Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Frank Langella might be 500 years old, but he still struts into 20th Century London ready to disco the night away in the 1979 incarnation of Dracula. Can Saturday Night Fever director John Badham make Bram Stoker’s ladykiller look attractive to liberated women when the dude doesn’t even have a car?  Or does Kate Nelligan date the bad boy vampire as a way of avoiding her stuffy boyfriend, controlli...

Lon Chaney Jr. knew the pressures of living up to an iconic father’s legacy even before he agreed to be the Son of Dracula in 1943. Can the second generation horror star pioneer another classic Universal Monster without donning the extensive movie make-up that made him such a convincing Wolf Man? And did his Count Alucard overestimate the influence vampires have on women when he accepted the invit...

Bela Lugosi is dead, but Countess Marya Zeleska is ready to don her father’s cape and step into the spotlight as the next Universal Monster, Dracula’s Daughter. Will her habit of leaving holes in the necks of women wandering alone in the London fog ring as familiar to incarcerated vampire hunter Professor Von Helsing?  And can an obsessed psychiatrist put this undead pariah through conversion ther...

Dracula became the premier Universal Monster in 1931 when he leapt from the Broadway stage onto film screens for the first official adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel. Can star Bela Lugosi still mesmerize with that piercing stare of his? Or is hearing that thick Hungarian accent what gave the shivers to folks new to talking pictures? And did Carlos Villarias prove how bite-lingual this vampire can...

Director Werner Herzog revives the uniquely German take on the Dracula myth with his 1979 remake of Nosferatu The Vampyre. Klaus Kinski emerges from the shadow of Max Schreck’s silent era performance to put his own morose spin on the Transylvanian Count who longs to spend eternity with Isabelle Adjani.  Can Van Helsing stop a plague of rats from spreading madness throughout Central Europe? Or will...

A decade before Universal Studios made Dracula the centerpiece of their stable of movie monsters, German visionary FW Murnau put his own spin on Bram Stoker’s literary creation with the 1922 silent classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror.  Is Max Schreck’s iconic portrayal of Count Orlock the vampire that all other cinematic incarnations aspire to be?  And is the plague being spread by this creatu...

Daniel Craig is back as the famed Knives Out detective Benoit Blanc, crashing the private Greek isle of billionaire Edward Norton (Fight Club) to see which of his “disruptor” friends is planning to put him in a glass coffin.  Will the killer turn out to be canceled starlet Kate Hudson with the crossbow at the Infinity Pool?  Maybe Men’s Rights influencer Dave Bautista with the wrench on Twitch?  O...

'Tis the Season to experience your favorite Marvel a-holes clumsily learning that meaning of gift giving, and experiencing the fellowship of kidnapping, in the Disney+ event The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Can Mantis and Drax cheer up Star-Lord Chris Pratt about his recent box office slump by decreasing his degrees of separation from a true movie star like Kevin Bacon? Arnie, Jakob, a...

James Cameron takes audiences back to Pandora by Way of Water with his long-anticipated sequel to Avatar. Are the domestic dreams of Na’vi couple Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana torpedoed now that nemesis Stephen Lang and his military outfit are brought back to life in new, blue bodies?  And can the Sully children adapt to an ocean teeming with aquatic dangers after their clan relocates to Kate Wi...

Star Wars fanboys had their Knives Out for Rian Johnson in 2019, but the writer/director survives their harsh verdicts of The Last Jedi by following it up with a hit murder mystery. Daniel “007” Craig stars as a celebrated Cajun investigator summoned to the mansion of a dead crime novelist to determine if he was murdered. Could the culprit be Michael Myers survivor Jamie Lee Curtis, queasy maid An...

Jon Hamm is urged to “Confess, Fletch” after a coed is found murdered in his Boston rental apartment.  But the real mystery is whether movie fans will accept someone new in the title role.  Is the Mad Men star too suave to wear the disguises, and make the jokes Chevy Chase did, as the intrepid reporter infiltrates a snooty yacht club to recover missing paintings?  And could any of the eccentric su...

Chevy Chase finds a dead woman in his bed, the Ku Klux Klan on his lawn, and televangelists on his TV praying for his inheritance, now that Fletch Lives in a bequeathed Louisiana plantation.  Will the investigative reporter clear his name of murder charges, or be forced to spend retirement concealing his identity in a series of extravagant disguises?  And is the smoking ooze being dumped on Fletch...

