Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Window of Opportunity Stephen King didn’t write The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, but this 2003 TV movie attempts to complete the picture of his haunted house, Rose Red. Was the place born from the sin of kinky Steven Brand (Hellraiser: Revelations), who delights in tying up and torturing his new bride and comely maids?  Or is the mansion on the side of the wronged women, and helping Ellen (soap star L...

Bringing Down The House Stephen King invited audiences back to network television in 2002 for a three-night tour of his haunted house, Rose Red. But did the author successfully refurbish Shirley Jackson’s classic Hill House tale by having an autistic girl be the one to stoke the appetite of a soul-eating Seattle mansion? Or is sitcom star Nancy Travis working from an outdated blueprint as she send...

Nobody Asked for This After finding inner peace with a body count, Nobody Bob Odenkirk’s Hutch Mansell is chasing something even harder: a quiet family vacation. But when a crooked sheriff (Fargo’s Colin Hanks) and a deranged smuggler (Basic Instinct’s Sharon Stone) crash the party, Hutch has to remind everyone that violence is his love language. Listen to the Now Playing Podcast hosts now to find...

Nobody Copies John Wick and Gets Away With It Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) might look like your average suburban dad, but Nobody will think that after witnessing his brutal bus beatdown and action flick transformation. Can the unassuming funnyman fight back against the Russian mafia on his own, or does he need the help of his shotgun-wielding octogenarian papa Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Fut...

Plop Goes The Weasel Thomas Jane (The Mist), Jason Lee (Chasing Amy), Timothy Olyphant (Justified), and Damian Lewis (Billions) arrive at a cabin in the woods to drink beer, sing “Blue Bayou”, and process childhood trauma. But their annual hunting trip gets hijacked by space aliens exploding out their asses in the 2003 nightmare film Dreamcatcher. Can Big Chill director Lawrence Kasdan and Oscar w...

The Baby Bunch  The MCU takes its First Steps into Phase Six by bringing comic's premiere family, The Fantastic Four, back into the fold. But was newborn Franklin also mutated by the cosmic storm that stretched the talents of Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), disappeared Vanessa Kirby (The Crown), got Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) rock hard, and made Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) so hot?  And how we...

What About Bob? Marvel Studios turns to treacherous CIA director Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld) to help them identify New Avengers to replace their most iconic superheroes, and carry the franchise forward. But will longtime MCU fans buy a ticket (or even a box of Wheaties) for a ragtag assembly of antiheroes known as the Thunderbolts?  Listen Now to find out if former Black Widow Florence Pugh, he...

At last, I finally understand the dangers of investing in Krypto Director James Gunn leaves Guardians of the Galaxy behind to launch DC Studios, starting with the 2025 resurrection of Superman. But can David Corenswet be a Man of Steel to Metropolis after Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) smears his good name in a social media campaign that questions why dad Bradley Cooper sent him to Earth? And is the...

Chariots of Desire Now Playing Podcast closes out the Species retrospective with The Awakening, a made-for-Sci-Fi Channel entry that trades franchise continuity for a new setting, new characters, and the same familiar formula. Set in Mexico, this fourth installment brings in Chariots of Fire’s Ben Cross and Star Trek: Enterprise’s Dominic Keating but can they add class to this low-budget fourquel?...

College hook-up culture meets the world’s worst grad school project. Natasha Henstridge cashed a big check for a tiny role in Species III, a bargain-bin sequel that trades theaters for dorm rooms and solid science for sci-fi nonsense. Sil’s alien legacy lives on through her daughter, but with less money to burn, things get even dumber. There’s still plenty of aliens, skin, and bad choices to go ar...

Do you think you know what they did last summer? Think again! Our 2025 Summer/Fall Donation Drive kicks off today with our review of I Know What You Did Last Summer, the 1997 slasher that made hook hands cool again. But before the gore, there was... guilt? In this bonus episode, Arnie digs into the 1973 young-adult novel by Lois Duncan. But slasher fans be warned: there's no fisherman, no slickers...

Houston, we have a baby mama problem. What happens when a space mission goes wrong, and the astronauts bring back more than just Mars rocks? You get Species II, a bigger, bolder, and weirder follow-up that doubles down on the sleaze, the sci-fi, and the mutant mating. Today, our hosts dive into this sequel, pondering the true mystery: why should Peter Boyle and James Cromwell ever be in the same m...

Came to mate, stayed to mutilate. 30 years ago, Species slithered onto screens with a deadly combo: sexy aliens, mad science, and a cast way too good for this movie. Today Now Playing Podcast kicks off a four-part retrospective of this cult-favorite creature feature franchise, asking the hard questions: Was Sil just misunderstood? Is Alfred Molina okay? And why does the government’s top plan alway...

