BFG Podcast #309: ‘Disclosure Day,’ ‘Backrooms,’ and Nicolas Cage With the Power of Spider

It’s Disclosure Day on the Book and Film Globe podcast, as host Neal Pollack and chief film critic Stephen Garrett disclose that they didn’t much care for Steven Spielberg’s new “the truth about aliens” film Disclosure Day. They both found the script poorly-paced and silly, and really disliked several of the film’s performances, including soggy turns from Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Colman Domingo. Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell, and especially Emily Blunt fare better, but they cannot get the best of a ham-handed scenario, bizarrely convoluted action sequences, and nonsensical world-building. What a mess.

We get around to Backrooms this week as well. Critic Daniel Aaron joins Neal to discuss the Internet phenomenon turned box-office sensation. Backrooms is a completely fresh premise, sure to be ground down over time by bad sequels. But for now, it’s all about liminal spaces, and genuinely haunting performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, as two Californians in the early 1990s who get caught in another dimension in the back of a failing furniture store. Creepy, unsettling, and weirdly funny, Backrooms will have you thinking twice before entering a strange space.

Finally, Scott Gold is back on the podcast this week, talking to Neal about Spider Noir on Amazon Prime, featuring an iconic Nicolas Cage performance as a 1930s noir detective who also happens to have the power set of Spider-Man. The series is eight episodes when it should have been six, with its share of repetitive story beats. But that doesn’t take away from its core pleasures: watching Cage give it his all, in a spectacularly physical comic, and semi-tragic, performance. There are excellent supporting turns as well, and enough action scenes to keep this from becoming too dull. Recommended quite highly by our two non-superpowered contributors.

Regular listeners of the Book and Film Globe podcast will also notice that we have new theme music this! It’s by composer Matthew Sheffer and is 100 percent appropriately licensed for use by Sea of Reeds Media. All Rights Reserved.

Enjoy the show!