BFG Podcast #187: 'Captain America: Brave New World' and Big Changes at the Kennedy Center

At the Book And Film Globe podcast, we rarely take a particular political stance–with the exception of campaigning to keep movie theaters open during COVID and decrying all kinds of censorship. We'll be encouraging you to read books, watch movies, and enjoy streaming TV as the nuclear winter hits. Culture marches on.

Therefore, it's with complete neutrality that we report that Donald Trump has taking charge of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, along with taking charge of America, The Gulf of America, and, to some extent, the rest of the world. Neal Pollack welcomes Michael Washburn to discuss the cultural implications of Trump taking over the Kennedy Center. Michael says "there are other voices out there in America" that have not had the opportunity to appear at the Kennedy Center. Neal is unsure about what those voices might be. "What is a Donald Trump-run cultural center going to look like?" he wonders. We'll spend the next four years trying to unravel the answer for that question.

It's not that mysterious, on the other hand, what the MCU is going to look like the next four years. It will look exactly the same as it always has, and will continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars a movie no matter how inconsistent the narrative or the quality of its movies. Neal and Stephen Garrett don't make any claim that 'Captain America: Brave New World.' This "very non film-festival movie" kicks off the MCU's 2025. Neal wonders why they changed the name from "New World Order" to "Brave New World." "Oh no," he says. "You might make Donald Rumsfeld's ghost mad."

"This is a new movie and there's a brave new hero," Stephen says. We guess that's technically true, though as Neal points out, it's really a stealth sequel to a 2008 Hulk movie that happens to feature a new Captain America. Anthony Mackie is actually kind of a dour new hero, and the movie continually moves away from potentially interesting storylines to focus on Harrison Ford turning into a Red Hulk. Spoiler alert, it's in every trailer and on every poster. And it features a villain who has a cauliflower head.

Enjoy the podcast!