Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Get to da Yowcha!  

The Predator has left behind his typical prey on Earth to hunt a new trophy in the Badlands of the deadliest planet in the universe. But after eight movies, is the masked alien at last ready to be the hero of his own franchise, and beat a band of Weyland-Yutani robots to a massive, unkillable monster?  And are Elle Fanning (Super 8) and a spitting space monkey the tools needed to navigate all the poisonous flora...

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Motherf*ckers

Before the Predator conducts his 2025 theatrical hunt in the Badlands, his animated counterparts are hosting a contest on Hulu where the winner is proclaimed Killer of Killers. How much competition will a Viking mother, an exiled Japanese brother, and an aspiring WWII pilot be for the homicidal aliens once they’re ripped away from historical battles and transported to a space arena?  An...

What If…. Stan Lee was replaced by George Romero?

Now Playing Podcast has been overrun by Marvel Zombies just in time for Halloween, and somehow it’s all up to Jersey brat Kamala Khan (aka Ms Marvel) to save the day. Can she transmit an S.O.S. to allies in space before Shang-Chi, Red Guardian, Spider-Man, Thor, Riri “Ironheart” Williams,  and dozens of other Avengers are overtaken by an undead horde commanded by Scarlet Witch?  And...

The Enemy of The Entity Is My Friend

Brock, Arnie, and Stuart are at last ready to have The Final Reckoning with the eighth Mission: Impossible film, as well as its daredevil star, Tom Cruise. Does the world still need Ethan Hunt to dangle from dogfighting airplanes, dive solo into deep-sea submarine wrecks, or impersonate others in lookalike masks?  Or would it be better to let artificial intelligence take over the planet and remo...

My So-Called Artificial Life

Jared Leto aims to be a permanent part of the Tron universe by reconfiguring his rock star image into cyber-soldier Ares. But is he right to have bad feelings about the commands of generational villains Evan Peters (X-Men Days of Future Past) and Gillian Anderson (X-Files)? Or should he follow the directives of Flynn fangirl Greta Lee (Past Lives), and return to the Grid of the 1980s to celebrate Depech...

You’ve Got Plague 

Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon, this time recovering from amnesia in an Italian hospital while the clock ticks down to the release of a deadly virus. But why did Ron Howard skip a novel to make Dan Brown’s fourth book, Inferno, the conclusion to the movie trilogy? And is Felicity Jones (Rogue One) any help stopping a madman obsessed with Dante, or aiding the symbologist as he tries to top The Da Vinci Code a...

Catch Me if you Conclave  

Ron Howard follows up his biggest box office hit with a 2009 Da Vinci Code sequel that sends Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor racing through Rome on a mission to solve more ancient riddles. Will taking time for some Vatican cardio in between his Louvre lectures make the Harvard symbologist fit enough to stop an Illuminati bomb plot?  Arnie, Jason, and Justin try not to suffocate in St. Peter’s Square as they d...

Joe Versus the Vatican

Symbologist Robert Langdon made his big-screen debut in The Da Vinci Code, the controversial adaptation of a Dan Brown bestseller that risked turning art history into a global conspiracy and created a PR nightmare for the Catholic Church. With Tom Hanks rocking the most unpopular haircut since Samson, and director Ron Howard treating every line like it came straight from the Book of Revelation, this 2006 thri...

Step Brothers 

Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence asks audiences to take a Long Walk in Stephen King’s shoes for the 2025 movie adaptation of the horror writer’s 1979 dystopian novel. Why has Mark Hamill gone to the Dark Side, using brute force to make 50 teenage boys march down America’s post-apocalyptic highways until only one is left standing?  And who in this fresh-faced cast, which includes the latest Karate Kid and the “A...

The Warren Reports

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson have been Conjuring stories of demonic possession on movie screens for the last 12 years. Will their career as the preeminent paranormal investigators of the 1960s and 70s end in tragedy now that a Pennsylvanian family needs their help fighting off an axe-wielding ghost in 1986?  And can Ed and Lorraine keep shielding adult daughter Judy from a strangulating spirit tucked inside a ...

Window of Opportunity

Stephen King didn’t write The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, but this 2003 TV movie attempts to complete the picture of his haunted house, Rose Red. Was the place born from the sin of kinky Steven Brand (Hellraiser: Revelations), who delights in tying up and torturing his new bride and comely maids?  Or is the mansion on the side of the wronged women, and helping Ellen (soap star Lisa Brenner) and her “dark lady” co...

Bringing Down The House

Stephen King invited audiences back to network television in 2002 for a three-night tour of his haunted house, Rose Red. But did the author successfully refurbish Shirley Jackson’s classic Hill House tale by having an autistic girl be the one to stoke the appetite of a soul-eating Seattle mansion? Or is sitcom star Nancy Travis working from an outdated blueprint as she sends five paranormal investigators dow...

Nobody Asked for This

After finding inner peace with a body count, Nobody Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell is chasing something even harder: a quiet family vacation. But when a crooked sheriff (Fargo’s Colin Hanks) and a deranged smuggler (Basic Instinct’s Sharon Stone) crash the party, Hutch has to remind everyone that violence is his love language. Listen to the Now Playing Podcast hosts now to find out if Nobody 2 packs the same pun...

Nobody Copies John Wick and Gets Away With It

Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) might look like your average suburban dad, but Nobody will think that after witnessing his brutal bus beatdown and action flick transformation. Can the unassuming funnyman fight back against the Russian mafia on his own, or does he need the help of his shotgun-wielding octogenarian papa Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future)? Arnie, Jason, and Justin abso...

Plop Goes The Weasel

Thomas Jane (The Mist), Jason Lee (Chasing Amy), Timothy Olyphant (Justified), and Damian Lewis (Billions) arrive at a cabin in the woods to drink beer, sing “Blue Bayou”, and process childhood trauma. But their annual hunting trip gets hijacked by space aliens exploding out their asses in the 2003 nightmare film Dreamcatcher. Can Big Chill director Lawrence Kasdan and Oscar winner Morgan Freeman offer redempti...

The Baby Bunch 

The MCU takes its First Steps into Phase Six by bringing comic's premiere family, The Fantastic Four, back into the fold. But was newborn Franklin also mutated by the cosmic storm that stretched the talents of Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), disappeared Vanessa Kirby (The Crown), got Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) rock hard, and made Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) so hot?  And how well does Silver Surfer Julia Garner ...

What About Bob?

Marvel Studios turns to treacherous CIA director Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld) to help them identify New Avengers to replace their most iconic superheroes, and carry the franchise forward. But will longtime MCU fans buy a ticket (or even a box of Wheaties) for a ragtag assembly of antiheroes known as the Thunderbolts?  Listen Now to find out if former Black Widow Florence Pugh, her drunken surrogate father David Ha...

At last, I finally understand the dangers of investing in Krypto

Director James Gunn leaves Guardians of the Galaxy behind to launch DC Studios, starting with the 2025 resurrection of Superman. But can David Corenswet be a Man of Steel to Metropolis after Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) smears his good name in a social media campaign that questions why dad Bradley Cooper sent him to Earth? And is the narrative even harder to control wh...

Chariots of Desire

Now Playing Podcast closes out the Species retrospective with The Awakening, a made-for-Sci-Fi Channel entry that trades franchise continuity for a new setting, new characters, and the same familiar formula. Set in Mexico, this fourth installment brings in Chariots of Fire’s Ben Cross and Star Trek: Enterprise’s Dominic Keating but can they add class to this low-budget fourquel? Join Now Playing Podcast’s hosts a...