Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in January 2021
Now Playing Podcast enters its 14th year in 2021 and still hasn’t run out of movies to talk about.
The first month of the new year is very much like many months in 2020 – devoid of new theatrical releases, save for the latest effort from Resident Evil duo Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson. But the month will also see the kickoff of two all-new retrospectives; the highly requested The Omen series and the Uwe Boll adaptations of the Bloodrayne video game franchise.
January 2021 also includes an exclusive review for Podbean patrons, one chosen by a Now Playing listener. Without further ado, here’s everything coming to Now Playing Podcast in January 2021.
January 1 – Pumping Iron
Now Playing listener and Podbean patron Clark Fisher chose 1977’s acclaimed bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron as January’s exclusive Podbean review. The film famously follows the efforts of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, and others as they compete for the Mr. Olympia title. For many, Pumping Ironwas their first exposure to Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno, before their Hollywood breakthroughs in the late 1970s and 1980s. If anything, it will also provide some exercise and muscle-building tips for those looking to fulfill their New Year’s resolutions at the gym.
January 5 – Bloodrayne
In the early aughts, Hollywood was still giving director Uwe Boll a chance to turn video game franchises into hit movies. For 2005’s Bloodrayne, Boll cast up and comers — Michelle Rodriguez (The Fast & the Furious), Matthew Davis (Blue Crush), and Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) – alongside established actors Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) and Ben Kingsley (Ghandi) in a tale of a fearless vampire heroine battling the forces of evil. Bloodrayne was not a hit, but still managed to spawn two sequels, both directed by Boll. Arnie, Stuart, and Justin will attempt to suppress their gag reflexes while reviewing the trilogy in January.
January 8 – The Omen
Who is he? What does he want? Where does he come from? And can he be stopped? Before Superman, director Richard Donner had a smash with the horror hit The Omen, which tells the tale of Damien Thorn, the Antichrist, and his unsuspecting parents. Starring Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, Harvey Stephens, and David Warner, The Omen spawned a franchise that includes three sequels and a 2006 remake. It is available via Podbean and PayPal as part of Now Playing Podcast’s 2020 Fall/Winter Donation Drive.
January 12 – Bloodrayne: Deliverance
Two years after Bloodrayne bombed, Uwe Boll delivered a sequel set in the Old West. This time, vampire heroine Rayne is portrayed by Norwegian model/actress Natassia Malthe, with the backing of Boll regular Brendan Fletcher, A Christmas Story’s Zack Ward, and Eddie and the Cruisers star Michael Pare. Bloodrayne: Deliverance currently boasts a 0 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, but surely it has one fan out there? Maybe Boll?
January 15 – Damien: Omen II
Spoiler alert: Damien survives the first Omen and returns for the 1978 sequel, this time a little older and portrayed by Bugsy Malone’s Jonathan Scott-Taylor. William Holden and Lee Grant are also on board for the horror sequel, along with science fiction and horror vet Lance Henriksen and Mannequin star Meshach Taylor. If that’s not enough to get you fired up, just wait until you see the finale.
January 19 – Bloodrayne: The Third Reich
Uwe Boll brought back Natassia Malthe and company for the third Bloodrayne film, which takes place in 1943 and sees vampire Rayne taking on the Nazis. This time, Clint Howard is also on board, so that might entice a few people to give it a shot. Maybe?
January 22 – Omen III: The Final Conflict
Sam Neill took over the role of Damien for the third Omen film. This time, Damien is all grown up and looking to fulfill his destiny as the Antichrist. “He’s one step away from the most important position on Earth,” boasts the trailer, and Neill is especially devilish in one of his earliest on-screen roles.
January 26 – Monster Hunter
The month’s only theatrical release will likely have gone to premium streaming by the time our hosts get around to it on January 26. Monster Hunter is the latest video game adaptation from director Paul W.S. Anderson and star Milla Jovovich, and follows a squad of soldiers that are transported into a world full of giant monsters. That’s all we can tell from the trailer. Also, Tony Jaa and T.I. are also there.
