Now Playing -- The Movie Review Podcast

A whole new kind of sickness struck the 1970s with the release of The Andromeda Strain. Four scientists hunker down in a top secret lab to study the space plague inadvertently brought to Earth by a fallen satellite. Can they find a cure for the killer alien bug before politicians use nukes to inoculate the planet? And will this first film adaptation of Michael Crichton’s bestseller develop a fatal case of disco fever coming from the director of musicals West Side Story and The Sound of Music? Find out now! 

Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers help folks see the lighter side of apocalypse with their 1964 Cold War classic Dr. Strangelove. What happens when a paranoid general (Sterling Hayden) decides to protect American bodily fluids by ordering fighter pilot Slim Pickens to drop 50 megaton bombs on unsuspecting Soviet targets? Can George C. Scott and a Nazi scientist convince the US President there’s an upside to starting World War III? Find out when you become a Now Playing Patron and join Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob in the bunker this April.

Pandemic movies infect the Swingin’ Sixties courtesy of The Satan Bug - a 1965 spy caper that becomes the second installment of Now Playing’s Viral Outbreak Retrospective. TV star George Maharis (Route 66) attempted to be an epidemiological James Bond when he slipped on an isolation suit, and hunted down the reclusive billionaire who broke into a top secret bioweapons lab to release a highly lethal virus.  Find out if Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart wash their hands of these dirty double crosses when you take two earbuds and call on Now Playing this morning!

Finding yourself indoors with plenty of time to catch up on movies?  Avoid the Panic in the Streets, and join Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob as they analyze Hollywood portrayals of pandemics through the ages with a topical Viral Outbreak Retrospective. The seven part series begins in 1950 with an Oscar-winning film noir classic directed by Elia Kazan (On The Waterfront).  Can public health official Richard Widmark quarantine city slicker Jack Palance before the mobster infects all of New Orleans with plague?  Your cure for boredom is here when you give it a shot!

No one was playing Dungeon Siege in 2014, much less joining Uwe Boll on his Last Mission to make a respectable fantasy film out of the role playing video game. Prison Break star Dominic Purcell discovers his tattoos can now open portals to ancient Bulgaria. Is the modern day assassin much help to two Ehb princesses out to overthrow a traitorous king and his fire-breathing dragon?  Or should he aim his pistol at the power-mad director instead? The hit job on this third In The Name Of The King chapter costs you nothing but time, so Listen Now!

Dolph!  Uwe! What happens when Two World Heavyweight movie punchlines unite for one epically bad sequel to fantasy flop In The Name of the King?  Lundgren stars as the unlikely son of Jason Statham, called from modern day Vancouver to wage war on a witch and her cannibal army in the medieval land of Ehb. Chosen Ones Justin, Stuart, and Arnie command you to fulfill the prophecy, take another drink from this never ending Boll of poison, and keep listening to the Now Playing Arcade until we’ve reached the Time Beyond!!

What In The Name of The King is Uwe Boll up to now?!  Someone gave the notoriously awful director $60 million to turn video game Dungeon Siege into a wannabe Lord of the Rings. He’s even convinced Jason Statham to star as a martial-arts wielding peasant caught between goodfella magician Ray Liotta and a royally miscast Burt Reynolds in the battle to be crowned Worst Supporting Actor. Will Arnie have to travel to the pits of Mordor to burn this DVD, or is this the epic to finally free Boll from movie jail? Find out when you join the Now Playing Arcade!

Justin, Stuart, and Arnie invite listeners to another dimension, where fighting games made for the high end Neo Geo 24 bit system become major movie events! Can The King of Fighters at least claim victory over those flop film adaptations of Street Fighter, Double Dragon, and Tekken? Ray Park (aka Darth Maul) has stolen three legendary artifacts that enable him to turn a friendly martial arts tournament into career suicide. Find out how Maggie Q (Nikita) and future Deadpool 2 director David Leitch survived when you join the Now Playing Arcade and Listen Now!

Legendary Pictures was definitely chasing Avengers money when they hired Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), and Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) to coerce big ape Kong to join a MonsterVerse superteam. But they might have more luck winning the Vietnam War than lasting three days on Skull Island with bonkers POW John C Reilly and a nest of subterranean, flesh-eating lizards. Be glad you have Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie to keep you safe on this eighth wonderful installment of the King Kong podcast. Listen Now!

Lord of the Rings mastermind Peter Jackson emerged from Middle Earth with enough box office clout and Oscar statues to get any movie made he wanted. So why reteam with Gollum (aka Andy Serkis), and send huckster Jack Black, loverboy Adrien Brody, and new blonde Naomi Watts on an expedition to resurrect King Kong in 2005? Find out if their trip to Skull Island needs to be the length of a Tolkein epic, or if the podcasters would prefer to tour Jurassic Park instead, when you download the latest installment of this legendary ape franchise. Listen Now!

