Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

Video games finally broke through at the box office in 1995 with the release of Mortal Kombat - director Paul WS Anderson’s cinematic take on the popular Midway fighting game. Earth will fall under the control of demons unless Thunder god Raiden (Christopher Lambert) can assemble a team of human martial artists that rivals end bosses Goro, Kano, Sub Zero, Scorpion, and Sheng Tsung.  Is this next entry in the Now Playing Arcade a winner, or will Justin, Stuart, and Arnie receive another hard blow to the head? Find out when you listen now!

Before creating The Purge franchise, James DeMonaco broke into the home invasion genre by writing a remake of Assault on Precinct 13.  Ethan Hawke is now the cop who must protect a condemned Detroit police station - and prisoners Ja Rule, John Leguizamo, and crime boss Laurence Fishburne - from heavily armed mercenaries swarming the doors and windows one snowy New Year’s Eve. Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob have drawn up a full psych evaluation of the 2005 redo. Get the confidential report when you donate today!

One of the most popular characters in the Star Wars universe has gone Solo.  Harrison Ford earned fame and fortune playing an irascible space bandit in four sci-fi blockbusters. Now rising star Alden Ehrenreich inherits the iconic role in a prequel that dramatizes Han Solo’s first mission in the Millennium Falcon. He joins Chewie, Lando, and a band of criminals for a hyperfuel heist on planet Kessel, but will longtime fans be the ones feeling ripped off?  Assume Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart won’t betray you and you won’t be disappointed in their latest podcast!

Before he was a Master of Horror, Halloween director John Carpenter transplanted the Western genre to South Side Los Angeles for the explosive action flick Assault on Precinct 13.  Austin Stoker stars as a newly promoted cop babysitting a condemned police station on its last night of operation. Can he shield the few remaining employees, as well as a Frank Kersey-like vigilante, from the heavily armed street gang besieging their rundown building?  Hear Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob break it all down when you donate today!  

This show description is guest written by Deadpool.   You know who's big? I am! Not in that way, get your mind out of the gutter! (Okay, I'm big in that way too.) But my first movie was more popular than Jesus! So take that John Lennon! But even with my healing factor I'm not immune to...performance anxiety. The dreaded sophomore slump can happen to anyone. I've got a second movie out and I pulled out the big guns. (Literally. Cable has a ginormous rifle. How does he hold that with those tiny hands?) But even with Cable and X-Force I'm worried-- will Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart think it's as good as the first one?  I'm scared...why don't you listen now and let me know?

Al Pacino is best known for playing gangsters, but this summer Now Playing Platinum Level donors will discover how explosively the actor administers justice in five major cop roles. The fun starts with the 1973 biopic Serpico. Al stars as a real life New York City police officer who got a bullet in the face instead of a promotion when he blew the whistle on widespread department corruption. Will Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart condemn the system for passing over Pacino for a Best Actor Oscar yet again?  It all comes out in the wash when you Donate Today.

Game developer Chris Roberts was on course to deliver the first major science fiction film of 1999 when he personally piloted his massively popular flight simulator Wing CommanderPhantom Menace and The Matrix. Do fighter pilots Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard offer a new hope for genre fans as they clean the cat box of feline space invaders The Kilrathi?  Or should Arnie, Justin, and Stuart quickly eject from this next entry in the Now Playing Arcade?  Listen and find out!

20 years after computer programmer Jordan Mechner released Prince of Persia for the Apple IIe, the Disney Company paid the kingly sum of $200 million to launch his video game swashbuckler Dastan on the big screen. A Middle Eastern Jake Gyllenhaal looks for a way to turn back time after he’s framed for the murder of his adoptive royal father. Does the Now Playing Arcade take a gravity-defying leap forward with the acrobatic hero? Or would Stuart, Arnie, and Justin be more entertained by an ostrich race? Place your bets and Listen Now!  

The Godfather enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest gangster film ever made for nearly 20 years before director Martin Scorsese ordered actors Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci to dig a hole and bury Pacino’s dark tragedy. 1990 mob epic Goodfellas looks at Family life from the purview of low level hoods who will never get to be “made men” like Michael Corleone.Hear this preview, then find out if hosts Stuart, Jakob, and Arnie bust these wiseguys’ balls for their outrageous scams and gratuitous f-bombs when you become a Now Playing Patron.     

The Now Playing hosts may wish to be out, but Al Pacino pulls them back in for one more Godfather installment.  Part III marks the final screen appearance of aging gangster Michael Corleone, now eager to cut a deal with the Vatican and legitimize his family business.  Was he wise to to hand the puppet strings to bastard nephew Andy Garcia?  And was this the wrong day for director Francis Ford Coppola to take his daughter to work?  Receive your ticket to this Gold Level opera when you Donate Now!  

Ten years ago Marvel Comics gambled their entire existence, using all their remaining IP as collateral, on the idea that they could make superhero films better than anyone else. 18 movies later, Marvel Studios makes their biggest bet yet - a billion dollars that audiences will love “the most ambitious crossover event in history” and one gaudy gold glove!  Is more the merrier when it comes to superheroes on screen, or are Earth’s Mightiest Heroes set up for an epic fail?  Join Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob now as they review Avengers: Infinity War!

Two years after The Godfather won Oscars and big box office, director Francis Ford Coppola and his loyal star Al Pacino used all their power to create an even more ambitious sequel. Part II retraces the footsteps of father Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) from Sicily to America, contrasting his rise to power with son Michael Corleone losing Family influence with Cuban investments and U.S. Senate investigations. Will Jakob, Arnie, and Stuart pass over the first  film and declare its younger brother to be the smart one? Donate Today for Gold and find out!

No one was better suited to convert the role playing mechanics of the best-selling Final Fantasy series into stirring cinema than game creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.  But dreams of writing and directing the world’s most photorealistic animated movie crashed to earth like a meteor when The Spirits Within landed in theaters in summer 2001. Gaia only knows what podcasters Justin, Arnie, and Stuart will find inside the wreckage of this poetic tale of parasitic alien invasion!  So let down your defense shields and listen now.

Stuart, Arnie, and Jakob are making listeners an offer they can’t refuse:  a retrospective of Al Pacino’s greatest gangster performances, kicking off with the Francis Ford Coppola classic The Godfather. Did Al have to cut the head off a horse in order to land the star-making role of Michael Corleone? And does Pacino, then an untested New York stage actor, prove to be a contender sharing the screen with heavyweight thespian Marlon Brando? Join the Now Playing Family for this Gold Level discussion when you Donate Today!

32 years after making its debut as a city-leveling coin-op video game, Rampage bursts onto the big screen as a brand new movie. So why are Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Joe Manganiello so eager to shut down the Chicago block party being thrown by giant gorilla George, mutant crocodile Lizzie, and massive wolf Ralph?  Join podcasters Arnie, Justin, and Stuart as they try to figure out why New Line Pictures plunked so many quarters into this arcade classic.