BFG Podcast #313: Dinosaurs in Suburbia, 24 Hours of Romance, and a Summer of Growing Up
Neal, Stephen and Laura discuss summer movies about food, horror, and romance
It’s August, my dudes, and you know what that means: August movies! The last month of summer is always a mixed bag of genre trash and uncategorizable indie films, and 2026 is no exception. Host Neal Pollack and chief critic Stephen Garrett team up to review two of the Augustest movies that have ever Augusted.
First there’s One Night Only, a kind of Purge-themed romcom that postulates a right-wing government making it illegal for single people to have sex except for 12 hours a year. It’s a bizarre premise that the movie wears lightly, and Neal and Stephen found themselves strangely charmed by it. Either that, or they’re hoping that star Monica Barbaro hears their praise for her and gives them a call. Highly unlikely.
Next is The End of Oak Street, which Neal positioned as a deliberately bad B dinosaur movie like what you would find in the backroom of Video Roundup in the 1980s. Stephen finds the whole thing an annoying genre pastiche and didn’t have fun at all. Neal had a bit of fun and appreciated Anne Hathaway’s committed, if ridiculous, performance given the absurdity of the material. An eighty-foot-long rubber slithering sea snake can’t be all bad, can it?
Finally, Laura Pruden drops into the Pod Bay to discuss with Neal an actually good movie, Tony, a delightful and knowing 1970s coming-of-age story about young Anthony Bourdain, with fully committed performances by Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, and Leo Woodall. This is a film that gets youth right, gets summer right, and pretty much gets everything right. Director Matt Johnson is in charge from the opening shot. You could watch this film any month of the year.
Enjoy the program!