Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Current events putting you in a heinous mood? Never fear… fiftysomething metalheads Bill and Ted have seen the future, and return to the big screen ready to perform a song destined to heal an off-kilter universe. Have Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter grown up in the 29 years since their last cinematic adventure? And can daughters Billie and Thea traverse time and sign Jimi Hendrix, Mozart, and Death (William Sadler) to play in their dads’ defunct band Wyld Stallyns? It’s easier to Face The Music with friends Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart in your ear. Listen Now!

Sequels are always in danger of repeating themselves, but the problem becomes twofold for Bill and Ted when evil lookalike automatons hijack their second movie, and send the layabouts on a Bogus Journey to Hell! Can the wannabe rockers beat Death (William Sadler) at his own game, and get back to San Dimas in time to play a historic Wyld Stallyns concert? And is it beneficial for the boys to quit playing air guitar, and physically climb that Stairway To Heaven to plead their case to God? Find out if the hosts are excellent to each other and this movie by listening now!

Strange things are afoot at Now Playing!  For the next three weeks Jakob, Stuart, and Arnaldo Carvalho, Esq. are catching up on the cinematic exploits of SoCal slackers Bill and Ted, starting with their 1989 Excellent Adventure. Can these clueless metalheads pass their history final by hopping in a time-traveling phone booth, and bringing legendary figures like Socrates and Napoleon Bonaparte to a 20th Century mall?  And how accurate was this film’s prediction that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter would change the future?  Listen Now and Party On!

Johnny Depp has trouble telling fact from fiction after hayseed stalker John Turturro shows up on his porch, and accuses the New England writer of stealing his short story Secret Window.  But is Stephen King the real plagiarist by presenting another tale of a tortured author using plot points cribbed from The Dark Half?  And can Depp flip the script on his bitter divorce once bad things start happening to his cheating ex-wife (Maria Bello, not Amber Heard)? Find out if the seeds planted early in this narrative bear fruit or corn at the twist ending when you Listen Now!

Cancelled TV stars Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers), David Morse (St. Elsewhere), and Patricia Wettig (thirtysomething) fight becoming a thing of the past after traveling through a rip in time in The Langoliers. Is this 1995 ABC miniseries a ticket back to prime time relevance? Or are the has-beens fated to a future forever flying coach and going unnoticed in the Bangor airport? And is 80s icon Pac-Man also angling for a comeback as he photobombs the finale?  Feast on the next crazy Stephen King installment with Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie now!

Chris Pine (Star Trek) may be the fourth actor to play Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, but he’s the first incarnation of the Tom Clancy character to challenge Jason Bourne’s spy movie supremacy in the 21st Century. Can the CIA analyst keep pace with the times as he hunts down a shady Russian businessman (Kenneth Branaugh) out to tank the U.S. economy?  And how long can eye surgeon Keira Knightley be kept in the dark about her boyfriend’s covert activities?  Find out as Now Playing unlocks the file on the iconic spy’s most recent big screen adventure.

Ben Affleck goes from Chasing Amy and following J-Lo around the block, to pursuing neo-Nazis hoping to detonate a dirty bomb on American soil in The Sum of All Fears.  Was this fourth Jack Ryan adventure too timely, with a plot that predicted many aspects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks?  Does Tom Clancy’s Cold War politics still apply to this new War On Terror? And will CIA director Morgan Freeman open a file on why Harrison Ford has gone missing from the franchise? Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie are ready to play ball with the hot button thriller. Listen Now!

Harrison Ford was in no Clear and Present Danger of being replaced by any other movie star in 1994, but CIA analyst Jack Ryan does solicit help from another popular Tom Clancy character for his third big screen adventure. Can world-weary mercenary Clark (Willem Dafoe) help the pencil pusher defeat a Columbian drug cartel, and reign in an overreaching U.S. President?  And does this 1989 novel about Reagan's War On Drugs still hit the right targets today?  Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart have emerged from the jungle with the answers, so Listen Now and find out!

Paramount was eager to adapt more Tom Clancy novels after Red October brought home a boatload of cash. But is it as much fun to play Patriot Games with so many important pieces missing from the sequel? Gone are the Cold War politics, sleek submarine technology, and Alec Baldwin as our nerdy CIA analyst hero. Will Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart remain loyal to the past, or go with Harrison Ford as an older Jack Ryan defending his family and seaside home from crazy Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings) and a rogue IRA faction? Listen and find out.

Sean Connery has stolen a Soviet nuclear submarine, and now every Cold War naval vessel is on The Hunt For Red October. Tom Clancy's 1984 bestseller was designed to torpedo Rambo shoot 'em ups, and take the action genre into a new decade of thinking man 'techno-thrillers'. But did Alec Baldwin study enough about his co-star to turn his untested CIA analyst into the next James Bond?  Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart are ready to track every move in Jack Ryan's 30 year movie career, starting with this 1990 blockbuster.  Listen Now!

