Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Qui-Gon but Not Forgotten

Ewan McGregor returns to the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi in a 2022 miniseries that gives him another chance to school his rogue Padawan, Hayden Christensen, for rebranding himself as Darth Vader. But is the Force strong enough with this middle-aged Jedi Master to save little Princess Leia (Bird Box’s Vivien Lyra Blair) after she’s kidnapped by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea? And will Inquisitor Moses Ingram...

The Hate U Give Disney Ends All Their Hopes (T.H.U.G. D.E.A.T.H)

Lee Jung-jae (Squid Game) attempts to save twin sisters from a witch coven and bring them into the Jedi fold, only to watch his Acolyte turn to the Dark Side in this Star Wars prequel. Can Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give) as former Jedi Osha be Forced to return to the Order and stop her sister Mae before she assassinates a meditating Jedi Master, a Wookiee hermit na...

Speaking In Tongues

Mary Shelley possesses Hamnet star Jessie Buckley and turns her into The Bride!, a politically charged sequel to her 1818 novel Frankenstein. But would the reinvigorated woman prefer not to be engaged to Christian Bale’s Monster when his idea of romance is stomping on mobsters' heads while pretending he’s tap dancing in a movie musical? And is director Maggie Gyllenhaal a mad scientist for fusing a Bonnie and Cl...

Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter

Neve Campbell sat out Ghostface’s rampage in New York City so she could raise Isabel May to become her Final Girl replacement in Scream 7. Has Matthew Lillard risen from the dead to stalk veteran survivors like Courtney Cox, Mason Gooding, and Jasmin Savoy Brown in a brand new suburbia?  And why did O.G. screenwriter Kevin Williamson take another stab at directing a scary movie after his debut, ...

Welcome to the very first episode of Now Playing Podcast: Intermission, our new monthly free-form show where the structure is looser, it's far less edited, and anything can happen!

This month:

Arnie goes nuclear over Alamo Drafthouse’s new mid-movie cell phone ordering system and why he canceled his Season Pass.

Brock and Stuart break down Oscar season, from the Best Picture nominees to which films Arnie might actually enjoy.

The h...

Raging Ghoul 

Robert DeNiro couldn’t speak the Queen’s English even before Kenneth Branagh stitched his lips onto other body parts for a 1994 retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  Will the miscast actor need to hide at the North Pole to escape the embarrassment of his screen romance with Helena Bonham Carter?  Or was this a worthy creation denied life at the box office because of the bad press the director received over his of...

Fleshdance

Rock star Sting denies his Frankenstein creation Clancy Brown (Shawshank Redemption) a happy wedding day so that the mad scientist can be the one to kiss The Bride. But will Jennifer Beals (Vampire’s Kiss) find reanimated life enjoyable with The Police frontman watching every breath she takes with suitor Cary Elwes (Princess Bride)? And can little person David Rappaport (Time Bandits) successfully reinvent the jilted Mon...

Vlad The Impersonator

Director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) spins Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel Dracula into “A Love Tale,” released in US cinemas in time for Valentine’s Day 2026. Is Caleb Landry Jones (Get Out) damned to walk the world a lonely vampire because he picked Roseanna Arquette’s daughter over God in a 1480 Ottoman battle? And how strong a perfume does the 400-year-old bloodsucker need to throw stake-wielding pri...

Never Been Kissed

Arnie, Stuart, and Justin peer through their spirit camera to find the ghosts haunting a 2014 movie adaptation of the cult video game Fatal Frame. Is the graduating class of a Japanese Catholic school dying because a curse makes girls go mad and suicidal like Shakespeare’s Ophelia?  And is Ju-On Black Ghost director Mari Asato more interested in making a sequel to The Grudge than entertaining PlayStation 2 and Xbo...

There’s Something About Mary

Director Christophe Gans makes a Return To Silent Hill 20 years after adapting the first video game into a hit movie. Sean Bean and his bifurcated daughter have moved on so that struggling artist Jeremy Irvine (War Horse) can save muse Hannah Emily Anderson (Jigsaw) from cult sacrifice. Is everyone seeing crazy things because the water is contaminated? Or is a dude with a pyramid head, a hospital full o...

