BFG Week In Review Podcast #024: ‘No Time To Die,’ ‘The Many Saints of Newark,’ and ‘Squid Game’

In this week’s death-defying episode of The BFG Week in Review Podcast, editor-in-chief Neal Pollack dies while reading the Booker Prize novels so you don’t have to. Always literary, never fun, the Booker novels inspire Neal to great vitriol, especially this year’s entry that summons the beginning of its story with the words “Come, dust.”

Then it’s time to talk about movies with BFG chief film critic Stephen Garrett, who this week reviews the finally-arrived James Bond movie, ‘No Time To Die.’ Stephen admires the film’s technical skill and feels like it gives Daniel Craig an appropriate Bond sendoff. But, he warns, you might need a flowchart to keep track of all the plot strands at the end of this extended five-film cycle. At times, maybe this Bond needs a little more genuine cheek and fewer forced one-liners.

Then Matt Hanson stops by the BFG podcast hut to talk about ‘The Many Saints of Newark.’ As a Sopranos-head from way back, Matt finds this prequel movie disappointing and unfocused. It spends way too much time on a hard-to-believe doomed love affair. While the Sopranos broke the mob-movie mold, this one lingers too much on cliché and leans too hard on mannerisms.

Finally, Elijah Pollack, son of editor, comes home to tell dad about ‘Squid Game,’ the TV show sweeping the world with visions of people playing childhood games to the death. Elijah loves Squid Game. Everyone loves Squid Game. But he admits that he probably wouldn’t be very good at the Squid Game himself, because he’s not very coordinated.

Listen to the show. You will like it!

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