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Neal Pollack

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Neal Pollack is the editor-in-chief of Book and Film Globe, the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, and a three-time Jeopardy! champion. His memoir Pothead will be published in the summer of 2020. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.

Publications:

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Hard Times (1975) 72% EDIT “Everything feels real and unadorned. It’s an apolitical view of the Depression devoid of melodrama or self-pity, which is kind of nice.” – Book & Film Globe Sep 25, 2025 Full Review Materialists (2025) 77% 2/5 EDIT “A romcom has to be funny. And if it’s not a romcom, then it has to exist in reality, but this movie doesn’t really do that, either. It just drifts about the city, vaguely plotted, genreless, dully heteronormative but not in a sexy way.” – Book & Film Globe Jun 17, 2025 Full Review Thunderbolts* (2025) 88% 3/5 EDIT “A watchable, likable cast in a basically crisp, unpretentious entry in the endless MCU saga.” – Book & Film Globe May 2, 2025 Full Review The Shrouds (2024) 75% 2/5 EDIT “The Shrouds wanders around in its ideas, feeling half-formed.” – Book & Film Globe Apr 27, 2025 Full Review Warfare (2025) 92% 5/5 EDIT “A modern masterpiece of terse, tight, macho filmmaking, and possibly the most true-life war film ever made.” – Book & Film Globe Apr 15, 2025 Full Review Drop (2025) 83% 3/5 EDIT “In between an extremely violent beginning and a distressingly violent denouement, Drop features a lot of scenes of people looking nervously at their phones.” – Book & Film Globe Apr 11, 2025 Full Review The Luckiest Man in America (2024) 67% 2/5 EDIT “The Luckiest Man in America wants to be a movie that deconstructs the game-show dream, but it flounders in narrative inconsistency, never quite drilling home its themes.” – Book & Film Globe Apr 5, 2025 Full Review Eephus (2024) 100% 4/5 EDIT “‘Eephus’ exudes a vibe of existential nostalgia for years gone by, for a world without cell phones or partisan insanity, when regular guys could be regular guys. ” – Book & Film Globe Mar 21, 2025 Full Review Friendship (2024) 88% 3/5 EDIT “Robinson has such a signature awkward comedy style that even the slightest reaction shot turns Friendship into an I Think You Should Leave sketch. This works both to the benefit and detriment of the movie.” – Book & Film Globe Mar 13, 2025 Full Review Death of a Unicorn (2025) 52% 3/5 EDIT “‘Unicorn’ features buckets of absurd viscera but also delivers a pointed and funny satire of the pharmaceutical industry, strongly checking both the comedy and horror boxes.” – Book & Film Globe Mar 10, 2025 Full Review Companion (2025) 93% 4/5 EDIT “It’s short, sharp, nasty, sexy, bloody, and fun, full of ideas but without an ounce of pretension on its bones. ” – Book & Film Globe Feb 6, 2025 Full Review I'm Still Here (2024) 97% 4/5 EDIT “We see much of the Melia family life through home movies and old photographs, and it feels like we're watching memory itself spool before our eyes.” – Book & Film Globe Feb 5, 2025 Full Review September 5 (2024) 92% 3/5 EDIT “It’s well-made, tense and jittery. But it’s also about as fresh as yesterday’s news.” – Book & Film Globe Jan 25, 2025 Full Review Juror #2 (2024) 93% 3/5 EDIT “This is a ridiculous plot, ridden with holes, which, in the hands of a pulpier director, could have been a tasty noir as Hoult feels the walls closing in on him. But Eastwood is too prestige-minded and the script isn’t mean or zingy enough.” – Book & Film Globe Jan 2, 2025 Full Review Babygirl (2024) 76% 3/5 EDIT “If seeing Nicole Kidman’s orgasm face is the key to unlocking your deep inborn erotic desires, then watch this movie in the privacy of your own home, but without the company of your sexy, mysterious intern who, let’s face it, is nothing but trouble.” – Book & Film Globe Jan 2, 2025 Full Review A Real Pain (2024) 96% 4/5 EDIT “In a time where, for some reason, we’re still debating the legacy of the Holocaust, it’s a relief to see a cultural product that takes that legacy seriously.” – Book & Film Globe Nov 20, 2024 Full Review The Apprentice (2024) 82% 4/5 EDIT “This movie is excellent, anchored by two award-worthy performances, lightly satiric but also deeply tragic, and nearly devoid of hyperbole, a real accomplishment given its outrageous subject matter.” – Book & Film Globe Oct 26, 2024 Full Review We Live in Time (2024) 79% 2/5 EDIT “Though ‘We Live In Time’ purports to be a romantic drama about relationships and the ties that bind, many of the events that occur in the movie bear no actual resemblance to things that happen in reality. ” – Book & Film Globe Oct 26, 2024 Full Review Conclave (2024) 93% 3/5 EDIT “Unlike ‘Spotlight,’ which at its core was a drama about the church covering up sexual abuse of children, the scandals at the heart of Conclave are barely serious enough to bring down a Senatorial candidate, much less a candidate for Supreme Pontiff.” – Book & Film Globe Oct 26, 2024 Full Review My Old Ass (2024) 90% 3/5 EDIT “It looks, on the surface like an Aubrey Plaza vehicle, but it's actually a treacly YA dramedy with a slight magical angle.” – Book & Film Globe Oct 22, 2024 Full Review Woman of the Hour (2023) 91% 3/5 EDIT “It jumps around in time too much and changes perspectives jarringly. This is not an anthology film, so it’s a big ask for your audience to grasp onto a half-dozen related storylines in a film that’s barely 90 minutes long.” – Book & Film Globe Oct 22, 2024 Full Review Am I Racist? (2024) 56% 3/5 EDIT “When it hones in on what is essentially a sham industry that exploits the guilt of well-meaning white liberals, it hits its mark brilliantly. When it strays beyond that central premise, it’s not quite as effective.” – Book & Film Globe Sep 18, 2024 Full Review Trap (2024) 56% 3/5 EDIT “If you think about this movie for more than five minutes, you’ve really thought too hard.” – Book & Film Globe Sep 1, 2024 Full Review Between the Temples (2024) 84% 3/5 EDIT “The year’s most Jewish film in a year that desperately needs Jewish films.” – Book & Film Globe Sep 1, 2024 Full Review Strange Darling (2023) 96% 3/5 EDIT “"Crisp and fun, but not as innovative as it thinks. ” – Book & Film Globe Sep 1, 2024 Full Review
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