Now Playing -- The Movie Review Podcast

The Imitation Game Dr. Strange presents the illusion that his latest Marvel movie is a routine affair, but In the Multiverse of Madness might actually be another zombie splatter comedy from Evil Dead director Sam Raimi. Can Benedict Cumberbatch’s callous sorcerer fix his relationship with Rachel McAdams, and save America (the country and the teenager) from the wrath of monster mom Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)?  And is it possible there’s a reality where The Inhumans are cool?  Listen Now as Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob make their 28th incursion into the MCU.

“We cannot protect the young from harm.  Pain must and will come.” JK Rowling collaborates with a pair of theater veterans to tell her eighth Hogwarts adventure Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a stage play.  And while Brock, Stuart, and Arnie couldn’t score tickets, they are ready to review the published script.  What happens when Harry’s son goes Slytherin, and travels back in time to change the outcome of the Triwizard Tournament? Listen to find out if fans throw the author into a Goblet of Fire for messing with a classic tale.

No Rest Ye Merry Gentleman Jeremy Renner cuts his Yuletide New York vacation short after fangirl archer Hailee Steinfeld (Bumblebee) starts wearing his infamous Ronin suit to fight crime in the Disney Plus miniseries Hawkeye. Will the Marvel mercenary make it home for the holidays with only six days to defeat the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), new Black Widow Florence Pugh, a one-legged, deaf martial artist, and her entire Tracksuit Mafia?  And why does wife Linda Cardellini want her old Rolex wrapped up and under the tree so badly?  It’s Christmas in May when you Listen Now!

Leaving Los Angeles Is The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent driving Nicolas Cage into a booze-fueled early retirement (or did he just make too many embarrassing flops)? Now the Oscar winner has to accept a humiliating offer to host a lavish birthday party for fanboy cartel leader Pedro Pascal.  Will those “nouveau shamanic” acting techniques be of any help to Agent Tiffany Haddish when the CIA needs Cage to play spy and free a kidnapped politician’s daughter held at a Mallorca compound? Listen Now as Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie face off with Nic’s latest crazy comedy.

Listen Now and Get a Piece of The Rock Nic Cage first used his “massive talent” to become an action star in the 1996 Michael Bay extravaganza The Rock. Can his Beatles-loving biochemist teach the original James Bond Sean Connery anything about being cool, as they team up to expel Ed Harris and his terrorists from Alcatraz?  Or will Candyman Tony Todd steal the show by launching a fleet of missiles loaded up with delicious-looking green gumballs of flesh-eating virus?  Listen Now to find out if Stuart, Jakob, or Arnie are ready to cut Cage some friggin’ slack, and let him out of movie jail.

Round Two with the Blue Sega’s speedy mascot races back to movie theaters to offer an encore helping of attitude in Sonic The Hedgehog 2. This time the video game icon not only battles Jim Carrey’s mechanical contraptions and manic comic timing, but the oversized fists of new nemesis Knuckles (voiced by Idris Elba).  Are James Marsden’s days of being a helicopter parent over now that flying fox Tails is ready to lift the hedgehog to the next level?  Find out if this sequel receives any Blue Justice from the podcast hosts when you listen to the latest Now Playing Arcade installment.

Intravenous with a Vampire Oscar-winning joker Jared Leto sinks his teeth into another comic book villain role as Morbius, a hematologist who turns into a “living vampire” after tinkering with bat DNA.  Can blood brother Matt Smith (Dr. Who) convince the superpowered physician to turn his back on humanity, and join him on a New York bender biting babes and breaking things?  Or will the good doctor accept Michael Keaton’s offer to take down Spider-Man in some future sequel instead? Find out how much the latest Marvel movie sucks for Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart when you Listen Now.

Dolph Lungren trains young gamers to become masters of a zombie universe in Dead Trigger, the 2017 film adaptation of a popular first-person shooter made for smartphones.  Can a Disney star, an MMA fighter, and the no-longer-little rapper Lil’ Romeo blast their way to Terminal City, and rescue the scientist who can cure the outbreak? Or will Cyglobe CEO (and soap star) Tamara Braun whack them for posing a threat to her gun sales?  Help Justin, Arnie, and Stuart answer the call for another trying video game movie when you Listen Now!

Michael Fassbender learns the homicidal impulses that landed him on Death Row in 2016 can be traced back to the Assassin’s Creed he pledged to free-will-loving vigilantes in 1492. Can Oscar-winning scientist Marion Cotillard (Inception) cure the convict of his violent ways simply by plugging him into holographic re-enactments of his past life hit jobs?  Or does Jeremy Irons have nefarious reasons for footing this exorbitant 23AndMe bill?  Find out why gamers have such animus for this big-budget adaptation of the popular Ubisoft title when you Listen Now!

How To Get Away With Murder… and get Jammin’ Ninja Super Cake Yakuza director Takashi Miike tries his hand at a different type of video game adaptation by bringing Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright to the big screen. Can the rookie lawyer find the guilty  parties in three interlocking murder trials simply by cross-examining  parrots and debunking photographic evidence of lake monsters?  And will  the fashion police level charges against all those gravity-defying  hairdos on display in the courtroom?  Find out if Justin, Stuart, and  Arnie offer objections to the latest entry in the Now Playing Arcade  when you Listen Today!

