They Still Call Me Bruce Robert Pattinson spent the last two years suiting up as The Batman so that he might score a hit movie for DC, and rescue a Gotham City drowning in drugs, violent crime, and political corruption. Will his plans for urban renewal be thwarted by unhinged assassin The Riddler (Paul Dano), or mob henchman Oz “The Penguin” Cobblepot (Colin Farrell)? Or will Zoe Kravitz steal the show as a limber cat burglar with a soft spot for strays? Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie can help y...
Mar 09, 2022•2 hr 25 min•Ep. 1191
When Harlow sunflowers bloom, hipsters are doomed Nearly 50 years after she left Leatherface dancing in the street, final girl Sally Hardesty returns to face another Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2022. Can she save a bus full of social media influencers who dared to unlawfully displace the serial killer from his retirement in small town Harlow? And will Elsie Fisher ( Eighth Grade ) use the survival skills she honed during a school shooting to fight back against the triggered madman once the power ...
Mar 01, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 1189
Who knew using the DaVinci Code shaved $2 billion off your next Papa John’s order? Tom Holland leaves Spider-Man and the MCU behind to head into the Uncharted waters of a popular Playstation video game. Will his Nathan Drake solve a series of puzzles that lead to the legendary treasure of world explorer Ferdinand Magellan? Or will he be conned out of the gold by greedy partner Mark Wahlberg, billionaire rival Antonio Banderas, or a host of femme fatales and modern day pirates? ...
Feb 23, 2022•2 hr 38 min•Ep. 1187
If she likes taking unnecessary risks so much, she shoulda made a sequel to Sphere Sharon Stone could have screwed like a mink, raised rugrats, and lived happily ever after with Michael Douglas. Instead, her icy crime novelist chances implication in new murders and wardrobe malfunctions 14 years later in Basic Instinct 2 . Is pasty psychologist David Morrissey right to claim the femme fatale suffers from risk addiction, and will endanger all of London if she’s allowed to write a new book t...
Feb 16, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 1185
Now Playing's sister podcast Books & Nachos is back! On this show you can hear Arnie, Stuart, and Brock review JK Rowling's smash first novel: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It's a companion piece to tomorrow's bonus review of the first Harry Potter movie! You can hear a new Harry Potter BOOK review each week at BooksAndNachos.com
Feb 10, 2022•45 min
Michael Douglas has survived many big screen fatal attractions with dangerous blondes, but the slick yuppie courts a date with the sharp end of an ice pick after he beds Sharon Stone in the steamy 1992 thriller Basic Instinct . Does this femme fatale write novels as a way of planning the future murders of unsatisfying lovers? Or is there a psychotic reader turning bloody acts from her books into San Francisco crime scenes? Untangle all the double crosses and crossed legs when you joi...
Feb 08, 2022•2 hr 6 min•Ep. 1183
Roses are red, violets are blue, pickaxes are painful, and reboots are too With “horror holidays” like Halloween, April Fool’s Day, and Friday the 13th routinely being celebrated with 21st Century remakes, it makes sense that someone would dig up My Bloody Valentine in 2009,. Can the censors stop the carnage now that it’s flying into audiences’ faces via 3-D? And what kills a small town faster - a homicidal maniac stuffing residents’ hearts into boxes of candy, or prodigal son Jensen Ackle...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 1181
Twenty years after a cave-in turned a coal miner into a cannibal, legendary psychopath Harry Warden returns to paint his hometown red in the 1981 original My Bloody Valentine . So why don’t moviegoers associate headlamps and pickaxes with February 14th in the same way hockey masks and machetes signify Friday The 13th ? And were the cruelest cuts made by the MPAA, who edited out literal showers of blood in order to give the film an R rating? Find out if Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie fall in love...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 1179
What do you mean you like TikTok more than scary movies?! Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courtney Cox are ready to Scream for the fifth and possibly final time as a serial killer in a Ghostface mask terrorizes a new generation of self-aware Woodsboro horror enthusists. Is the 25-year-old franchise still capable of pulling off big surprises like that initial, infamous phone call to Drew Barrymore? And will the new directors enrage or bore Wes Craven purists by slipping some of that fanc...
Jan 19, 2022•2 hr 56 min•Ep. 1177
He brings the Mile High Club and the six feet under crowd together Tabloid journalist Miguel Ferrer ( Robocop ) is on the trail of The Night Flier , a serial killer who drains victims of blood during sunset stops at tiny East Coast airports. Is there any truth to the rumor that this phantom aviator is a vampire? And if so, is his sleek black jet just a way of impressing those blue haired groupies waiting for him on the tarmac? Find out if this latest installment in the Stephen King r...
