Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Thinking Outside The Box  Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart survived the harrowing gladiator matches of The Hunger Games only to stumble into a labyrinth of dangers in the 2014 adventure The Maze Runner. Can Teen Wolf star Dylan O'Brien decode the secrets tucked within these giant granite walls, and find an escape path for a marooned tribe of teenage boys? Or will this flight to freedom be thwarted by an army of biomechanical spiders, bully Will Poulter (aka Adam Warlock), or the arrival of a girl (Kaya Scodelario)? Listen Now as the hosts guide you through another YA dystopia.

The Town That Dreaded Markdowns Director Eli Roth (Hostel) has a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving now that a decades-long mission to expand his Grindhouse joke trailer has finally blessed the multiplex. Will holiday viewers be delighted to dine on a 17-year-old turkey overstuffed with gorey kills and T&A exploitation? Say a prayer for Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob as they gobble up this 2023 horror-comedy. 

Charlie's Bangles Brie Larson mixes it up for the sequel to her 2019 Captain Marvel debut by bringing estranged niece Teyonah Parris (WandaVision) and gushing fangirl Iman Vellani (Ms Marvel) into her 2023 Marvels adventure.  Can the trio stop trading places long enough to thwart a hammer-wielding Kree (Zawe Ashton) from disrupting the Skrull peace negotiations?  And have the years Sam Jackson spent assembling the Avengers prepared him for a mother-Flerken job herding cats in space? Listen to find out if Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob are annihilators of the MCU's 33rd movie.

It's Not Easy Being Green  Sam Jackson returns from the far corners of the cosmos to help extra-terrestrial bud Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) stop a Secret Invasion of Earth by shape-shifting Skrulls. Are White House envoy Don Cheadle and MI-6 agent Olivia Colman smart to discount the aged Avenger after he broke his promise to find these radicalized aliens a new planet to inhabit? And is Nick Fury keeping other surprises about his personal life, and his time in space, tucked underneath that eye patch? Listen Now as Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart expose the truth about this 2023 Disney+ miniseries!

Choke-E-Cheese and the Riflefire Explosion Security guard Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games) spends Five Nights At Freddy's looking for the reason why his younger brother went missing back in the 1980s. Could the animatronic mascots of this condemned pizzeria be at the center of a string of unsolved child abductions? And will his socially awkward little sister be the next victim after having a sleepover with these rock and roll robots, and sketching their dark secrets out in crayon?  Listen Now as Justin, Arnie, and Stuart suit up to spend Halloween inside the Now Playing Arcade.

The Coyote of Wall Street Martin Scorsese is back with longtime acting muses Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro in the 2023 Oscar hopeful Killers of The Flower Moon. This time Leo is the taxi driver, chauffeuring Lily Gladstone around Oklahoma as uncle Bobby conspires with an entire town to fleece her Osage tribe out of oil profits. Can Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad) get the FBI to stop this wave of poisonings, bombings, and shootings before the white devils succeed in Native American genocide? Listen Now as the hosts speak truth about Leo and Marty's sixth collaboration.

Can God be Love if He lets such awful things air on network television? Ron Perlman (Hellboy) is the Tak of the Town after his attempt to become the next Pennywise in the 2006 Stephen King effort Desperation. Will the possessed policeman ticket motorists Tom Skerritt (Dead Zone), Steven Weber (The Shining), Matt Frewer (The Stand), and Henry Thomas (Doctor Sleep) for driving past a cursed Arizona mine, or because he's jealous they were in better King adaptations? And what darlings will director Mick Garris have to kill in order to turn the 700 page novel into a two hour TV movie? Find out when you Listen Now!

Sometimes dead is better than straight-to-streaming  Look what the cat dragged into Paramount Plus: a 2023 prequel to Stephen King's beloved 1983 novel Pet Sematary.  Long before the infamous Indian burial site brought back dead pets and run over children as flesh-eating zombies, grieving father David Duchovny dug a hole to reanimate the son he lost in Vietnam. Can longtime resident Judson Crandall justify staying on these sour grounds after tracing his hometown carnage back through the Bloodlines of its founding fathers?  Walk this perilous road with Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob to find out now!

