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PODCAST

Book and Film Globe Podcast

Book and Film Globe

Everyone’s favorite literature and pop culture site is now a podcast. Entertaining, enlightening chat about books, film, streaming TV, and more with Neal Pollack, editor of Book and Film Globe and its top writers. Pollack is the author of ten semi-bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction, including Jewball, Never Mind the Pollacks, Downward-Facing Death, and the memoirs Alternadad and Pothead: My Life as a Marijuana Addict in the Age of Legal Weed.

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All Episodes

36:24

BFG Podcast #181: 'Squid Game 2' and 'Pop Culture...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2025/01/08

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

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40:08

BFG Podcast #180: A Complete Babyratu

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2025/01/03

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

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35:59

BFG Podcast #179: The Best Movies of 2024

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/12/27

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

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37:19

BFG Podcast #178: 2024 TV Year In Review

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/12/19

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

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36:40

BFG Podcast #177: 'Dune: Prophecy' and 'Queer'

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/12/11

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

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40:42

BFG Podcast #176: 'Breath of Fire,' 'A Man on the...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/12/04

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

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38:40

BFG Podcast #175: 'Wicked,' 'Terrifier', and...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/11/27

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

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40:58

BFG Podcast #174: 'Anora,' and 'A Real Pain.' Plus...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/11/21

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

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43:46

BFG Podcast #173: Post-Election Special - The rise of...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/11/08

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

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32:06

BFG Podcast #172: Writers in the age of AI, and...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/11/06

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

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38:37

BFG Podcast #171: October Movie Roundup - 'Conclave,'...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/10/30

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

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39:09

BFG Podcast #170: 'Saturday Night,' "English...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/10/18

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

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37:19

BFG Podcast #169: 'Joker: Folie A Deux' and 'Nobody...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/10/10

"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

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39:31

BFG Podcast #168: 'The Penguin', 'The Substance,' and...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/10/02

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

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40:56

BFG Podcast #167: Special Guests Elisa Albert and...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/09/26

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

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41:19

BFG Podcast #166: 'The Rings of Power' Season 2,...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/09/19

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

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39:36

BFG Podcast #165: 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,' 'Strange...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/09/12

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

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38:48

BFG Podcast #164: Two very different takes on...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/09/05

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,

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35:06

Book and Film Globe Podcast #163: ‘Alien: Romulus’...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/08/21

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

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36:18

BFG Podcast #162: 'The Decameron' and an interview...

Book and Film Globe Podcast ·

2024/08/16

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

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