Jan 12, 2022•55 min•Ep. 1175
100 years before Eggsy joined Colin Firth as a member of the Kingsmen, Ralph Fiennes ( Schindler’s List ) and his servants founded the secret spy organization inside a Savile Row tailor’s shop in the prequel The King’s Man . Can director Matthew Vaughn retain his signature mix of balls-out action and irreverent humor while exploring the root causes of World War I? And who is the mastermind of an imagined supergroup of historical villains including seductress Mata Hari and Russian monk Rasp...
Jan 04, 2022•2 hr 37 min•Ep. 1173
Mobster Christian Slater has spent a lifetime outfitting his enemies with cement shoes, so it’s poetic justice that vengeful construction worker Wes Bentley ( American Beauty ) rigs a newly paved road so it swallows Dolan’s Cadillac and buries the human trafficker alive. Can a standout entry in Stephen King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes short story collection be successfully stretched into feature length? And how much will the potty-mouthed Heathers star owe the swear jar should he manage...
Dec 29, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 1171
Peter Parker fears there’s No Way Home to his happy life with MJ (Zendaya) after Dr. Strange casts a magic spell that brings all the previous Spider-Man heroes and villains into the MCU. Is it Tom Holland’s responsibility to fix the messes made by Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Dr. Octopus (Alfred Molina), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Lizard (Rhys Ifans), and Electro (Jamie Foxx)? And were the spoiler-phobic right to avoid all social media before watching? Find out on another unforge...
Dec 22, 2021•3 hr 30 min•Ep. 1169
Where we’re going, there are no roads... It can be a bumpy ride trying to follow Stephen King works on their journey from page to screen. What happens when the macabre Maine author has a head-on collision with British horror scribe Clive Barker ( Hellraiser ) in a two story pile-up called Quicksilver Highway ? Can carnival showman Christopher “Doc Brown'' Lloyd make sense of this roadside carnage, as hands willingly sever themselves from their bodies, and a pair of wind-up chattery teeth t...
Dec 14, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 1167
Award-winning acting talent (and Steven Weber) try to wake up the Stephen King retrospective with 8 tales of horror taken from the short story collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes . What happens when assassin William Hurt ( A History of Violence ) goes to war with a box full of toys, detective William H Macy ( Fargo ) meets his maker, author Tom Berenger ( Platoon ) runs from a phantom in a cursed painting, and snakebitten golfer Richard Thomas ( It ) is mistaken for dead? Find out if J...
Dec 08, 2021•2 hr 1 min•Ep. 1165
Take me down to the Raccoon City where the folks are green and the cops are pretty The Umbrella Corporation may have left town (and taken original star Milla Jovovich with them), but there’s still a horde of bloodthirsty zombies ready to welcome audiences back to Raccoon City in the seventh Resident Evil installment. Can estranged siblings Chris and Claire Redfield bring the foster father who poisoned their childhood to justice before he escapes with the infamous T-virus? And can corporate...
Nov 30, 2021•1 hr 28 min
Astronaut Matt Damon proves he has the “right stuff” to survive an extended stay on the Red Planet in Ridley Scott’s acclaimed 2015 blockbuster The Martian . Justin, Jakob, and Stuart continue their look at outer space exploration with an ultra-realistic trip to the nearest colonizable planet. How many scientists does it take to cypher out a solution to getting a marooned botanist back home safe? And will audiences find the results easier to follow than Interstellar and Arrival ? &nb...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 1161
A San Diego couple buy a video camera to document the Paranormal Activity visiting their bedroom late at night, and end up making the most profitable horror movie of all time. How did raw footage of creaking floorboards and slight door movements scare the bejesus out of audiences steeped in the graphic imagery of torture porn? And can Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie find any clues revealing the identity of this demon supposedly hiding in the dark? The lights co...
Nov 19, 2021•14 min•Ep. 1160
These days they’ll let any 90-year-old who ever pretended to fly a starship go up in a rocket. But you had to have The Right Stuff if you hoped to survive the first messy attempts to put a man in orbit back at the dawn of the Space Race. Join Jakob, Justin, and Stuart as they witness the amazing early successes and blunders of NASA, as well as the career launch of some major acting talent - including Ed Harris ( The Abyss ), Dennis Quaid ( Innerspace ), Scott Glenn ( Backdraft ), and...
Nov 16, 2021•2 hr 44 min•Ep. 1159
Eons before the assembly of the Avengers, ten celestial caretakers known as Eternals came together to protect and guide human development on Earth. Did Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao ( Nomadland ) deviate too much from the Marvel formula in telling the secret history of the planet’s first superheroes? And should Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek get credit for bestowing culture on mankind with Hackers and Grown Ups 2 on their resumes? Find out if Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob share a Uni-Mind a...
Nov 09, 2021•3 hr 37 min•Ep. 1157
Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob played a nasty trick on listeners when they pulled Loki from the Summer 2021 schedule at the last minute. Now they make up for lost time by diving into the first six episodes of Tom Hiddleston’s quest to conquer all of existence (or at least Disney Plus). Can the Norse God dethrone the three space lizards who currently police the future and promote the popularity of his nemeses The Avengers? And are the podcasters fated to review a never-ending stream of Marvel now...
