Now Playing Podcast Presents: The Fast and Furious Retrospective Series

And you thought the MOVIE was bad.....

This book review previously appeared in Issue 11 of Now Playing Podcast's sister podcast Marvelicious Toys. As that show is no longer, the review is published here as part of Now Playing.

As we kick off Now Playing Podcast’s Marvel movie retrospective, Arnie turns to one of the strangest literary artifacts of the 1980s: the novelization of Howard the Duck. Written by humorist Ellis Weiner, this long-out-of-print paperback attempts to adapt George Lucas’s infamous cult film into prose, and in the process becomes something far stranger than a simple tie-in. From Hitchhiker’s Guide-inspired dueling narrators to extended satirical tangents skewering Reagan-era America, the book often seems less interested in Howard’s adventure than in mocking the very idea of adapting it. As Arnie recounts in his review, the result is a self-aware, occasionally hostile, and frequently baffling curiosity that seems to resent both its source material and its readers. Is this novelization a hidden gem for Marvel completists, a fascinating train wreck, or quite possibly the worst professionally published book Arnie has ever read? For collectors, it may be a dollar-bin novelty. For everyone else, it might just be proof that some ducks should never leave the pond.

Trapped in a podcast we never made...

Welcome to Now Playing's Marvel Comics Movie Retrospective Series, where, in anticipation of the ultimate comic book crossover movie, The Avengers, in 2012, we will be watching and reviewing all the Marvel Comics films! This first portion of our Marvel Movie Retrospective is Marvel Misfits, the Marvel characters that don't quite fit anywhere else - Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, and Kick-Ass.

Fresh off the success of Return of the Jedi, blockbuster movie producer George Lucas was thought to have the golden touch and be able to do no wrong, but Lucas has always been one to do the impossible. And in the late summer of 1986, Howard the Duck was laid into by critics and fans alike. Now, for the 25th anniversary of this legendary flop, Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob watch and review the film as the start of their Marvel Comics Movie Retrospective Series! Is the movie as bad as critics said, or, as Lucas said, 25 years later is this film looked back upon fondly? Listen to find out!

Turn of the Dark, Turn on the Podcast

These days, when Marvel makes headlines in 2011, it isn’t for Thor or Captain America. It's for a Broadway musical that seemed determined to crash harder than Gwen Stacy. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark arrived with Bono and The Edge writing the songs, Julie Taymor of The Lion King producing, and a budget that keeps climbing as cast members keep falling. The show remains "in previews" just to try and staunch the flow of bad press, but this Broadway bomb has become infamous before most people ever saw it. But what about the fans? Marjorie, Arnie, and Stuart attended one of these preview performances to see the spectacle for themselves. Is this ambitious, aerial Spider-show a misunderstood marvel or a web of chaos? They’re here with an unfiltered, first-hand report. So Turn off the Dark... turn up the volume!

Listening to this podcast is part of your plan

The Adjustment Bureau pairs rising political star Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity) with dancer Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) in a romance that literally defies fate. After a chance meeting sparks an unexpected connection, Damon discovers shadowy agents are manipulating reality to keep their relationship from derailing a carefully charted destiny. Loosely inspired by Philip K. Dick's short story "The Adjustment Team", this film blends conspiracy thriller with love story, asking whether free will can outmaneuver cosmic bureaucracy. But does The Adjustment Bureau balance romance and high-concept sci-fi, or does one undermine the other? The hosts examine whether this battle against destiny earns its happily ever after.

Are our lives predetermined down to the smallest details?

Books & Nachos is now part of Now Playing Podcast.

Before our book reviews were branded as Now Playing Podcast Book Reviews, they were released under a separate show called Books & Nachos. That podcast focused on book discussions, most of which tied directly into films we were covering on Now Playing. We’ve now merged those episodes into the main Now Playing Podcast feed for easier access and a complete archive. But these older episodes still have the original Books & Nachos intro and credits on those older recordings. 