January 29 – Omen IV: The Awakening
Though The Omen films had performed well at the box office, the series turned to television for its fourth entry. Omen IV: The Awakening focuses on Damien’s daughter, Delia, who terrorizes her adopted parents while learning of her heritage and destiny. Omen IV debuted on FOX in May 1991, during the coveted sweeps period, and then promptly disappeared from memory. Many listeners, however, may recall watching it during its debut screening. Perhaps the trailer will ring some bells.
Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in December 2020
It’s been a long and exhausting year, but Now Playing Podcast is leaving 2020 on a positive note, with nineall-new episodes for listeners and supporters. It’s a good thing December has 31 days.
Here’s everything coming to Now Playing Podcast in December 2020.
December 1 – 48 Hrs.
December was supposed to be the month of Eddie Murphy, with our hosts taking their first real deep dive into the actor/comedian/singer/GOAT’s filmography. But now that Amazon has moved the Coming to America sequel to March, it’s going to be the “half-month” of Murphy. Now Playing kicks things off December 4 with a review of 1982’s 48 Hrs. Directed by Walter Hill and co-starring Nick Nolte, this was the film that launched Murphy’s film career and gave audiences a glimpse at the star beyond Saturday Night Live. Let’s see how some of the movie’s rougher edges hold up with modern audiences.
December 4 – Rosemary’s Baby
Roman Polanski’s classic horror tale headlines the Gold Level of Now Playing’s 2020 Fall/Winter Donation Series. Rosemary’s Baby follows Mia Farrow’s expectant mother, who fears a satanic cult is after her baby. The film is recognized as a hallmark of the art-horror genre, spawning a television film sequel and a 2014 remake.
December 8 – Another 48 Hrs.
Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte got back together in 1990 for a sequel to their first team-up. Another 48 Hrs. arrived at a time when sequels were experimenting with titles that didn’t involve numbers. That’s how we got movies like Another Stakeout and Teen Wolf Too. There was even a made-for-TV sequel to Splash called Splash, Too.
December 11 – Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby
Speaking of made-for-TV sequels, a very loosely connected sequel dubbed Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby premiered on ABC in October 1976. This time, it’s Patty Duke in the lead role. While the first Rosemary’s Baby has been enshrined in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, the sequel has been uploaded to YouTube. You can watch through the link below and ready yourself for the review on December 11.
December 15 – Stephen King’s Golden Years
Now Playing makes a quick pivot back to its long-running Stephen King retrospective on December 15, with a review of 1991’s CBS miniseries, Stephen King’s Golden Years. It’s about a man named Harlan Williams – not the comic actor Harland Williams – who realizes he’s aging in reverse. The miniseries ran for seven episodes in the summer, so you’re forgiven if you’ve never heard of it.
December 18 – Rosemary’s Baby (2014)
NBC tried to reinvent Rosemary’s Baby with a two-part, four-hour adaptation that aired during the 2014 May “sweeps” ratings period. This time, Zoe Saldana takes over the Rosemary role, with Patrick J. Adams and Jason Isaacs also on board. The miniseries wasn’t a ratings or critical hit, but our hosts will give it another look on December 18.
December 22 – Tenet
At last, Now Playing gets a chance to review one of the many would-be blockbusters that got pushed back by the pandemic. Tenet got a theatrical release in September, but with so many theaters closed it failed to meet expectations in the U.S. It’s hitting disc and digital on December 15, so all of our hosts will have a chance to watch and review it.
December 25 – Trading Places
It will truly be a happy and merry Christmas when the Now Playing review of Trading Places arrives on December 25. The 1983 comedy further solidified Eddie Murphy’s reputation as a box office draw and helped Jamie Lee Curtis break away from “scream queen” roles she’d been stuck playing since Halloween. The Trading Places review will be released exclusively for Now Playing’s Podbean patrons, and can be unlocked with a pledge of $10 or more.
