garrett joins host Neal Pollack to discuss 'Maestro,' Bradley Cooper's love letter to Leonard Bernstein. Steven liked this picture more than Neal did, admiring the over-the-top passion that Cooper brings to his larger-than-life subject. Neal found the movie pretentious and Oscar-baitey. But they both liked the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Snoopy balloon cameo.Steven Macaulay, no relation, pops in next to school Neal on a little automotive history. Neal liked 'Ferrari,' he found the racing scenes exciting and admired Penelope Cruz's performance as Enzo Ferrari's wife, Laura. And, as it turns out, the history that the movie depicts is pretty accurate. A stylish Michael Mann outing, a must for any car buff, a maybe not for any car non-buff.Stephen Garrett returns to the ring to discuss 'The Iron Claw', Sean Durkin's wrestling tragedy about the battling Von Erich family of Denton, Texas, one of the most headline-grabbing wrestling acts of the 1980s. Stephen found the whole wrestling milieu a little ridiculous, but Neal admired the passion that Durkin brought the subject, and also the "secret weapon" of Jeremy Allen White, in his first major motion picture role. "It could have been directed by Richard Linklater," Neal says, delivering a high compliment almost as powerful as the Iron Claw itself.Plenty of pictures to watch and to discuss. Enjoy the show!

It's the last BFG podcast of the year, and we wrap it up with a year's-end roundtable with Omar Gallaga and Scott Gold, who offer their TV-watching perspective with host Neal Pollack, who watches TV 18 to 20 hours a day. Best shows include 'Reservation Dogs,' 'Succession,' 'Scavenger's Reign,' and a sitcom called 'Primo' which Neal has never heard of but which you should watch. Worst shows include Season 3 of 'The Witcher,' 'Squid Game: The Challenge,' and Omar's controversial selection of the final season of 'The Other Two.' The critics also did not like the reboots of 'Frasier,' 'Night Court,' or 'That 70's Show' which is now 'That 90's Show.' Essential listening about essential viewing.Neal also spends many minutes talking to film critic Stephen Garrett about 'Poor Things,' a surrealist horror sex comedy that's in theaters now, just begging for Oscar nominations. Neal and Stephen admired Emma Stone's fully committed performance, and the movie's odd syntax and sex design, but both found its extended scenes in a French brothel to be kind of gratuitous and weirdly exploitative. Your mileage may vary. That's why God made critics and Book and Film Globe.Happy New Year!

It's a magical, fantastical, confection-filled week on the BFG podcast. Host Neal Pollack welcomes in always-guest Stephen Garrett to talk about 'Wonka,' starring Timothée Chalamet as a truly child-friendly young Willy Wonka, who the movie re-invents as a gee-whiz paragon of goodness and light. Stephen liked the movie more on the show than he did in his review. Neal found it cloying and cynically calculated. They were deeply split on Hugh Grant's Oompa-Loompa, who Neal enjoyed but Stephen found weird. In general, 'Wonka' seems to have generated more debated among our two critics than it deserves. Listen up, and see it for yourself, and join the conversation.There is no split, however, about 'Godzilla Minus One,' which Neal proclaims one of the year's best pictures. Our critic London Faust isn't quite as enthusiastic, but does appreciate how GMO manages to create some human-scale characters worth caring about, even while it does deploy a somewhat hammy Japanese acting style. Neal appreciated the historical depth of the screenplay and frankly found Godzilla himself quite terrifying. You must see this film.'The Boy and the Heron', on the other hand, is only for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli complete list. Critic Pablo Gallaga and Neal both admire the movie's beauty and off-kilter character design, but agree the world-building and the story just aren't up to the usual snuff. This film feels more serious and message-y than Miyazaki's previous animes, and it suffers from the old master trying to teach us a lesson.But we're not trying to teach you a lesson at BFG, we're just trying to present the best pop-culture podcast on Earth. And we succeed, every week. Enjoy the show!

Happy holiday podcast from all of us at BFG! This week is the podcast of your dreams. First up, contributor Robert Dean joins host Neal Pollack to talk about the Max biopic series 'Julia,' all about the early years of Julia Child, TV chef. It's a delight in troubled times, and Robert assures us that Julia's boeuf bourguignon recipe still holds up. Consume voraciously!Stephen Garrett steps out of Neal's dreams to talk to him about 'Dream Scenario,' which Stephen found "delightful." Neal won't go so far as to proclaim the Nicolas Cage movie, made by a Danish director, a "delight," but it is original and funny and thought-provoking, kind of a modern take on 'Adaptation' or 'Being John Malkovich,' which clearly are part of its DNA.Rachel Llewellyn parks her sleigh at the door to discuss with Neal the ironic millennial and Gen-Z appropriation of cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies, which have found a new audience with younger viewers who enjoy clowning on the clichés of the genre, though we suspect that they, too, want to meet a handsome amnesiac royal who is wearing a nice Christmas sweater in a small town. Who doesn't?Ho ho ho, it's our podcast! Give us a listen.

Two provocative new movies get the BFG podcast treatment this week. Host Neal Pollack begins the show with a wicked audio rendition of his piece excoriating stupid pundits who say that Hollywood has a new "Blacklist" because some people are expressing dumb opinions about the Israel-Hamas conflict. Spoiler alert: there is no Blacklist, not even a show starring James Spader Let's lay that discussion to rest.JP Guinn appears on leave from his semester at Oxford to discuss 'Saltburn' with Neal. They both agree that this move is "very horny" and that it's fun to watch it in a theater with people who it makes uncomfortable. Neal thinks it's more than a bit of a Talented Mr. Ripley knock-off, while not as good as The Talented Mr. Ripley. JP says it's a huge leap forward for Emerald Fennell as a filmmaker. And they both love Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant. It's a real talking-piece of a film, which is why we're talking about it.But we're really talking about Todd Haynes's 'May December', which Stephen Garrett and Neal give their highest recommendation. Neal reads it as a comedy, Stephen as a tragedy, but why not both? Regardless, it's "peak Todd Haynes," which is saying something in a career that has already had so many peaks. Both Stephen and Neal agree that this Netflix release about Hollywood exploiting people involved in childhood sex-abuse scandals is one of the year's best films.Enjoy our show!