Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

For the first time ever, all six Now Playing Podcast hosts are together, and somehow everyone manages to keep their pants on. Mostly.

In this Intermission podcast: Stuart discovers his inner Broadway fan; Brock boldly goes back to Star Trek: The Next Generation; Jason gears up for Formula One in Las Vegas; and Justin explores haunted houses and the Brat Pack. Meanwhile, Arnie and Marjorie return from Universal's Halloween Horror Nights with tales of questionable Cenobites, a Universal Studios tour guide's worst nightmare, and some very expensive home decorating ideas.

Then it's time for Impossible Arnie Trivia, as one brave listener faces a gauntlet of Godzilla questions with an enormous prize package on the line.

Finally, the hosts open the listener mailbag to answer your burning questions. How has nearly 20 years of Now Playing changed their lives? How do they take notes in dark movie theaters? Would they rather celebrate a masterpiece or tear apart a cinematic disaster? And which movies are they still dying to review?

It's musicals, monsters, movies, memories, and more on November's stuffed Intermission podcast!

Getting Into Characters

Batman would have one less problem in Gotham if Tom Rhys Harries (Slaughterhouse Rulez) had won an Oscar rather than gotten carved up by mobsters in the 2026 origin story Clayface. Can this disfigured celebrity reclaim his looks and movie-star status once scientist Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice) fills his pores with A.I. nanocells that allow the method actor to literally stretch? Or does staying bent out of shape at the folks who canceled his career typecast this versatile thespian as an unlovable villain? Hear Now Playing give DC Studios an earful today!

Eat some snails with Arnie, Justin, and Stuart in the Now Playing Arcade

Lord Bison (David Dastmalchian) invites the world’s toughest warriors to show off their “psycho energy” and gravity-defying hairdos in the 2026 reboot of Street Fighter. Can estranged brothers Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) and Ryu (Andrew Koji) repair their relationship as the MTV playboy summons a Flaming Hadouken, and the orphaned loner struggles to contain a dark spirit inside himself? And is spy Chun-Li (Callina Liang) right to say there’s more happening at this tournament than 50 Cent and Jason Momoa flexing video game physiques? Listen Now!

Getting In Your Face(book)

Mikey Madison (Anora) braces for a Social Reckoning after she shares stolen Facebook secrets with investigative reporter Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) in this 2026 docudrama. Has Mark Zuckerberg (Succession’s Jeremy Strong) become a better friend to media types like Bill Burr (The Mandalorian) since Jesse Eisenberg played the retaliatory tech-company CEO in start-up story The Social Network? And can Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) make this Meta commentary with the same directorial flair as David Fincher? Find out Now!

Iguana Be Sedated

Matthew Broderick needs another day off after Godzilla rises out of the Hudson to nest in New York City in a 1998 reboot of the iconic Japanese monster. But should this dweeby biologist criticize the asexual reproduction of a giant lizard laying eggs inside Madison Square Garden when he’s got even less romantic chemistry with aspiring reporter Maria Patillo? And can Hollywood hitmakers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin coax our star to demolish Manhattan buildings with the same zeal as the UFOs from Independence Day? Listen and find out now!

Halloween has come to Now Playing! The hosts share their favorite spooky-season traditions, from month-long horror marathons and haunted houses to vintage TV specials, costumed pets, and gifts from the mysterious Mr. Bogeyman. Meanwhile, Arnie has accidentally planned an entire month around Hellraiser. Plus, concerts, Star Trek, fantasy football, and a patron brave enough to face our horror movie trivia!

Jurassic Landmark

This podcast covers both the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla as well as the 1956 Americanized re-edit Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Before all the throwdowns with Mothra, Ghidorah, and King Kong, radioactive dinosaur Godzilla stood tall as a symbol of nuclear annihilation in his 1954 debut. Can paleontologist Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai) convince the people of Japan that the creature attacking their boats, trains, and radio towers is just as much a victim of H-bomb testing as they are? And do things get worse with the arrival of American journalist Raymond Burr (Perry Mason) and an Oxygen Destroyer invention that steals the fiery breath from the big lizard’s mouth? Find out now!

First Person Shirker

Austin Abrams (Whalefall) is tasked with delivering the cure to another Umbrella Corporation lab leak in the 2026 reboot of Resident Evil. But can the hapless courier reach the top floor of a Raccoon City hospital overrun with monsters using a vehicle unprepared for snowy mountain roads, receiving intermittent cell connection with a pregnant girlfriend, and having only handled guns in video games? And will writer-director Zach Cregger (Weapons) be torn limb from limb for discarding all the franchise lore to focus on pratfalls? F*ckin’ find out when you Listen Now!

Is it evil that I’m glad Milla Jovovich is no longer a resident of this franchise?

Umbrella Corporation wanted South Africa’s New Raccoon City to launch a pharmaceutical revolution in 2022, but the failed utopia ends up birthing a zombie apocalypse in Netflix’s episodic reboot of Resident Evil. Is the reason why twin sisters Ella Ballinska (Charlie’s Angels) and Adeline Rudolph (Mortal Kombat II) have no Joy in 2036 because their chemist father Lance Reddick (The Wire) screwed up an antidepressant 14 years before? And does it make Zero sense that the T-virus is now turning caterpillars and lizards into kaiju? Find out now!

Crimson Tides

YouTuber Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier) adapts David Symanski’s 2022 submarine simulator Iron Lung into the surprise hit movie of 2026. What conspiracies will be uncovered when a convict gets welded inside a rickety submersible and dives into an ocean of blood on a distant moon? Will the x-rays taken of alien creatures, or transmissions downloaded and decoded from other vessels, be the key to saving a dying universe? And will Simon - or hosts Stuart, Arnie, and Justin - survive this deep plunge into the Now Playing Arcade? Find out Now!