This week, Stuart examines “Adjustment Team,” the 1954 short story by Philip K. Dick that later inspired the film The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Dick’s original tale is a tighter, more overtly metaphysical story about a man who glimpses the machinery behind reality and discovers that unseen bureaucrats quietly "adjust" events to keep the universe on schedule. With less romance and more existential dread than the film version, this original story explores fate, free will, and whether humanity is simply following a script written by forces it can’t perceive. Stuart breaks down how Dick’s concept differs from its cinematic reworking and whether the lean short story delivers a sharper philosophical punch than the big-screen love story.

Omniscient mutant has the key to the future?

Books & Nachos is now part of Now Playing Podcast.

Before our book reviews were branded as Now Playing Podcast Book Reviews, they were released under a separate show called Books & Nachos. That podcast focused on book discussions, most of which tied directly into films we were covering on Now Playing. We’ve now merged those episodes into the main Now Playing Podcast feed for easier access and a complete archive. But these older episodes still have the original Books & Nachos intro and credits on those older recordings. 

This week, Stuart turns to The Golden Man, Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story that later inspired the Nicolas Cage thriller Next. Dick’s original tale is lean, strange, and far more unsettling than its Hollywood counterpart. Set in a post-nuclear future, it follows a mutant who can glimpse the immediate future and survives by instinct alone, hunted by a society that fears what it cannot control. Stuart explores how Dick uses this simple premise to examine evolution, fate, and humanity’s urge to destroy what’s different, and considers whether the short story’s stark vision delivers a sharper punch than the big-budget adaptation.

We guess Cage didn't see this one coming.

Next casts Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider) as a man who can see two minutes into his own future, a loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story "The Golden Man." It turns into a chase thriller involving government agents, terrorists, and Cage trying to outmaneuver fate itself. Blending sci-fi concept with romance and action set pieces, Next aims to turn a tight Dick premise into a mainstream popcorn movie. But does expanding a short story into a feature give the idea room to breathe, or does it stretch it thin? The Now Playing Podcast hosts look into the immediate future to decide whether this Cage vehicle is a clever twist on destiny or just another miscalculated move.

The search for self gets personal this time for Philip K. Dick

Books & Nachos is now part of Now Playing Podcast.

Before our book reviews were branded as Now Playing Podcast Book Reviews, they were released under a separate show called Books & Nachos. That podcast focused on book discussions, most of which tied directly into films we were covering on Now Playing. We’ve now merged those episodes into the main Now Playing Podcast feed for easier access and a complete archive. But these older episodes still have the original Books & Nachos intro and credits on those older recordings. 

This week, Stuart examines A Scanner Darkly, the 1977 novel by Philip K. Dick that later inspired the rotoscope film adaptation directed by Richard Linklater and starring Keanu Reeves. Set in a near-future California ravaged by Substance D, Dick’s novel follows an undercover narcotics agent whose dual identities begin to collapse under addiction and surveillance. Written from personal experience, the book blends dark humor, paranoia, and tragedy into one of Dick’s most intimate and emotionally raw works. Stuart explores how the novel handles identity, betrayal, and the human cost of the drug war, and whether the source material hits harder than its psychedelic big-screen counterpart.

Keanu has never been so animated

A Scanner Darkly brings Philip K. Dick’s semi-autobiographical novel to the screen in rotoscope animation, with Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Winona Ryder (Beetlejuice), Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers), and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) drifting through a near-future Southern California soaked in surveillance and Substance D. Directed by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), the film blurs reality and hallucination as an undercover cop begins to lose his identity while spying on his own friends. The shifting, animated visuals mirror the characters’ fractured minds, turning addiction and paranoia into something both intimate and unsettling. Does this stylized adaptation capture the tragic heart of Dick’s story, or do the psychedelic visuals overwhelm the substance beneath? The Now Playing hosts tune in to decide whether A Scanner Darkly offers clarity or just one long, bad trip.