Now Playing -- The Movie Review Podcast

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 scientist suddenly smitten with mobster’s wife Roxanne Dawson (Star Trek: Voyager)? Find out if Arnie, Stuart, and Justin are pumped for the trilogy’s conclusion when you Listen Now!

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-powered laser? And will reporter Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue) uncover the reasons why this superhero vigilante didn’t receive a theatrical release the second time around?  Listen Now!

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 before he spun the Spider-Man trilogy into box office gold?  Listen Now to learn if this 1990 cult film holds together under the Now Playing spotlight.

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, grabby groundskeeper Thomas Haden Church, resentful lawyer Kerry Washington, and handicapped cellist Cailee Spaeny? Listen Now to this miraculous podcast!

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, but James Cameron might if audiences don’t join Arnie, Marjorie, and Stuart in theaters for the conclusion of the Avatar trilogy. Listen Now!

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 kissing under mistletoe and swastikas?  Learn if this holiday horror series has taken a wrong turn under Mike P Nelson’s direction when you Listen Now!

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 Abby (Piper Rubio) for entering her ghostly friends from the first film as a science fair project?  Listen Now to find out what’s inside the podcasters’ heads.  {Video Game Series} {Five Nights at Freddy's}

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 always wind up on the sharp end of a scythe)? Or has the sand run out of the hourglass for PlayStation Studios? Listen Now and become a part of it!

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 can any experiment be rated a success when it leaves Kissing Booth hunk Jacob Elordi looking like that!? Throw the switch to Listen Now!  

America’s Got Tumult Glen Powell (Twisters) follows in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger by continuing the weird flex he began on a lethal reality show called The Running Man. Will TV producer Josh Brolin (Avengers: Endgame) cancel his star contestant before he sparks a political uprising with prepper Michael Cera (Arrested Development)? And does Stephen King’s downer dystopian novel from 1982 still reward audiences in 2025 when re-told by playful writer/director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead)? Listen Now to hear the podcasters’ final words on this remake.

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 and fauna on this road to redemption?  Listen Now to learn if Prey and Killer of Killers director Dan Trachtenberg can bring it home a third time!

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?  And can the trio overcome their thirst for vengeance and find a way to get back to Earth collaboratively?  If it streams, we can kill it in a podcast review available now!

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 why is Blade choosing to trick-or-treat in Moon Knight cosplay? Learn if Arnie, Justin, and Stuart find any Braaains in this 2025 animated miniseries when you Listen Now.

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 remove nuclear control from unstable leaders like President Angela Bassett and General Nick Offerman?  Step out of the shadows and enjoy Now Playing’s latest podkova today!

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 Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, and OG programmer Jeff Bridges (Starman)? Find out if there’s a neon glow to this third installment in the franchise when you Listen Now!

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 and Angels & Demons? Join Brock, Justin, and Arnie to find out if this 2016 thriller should burn in the seventh level of Hell. Listen Now!

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 determine whether Angels & Demons is a divine thriller, or just Dan Brown's humblebragging about his Italian vacation. Listen Now!

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 thriller cracked the box office wide open. Grab your rosary and Listen Now as Arnie, Brock, and Justin question if the clues still add up.

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 “Andy” from Alien Romulus? Will the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman break away from the pack and become a major film star in the future?  Listen to Find Out!

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 mirror, or devil doll Annabelle, or even the sexual advances of suitor Ben Hardy (Bohemian Rhapsody)?  Hear the hosts give Last Rites to this series now!