December 29 – Wonder Woman 1984
First Tenet, now Wonder Woman 1984. It’s like Christmas here at Now Playing. Actually, it is Christmas. The long awaited sequel to the 2017 blockbuster will hit theaters and HBO Max on December 25, giving our hosts enough time to watch and prepare for the December 29 review. The road to Wonder Woman 1984’s release is one of the most talked-about stories of the year, as WarnerMedia took the unprecedented step of releasing the big budget film on streaming. By doing so, they’re risking as much as $1 billion in box office, but many analysts believe it will be worth it in the long run.
An Oral History of Now Playing’s ‘Friday the 13th’ Retrospective
In a crowded field of competing film-focused podcasts, Now Playing Podcast has managed to separate itself from the pack via its acclaimed retrospective format, keeping listeners engaged week after week as the show’s panel of critics chronicle decades of Hollywood franchise hits (and misses).
But it wasn’t always the plan. Now Playing Podcast launched in 2007 as a short-form, off-the-cuff movie review program focused on new releases. Early reviews of Spider-Man 3, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight not only lacked the in-depth conversation that listeners are now accustomed to, but the randomness of the chosen reviews prevented the show from gaining a foothold in the budding podcast space.
Format changes were desperately needed if the show were to succeed in attracting a loyal following. On January 9, 2009, Now Playing debuted its first retrospective; a 12-episode exploration of the Friday the 13thfranchise, building up to the release of the Platinum Dunes-produced remake.
The revised format struck the right chord with listeners. More than 11 years later, the original trio of Arnie Carvalho, Stuart Atkinson, and Brock have reunited. THIS is an oral history of Now Playing’s Friday the 13th Retrospective Series.
Arnie: As a completist, retrospectives have always appealed to me. I remember the day Star Trek V: The Final Frontier came out; I woke up at 1 a.m. so I could watch the first four Trek films and still make it to the first showing of Final Frontier. In the 90s I did a game site in which I’d review all installments of a game series in order of release. I’d even done some podcasting along those lines, with the Star Wars Action News book club, reviewing every Star Wars novel in order of release. Sadly, I can never watch Leonard Part 6 because I can’t find Leonard Parts 1-5.
Stuart had visited Springfield a few months before, and we saw The Midnight Meat Train, since Barker films were something we often watched together. After, Marjorie pretty much stuck a microphone in Stuart’s face and, without him knowing what was really going on, we had our normal post-movie conversation, but on the mic, and it became a podcast. But I also had real fun doing it.
Released on August 8, 2008, The Midnight Meat Train review marked host Stuart Atkinson’s first appearance on Now Playing Podcast. One week later, Brock would join the rotating panel of hosts for a review of Pineapple Express. The podcast continued to utilize two hosts, rather than the standard three that appear in every new episode.
Arnie: I’d mostly stepped away from hosting Now Playing, letting Brock and his wife Elisha take the reins. I’d always insisted the show review current movies, and Brock and I had discussed if it was worth doing new-to-video releases, etc. But then the Friday the 13th reboot arrived, and I got really hyped.
Brock: I remember having a conversation with Arnie about the download numbers on Midnight Meat Train being something we weren’t seeing on other episodes. The horror genre was clearly needing more podcasting content, yet I never thought I’d be involved there; it wasn’t my preferred genre. With a baby on the way, my wife and I knew we weren’t going to be able to see new releases each week, and so we recorded a few new-to-DVD episodes, like Burn After Reading, as a way to stay current enough. But it all changed when Arnie came to me with an idea that combined all of these ideas.
Arnie: I’d had so much fun with Midnight Meat Train that I thought it would be fun to come back and channel my hype for the new Friday film through a podcast. I really wanted Stuart to be a part of it because of Midnight Meat Train.