Join all seven podcasters as they sit down for the first time to give a collective review of The Breakfast Club.  Does John Hughes' seminal teen drama of the 1980s still have something important to say about cliques and class division 35 years later?  What were the hosts like in high school, and has recording one thousand shows together felt like punishment or a unique bonding experience? You won't need to return to your locker for that bag of grass in order to spend the day giggling as Now Playing explains "who we are".  Listen Now!

Nobody walks in LA… except Snake Plissken, after President Cliff Robertson tasks him to recover a top secret weapon from revolutionaries hiding out at the former Happiest Place On Earth. But SoCal’s new prison island proves to be a decidedly sunnier and funnier place than the Big Apple penitentiary of 15 years ago. Can Kurt Russell’s one-eyed badass fend off deranged plastic surgeon Bruce Campbell, surf tsunamis with Peter Fonda, and hang with outlaw Pam Grier? And is Escape From LA a sequel to, or parody of, John Carpenter’s 1981 classic?  Listen and Find Out! 

How prophetic is John Carpenter's 1981 vision of future Manhattan - so crime-ridden it's become a maximum security prison?  And how easily can Kurt Russell shake off his Disney kid image to star as Snake Plissken, the one-eyed convict coerced by Lee Van Cleef to rescue the Commander-In-Chief from crime lord Isaac Hayes? Start spreadin' the news, the podcast is ready to play.  Be a part of it and Listen Now!  

Novelist Timothy Hutton starts to go a little cuckoo when The Dark Half of his creative mind - the part responsible for writing all of his salacious bestsellers - takes physical form and strikes out at the family and friends that push the author to be more wholesome.  Is this latest Stephen King story just a thinly veiled tell-all of the horror writer's struggles with alcohol and alter ego Richard Bachman? Or should we consider this more like a new chapter in director George Romero's Living Dead saga?  See if Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie are on the same page when you Listen Now!Novelist Timothy Hutton starts to go a little cuckoo when The Dark Half of his creative mind - the part responsible for writing all of his salacious bestsellers - takes physical form and strikes out at the family and friends that push the author to be more wholesome.  Is this latest Stephen King story just a thinly veiled tell-all of the horror writer's struggles with alcohol and alter ego Richard Bachman? Or should we consider this more like a new chapter in director George Romero's Living Dead saga?  See if Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie are on the same page when you Listen Now!

Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart continue to dig into Stephen King’s extensive filmography, this week reaching the much-maligned adaptation of Tommyknockers. Marg Helgenberger (CSI) and Jimmy Smitts (LA Law) cause a meltdown in their little Maine town when they excavate a UFO in their backyard. Were fans too quick to bury this ABC-TV miniseries?  Why would anyone want E.T. to go home when the aliens make such ingenious modifications to lipstick, magic shows, and Coke machines? Answer that knockin’ at the door by downloading and listening now!

Businesswoman Gwenyth Paltrow comes into contact with a novel virus. Now can an all-star cast stop her Contagion from spreading worldwide? And why does Matt Damon have a "Borne" immunity? Now Playing’s Viral Outbreak Retrospective reaches its dramatic conclusion with a podcast review of Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling, newly relevant 2011 medical thriller. Join Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob as they analyze the ways the fictional MEV-1 outbreak mirrors today’s COVID-19 pandemic. Listen Now!

The Andromeda Strain has mutated again!  Michael Crichton’s landmark 1969 novel came back in 2008 as a two-night TV mini-series produced by Ridley and Tony Scott!  But is this cast of sitcom stars - including Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Ricky Schroder (Silver Spoons), Christa Miller (Scrubs), and Andre Braugher (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) - capable of selling the science to a cable television audience? Follow Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart into the wormhole as they continue contact tracing the history of viral outbreaks in movies with this latest podcast.  Listen Now!  

The 1990s gets a whole lot grungier after an infected African monkey is smuggled into Northern California, and causes a deadly Outbreak.  Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo star as divorcing virologists tasked with flattening the curve of a super-Ebola before nervous military brass Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland opt to level the hot zone and everyone inside with jetfire.  Find out if Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob think this 1995 medical thriller is nothing to sneeze at when you download the latest installment of their pandemic-themed podcast.  Listen now!

Gag me with a spoon! Those glow-in-the-dark boils under your eyes aren’t just an ‘80s fashion statement, but a Warning Sign that your local agro-research lab is cooking up more than genetically modified food. Before he kept Law & Order on television, sheriff Sam Waterston shot it out with enraged scientists infected with Borna disease in this fourth installment of the Now Playing Viral Outbreak Retrospective. Is this another brainless zombie movie? Or can Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart sink their teeth into some hard science too? Listen and find out!

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!             

