BFG Podcast #021: ‘Dune,’ ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ ‘Y: The Last Man,’ and More! Our editor and writers bust open the week in culture

In this week’s wondrous edition of the Book and Film Globe Week in Review podcast, editor Neal Pollack welcomes in our film-critic exiles from the Toronto International Film Festival. Sara Stewart stops by to ponder the strange casting decision to have 27-year-old Ben Platt reprise his Broadway role in the movie adaptation of the teen-suicide musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ Like so many critics, Stewart left the movie a little less sympathetic to modern teenagers, though she did like supporting performances from Kaitlyn Dever and Amandla Stenberg.

Then Stephen Garrett returns to the podcast to report that Denis Villenueve’s adaptation of ‘Dune’ is about as good as possible. He urges you to see it on an IMAX screen if at all possible. Stephen also gives a lengthy report on several other Toronto International Film Festival offerings, including the Indian movie ‘Dug Dug,’ which, as Neal astutely points out, the filmmakers did not adapt from the 198os video game ‘Dig Dug.’

Finally, Scott Gold enters the chat to talk about the long-awaited TV adaptation of the apocalyptic comic book ‘Y: The Last Man.’ Scott praises for the show but wishes it retained some of the absurdist humor of the comic. As the last two male critics on Earth, Neal and Scott are in agreement there.