Stuart: I thought it was an idea slightly worse than when Arnie and I decided to open a detective agency in sixth grade. I couldn’t imagine I’d have 13 minutes of thoughts on the whole franchise, but then I remembered how much I like to talk and it went fine.
Arnie: We’d always had a two-person format, but since Brock had never seen a Friday the 13th film I thought it would be great to bring in that third perspective to balance my fandom and Stuart’s jaded dislike of the series.
Brock: I rented the first Friday the 13th back in high school because I was curious enough to see what spawned all the endless sequels. And I had enough with that first movie. Didn’t feel I was missing anything. I prefer suspense horror movies to slashers. I acknowledged the brilliance of the idea – a fan, a casual or jaded fan, and a newbie discuss each movie in the series leading up to the new movie. But wow, some of those movies felt like I wasted my time watching them, though talking with the guys about the movie didn’t feel like a waste of time at all. Who knew my lack of horror movie experience would pay off?
Arnie: Brock and his wife came to visit us while we were recording the series. As a foursome, Brock, Elisha, Marjorie, and me, we watched Jason Takes Manhattan. I was laughing at the movie, but laughing more at the mortified looks on Brock’s and Elisha’s faces. They weren’t seeing the humor I was in it.
Brock: I found the movie insulting, like it was challenging the viewer to see what depths of dreck they could get us to watch. Being from the suburbs of New York, what nonsense that they think they’d get away with anyone believing that was shot in Manhattan! On a positive side, Arnie and Marjorie were great to have us over to watch the movie, and it was a blast to record with Arnie in person for the first time. Arnie and Marjorie also introduced me to the infamous Springfield culinary concoction known as The Horseshoe!
Arnie: It was never intended to be a long-term thing, just a one-off that wouldn’t even be in the main Now Playing series. Then we saw the download numbers skyrocket, and the rest was history.
Brock: Week after week the numbers kept exploding, getting larger and larger. I remember phone calls with Arnie about the numbers, how the first shows in the series continued to rise, meaning new people were finding the show as we went on, and likely people were returning to listen again. We were just flabbergasted by the response. It was unbelievable.
The Friday the 13th retrospective would establish a number of Now Playing firsts. In addition to establishing the three-host format, it was the first series to receive its own credits – narrated by Brock – with the famed Part III theme used in the introduction and outro. However, longtime listeners recognize the “rawness” of the first retrospective, which lacks the standard plot summary, outtakes, and was plagued by recording challenges.
Brock: I was helping to edit the show back then, and to make it sound as good as it does was a bit of a challenge. Listening now you can clearly hear a difference in sound quality with this first series, but still completely listenable today. The headset mic I had back then wasn’t very good, and my “p’s” would pop something fierce, especially recording the credits. If you listen to the end credits of the Friday the 13th series you can hear how the “p” was edited to be softer on the word “retrospective,” and less noticeably on the ones in “Now Playing Podcast.” It was so hard to not pop my “p’s” saying the name of the show. I recorded those three words over and over and over to get a cleaner recording. The credits back then were so much simpler than what we have today. They were perfunctory, blatantly explaining the format and the concept of the show to the listeners. Arnie was really just starting to skim the surface with interspersing the quotes from the movies into the credits. We took both the podcast concept explanation and movie quotes so much further with the next series, Star Trek.
Arnie: When we recorded the Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan episode, it was a laugh riot, but a mess. I told Stuart and Brock that we had to redo the show because we were all laughing so hard; we were having fun but there wasn’t any context to the jokes — only those who were intimately familiar with Jason Takes Manhattan could follow along.
Brock: While watching the movie was not so enjoyable, the three of us had such a blast busting on that movie together, making each other laugh. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a cohesive show.
Arnie: So we re-recorded the entire episode (one of only four or five shows that we’ve had to do that with in more than a decade). That second recording was solid and had a great explanation of the film, but not the mirth because we’d told each other the jokes. It was pretty flat.
Brock: To recreate it was no fun, we spent all the jokes. It was like your dad having you tell that same stale joke he likes to another one of his friends.