Life is tough for the Son of Kong. Everyone expects him to follow in his father’s massive footsteps, and scale the box office heights of the first film. But this quickie sequel has different monkey business in mind as it sends scandalized movie director Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) back to Skull Island for romantic hijinks with an orphaned circus performer.  Will they - or Now Playing hosts Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart - find any buried treasure while watching little albino Kong take on dinosaurs, cave bears, and a shady Norweigian sailor? Listen and find out!

Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart find themselves in an Empire State Of Mind as they begin a four month wrestling match with King Kong - the Eighth Wonder of the World!  This towering franchise has cast an 86-year-long shadow over film history, beginning with the big ape’s 1933 blockbuster debut!  Head back to Skull Island with Now Playing, and discover if this legendary movie star still has the strength to make audiences scream like Fay Wray, or beat down 50 foot tall lizard Godzilla for their 2020 theatrical showdown. Listen Now!    

Playstation heroes Ratchet and Clank starred in 12 video game adventures together before making the quantum leap to movie theaters for a fast-paced (and okay, financially unsuccessful) 2016 animated feature. Did Earthlings miss a memorable screen pairing?  And can this one-of-a-kind alien mechanic and his defective warbot bestie stop villains voiced by Paul Giamatti and Sylvester Stallone from reconfiguring the most beautiful planets in the solar system? No quarters needed to play the latest Now Playing Arcade installment.  Listen Now!

'70s TV execs discounted Aaron Spelling's idea for a Charlie's Angels show because there was no man to come and save them. Well, a lot has changed in the last 40 years and the women are just fine saving themselves...and even some men who get in trouble. Thus we have the Elizabeth Banks produced, directed, co-written, and co-starring 2019 Charlie's Angels. But in a post #TimesUp world is there still place for an Aaron Spelling-like jiggle fest? And if not, what does that leave for the Angels? Join us now to find out!

Little Danny barely escaped Jack Nicholson and the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel back in 1980. Now grown-up Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) - nicknamed Doctor Sleep - is fighting the demon of alcoholism, as well as a pack of vampiric gypsies hoping to eat the soul of a powerful child clairvoyant. Will this Shining sequel leave Kubrick fans steaming? Or can new director Mike Flanagan honor the classic movie while bringing the story back to Stephen King’s original intentions? Join the hosts as they pick up bats and axes and come to play forever and ever!      

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) thought she saved humanity from a SkyNet future of robot domination. So it’s ironic that new cybernetic menace Legion has come online in the year 2020, and it’s now Sarah’s Dark Fate to protect new target Dani (Natalia Reyes) from a new Terminator.  Will the arrival of augmented future soldier Grace (Mackenzie Davis) increase their chances of success? Or is it curtains for James Cameron’s flagship franchise (and if so, are they polka dot or butterfly drapes)? Find out when you listen now!

For nearly a decade Devil's Rejects stars Bill Moseley and Sid Haig, plus series creator Rob Zombie, said the series--like its main characters--was dead.  10 years and several flops later, the Firefly family is back from the dead! How does Zombie explain this away? And are these 3 From Hell as dangerous in 1988 as they were in the '70s?  Join our three podcast hosts from hell, Marjorie, Brock, and Arnie, to find out!

Rule #1 when you’re producing a sequel: Bring back everyone that made the first film successful. 

It took a decade, and probably more than a few Twinkies, but director Ruben Fleischer has managed to "Double Tap" Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin, and Emma Stone for a second trip to Zombieland! Can the foursome teach Generation Z how to fight a ferocious new strain of undead? And is the Oval Office or Graceland a better place to wait out the apocalypse? Find out when you become a Now Playing Silver Level Donor!

Now Playing Arcade podcasters Justin, Arnie, and Stuart thought that first-person shooter Doom had already done a bang-up job destroying the video game’s appeal on the big screen with the Dwayne Johnson/Karl Urban 2005 movie. Second chapter Annihilation returns to finish the job with a squad of no-name Marines on a mission to mow down rubber suit demons and zombies in lab coats on a Martian moonbase. Have the hosts opened a portal to hell or the next level in camp comedy?  Strap on some protective armor and head into the fray. Listen Now! 

Rule #1: if you want to survive the 2009 horror-comedy Zombieland: Find a Friend in Now Playing!  

Charlie's Angels returned in 2003...and so did Demi Moore. The superstar actress' Q-Score had fallen in the decade since her big hits Indecent Proposal and Ghost, but she was set to rise again as former Angel Madison Lee in this action sequel. Does she shine against then-box office champ Cameron Diaz? Does Moore even get enough screen time when squeezed into a cast with Bernie Mac, Crispin Glover, Justin Theroux, Robert Patrick, Shia LaBeouf, Luke Wilson, John Cleese, and Matt LeBlanc?  Get your Zass over here and listen now!