The Good, the Bad and the Good-Bad (Movie)

When it comes to movies we love, there are the artistic masterpieces and there are the foot-stomping crowd pleasers. But there’s another particular kind of beloved movie, the one that makes our friends groan, but that we rewatch incessantly; the one that we can quote line for line, even as we giggle at the actors’ performances; the one that we’d say is great, but that we might not say is good. These are the kinds of movies that Maya Salam, a pop culture writer at The New York Times, covers in her monthly column, The Good-Bad (nytimes.com/spotlight/the-good-bad).
This episode is a celebration of good-bad movies, timed to the release of “Practical Magic 2,” the long-awaited sequel to the 1998 cult film that Salam called “a bubbling cauldron of plot holes and tones.” Our host Rachel Abrams talks to Salam about the joys of loving a movie despite (or because of) its flaws. Then, they’re joined by The Times’s canon editor, Gilbert Cruz, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a Times Magazine writer, to discuss the best of good-bad cinema.
On Today’s Episode:
Maya Salam (nytimes.com/by/maya-salam) covers pop culture for The New York Times.
Gilbert Cruz (nytimes.com/by/gilbert-cruz) is the canon editor for The New York Times.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner (nytimes.com/by/taffy-brodesser-akner) is a features reporter for The New York Times Magazine.
Background Reading:
• The Good-Bad (nytimes.com/spotlight/the-good-bad)
• Why Loving Good-Bad Movies Feels All Good (nytimes.com/2026/07/04/movies/good-bad-movies-…)

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podca…. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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