Arnie: I knew what had to be done. I spent about a dozen hours Frankenstein-ing the two conversations into one. The second recording was the skeleton, giving the conversation structure, and the first recording was the meat, the really good part of the show. So I found a place for all of the first recording to liven up the second, and to this day I still think it’s one of our best shows.
Stuart: It’s hilarious to think about now, but I was actually worried that being so opinionated on the podcast would turn me into a Hollywood pariah. Like, Kane Hodder would totally be asking me to write his big horror movie comeback, but then somehow the Jason Takes Manhattan show would reach his ears and he’d start smashing my face in a typewriter or something. Turns out I was pretty good at getting industry doors slammed in my face without Now Playing’s help.
Brock: I too was worried that if I crossed over to the movie critic side of things it would come back to bite me. Like if I ever decided to come out of retirement from performing I would be confronted, chewed out and denied opportunities by angry performers, producers, and filmmakers.
Despite two edits to make the show listenable, there remained some issues that took years to iron out.
Arnie: When I saw Jason Takes Manhattan in theaters I was 14 and my (much) older sister and brother-in-law took me. At that showing my brother-in-law went on and on about how Peter Mark Richman, who plays the McCulloch character, was the guy who played Dr. Smith on Lost in Space. He talked about it endlessly and, him being older and having watched a lot of Lost in Space, I believed him; and I passed that misinformation on to our listeners on the show. Man, did I get lambasted for that. For a decade I’d constantly get emails from new listeners telling me that the actor was Peter Mark Richman, not Jonathan Harris. Finally, in 2019, for that episode’s 10th anniversary, I went back to the original file and edited the show again to remove that error. I hadn’t edited it before because it seemed like a cop out but finally I excised that one sentence that people fixated on.
With no new entries since 2009, Friday the 13th is the oldest Now Playing retrospective without a sequel, remake, or reboot on the horizon. A legal battle between the first film’s director and screenwriter has kept Jason Voorhees off the screen for more than a decade; fortunately the hosts have their favorite entries to fall back on.
Stuart: Sticking with the “proper” entries in the series, Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives is still the most technically proficient and exciting. Plus, that Alice Cooper song was dope!
Arnie: For the solo Jason films, I agree that Part 6 is the best, but I like Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter just a little bit better. Corey Feldman was the best Tommy Jarvis of the three, plus there’s Crispin Glover’s weirdness, Teddy watching vintage porn; it had so many memorable characters and moments that I always enjoyed watching it most. It’s the only Friday the 13th to cast a shadow. No other protagonist returned for any other sequels, only Jarvis came back.
Brock: The one I remember liking the most is Jason X, because it had all sorts of enjoyable moments, I felt I was in on the joke the whole time, and what a fun ending. It is absolutely wonderfully insane enjoyable entry in the series.
Stuart: Freddy vs. Jason is clearly the best movie, though maybe not the best Friday the 13th movie.
Brock: Recording Freddy vs Jason for this series I felt so lost when the guys were talking about how it was more of A Nightmare on Elm Street movie. When we came back to it again for the Nightmare series, it was an entirely different experience.
Arnie: The outhouse death in Part V is classic [but] Freddy vs. Jason is the best movie with Jason in it. It’s funny, fun, and brings a lot of action into the brawl. I think that movie was why I was so excited for a new Jason film.
The Now Playing Podcast Friday the 13th Retrospective Series wrapped on February 20, 2009, with a “wrap-up” episode in which the hosts looked back at the series. To this day, it remains the only “wrap-up” for a retrospective. The state of the Friday the 13th franchise remains in limbo, with no new film in production as of November 2020.
Sequester & Chill: Summer Streaming Surprises
The pandemic may have spoiled the summer movie season, but that doesn’t mean there are no summer movies.
It’s been a summer movie season like no other. Some would say we didn’t have a summer movie season, with the likes of Maverick: Top Gun 2, Fast and Furious 9, Black Widow, Tenet, and many other highly anticipated blockbusters being punted to the future.
