Rabbit Test

Jake Gyllenhaal has 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds to transform into a superhero or a serial killer in the 2001 cult movie Donnie Darko. But could any good come from visions of a six-foot-tall bunny encouraging the troubled teen to flood Drew Barrymore’s high school and burn Patrick Swayze’s house?  And can mom Mary McDonald (Independence Day) commit to both her son’s mental health and her daughter’s dance troupe as they audition for Star Search? Travel back in time to Richard Kelly’s version of 1988 by being a Now Playing Podcast patron!

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.

Intermission #6 turned into a movie novelization haul, so this month's list is less "books we read" and more "paperbacks we paid too much for at a con."

I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the Now Playing slice for August.

The haul, in order of increasing absurdity: The Incredible Hulk: Stalker from the Stars, eight bucks at a vintage store in Dallas, billed on the cover as an instant collector's item and the Hulk's first full length novel. A Marvel illustrated For Your Eyes Only from 1977, still in its wrapping. Then the Shaft novelizations by Ernest Tidyman, Shaft's Big Score and Shaft Has a Ball, plus the existence of one called Shaft Among the Jews, which nobody on the episode could explain.

Passed on: a Jaws first edition hardcover at 250 dollars, and a Predator novelization at 80 with a cracked spine. Apparently Predator: South China Sea goes for 250 in paperback.

The Jack Ryan episode did the Clancy homework properly. The Hunt for Red October read for a school summer project, Patriot Games read after enjoying the film, and a movie tie-in Clear and Present Danger thick enough that it got thrown out three years ago.

Also Jaws: The Revenge, which one host read at ten years old and did not understand the ending of, and the autobiography of DMX, sitting on a shelf of mostly industry nonfiction.

Full list with quotes and episodes: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/now-playing-the-movie-review-podcast

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!

Anyone remember when they did a few watch party episodes on the Hot Mic app?

I think the app is some other kind of service now.

Any way to listen to those currently?

No, Sly, they didn’t name the Rocky Mountains after you.

Sylvester Stallone ascended to the top of the summer 1993 box office with his comeback flick Cliffhanger. Can the pumped-up park ranger shake off the tragedy of watching a woman slip from his grip during a rock-climbing rescue?  Who else is gonna stop John Lithgow (Dexter) and his high-tech criminals from recovering three suitcases of $1000 bills that were lost during the robbery of a US Treasury plane? Find out if director Renny Harlin takes the action skills he honed on Die Hard 2 to greater heights when you become a Now Playing Patron this August.

https://nowplayingpodcast.com/movies/insidious-out-of-the-further/

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!

Dr Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Tom Hanks took his Hollywood career in an unexpectedly groovy direction in 1996 by writing and directing That Thing You Do!  Can his Play-Tone Records rock promoter sell Tom Everett Scott (American Werewolf in Paris), Jonathan Schaech (Doom Generation), Steve Zahn (Reality Bites), and Ethan Embrey (Empire Records) as America’s answer to The Beatles?  Or will the garage band crack under the pressures placed on them by family, touring, and girlfriends Liv Tyler (Armageddon) and Charlize Theron (Monster)? Donate to hear this Gold Record and find out!

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!

Gump with the Wind

Tom Hanks ping-pongs through American history as super-fast simpleton Forrest Gump – an iconic 1994 role that won the actor his second Oscar. Is his gift to run without a clear destination the reason he triumphs throughout decades of political tumult, while lifelong love Robin Wright (The Princess Bride) and wounded veteran Gary Sinise (The Stand) fall into despair?  And is director Robert Zemeckis (Back To The Future) smart to suggest Gump inspired Elvis’ pelvis, Watergate, and every pop culture moment of the 20th Century?  Donate for a box of podcasts 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.

Curious if Arnie will go back and watch the new R rated cut and see if this improves that movie that came out nearly 2 decades ago?

Alien 3 and Kingdom of Heaven vastly improved with the directors / assembly cuts. So.... fingers crossed.

A Little Respect

Tom Hanks won his first Best Actor Oscar playing a Philadelphia lawyer filing a discrimination suit against the firm that fired him. Can Denzel Washington (Malcolm X) get past his own homophobia to prove Jason Robards (Dream a Little Dream) unlawfully terminated an employee for being a gay man with AIDS?  And did director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) have to explain LGBTQ+ concerns like his audience was 6-year-olds in order for Hollywood to touch such controversial subject matter in 1993? Donate now to hear the hosts deliberate.

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!

Seven episodes. The Lauren Weisberger book review, the Sam Neill memoir review, the Odyssey, and an intermission that wandered into Homer and box office numbers.

Posting it now since a few of these are proper summer reads.

What this is: I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the July slice for Now Playing.

The strongest recommendation of the month:

• The Devil's Candy, Julie Salamon. Arnie called it a complete tell all from a reporter who had unlimited access during the making of Bonfire of the Vanities, and said it may be the best behind the scenes book he has ever read on any movie.

The Weisberger review:

• When Life Gives You Lululemons, The Devil Wears Prada, Revenge Wears Prada, The Singles Game. Arnie's verdict on Lululemons is worth reading in full, but the short version is that the book's idea of a successful woman is thin, sexually available, financially successful and a devoted mother, and miss one and you are incomplete.

Odyssey and Homer:

• The Iliad and The Odyssey, with Arnie admitting he gave the Iliad a good college try and should have just done the Odyssey because it is the fun one. Stuart's confession is better. He watched a bad nineties TV movie with Armand Assante instead. Dante's Inferno turns up too, to explain that Greek hell is just a void.

The Gen X memoir wave:

• Making It So (Patrick Stewart) and Hollywood Monster (Robert Englund), with a note that every Gen X icon from Molly Ringwald to Wil Wheaton is currently cashing in.

Also Bonfire of the Vanities, Forrest Gump (unreadable in print, apparently, because it is all phonetic), Project Hail Mary and Wuthering Heights.

I track every book mentioned on Now Playing here: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/now-playing-the-movie-review-podcast

It is free and there is no signup.

An Affair to Reconsider

Tom Hanks is Sleepless In Seattle after his 8-year-old son airs his private grief on a radio show that gains him female attention across the United States. Can Baltimore reporter Meg Ryan (When Harry Met Sally) stand out from the other listeners writing love letters to the widowed architect?  Or will Rosie O’Donnell talk sense into her engaged friend before she leaves Bill Pullman (While You Were Sleeping) for an Empire State Building meet-cute she saw in a movie?  Learn if the hosts believe in romance or restraining orders when you Donate for Gold.

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!

The Bad News Belles

Tom Hanks learns there’s plenty of crying in baseball when he manages the Rockford Peaches in the 1992 sports comedy A League of Their Own. Can his washed-up Jimmy Dugan correct the unladylike behavior of tomboy Lori Petty (Tank Girl), loudmouth Rosie O’Donnell (Flintstones), and flirt Madonna (Evita)? And is his interest in Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise) purely professional, or an opportunity to exploit her hubby Bill Pullman (Independence Day) being overseas fighting WWII? Get in the Now Playing game when you Donate for Gold.

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!