See saw with a seesaw Saw is back, as is series star Tobin Bell as “Jigsaw” John Kramer. In this film, set mere weeks after the events in the original Saw, Kramer travels to Mexico seeking a cure for his brain tumor. Instead, what he finds is a scam that leads him back to his old “Jigsaw” ways with all new traps. Will this movie suck out your eyeballs with its violence and gore? Or do you need to put several ounces of gray matter in a jar to enjoy the tenth Saw release? Join our hosts Jakob, Arnie, and Marjorie now to find out!

I Know What You Did Last Century The Phantom Killer returns to Texarkana nearly 70 years after first turning a quaint community into The Town That Dreaded Sundown.  But could the original culprit still be alive, uncaught, and wielding razor sharp band instruments in 2014? Or are these copycat slayings the handiwork of a disgruntled great-grandson, or demented fan of the 1976 Charles Pierce cult movie? And how much faith should be put in Anthony Anderson (Kangaroo Jack) and Gary Cole (Office Space) to crack the case?  Step back into the shadows with Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob and Listen Now!

The Texas Trombone Massacre Texarkana becomes The Town That Dreaded Sundown after a psycho with a sack over his head starts terrorizing couples necking in secluded makeout spots. Can Oscar-winning Ranger Ben Johnson (Last Picture Show) expect to lead the largest manhunt in US history to this Phantom Killer if his klutzy driver can't even keep the patrol car on the twisty gravel backroads?  And did Dawn Wells survive three seasons of Gilligan's Island just to be shot dead in her kitchen? Listen and find out if this 1976 docudrama sheds new light on the unsolved 1946 true story.

A Hard Habit to Break Valak continues to spread the evil of The Conjuring Universe throughout the churches of Europe in the 2023 sequel The Nun II. Can Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) return her nemesis to Hell with Father Burke out of the picture, and faithless bad girl Storm Reid (Euphoria) her only frIend? And will this demon in a wimple actually learn a thing or two about throwing shade from mortals after enrolling in a boarding school overpopulated with mean French girls?  Arnie, Marjorie, and Stuart are ready to perform the miracle of turning slaughter into whine when you Listen Now!

Law & Order: MCU Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) sees her dreams of headlining a fun lawyer show get contaminated after cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) accidentally turns her into She-Hulk. Does being a giant green hothead help the Attorney At Law win high profile cases for celebrity clients like Megan Thee Stallion and Abomination (Tim Roth)?  Or will the super-prosecutor be convicted in the court of popular opinion after haters launch a nasty social media campaign against her? Learn how angry Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob get about the 2022 Disney+ series now!

Now if someone would design a video game preparing the next generation for service work!  A college dropout's devotion to a PlayStation racing simulator unexpectedly paves the way for his career as a professional sports car driver in the incredible true story Gran Turismo. Is Lord of the Rings star Orlando Bloom still living in a fantasy world by thinking this homebody gamer is Team Nissan's best shot at winning the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans? And can coach David Harbour (Stranger Things) really help the lad transition from couch to car if they remain stuck on whether to turn the radio dial to Enya or Black Sabbath? Play our next podcast and find out!

Livin' La Vida Locust A recent college graduate (Cobra Kai's Xolo Mariduena) goes looking for work that will keep a roof over his family's heads, and scores a lifetime appointment as Blue Beetle. Can DC's first Latino crimefighter satisfy audiences tired of fascists like Batman dominating the box office, and hungry for superhero flicks equipped with George Lopez jokes? And is Susan Sarandon totally buggin' to think she can extract the alien scarab fused into the youth's back, and market it as a one-man police force? Listen to imperialists Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart to find out now! {DC Comics Series} {Comic Book Movie Series} {DC Movie Universe} {Blue Beetle Series}

As if vampires are the worst thing you'd encounter on a cruise ship. Dracula had to find dry land before he could start sucking London dry in Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel, which means sailing for a month on the doomed Last Voyage of The Demeter.  Will onboard medic Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) go down with the ship before he solves the mystery of why so many crew members sport holes in their necks? And does Javier Botet (Conjuring 2) ride the same wave of success that carried Bela Lugosi, Frank Langella, Nick Cage, and all the other Universal nosferatu to infamy?  Listen and find out!

The 40 Year Old Terrapin Fanboy producer Seth Rogan brings Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Rafael back to big screens to frolic in the radioactive green ooze that first transformed them into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 40 years ago. Should the foursome heed the warnings of rodent mentor Splinter (Jackie Chan) to stay hidden from humans in the sewer? Or answer the call of cub reporter April O'Neil (Ayo Edebiri) to thwart villain Superfly (Ice Cube) before he vaporizes everyone in New York?  Find out if this Mutant Mayhem is more toxic than a Michael Bay creation. Listen Now!

