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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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'...

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...

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...