Nov 03, 2021•2 hr 26 min•Ep. 1155
Timothee Chalamet may look scrawny to Jason “Aquaman” Mamoa, but prophecy foretells the Call Me By Your Name star to be the savior of Dune in 2021. Can director Denis Villeneuve ( Blade Runner 2049 ) hope to pass the test of coherently adapting Frank Herbert’s complex novel of life on a desert planet, given that David Lynch and SyFy Channel already experienced great pain putting their hands in this box? Join Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie as they worm their way through a saga of prophecy, ecolog...
Oct 26, 2021•2 hr 54 min•Ep. 1153
It’s easy to blame Haddonfield’s high body count on local boogeyman Michael Myers, but many of the latest Halloween Kills are being committed by a violent mob of formerly decent citizens. Did babysitter Jamie Lee Curtis, terrified kids Anthony Michael Hall and Kyle Richards, and shaky cop Will Patton grow up to become the real monsters of the community? And will Michael approve of the changes made to his sister’s bedroom when he catches up with the current owners of his redecorated house? ...
Oct 19, 2021•2 hr 5 min•Ep. 1151
Diamonds may be forever, but Daniel Craig only has one more shot at bringing James Bond to life in No Time To Die . Will longtime nemesis Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) ruin the superspy’s chances at Happily Ever After by blowing up his Italian holiday with Lea Seydoux? Or will Rami Mallick prove to be the bigger threat as he uses nanotechnology and a Zen Garden of Death to poison the world? Find out if Brock, Stuart, and Arnie are shaken or stirred by 007 replacement Lashana Lynch, or any of t...
Oct 12, 2021•2 hr 12 min•Ep. 1149
That '70s girl takes after that '80s psycho Folks might think of Mila Kunis as a typical All American Girl , but the 70’s Show actress proves she can be an American Psycho II after homicidal yuppie Patrick Bateman attacks her babysitter. Is this coed so eager to land a job hunting serial killers with the FBI that she’s willing to murder everyone in her criminology class? And how do the Now Playing hosts grade William Shatner, beaming down into this direct-to-video oddity to play a lecherou...
Oct 09, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 1148
Tom Hardy was struggling to make room for Venom in his life even before natural born killer Woody Harrelson, his screaming mad girlfriend Naomi Harris ( Skyfall) , and a blood red baby symbiote crashed their picture. Does sequel Let There Be Carnage bring an end to the reporter’s unconventional marriage to the gooey, black alien parasite? And is Michelle Williams proof that things get better once you’re out of the “Eddie closet”? Discover if Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart lose their heads over, ...
Oct 05, 2021•2 hr 35 min•Ep. 1147
Christian Bale might look like just another vapid investment banker, but behind his well-groomed features and aerobicized body lies the mind of an American Psycho . So how did predatory Patrick Bateman go from graphically torturing women in one of the most misogynist books of the 1990s, to having a female director turn him into the punchline of the 1980s in this millennial horror comedy? And will Arnie really defend the "killer soundtrack" this yuppie cranks as he Wang Chungs on the all-st...
Sep 29, 2021•2 hr 34 min•Ep. 1145
Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House stood as a horror classic for nearly 60 years before director Mike Flanagan ( Hush ) expanded its walls into a 10 episode miniseries for Netflix. Nell, Luke, and Theo are now the children of house flippers, spending the summer of 1992 seeing ghosts in renovated basements and hallways. Should the Crain siblings blame spectres like Tall Man and Abigail, or their secretive father and crazy mother, for why their lives are so messed up in 2018?...
Sep 21, 2021•3 hr 56 min•Ep. 1143
Producer Steven Spielberg and director Jan DeBont ( Speed ) poured a lot of time and money into remodeling Shirley Jackson's classic ghost story into the much reviled 1999 remake of The Haunting . Long before she played clapping games with Ed and Lorraine Warren, Lili Taylor was conjuring bad spirits during her stay at a mansion where hundreds of child laborers perished. Do we need Liam Neeson’s science experiments to know there’s nothing scary going on? Arnie, Jakob, and Stuar...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 1141
Could the next Legend of the Marvel Cinematic Universe be an unassuming San Francisco parking valet who prefers late night karaoke to taking down his father's infamous Ten Rings terrorist cell? Martial artist Shang Chi is ready to answer the call for a modern Asian American superhero. But do comedienne Awkwafina, Crouching Tiger star Michelle Yeoh, and the Man Who Would Be The Mandarin (aka Ben Kingsley) offer enough protection for a magical gated community besieged by soul-sucking serpent...
Sep 08, 2021•2 hr 16 min•Ep. 1139
