BFG Week in Review Podcast #042: Don Winslow and Joe Rogan, ‘Death on the Nile,’ and an Oscar Roundtable

In this week’s very nuanced Book and Film Globe Week in Review podcast, editor Neal Pollack and Canadian correspondent Jamie Mason examine the Joe Rogan controversy. You see, crime writer Don Winslow responded to The Rock issuing a statement of support for Rogan. Winslow pointed out that Rogan has a history of using the N-Word. Then Twitter pointed out that Winslow has a history of using the N-Word. Neal and Jamie both conclude that censorship is bad and we should ban no speech, whether people deploy it artistically or not. And then the conversation turns to Canadian politics, in a first for the BFG podcast. Apparently, there’s a lot of liberal intolerance for opposing views in Canada. We stand on guard for there.

Then following a charming musical interlude, Sara Stewart and Stephen Garrett stop by the ol’ conversation barn to offer up their takes, along with Neal, on this year’s Oscar nominations. Sara laments the lack of female directors nominated, despite the fact that Jane Campion is probably going to win. Neal laments ‘The Power of the Dog’ in general. Stephen remains somewhat upbeat about the whole affair and defends the nomination of ‘Don’t Look Up’. But mostly, Sara just finds it disappointing that ‘Barb and Star Go To Vista del Mar’ has eluded the Academy for yet another year.

Stephen sticks around to talk to Neal about ‘Death on the Nile,’ which he really liked, particularly the origin story of Hercule Poirot’s legendary mustache. Neal remains skeptical of the new version’s star power, given that the old one featured Bette Davis and David Niven. Stephen points out that those actors were really long in the tooth by then and that the cast of the Kenneth Branagh version is quite a bit fresher. But they both agree that ‘Murder By Death’ is the greatest whodunnit of them all. Or at least Neal does.

Enjoy our marvelous show!

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