Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

M. Night Shyamalan pays a Visit to Blumhouse - the movie studio responsible for the low cost/highly profitable Paranormal Activity series - after disgruntled Hollywood executives cut off funding to future projects. Does the director look like an old man trying his hand at the found footage genre? Or does his pseudo-documentary about the sinister habits of sundowning grandparents leave Jakob, Stuart, and Arnie crying for their mommy? Hear the hosts rap about it all when you Donate for Gold Level today!

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.

Are you entertained watching ungrateful children sass their parents in public places? Check out After Earth - M. Night Shyamalan’s documentary on the trials and tribulations Will Smith goes through trying to turn son Jaden into a movie star. (Ostensibly, it’s also a sci-fi saga about a father and son marooned on inhospitable future Earth, working together to find enough cell signal to call an Uber.) Is the twist ending that Shyamalan is working for Scientologists?  Find out when you Donate for Now Playing’s Gold Level Series.

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!

M. Night Shyamalan’s career continued to deflate as he turned The Last Airbender, a beloved Nickelodeon cartoon series, into the Razzie award-winning Worst Film of 2010.  Are podcasters Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob ready to tattoo red arrows on their foreheads and go to war with this sham cinematic genius?  Or can they bend the rules for badly directed karate kids riding a flying bison, and let it all pass as children’s entertainment? Join our Gold Level Tribe and rediscover the lost art of breaking wind. Donate Today!          

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!       

M. Night Shyamalan built a wall between himself and some of his fan base when he set his encore to Signs in a 19th Century Village full of superstition and suppressed passion. Can podcasters Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob turn a blind eye to a controversial twist that makes a fool out of Adrien Brody? Or do you have to be Bryce Dallas Howard not to see “the Bad Color” popping up on their arrows, pointing audiences away from these monster-filled woods? Donate for Now Playing’s Gold Level series and be led by love through the pitfalls to the painful truth!  

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!

Unbreakable showed no Signs of derailing M. Night Shyamalan’s plans to reclaim summer box office glory with another story of spiritual crisis, suspense, and unseen supernatural forces. Was it coincidence or an act of God that brings Mel Gibson to the role of a troubled holy man turning the other cheek to mysterious crop circles in his field? And will Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie need tin foil hats to decipher the motivations of hydrophobic aliens showing up to the farm in time for batting practice? Things all make sense when you Donate for Gold Level!

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!

Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie have a mission for all listeners this November: become a Now Playing Patron and enjoy an epic review of 1979 ‘Nam classic Apocalypse Now. Martin Sheen put his life on the line to play a shell-shocked soldier traveling a war-torn river on the hunt for rogue colonel Marlon Brando. Is this boat trip into the heart of darkness worth the risks creator Francis Ford Coppola took with his sanity and Godfather profits? And does napalm smell even sweeter in the extended 2003 Redux Cut? The dossier is declassified when you Enlist Today!

This week Now Playing starts its M Night Shyamalan Thrillers Retrospective series of podcast movie reviews. M Night is a director Stuart has long wanted to cover on Now Playing and now, with the upcoming release of Glass, the third part in Shyamalan's Eastrail 177 Trilogy, he's getting the chance. Here Stuart has a message for all listeners of Now Playing, as well as a preview of our review of THE SIXTH SENSE. Listen to his message, then sign up today to hear all 11 M Night movie reviews!