It goes without saying that this has been a very sad week of watching the news unfold around us. On Tuesday, we took some time to chat about movies and sweets, and if that's what you're in the mood for, this is the show for you.
First, we talk about The BFG, the Spielberg adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's book that tries to integrate a live girl with a CGI creature. From there, we pull back a little to discuss the general arc of the Steven Spielberg situation, from fantasy to history to very big, very friendly giants.
Then, joined as we are this week by NPR Books' Petra Mayer, who knows a little about a baking challenge, we talk about The Great British Baking Show (the PBS packaging of The Great British Bake-Off), which has just started up again here in the states. Why do Petra and I love it? Why did I write a whole essay about it? Can Stephen and Glen, who don't bake, find a way into it? We'll see. We'll just see.
As always, we close the show with what's making us happy this week. Stephen is happy about Canadian reality television and the fact that — not to brag — he only saw Independence Day: Resurgence because he wanted to, after someone stopped him from having to see it last week. Glen is happy about the very game he wrote about for the blog this very morning. Petra is happy about a podcast that's not safe for work, but that you can reach via this perfectly innocuous Gimlet Media link. (Thanks, Sampler!) And I am happy about a beautiful piece of writing I cannot recommend highly enough.
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