Black Ops Swan Lionsgate’s still milking the John Wick cow, even if Keanu's nowhere in sight. First, they gave us The Continental (because who hasn’t wanted a TV show about hotel management?), and now comes Ballerina, the big-screen spin-off where Ana de Armas pirouettes while wielding flamethrowers, claymores, knives, guns. Lots of guns. Does she have what Wick needs? Join Justin, Jason, and Arni...

Cobra Why The Karate Kid franchise has had nothing but victories lately. The 2010 remake was a box-office success, and fans flocked to YouTube and Netflix for Cobra Kai. Now, Sony wants to high-kick this franchise back into theaters and combine the universes, having both Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan as teachers to young Li Fong (Ben Wang). But with those senseis relegated to glorified cameos, and...

Kids, the story of how I met your mother includes a drifter with no phone and a body count Now Playing Podcast has a bonus Friday episode, free for all listeners! This time, the hosts take aim at Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, the 2016 Tom Cruise action sequel. Does the second Reacher film live up to the first, or should it have followed its own advice and stayed away? Find out in this all-new revie...

He's an expert at finding a parking spot in Pittsburgh. Which is no easy feat, let me tell you! In this week’s new podcast, we’re taking aim at Jack Reacher. Tom Cruise stars as the mysterious drifter and former military investigator in this gritty action thriller. It also marks the first time Cruise teamed up with director Christopher McQuarrie, a partnership that would lead to several Impossible...

Blood is thicker than water, but both make a mess when you splatter. It’s been an entire generation since the last Final Destination crushed the box office in 2011. Now Death is back and stalking an entire family tree. Grandma survived a toppling tower in the ‘60s and now Death wants her, and her heirs. Can Tony Todd, in his final performance, help break the Bloodlines’ curse? Log on and join us n...

Limp Wick John Wick may be dead…but the franchise is very much alive. With spin-off films like Ballerina, Caine, and an anime Wick prequel on the way and John Wick 5 already in the works, the high-octane universe of assassins, coins, and Continental rules isn't slowing down anytime soon. But before we return to the big screen, we’re flashing back to the 1970s for the Peacock mini-series The Contin...

Houston, we have a podcast! Houston, Stuart has a problem… with our co-host in the ICU, Arnie, Brock, and Justin have come together to discuss a film that’s all about survival, perseverance, and the triumph of the human spirit: Apollo 13. As the acclaimed Ron Howard/Tom Hanks collaboration marks its 30th anniversary, the hosts revisit this beloved biopic to see if it still soars. Strap in and list...

From cotton fields to coffin lids Sinners isn’t just a vampire movie—it’s a Southern Gothic opera about bloodlines, betrayal, and the price of your soul. On this episode, Justin, Marjorie, and Arnie dive into Ryan Coogler’s (Black Panther) first original feature, where Michael B. Jordan (Creed) plays war-torn twins battling both the past and the undead in 1930s Mississippi. Hailee Steinfeld (Hawke...

How To Overfeed Your Dragon Chris Pine (Star Trek) and Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar) learn there’s no Honor Among Thieves when accomplice Hugh Grant (Heretic) sends them to prison so he can lay sole claim on the spoils of a heist. Does the wise-cracking bard have the charisma points to pull off a revenge campaign that rescues daughter Chloe Coleman (My Spy) using insecure wizard Justice Smith (Detec...

50 Shades of Grayson Azriel The third Dungeons & Dragons movie is steeped in sin as it partners a quartet of bloodthirsty bandits with a celibate knight on a quest to rescue his father from a kinky underworld. Is returning director Gerry Lively faithful to the letter of the 3rd edition game supplement The Book of Vile Darkness, which first let players fall under the spell of a black magic text...

Cocky Blockers Jack Black attempts to build a cinematic universe out of chickens cooked in lava, rampaging pigs and zombies, and other doodads mined from the biggest video game of all time. But is it wise to spend $150 million on A Minecraft Movie that just looks like pixelated 8-bit graphics?  And is any of the Overland’s wild architecture as creative as the fringed leather wardrobe that Jason Ma...

A saga for the ages… or at least a podcast appropriate for April Fool’s Day British heavy Bruce Payne (Passenger 57) is the only cast member willing to return for a Dungeons & Dragons sequel now that the 2005 campaign is being launched on SyFy Channel.  Can new director Gerry Lively (Darkness Falls) do a better job of advancing the fantasy role-playing game into a credible cinematic universe b...