Sisterhood of the Traveling Partition 16-year-old cosplayer Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) fulfills her ambition to be like idol Brie Larson after she straps on her great-grandmother's magic bracelet, and becomes Ms. Marvel in a 2022 Disney+ miniseries. Can the fledgling superhero heal generational trauma dating back to Pakistan's split from India by stopping supernatural family members from opening The Veil of Noor, and wiping out life on Earth?  And how will the self-described “brown girl from Jersey City” honor Muslim tradition while following her cosmic dreams?  Listen and find out.

The Shawshank Reinvention Prison guard Tom Hanks walks the condemned down The Green Mile to the electric chair for a living, but takes a different path after meeting magical healer Michael Clarke Duncan (Armageddon) behind bars. Was a jury in Depression Era Louisiana blinded by racial prejudice when they convicted the enormous black man of brutally murdering angelic white twins?  And does director Frank Darabont get the same mileage out of another Stephen King jailhouse melodrama as he did with Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins?  Listen and find out!

…or How I Learned to Start Worrying And Make A Bomb Christopher Nolan offers an intimate look at the Father of the Atomic Age in his epic new biopic Oppenheimer. Is Cillian Murphy even scarier than his Batman Begins villain when he delivers the means of mankind's destruction to military bigwig Matt Damon at the start of the Cold War?  Or should we feel sympathy for the bewildered scientist once Robert Downey Jr persecutes him and wife Emily Blunt for perceived Communist leanings? Find out if this director is paving a road to the Oscars, or turning summer movie season radioactive with his pretensions. Listen Now! 

Because it's a global crisis when Tom Cruise loses his keys Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart accept a seventh assignment to review a Mission: Impossible movie… make that half a movie… as Part 1 of Dead Reckoning explodes onto the big screen. Has artificial intelligence gotten so savvy that it can predict every move Ethan Hunt and his IMF regulars Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Rebecca Ferguson are going to make?  Or can Tom Cruise beat the computers by performing dangerous leaps off a mountain on his motorcycle without digital fakery?  Find out if this franchise is set to self-destruct when you Listen Now!  

Paint It Black Patrick Wilson steps away from the Conjuring universe and returns to his roots via The Red Door to direct the Lambert family through another Insidious ordeal. Does eldest son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) undo the hypnotic conditioning meant to protect him from demonic possession when he enrolls in a liberal arts college that heightens his artistic abilities? And does Lipstick Face Demon (Joseph Bishara) have more fun hazing frat bros than he would hiding from Elise, Specs, and Tucker? Look no Further for the answers. The podcast review is ready now!

You can now get our bonus review podcasts individually in our Patreon Digital Store! Hear OVER FOUR HUNDRED bonus movie review podcasts. Alien! Child's Play! Planet of the Apes! Psycho! And, yes, the reviews of Evil Dead Rise and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are on there too. The store is at Patreon.com/NowPlayingPodcast Watch the video to find out all the details. And thank you for supporting Now Playing Podcast!

New Jack Hustler Tommy Lee Jones and his U.S. Marshals are on the hunt for a new outlaw in the 1998 sequel to The Fugitive. Is Wesley Snipes able to keep pace with Harrison Ford as he flees a plane crash and his bad reputation for killing government agents, selling secrets to the Chinese, and not paying income tax?  And is Robert Downey Jr a valuable addition to Sam Gerard's team, or will his smarmy stances polarize in the same way Iron Man broke apart the Avengers?  Get righteous with this long-running franchise when you join Brock, Arnie, and Stuart now!

Presumed Guilty Harrison Ford goes on the lam after being wrongly sentenced to Death Row in The Fugitive, the 1993 blockbuster movie adaptation of the hit 1960s TV show.  Can the convicted surgeon use his medical cunning to track down the one-armed man actually responsible for murdering his wife?  And did running from all those boody-trapped boulders prepare the Indiana Jones star for navigating the mean streets of Chicago while evading capture from Oscar-winning pursuer Tommy Lee Jones (MIB)? Listen Now as Brock, Stuart, and Arnie chase down the answers.      