I’ve Got 99 Minutes And My Bitch Face Runs

Jeff Fahey (Lawnmower Man) screams Die Darkman Die in 'roid rage after trying to usurp the super-strength of the titular B-movie vigilante. Will star Arnold Vosloo (GI Joe: The Rise ofCobra) find a friend in Darlanne Fluegel (TV’s Wiseguy), the doctor who first cut his nerves to make him immune to pain?  And does Darkman 3 work as a retelling of Beauty And The Beast, with the disfigured sc...

Always replace your divots (never your lead actors)

Larry Drake (Dr. Giggles) gives the finger to audiences who assumed his mob kingpin died in the last movie’s climactic chopper crash. Darkman 2 features The Return of Durant (and the exit of Liam Neeson, Francis McDormand, and director Sam Raimi). Can new face Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy) use his mask-making machine to infiltrate his nemesis’s gang and stop the development of a high-...

The Phantom Menace

Liam Neeson needs thicker skin after Larry Drake (TV’s LA Law) burns down his laboratory and turns him into the vigilante Darkman. But will girlfriend Frances McDormand (Fargo) still want to marry the nerd after he disguises his disfigured looks under masks, and goes after the goons that work for shady real estate developer Colin Friels? And did writer-director Sam Raimi create a landmark superhero movie a decade...

You Only Live Twice

Daniel “007” Craig loses faith in his abilities to solve a third Knives Out Mystery after murdered monsignor Josh Brolin rises from the grave in Wake Up Dead Man. Is Sheriff Mila Kunis right to slap the cuffs on Josh O’Connor after the doubting priest confesses to a violent past?  Or should she be looking at suspicious parishioners like bitter Glenn Close, jilted Jeremy Renner, blocked writer Andrew Scott, grabb...

Feliz Na’vi Dads 

Pandora will be turned into Fire and Ash if Giovanni Ribisi and Edie Falco learn the secret to breathing the planet’s toxic air from feral human Spider (Jack Champion). Can adoptive father Sam Worthington protect “monkey boy” from being reclaimed by bio-parent Stephen Lang, or getting whacked by his grieving wife Zoe Saldana?  And who exactly gave birth to 76-year-old “teenager” Sigourney Weaver? Sullys never quit...

Charlie’s (Avenging) Angels 

Rohan Campbell goes from ending the Halloween franchise to taking an axe to Christmas in the 2025 reboot of Silent Night, Deadly Night.  Is the traumatized orphan crazy for wanting to wear a Santa suit and murder festive folks in small-town America?  Or is that gruff voice in his head only interested in The Naughty - child snatchers, heartless foster moms, wife murderers, and a White Power rally found k...

Where A Kid Can Be A Corpse

Josh Hutcherson plays different hunger games at a second pizzeria that has child abduction and possessed animatronics on the menu in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Are Chica, Foxy, Bonnie, and Freddy Fazzbear even more lethal now that they’re controlled by The Marionette, a forgotten telepathic mascot out to make neglectful parents pay?  And will crabby teacher Wayne Knight (Seinfeld) give an “F” to heroine ...

Grindhouse Day

Five friends stranded at a sunken mining town must survive Until Dawn if they hope to escape a fatal time warp created by head shrinker Peter Stormare (Fargo). Does director David F. Sandberg (Annabelle Creation) help his horror movie feel more like a video game by hitting the reset button every time his cast is violently killed off, giving the characters another chance to go back and make different choices (yet alwa...

Father Knows Beast

Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy) fulfills his dream to bring Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein to life as a 2025 Netflix creation. Does Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight) play God just to get back at bad dad Charles Dance (Golden Child), or to impress failed nun Mia Goth (X), or because Christoph Waltz (Spectre) has funded the perfect mad scientist lab to fry up bits of fallen soldiers and executed prisoners?  And...