Now Playing -- The Movie Review Podcast

Agent 47 is back and balder than ever in a 2015 relaunch of the Hitman franchise.  Can Homeland actor Rupert Friend make a stronger impression than Timothy Olyphant as the legendary cloned assassin trades bullets with wannabe Wolverine Zachary Quinto? And can new agent Hannah Ware really be 43 times better than the boys if it takes her 43 years to locate sickly bioengineer Ciaran Hinds? Trust Justin, Stuart, and Arnie to protect listeners from head trauma as they navigate another treacherous video game adaptation. Listen now!

Justin, Arnie, and Stuart use the 42nd installment of the Now Playing Arcade to celebrate being 47… that is, video game Hitman: Codename 47. Die Hard 4 villain Timothy Olyphant hoped to make a killing at the box office when he suited up to play this mysterious baldie with a barcode back in Thanksgiving 2007.  But can his follically-challenged assassin deliver enough carnage and believable romantic chemistry with beautiful Russian target Olga Kurylenko to satisfy audiences not holding a joystick?  Find out when you slip on some headphones and Listen Now.

The Last Knight left many Transformers fans feeling stung, but Hasbro hopes to reawaken nostalgia for the 1980s toy line with their retro-minded solo film Bumblebee. Can the lovable VW bug connect with a grieving gearhead teenager (Hailee Steinfeld) using only a car radio to speak? And will Sector 7 jarhead John Cena, or Decepticons Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux), undermine the Autobot plot to relocate to Earth? Don’t take this high dive back into dicey waters alone.  Roll out with Jerry, Arnie, and Stuart. Listen Now!

DC Comics invites audiences to dive under the sea and get chummy with Aquaman - a character who got a lot of sand kicked in his face back in the days of Superfriends.  Now tough guy Jason Momoa is on the hook to win the bastard Atlantean some cinematic justice. Will he stop half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) from becoming Oceanmaster, and uniting the seven seas against the surface world?  More importantly, can "Fishboy" talk crabby podcasters Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart out of torpedoing his first stand-alone feature? Listen and find out.

Thanos may have turned Tom Holland and half the Marvel Universe into ash last summer, but you can still find a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man on the big screen when you enter Into The Spider-Verse. Sony Pictures Animation brings together no less than nine different incarnations of the comic book webslinger - including Miles Morales, Peni Parker, and porcine punchline Spider-Ham - for an amazing mixed media showdown with Kingpin. Does this inter-dimensional crossover get the Spidey Senses tingling for Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart?  Listen and find out!

Mark Wahlberg aimed to please fans of the popular shooter Max Payne, but his 2008 movie adaptation missed its target audience and clipped the wings of a potential franchise. Will this vigilante cop have better luck scoring points with Now Playing Arcade hosts Justin, Arnie, and Stuart?  And can they coherently link the man who murdered Max’s family to a wild conspiracy involving hallucinogenic street drugs and C-list celebrities Mila Kunis, Chris O’Donnell, and singer Nelly Furtado? Your best shot at finding answers is to Listen Now!       

The Rocky series continues to go the distance with its eighth installment: Creed II. But is this really Adonis Creed’s story, or is it Rocky’s, as old nemesis Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) brings his son Viktor to the US for a fight? Will history repeat itself? And can Creed II still pack a punch when Creed writer/director Ryan Coogler is replaced with his buddy Steven Caple Jr? Go for it! Listen to Now Playing’s new movie review to find out!

Wreck-It Ralph not only Breaks The Internet with his second movie, he shatters Thanksgiving box office records. But never fear… it’s Tech Support Tuesday, and hosts Justin, Arnie, and Stuart have the antivirus to all the holiday weekend hype. Will entering a violent racing game help glitchy Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) connect with her inner Disney Princess, and save her Sugar Rush friends? Or will John C Reilly’s 8-bit oaf bring down the franchise with a series of humiliating viral videos? CLICK HERE to get your next Now Playing Arcade fix!

Good video games typically "go Turbo" and become crummy movies, but Walt Disney animators try to "Fix-It" with Wreck-It Ralph - a love letter to classic coin-ops. Can an 8-bit villain voiced by John C. Reilly step into a first person shooter and rebrand himself a hero? And do Arnie, Justin, and Stuart get a sugar rush seeing so much pixelated nostalgia from their childhood, like Q*bert and Sonic the Hedgehog? Or will they inevitably find something to glitch about? Save your quarters, because the answers are free when you press play and Listen Now!

It’s homecoming weekend in Silent Hill, as teenage runaway Sharon reunites with her darkside doppelganger Alessa for a 2012 sequel in 3-D!  Will the Revelation that cultists have kidnapped adoptive father Sean Bean provide a good reason for moviegoers to head back into the fog and solve new puzzles? And is Game of Thrones hunk Kit Harington much help in the fight against Pyramid Head, a lunatic Malcolm McDowell, and a staff of faceless demon nurses?  Find out when you take another merry-go-round ride on the Now Playing Arcade!