Bratman Returns Time is running out for the DCU unless The Flash (2023) can reverse the damage done by problematic star Ezra Miller, and deliver some meta-human box office. Does grabbing an extra can of crushed tomatoes from a supermarket shelf spare Barry Allen a lifetime of tragedy, or just turn all superhero continuity into a bowl of spaghetti? And can he clean up Ben Affleck's “bat mess” by bringing audiences back to the glory days of Michael Keaton?  Get your quick fix of Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie when you catch their latest podcast review. Listen Now!

Bumble in the Jungle The planet-eating Unicron will devour all of Earth unless Optimus Prime and his Autobots help promote the Rise of the Beasts - the next phase of Transformers evolution. Do 30 foot tall mechanical gorillas, cheetahs, and falcons hold the key to mankind's (and the franchise's) future?  And can Broadway star Anthony Ramos (Hamilton) learn to work with the team, and trust a talking Porsche that sounds like SNL's Pete Davidson? Buckle up and join Justin, Stuart, and Arnie for this next stretch of road in the long-running Hasbro series. Listen Now!

Blame It On The Boogie Chris Messina (Birds of Prey) wonders if psychotic patient David Dastmalchian (Suicide Squad) might be innocent of killing his three children after The Boogeyman he described in session starts stalking the therapist and his two daughters. Will eldest kid Sophie Thatcher (Yellowjackets) find more than skeletons in the closet once she starts rummaging through her dead mother's things? And does found footage director Rob Savage (Dashcam) expand this Stephen King short story with more skill than most Night Shift adaptations?  Listen Now!

The Spider And The Fly Girl Miles Morales swings Across The Spider-Verse to reconnect with best friend Gwen Stacey five years after collecting the Oscar for his first animated adventure. Has the superhero jeopardized the structural integrity of everything by refusing to be the self-sacrificing Spider-Man we've seen in so many previous comic books and movies? And do new friends Spider-Woman (Issa Rae), Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) and Spider-Man India (Karan Soni) widen this story's appeal? Find out if the sequel hits The Spot for Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob when you Listen Now!  

Mercury In Retrograde Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart are Flash-ing back to 1990, an era of television when there was only one DC comic book character on prime time. Soap star John Wesley Shipp spent an entire season as Barry Allen in a bulky red suit, chasing down CBS audiences who were quickly turning the dial to The Cosby Show and other light-hearted fare. Was the Red Speedster simply ahead of the superhero trend, or stuck in a rush job rip-off of Tim Burton's Batman? You don't have to wait for answers about this pilot to the quickly-canceled TV show. Listen Now!

Infiniti War Jason Momoa starts a street fight that stretches from East LA to Antarctica in Fast X, and Vin Diesel is furious after his family gets framed for terrorism in Rome. Can Brie Larson help the Toretto car cult clear their name as police, mercenaries, and new Agency boss Alan Ritchson (Reacher) chase them across the global highways? And what side will hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron) choose after her dark web activity gets her stabbed in the back? Find out if the podcasters agree with grandma Rita Moreno that this franchise is built to last. Listen Now!

What happens when you teach Critical Wraith Theory Arnie, Stuart, and Justin are done reviewing video game movies if they can make it through Detention, an award-winning 2019 ghost story that started life as an online 2-D side-scroller. Is a Taiwanese schoolgirl forever damned to relive lessons in torture after falling asleep in class, and waking up hunted by a towering, neck-snapping demon? Or is the real nightmare the historically accurate executions of teachers and students happening over banned books? Take this hall pass and join us for the final Now Playing Arcade installment.  Listen Now!

We Are Groot-ful You Came Back James Gunn gives his Guardians of the Galaxy an epic send-off before he abadons Marvel for a suicidal mission to save the DCU. Volume 3 has the lovable A-holes reuniting to save Rocket (Bradley Cooper) after he's mortally injured by Adam Warlock (Will Poulter). Can Drax, Mantis, and Nebula stop bickering long enough to find answers at the biotech company that created the wise-cracking racoon? And will Star Lord Chris Pratt get a second chance at love with his green girl Gamora (Zoe Saldana)? Find out when you take the road to Knowhere with Now Playing.

