Now Playing -- The Movie Review Podcast

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!