BFG Podcast #102: 'Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret,' 'Peter Pan and Wendy,' and 'Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies'

It's your favorite hour of the week, the listening of the BFG podcast! This week, Neal Pollack welcomes Ayun Halliday to the BFG podcast dome to discuss the box-office non-success 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret,' an adaptation of a 50-plus-year-old Judy Blume novel about a young suburban girl's coming of age. Neal found the movie sweet and sentimental, but Ayun, who was really looking forward to this product, didn't appreciate the film's wan attempts at modern social relevance. It's soft-focused and natural-seeming. But, our critic wonders, where is the menstrual blood? Good question, a question that only BFG can ask.Over on Disney+, Peter Pan gets another adaptation, this one from David Lowery, director of The Green Knight. Neal Pollack and Stephen Garrett, two boys who did grow up, found this thing kind of lame. For one, Peter Pan himself is a dishrag. And Stephen, while he liked the young woman who played Wendy, found himself desperately underwhelmed by Jude Law as Captain Hook. There was also no menstrual blood in this movie.Nor is there, as far as we have seen, in Grease: The Rise of the Pink Ladies, an unwanted prequel series to the 1978 musical, now airing on Paramount+. Paula Shaffer stops by to complain about the lousy autotune soundtrack and the production's weird insistence on setting itself in 1954, before the "50s" really started. For something set in the age of segregation, it sure is an integrated world. A lame product that most people will quickly forget. But it's worth talking about, and there will, apparently, be a second season of this High School Musical knockoff.That's it. That's the podcast. Enjoy!