Sega has taken company mascot Sonic The Hedgehog to the next level with a brand new live-action feature. That means Arnie, Justin, and Stuart are racing back to the Now Playing Arcade to cover all the twists and loop-de-loops this video game icon has traveled on the road to this CGI makeover. Will the Blue Devil win over Red State America as he makes rural Montana his home?  And is he running rings around smartypants Dr. Robotnik, or has Jim Carrey simply forfeited the comedy game? Push play on the podcast and find out!

Time to find out who the real Harley Quinn is! Margot Robbie emancipates herself from that less-than-fantabulous group of metahumans known as Suicide Squad to fly with new crew Birds of Prey. Does a teen pickpocket, salty cop, ass-kicking lounge singer, and crossbow killer offer Harley the same level of protection as Jared Leto’s Joker? Or can Gotham villains like Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) separate this smart-mouthed clown from her face or breakfast sandwich without fear of retaliation? Chillax with some pizza and Cosmos, and take in our tell-all podcast!

Does the thought of a well-endowed female gorilla make your heart pump a little faster? One supersized simian is certainly warm to Lady Kong’s form - picking himself up from the broken pavement after his 1976 tumble from the World Trade Center, and continuing on in the 1986 sequel King Kong Lives. Is Linda Hamilton proud to oversee the birth of another miracle baby two years after delivering John Connor, or should she terminate her agent for casting her in this monkey business? The podcasters are off the chain and ready to battle, so Listen Now.

Long before she became a fixture on American Horror Story, Jessica Lange practiced her screaming skills as the aspiring actress abducted by King Kong in a colorful 1976 remake. Is the big ape willing to play second banana to Jeff Bridges, as a primate paleontologist also falling for the buxom blonde?  And can oil executive Charles Grodon strike it rich by putting Kong on tour, after Skull Island proves not to have the dinosaurs needed to produce a gasoline fortune?  Arnie, Jakob and Stuart answer the distress call of this disaster movie when you Listen Now.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence declare themselves Bad Boys For Life as they relaunch the irreverent action franchise that made them box office titans a quarter century ago. But did Miami detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett make a bargain with God, or sell their souls, when they retired director Michael Bay, and joined a SWAT team of squeaky clean Millennials who defer all the dangerous work to drones? And how will Mike clean up his brouhaha with a black magic witch running a Mexican cartel?  Lean back in your recliner and Listen Now to find out.

America wanted their big gorilla back for a popular Saturday morning cartoon, but King Kong Escapes for one last Japanese adventure. Villainous Dr. Who (no relation to the BBC Timelord) needs the legendary ape’s help in mining the North Pole of a rare mineral. Can a Bond babe and kidnapped nurse seduce Kong into dirtying his paws?  Or will the beast find it impossible to dig alongside a robotical replica of himself dubbed Mechani-Kong? Join all of Tokyo in getting the blow-by-blow of their beatdown when you download Now Playing’s latest podcast.

Don’t panic! King Kong has broken free of his American handlers and heads to Japan for fisticuffs with local lizard Godzilla.  Should Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob drop a nuke on these two iconic monsters to stop them from soiling their cinematic reputations?  Or did the big ape need this childish, man-in-rubber-suit cage match to make him relevant 30 years after his embarrassing tumble from the Empire State Building? Chill out with some cigarettes and soma berries, slip on the headphones, and find out when you Listen Now!

Now Playing has one last podcast for 2019, dedicated to all those dirty birdies who love the oogy mind of Stephen King. Writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) finds himself in Misery after he’s pulled from a car crash in snowy Colorado, and tortured by a demented fan who demands a new chapter for the romance novel heroine he retired. Did Kathy Bates deserve the Oscar for her tough love bedside manner?  And how many pages from the book did director Rob Reiner have to eat in order to bring this very literate story to the screen? Listen and find out!

The Emperor Strikes Back!  Zombie Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) steps from the shadows with secrets that could force last Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley) to turn to the Dark Side and bad boy Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). But General Leia (Carrie Fisher) is committed to using every last ounce of her Old War star power to squash this Final Order, and pave the way for The Rise of Skywalker. Find out how much resistance Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart put up for the ninth and final episode in the Star Wars saga in when you download this massive podcast. Listen Now! 

‘Twas the night of Black Christmas, and all through Blumhouse, strange creatures in hoodies, sought coeds to roust.  But the remake has armed all the women with care, in the hopes it’s the bros’ turn to finally be scared. Now Arnie!  Now Stuart! Now Brock to their boots, head off to the theater to watch Imogen Poots. Will this boys-vs-girls showdown get social media chatter?  Or will militant feminists not even find that it matters? The hosts will exclaim their thoughts and insights, when you download the podcast and listen tonight!