Get Your Ass Off Mars

Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) thought he liberated the Red Planet from bossy Earthlings 25 years ago, but that was just the Origins of a conflict that rages on in this 2011 SyFy Channel video game adaptation. Can Red Faction trooper Brian J Smith (Stargate Universe) mobilize Blue Planet scientist Danielle Nicolet (TV’s The Flash), and local Marauders led by Kate Vernon (Battlestar Galactica), to ensure that the Earth Defense Force stays off Martian soil? Trust Terrans Arnie, Justin, and Stuart to tell the truth about this next Now Playing Arcade installment.

The Now Playing crew checks in for another Intermission with a packed slate of movies, memories, and questionable homework assignments. Jason revisits Point Break on the big screen 35 years later. Brock goes from The American President to Kate & Leopold and an MCU rewatch, and Stuart reports back from Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center. Plus Arnie and Justin unexpectedly find common ground in the comedy of The State, Wet Hot American Summer, and Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. Then longtime listener Josh joins the show for Resident Evil trivia and turns the tables with a question about the origins of Now Playing Podcast's "Brown Arrow" Review Rating.

Finally, Disney+ has assembled a 15-project watchlist to prepare for Avengers: Doomsday. Does revisiting the MCU’s greatest hits and less-greatest hits make the crew more excited for the next Avengers movie, or does it just feel like homework?

All this is explored on September's special Intermission episode!

Getting Long In The Tooth

Slain cult leader Sam Spruell (TV’s Fargo) promises to lead Insidious demons like Lipstick Face and The Bride In Black Out Of The Further in this sixth installment of the enduring horror franchise. Will traumatized dental hygienist Amelia Eve (Haunting of Bly Manor) be the unwitting courier for evil forces conquering the material world? Or is stopping shotgun-wielding housewives and a trio of anesthesia-huffing old farts still what dead medium Lin Shaye will do best at age 82? Follow Arnie, Marjorie, and Stuart into the pillow fort to find out now!

Unclear and Present Danger

John Krasinski (A Quiet Place) walked away from four seasons playing Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on an Amazon Prime series, only to return in the explosive 2026 reunion movie Ghost War. Can the former CIA analyst help his old boss Wendell Pierce (Hackers, The Wire) and friend Michael Kelly (House of Cards) fight a rogue black-ops unit making terrorist threats 20 years after brutally solving post-9/11 political realities? And is Jack too much of a private citizen to play cloak-and-dagger with MI-6 babe Sienna Miller (GI Joe: Rise of Cobra)? Step out of the darkness now!

Asking questions about character motivation that Marvel never put to Echo

Struggling actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) hides his destructive ionic powers to land his dream role as Wonder Man in this 2026 Disney+ series. But can Iron Man 3's Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) really expect to shed his Mandarin image if he’s gonna villainously turn his super-scene partner into the Department of Damage Control? And shouldn’t Hollywood be giving an Oscar to anyone who can permanently show Josh Gad the door? Listen Now to learn if showrunner Andrew Guest (Brooklyn 99) found the real man inside this Stan Lee creation.

Home Sick

It’s a Brand New Day for Tom Holland now that everyone has magically forgotten Peter Parker, and Spider-Man is once again anonymously ridding New York City of criminals like Scorpion and The Hand. But is the workaholic web-slinger turning into something socially unacceptable by suppressing his feelings? And will his genetic mutation qualify him for Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters if he can’t go to MIT with MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon)? Find out if Punisher (Jon Bernthal) or Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) have any fatherly advice when you Listen Now!

Arnie and Justin unveil StubBook, their independent movie-and-TV logging platform. Plus: mahjong mysteries, vintage novelizations, 3D-printing disasters, Marvel trivia with patron Corey, and a heated debate over whether Disney’s “Infinity Vision” is a meaningful theatrical standard or an empty marketing gimmick.

John Wick comes at you with a pencil; Frank Castle comes at you with a pen! That's the Punisher way!

Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) worries that his life has no purpose after putting down the crime family that murdered his wife and two children in an ultra-violent 2026 Marvel Television Special. Could there be One Last Kill for Punisher to perform after sitcom mom Judith Light (Who's the Boss) sets a bounty that brings every criminal in Little Italy to the vigilante’s door? Hide your kids, lock up your dog, and take that donut and coffee to go, as you join Justin, Arnie, and Stuart for the bloodiest street bawl ever started on Disney+. Listen Now!

Ill Will Hunting

Matt Damon has trouble finding a way home after winning the Trojan War with a duplicitous offering to Athena (Zendaya) in Christopher Nolan’s epic re-telling of The Odyssey. Is there something more than the giant cyclops, spellcasting witch, Charlize Theron’s lotus flower diet, or the ghost of fallen soldier Elliot Page that prevents this Ithacan King from reclaiming his throne? And how pissed will son Tom Holland be if mom Anne Hathaway reads Twilight instead of Homer, and marries Robert Pattinson? Find Out Now!

Dora (Milaje) The Explorer

Marvel Animation resurrects Black Panther for the 2025 Disney+ anthology series Eyes of Wakanda. Join Arnie, Stuart, and Justin as they follow an elite squadron of “War Dogs” over the centuries and see the sacrifices made to recover stolen artifacts from a pillaged Ethiopian city, a snowy Chinese temple, and even the Trojan War. Are there times when the isolationist African nation of Wakanda might benefit from burying the hatchet and sharing its advanced tech with the outside world? Listen Now to learn a history the colonizers never taught you!