Now Playing Podcast Presents: The Fast and Furious Retrospective Series

How To Overfeed Your Dragon

Chris Pine (Star Trek) and Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar) learn there’s no Honor Among Thieves when accomplice Hugh Grant (Heretic) sends them to prison so he can lay sole claim on the spoils of a heist. Does the wise-cracking bard have the charisma points to pull off a revenge campaign that rescues daughter Chloe Coleman (My Spy) using insecure wizard Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu), shape-shifting druid Sophia Lillis (It), and saintly dandy Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton)? Listen Now to find out if Dungeons & Dragons is sick of failure in 2023.

50 Shades of Grayson Azriel

The third Dungeons & Dragons movie is steeped in sin as it partners a quartet of bloodthirsty bandits with a celibate knight on a quest to rescue his father from a kinky underworld. Is returning director Gerry Lively faithful to the letter of the 3rd edition game supplement The Book of Vile Darkness, which first let players fall under the spell of a black magic text printed in blood, skin, and bone? And why did SyFy Channel pass on this 2012 campaign, limiting its official release to the UK? Justin, Stuart, and Arnie are ready to suck fingers to find out how bad it gets.

Cocky Blockers

Jack Black attempts to build a cinematic universe out of chickens cooked in lava, rampaging pigs and zombies, and other doodads mined from the biggest video game of all time. But is it wise to spend $150 million on A Minecraft Movie that just looks like pixelated 8-bit graphics?  And is any of the Overland’s wild architecture as creative as the fringed leather wardrobe that Jason Mamoa sports in the real world?  Listen Now to find out if director Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) can fill the plot holes and deliver a winning Now Playing Arcade entry.

A saga for the ages… or at least a podcast appropriate for April Fool’s Day

British heavy Bruce Payne (Passenger 57) is the only cast member willing to return for a Dungeons & Dragons sequel now that the 2005 campaign is being launched on SyFy Channel.  Can new director Gerry Lively (Darkness Falls) do a better job of advancing the fantasy role-playing game into a credible cinematic universe by more closely studying the classic monster manuals and rule books of TSR?  Find out if hosts Justin, Stuart, and Arnie have much clemency for yet another low-budget quest to enchant today’s tabletop players. Listen Now!

The Desolation of Snails

Jeremy Irons sees a reversal of fortune in his acting career as he conjures an army of fire-breathing beasts to fight empress Thora Birch (American Beauty) in a theatrical Dungeon And Dragons campaign from 2000. Can wise-cracking thieves Justin Whalin (Lois & Clark) and Marlon Wayans (White Chicks) bring together a mage, a dwarf, and an elf to acquire the magic gem that will put an end to all the shoddy CGI work swirling in the sky? Listen now to learn if Arnie, Stuart, and Justin have the constitution points to endure another board game movie.

That Thing You Pardieu 

College kid Tom Hanks plays RPG Mazes And Monsters and quickly descends into madness and murder in this notorious 1982 TV movie. Did Maze Controller Chris Makepeace (Meatballs) make the fantasy too real by swapping out dice bags and painted figurines for a live-action campaign inside a dangerous cave? Or did the future Oscar winner simply get too wrapped up in a delusional Method Acting quest to become his holy man character, forsaking his studies and sex with girlfriend Wendy Crewson (The Santa Clause)? Join us in the Great Hall to find out!

Goodbye Friend

Horror specialist Mike Flanagan (Netflix’s Haunting of Hill House) picks up another Ouija board to tell the 2016 prequel story Origin of Evil. Can sham medium Elizabeth Reaser (Twilight) finally give up the ghost and let her 9-year-old daughter take over the seance business after the girl uses the mass market spirit board to connect with ghoul Doug Jones (Shape of Water)?  Or is priest Henry Thomas (E.T.) right to phone an exorcist, and stop more bodies from winding up in the basement walls?  Get the skinny on another board game film when you Listen Now!

Hi Friend

Terrible things happen to a high school girl playing alone with an Ouija board in this hit 2014 chiller. Can Bates Motel co-star Olivia Cooke conduct a seance with the mass market spirit board that reveals the true reason her BFF committed suicide in her suburban home?  And what does nutcase Lin Shaye (Insidious) know about the ghosts of an abusive mother and silenced daughter that can be seen when looking through the “glass eye” of a planchette?  Our lips are sealed until you make contact with the latest entry in Now Playing’s board game retrospective!

Dead Time For Bonzo

Twin boys decide to wind up The Monkey toy left to them by absentee father Adam Scott (Severance), only to learn the mechanical drum solos cause mass carnage throughout small-town Maine. Can introvert Theo James (White Lotus) grow up to stop a bullying twin brother (also Theo James) from using the organ grinder to play off all their neighbors and family members into an early grave?  Listen Now to hear Arnie, Stuart, and Brock dance to the offbeat rhythm that director Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) has given this classic Stephen King short story.

The Leader of the Package

Anthony Mackie still sports his Falcon wings as he steps into the role of Captain America, and navigates a Brave New World of political intrigue without first Avenger Chris Evans. Should he give a vote of confidence to new President Harrison Ford by helping the ailing politician soften the “Hulk Hunter” image earned when played by William Hurt? Or is everyone in Washington DC being led on by Tim Blake Nelson, whose musical mind-control threatens to destabilize global efforts to peacefully bring adamantium to the MCU? Listen Now to learn if Red Hulk’s a smash!