Oculus Riffs Park ranger Sam Richardson (Veep) wonders if there are Werewolves Within his chipper New England community after finding a trail of bodies in the snowy wilderness. Will a night of finger-pointing at the guests of the Beaverfield Inn get to the bottom of these canine attacks, or just lead to more murder and unneighborly behavior?  And will Ubisoft's 2016 virtual reality game continue to play as a 2021 horror-comedy with a cast of almost famous jokesters? Arnie, Justin, and Stuart aren't letting sleeping dogs lie. The truth comes out when you Listen Now!     

Having a good blockhead for business The walls close in on video game entrepreneur Taron Egerton (Kingsman) after he risks everything to travel behind the Iron Curtain and secure the rights to Tetris. Can the American dodge KGB agents and stay ahead of his corrupt competition to win the heart of a Soviet programmer who can't even profit from sales of his game? And is there anything BASIC about the way the pieces of this Cold War true story come together beyond the computer coding? The answers are available on all platforms when you plug into the Now Playing Arcade. Listen Now!

How to Skin Friends and Influence People Count Dracula would like to believe the sun rises and sets around him in all his many screen adventures, but the spotlight finally falls on overshadowed servant Renfield in this 2023 sequel. Can Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies) find the confidence to escape a 90 year toxic relationship with narcissist Nicolas Cage before he's gaslit into committing more murders for the vampire?  And shouldn't New Orleans cop Awkwafina be able to do better for herself than a guy with more bugs than teeth in his mouth? Listen Now to find out if this familiar story still rises to full power.

Now You're Re-playing With Power Chris Pratt gives voice to Nintendo's mascot in the splashy new Super Mario Bros Movie. But did the Brooklyn plumber level up from poorly rendered previous incarnations starring Captain Lou Albano and Bob Hoskins by letting Illumination Studios (Despicable Me) animate his 2023 adventure?  And do Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Donkey Kong (Seth Rogan) really need help stopping lizard Bowser (Jack Black) from invading their pixelated kingdoms? Listen and find out if Stuart, Justin, and Arnie are (raccoon) suited to review the latest Arcade entry.

Look Who's Stalk-ing The sole survivor of a police standoff at a rural daycare imposes her own brand of justice on the adult world by indoctrinating Children of the Corn farmers into a Nebraskan eco-death cult. But are these pint-sized zealots praying to a supernatural deity that prowls their endless fields, or hallucinating from the industrial chemicals unwisely sprayed on their dying crops?  Find out if monsters or Monsanto are the reason why in 2023 Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob are paying tribute to the eleventh installment of Stephen King's most enduring franchise. Listen Now!

John Wick is the stair-master It's been four years since John Wick's last Chapter, but in that time the appetite for the series has only grown. The super-assassin out-grossed super-heroes Black Adam and Shazam 2, bringing in over $70 million in the first weekend. But is the book of Wick starting to get too long (with this installment alone running 2 hours and 50 minutes)? And how much more can be done with gun-fu? Join our hosts for this new movie review to find out!

Taste The Rainbow, Marvel Lovers Zachary Levi's boyish superhero Shazam unleashes the Fury of the Gods onto Philadelphia after he accidentally frees the three Daughters of Atlas from a celestial prison. Is it beneath Oscar-winning Queen Helen Mirren to wrestle her birthright powers away from a bunch of foster kids? And can lovestruck West Side Story siren Rachel Zegler convince older sister Lucy Liu (Kill Bill) not to grow a garden of mythical monsters to wipe out humanity? Download Now Playing's current show and find out if lightning strikes twice for DC's most fun-loving character!

Ghostface Takes Manhattan Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) might've left behind the slaughter of Woodsboro in Scream VI, but college in the Big Apple will continue to test her knowledge of scary movies and survival. Is the new killer one of the social media haters routinely slandering older sister Samantha (Melissa Barrera) for being Billy Loomis' daughter? Or should closer tabs be kept on returning survivor Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere)? And is this the final chapter for Friend-less reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox)? Listen Now as Arnie, Marjorie, and Stuart answer the sequel's call.

Killmonger vs. Kang: Rumble in Wakanda Whenever his back was against the ropes Michael B. Jordan always had Sylvester Stallone and Black Panther director Ryan Coogler in his corner. But Creed III finds Apollo's son fighting in the arena alone - Jordan's directorial debut is also the first movie in the Rocky series not to involve Sly. Can the Killmonger actor prove that he's the real box office powerhouse while taking on his old frenemy Jonathan “Kang” Majors? Find out if this franchise still packs a punch when you get into the ring with Arnie, Jakob, and Brock. Listen Now!