They Still Call Me Bruce Robert Pattinson spent the last two years suiting up as The Batman so that he might score a hit movie for DC, and rescue a Gotham City drowning in drugs, violent crime, and political corruption. Will his plans for urban renewal be thwarted by unhinged assassin The Riddler (Paul Dano), or mob henchman Oz “The Penguin” Cobblepot (Colin Farrell)? Or will Zoe Kravitz steal the show as a limber cat burglar with a soft spot for strays?  Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie can help you crack the code on this dense new Caped Crusader adventure.  Listen Now!

When Harlow sunflowers bloom, hipsters are doomed Nearly 50 years after she left Leatherface dancing in the street, final girl Sally Hardesty returns to face another Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2022.  Can she save a bus full of social media influencers who dared to unlawfully displace the serial killer from his retirement in small town Harlow?  And will Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade) use the survival skills she honed during a school shooting to fight back against the triggered madman once the power tools come out?  Brock, Stuart, and Arnie are abuzz with thoughts about this ninth franchise installment.  Listen Now!

Who knew using the DaVinci Code shaved $2 billion off your next Papa John’s order? Tom Holland leaves Spider-Man and the MCU behind to head into the Uncharted waters of a popular Playstation video game.  Will his Nathan Drake solve a series of puzzles that lead to the legendary treasure of world explorer Ferdinand Magellan?  Or will he be conned out of the gold by greedy partner Mark Wahlberg, billionaire rival Antonio Banderas, or a host of femme fatales and modern day pirates?  All you have to do to unlock the opinions of host Arnie, Justin, and Stuart is download the latest Now Playing Arcade installment. Listen Now!

If she likes taking unnecessary risks so much, she shoulda made a sequel to Sphere Sharon Stone could have screwed like a mink, raised rugrats, and lived happily ever after with Michael Douglas. Instead, her icy crime novelist chances implication in new murders and wardrobe malfunctions 14 years later in Basic Instinct 2.  Is pasty psychologist David Morrissey right to claim the femme fatale suffers from risk addiction, and will endanger all of London if she’s allowed to write a new book there?  Or is the real poison pen being wielded by a tabloid journalist and a dirty cop? You may never come again after you score the latest Now Playing fix.

Now Playing's sister podcast Books & Nachos is back!  On this show you can hear Arnie, Stuart, and Brock review JK Rowling's smash first novel: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It's a companion piece to tomorrow's bonus review of the first Harry Potter movie! You can hear a new Harry Potter BOOK review each week at BooksAndNachos.com

Michael Douglas has survived many big screen fatal attractions with dangerous blondes, but the slick yuppie courts a date with the sharp end of an ice pick after he beds Sharon Stone in the steamy 1992 thriller Basic Instinct.  Does this femme fatale write novels as a way of planning the future murders of unsatisfying lovers? Or is there a psychotic reader turning bloody acts from her books into San Francisco crime scenes?  Untangle all the double crosses and crossed legs when you join Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart for this kinky podcast review.  Listen Now!

Roses are red, violets are blue, pickaxes are painful, and reboots are too With “horror holidays” like Halloween, April Fool’s Day, and Friday the 13th routinely being celebrated with 21st Century remakes, it makes sense that someone would dig up My Bloody Valentine in 2009,. Can the censors stop the carnage now that it’s flying into audiences’ faces via 3-D?  And what kills a small town faster - a homicidal maniac stuffing residents’ hearts into boxes of candy, or prodigal son Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) closing down the local coal mine? Find out if the hosts are sweet on this second helping of Harry Warden when you Listen Now!

Twenty years after a cave-in turned a coal miner into a cannibal, legendary psychopath Harry Warden returns to paint his hometown red in the 1981 original My Bloody Valentine. So why don’t moviegoers associate headlamps and pickaxes with February 14th in the same way hockey masks and machetes signify Friday The 13th? And were the cruelest cuts made by the MPAA, who edited out literal showers of blood in order to give the film an R rating?  Find out if Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie fall in love with this subterranean slasher when you Listen Now.

What do you mean you like TikTok more than scary movies?! Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox are ready to Scream for the fifth and possibly final time as a serial killer in a Ghostface mask terrorizes a new generation of self-aware Woodsboro horror enthusists. Is the 25-year-old franchise still capable of pulling off big surprises like that initial, infamous phone call to Drew Barrymore?  And will the new directors enrage or bore Wes Craven purists by slipping some of that fancy pants “elevated horror” into the slasher formula?  Find out if this “re-quel” proves legendary when you Listen Now. {Scream Series}

He brings the Mile High Club and the six feet under crowd together Tabloid journalist Miguel Ferrer (Robocop) is on the trail of The Night Flier, a serial killer who drains victims of blood during sunset stops at tiny East Coast airports. Is there any truth to the rumor that this phantom aviator is a vampire?  And if so, is his sleek black jet just a way of impressing those blue haired groupies waiting for him on the tarmac?  Find out if this latest installment in the Stephen King retrospective has more bite than other short story adaptations from the Nightmares & Dreamscapes anthology when you Listen Now. {Stephen King Series}