The Now Playing Arcade finally has a reason to put down the flamethrower!  Hosts Arnie, Stuart, and Justin stumble through the falling ash of Uwe Boll films to arrive at Silent Hill - the rare video game movie to earn box office success. Will stranded mother Radha Mitchell find any Green Arrows while searching the West Virginian ghost town for her missing adoptive daughter Sharon?  And is that a pyramid, or a dunce cap, atop the head of the sword-wielding monster that follows close behind her? Quiet your questioning mind with another podcast review!

Because we consider you family, Now Playing is releasing a bonus podcast review of Hereditary for your Halloween enjoyment.  Will Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob lose their heads over what’s become the most hyped horror flick of 2018?  Or is the sight of Toni Collette’s model household going insane more likely to induce headaches than heart palpitations?  You don’t need to worship King Paimon to acquire these answers. This show is free for everyone, and available now, as our way of saying Happy, Happy Halloween!

Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie tried to Runaway from their Stephen King duties in 2018, but the tenth installment of Children of the Corn has found its way onto the Now Playing calendar in time for Halloween!  Join these podcasters as they catch up with Ruth - a fugitive of the Gatlin corn cult who is forced to fight He Who Walks Behind The Rows for custody of her teenage son. Will Feast director John Gulager find a kernel of a good idea in a franchise that’s yielded a steady crop of Red Arrows?  The only way to know if the hosts survive this harvest is to Listen Now!     Watch our exclusive interviews with Courtney Gains John Franklin at the Now Playing YouTube Channel

Return to Haddonfield with Brock, Arnie, and Stuart as they celebrate the 40th anniversary of Halloween with a podcast review of the blockbuster 2018 requel (rebooted sequel)! Former babysitter Laurie Strode is the one stalking Michael Myers this time, as the captured killer is transferred to a new sanitarium. Can Jamie Lee Curtis’s pistol-packin’ grandma hit the bull’s eye without original director John Carpenter? And will her therapist daughter Karen (Judy Greer), or rebellious grandkid Allyson (Andi Madichak), inherit her Scream Queen title?  Listen Now and find out!

Notorious filmmaker Uwe Boll has gone Postal - firing back at his many critics with a raunchy adaptation of one of the most offensive video games ever made. Can one unlucky Dude with a shotgun (Zack Ward) stop a Taliban plot to spread bird flu, and earn the respect of his trailer park? Or will he simply kill his cheating wife, cult leader uncle (David Foley), a corrupt cop, that rude lady at the welfare office, and Uwe Boll himself playing the owner of a Nazi-themed amusement park? Find out if Now Playing can make peace with it all when you listen now!

WE are Now Playing, and this week WE are watching Venom - the gooey space alien who tries to survive a new movie without Spider-Man as his host.  WE will see if reporter Tom Hardy and his black-and-white parasite can bring down unethical tech guru Riz Ahmed, repair a broken relationship with lawyer/fiancee Michelle Williams, and stop a second symbiote named Riot from eating the heads of everyone in San Francisco. (But WE will be the ones spitting venom if this character hasn’t received an upgrade from his Spider-Man 3 debut). WE will Listen Now!

Uwe Boll’s reviled adaptation of Sega’s House of the Dead video game won’t stay dead, lumbering back to life with a SyFy Channel sequel. AMS agents Nightingale (Saw 2 babe Emmanuelle Vaugier) and Ellis (Ed Quinn) lead a team of soldiers into a college campus overrun with “hyper-sapiens”.  Can they retrieve a blood sample from Patient Zero, and cure the zombie outbreak, before Dick Cheney decides to drop the bomb?  And do Justin, Arnie, and Stuart see the franchise evolving now that it’s in new directorial hands? Listen and find out!

The 1996 shooter House of the Dead invited gamers to pick up light guns and mow down scores of charging zombies.  But the 2003 movie adaptation has podcasters Justin, Arnie, and Stuart taking aim once again at immortal writer/director Uwe Boll.  Should bad movie lovers take that boat ride with Clint Howard, and attend a Sega-sponsored rave on Seattle’s Island of the Dead? Or will the hangover live forever in viewers’ minds?  You’ll find out if the Now Playing Arcade escapes this overturned porta-potty when you listen now!

30 years after his foul-mouthed mercenary Hawkins was slaughtered in a South American jungle, actor Shane Black returns to write and direct the fourth installment in The Predator franchise. Will audiences be missing Arnold when sniper Boyd Holbrook (Narcos), his autistic son Jacob Tremblay (Wonder), and a busload of looney war vets tangle with the space hunter?  And can centerfold-ready scientist Olivia Munn help Sterling K. Brown determine if these new predators got milk, or some other juice, enlarging their bones? “Stick around” and find out!          

Are podcasters Arnie, Marjorie, and Stuart ready to put their faith in The Nun after spitting on most of The Conjuring universe?  The latest installment in the franchise traces the origins of demon-in-a-wimple Valak to a war-torn monastery in Romania.  Can a free-spirited novitiate (Vera’s little sis Taissa Farmiga), and a guilt-ridden exorcist (Oscar nominee Demian Bichir), find the strength… and that misplaced vial of Christ blood… to combat this unholy sister act?  Our vow of silence ends when you click play. Listen Now!