Chevy Chase takes a vacation from Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon movies to star as investigative reporter Fletch in this beloved 1985 mystery.  Can the comedic chameleon unmask the real reasons why shady yuppie Tim Matheson (Animal House) hires a beach bum to break into his mansion and murder him?  And will the jocular journalist be laughed out of town if he runs the headline that Norm f...

Wakanda Forever mourns the loss of King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), but that doesn’t mean a worthy successor can’t slip into the cat suit and become the next Black Panther.  But can anyone stop the advanced African nation from being sunk by an underwater South American society also armed with an arsenal of Vibranium?  Or is new rival Namor too light on his feet to fight off fierce females Letitia...

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movie star reputation took a big hit when Collateral Damage was released in the shadow of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Can today’s audiences better appreciate his tough guy approach to a South American cartel leader (Cliff Curtis) who inadvertently killed Ahnold’s wife and child in a Los Angeles consulate bombing? Or is the whole film really just propaganda for the Governato...

Gael Garcia Bernal (Coco) might look like a typical Marvel superhero in the daylight, but he becomes a Werewolf By Night in order to protect the other monsters of the MCU.  Can he outsmart six skilled hunters as they descend upon a labyrinth to slay a mythical beast and collect the powerful Bloodstone?  And can Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie really root for anyone willing to rescue Man-Thing from movie...

The S stands for Hurt Dwayne Johnson cooks up a different kind of Shazam for the DC Cinematic Universe as the homicidal metahuman Black Adam explodes onto the big screen. Is he the hero that an ancient Middle Eastern country needs after a tyrant seizes their crown and threatens Hell on Earth?  Or is Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and the Justice Society right to try and capture...

Jamie Lee Curtis tried to move on from the curse of Michael Myers, but another Haddonfield Halloween Ends in blood and screams after granddaughter Allyson goes trick-or-treating with  psycho babysitter Corey.  Can the franchise’s original boogeyman teach this wannabe anything about being an old school slasher icon, or is Michael wise to keep his face out of this latest installment?  Find out if di...

Arnold Schwarzenegger sees double after corrupt CEO Tony Goldwyn (Scandal) and geneticist Robert Duvall (The Godfather) duplicate his DNA in The 6th Day. Can the aging action star stop a clone from co-opting his career and family? Or will goons Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Terry Crews (Expendables) terminate the Twins star before he can get to the choppah and expose their illegal p...

It’s the End of Days for Schwarzenegger’s movie career unless he can update his 80s action hero image for the gritty new millennium. Will it take a miracle for the Now Playing hosts to accept the Austrian bodybuilder as faithless Jericho Cane, a mercenary who must put down the bottle and embrace the rocket launcher of God in order to stop Satan (Gabriel Byrne) from impregnating Robin Tunney? Does...

Arnold Schwarzenegger refuses to remove “action hero” from his identity as he suits up for summer 1996 blockbuster Eraser. Can he, James Caan, and the US Marshals help a comely whistleblower escape into Witness Protection before she’s hunted down by a cabal of high powered politicians?  And is the aging Terminator equipped to fight off a kamikaze airplane, a tank full of gators, and an experimenta...

Jamie Lee Curtis hides an affair from husband Arnold Schwarzenegger, oblivious that he too conceals a double life as a spy capable of terminating her boyfriend Bill Paxton in the deceptively comedic 1994 blockbuster True Lies. Is it possible to translate a modest French farce into a pumped up James Cameron spectacle?  And who the hell is Tom Arnold (aka Mr Roseanne Barr) to give marital advice to...

Arnold Schwarzenegger might’ve been a kindergarten cop, but he has no authority over the 10-year-old boy jawing in his ear throughout his 1993 box office bomb The Last Action Hero. Was it a Big Mistake for the movie icon to partner with a know-it-all fan eager to point out every cliche of his cinematic character? Or did Die Hard director John McTiernan and Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black elevate...

Arnold Schwarzenegger peels back the Iron Curtain, steps naked from a Russian sauna, and  brings some Red Heat to the mean streets of Chicago in this 1988 buddy-cop action flick.  Can the Soviet strongman learn the American way of implementing justice from wiseass detective James Belushi (K-9), and bring down the international drug dealer that killed his partner? And does 48 HRS director Walter Hi...

Arnold Schwarzenegger made a Raw Deal with producer Dino DeLaurentiis when he opted to star in this 1986 flop instead of a third Conan film. Can the muscle bound lawman get back in the good graces of the FBI (and his nagging wife) by infiltrating the Chicago mob, and avenging the death of Darren McGavin’s son?  And does this unhappy onscreen marriage resemble any real life fireworks going on betwe...