Yet, there were still many movies released.
Out of necessity, the practice of straight-to-streaming exploded this summer. Less than a year ago, many considered such a release as a monstrous curiosity that would destroy cinemas (see Scorsese’s The Irishman), but when there are no cinemas, or a communal viewing experience isn’t safe, distributors and streaming services combined to give cinephiles a way to experience new movies.
And some of them were really, really good!
Here’s a list of “new summer movies” I saw and most certainly recommend*:
Palm Springs
After Hot Rod and That’s My Boy I have avoided Andy Samberg like a COVID-19 ward, but good word of mouth had me visit Palm Springs and it was a good trip! There have been many movies to try and take the Groundhog Day repeating-day conceit, but I can think of none that had such interesting characters. It was funny and had some character-driven plot twists that kept me engaged.
If you see only one repeating-day film, see Groundhog Day. But if you want to see another, head to Palm Springs.
My Spy
It’s the dearth of new entertainment that led me to watch Dave Bautista’s entry in the “muscle man with kids” genre. Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger broke out of his big-guns stereotype and became a family-friendly name with Kindergarten Cop it seems every wrestler-turned-actor has tried to copy that success. Some of these comedies work (I enjoyed The Game Plan),and some don’t (Hulk Hogan in Mr. Nanny).
After trying the insipid Stuber I wasn’t inclined to see My Spy but… I did. And it exceeded all my expectations. The chemistry between Bautista and child actress Chloe Coleman feels very natural, and the plot avoids several of the Kindergarten Cop cliches.
In a year that also brought the near-unwatchable Playing with Fire, My Spy was a fun diversion.
The Lovebirds
When this was intended for theatrical release the trailers made the film look funny. Kumail Nanjiani really impressed me with The Big Sick so I’m more inclined to see his work (though with Stuber that was a poor choice).
Lovebirds follows Nanjiani and costar Issa Rae as a couple on the verge of break-up. Well, nothing brings the spark back into a releationship as being on the run for a murder you didn’t commit. The result is the couple trying to find the real killer, uncovering a major conspiracy of Eyes Wide Shut orgiastic proportions, and making me laugh the whole way through.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge
It shouldn’t be difficult to make a Mortal Kombat movie. The stories are pre-written for the characters, the filmmakers then need to dramatize those stories in an interesting way.
Legends differentiates itself from previous Kombat movies by focusing on Scorpion. He was a near-mute ninja in the live-action films. Here, he is the protagonist.
The story is pretty rote. Scorpion is a felled warrior resurrected for revenge (see also: The Crow, The Wraith, Spawn, etc.) but the plot does have a few twists. For fans of the previous Kombat games or movies, seeing the classic characters brings a nostalgic thrill.
The only drawback is the animated action. It’s well-drawn, but either you like cartoon fighting or you don’t, and it never thrilled me in any animated form. I much prefer seeing stuntmen do well-choreographed martial arts to seeing artists’ renderings.
It’s not at Flawless Victory, but Scorpion wins.
*For the sake of this list, only movies released as movies were included. Mini-series that really played like long movies, like Defending Jacob, were excluded becuase their episodic format labels them “TV Series”
Now Playing Podcast Hosts May 1 ‘Jason Takes Manhattan’ Watch Party
For the first time since 2009, Now Playing Podcast is going back to Crystal Lake. It will be a brief return, because we’re then hopping a boat for the Big Apple!
On Friday, May 1 at 9 p.m. EST, Now Playing will host a LIVE Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan watch party on Hot Mic, marking our return to the Friday franchise. Now Playing launched its retrospective format 11 years ago, covering the entire Jason Voorhees saga in anticipation of the Platinum Dunes remake.
Over the years, listeners have been requesting a revisit, noting that the original Friday reviews lacked the polish of future Now Playing episodes. It’s true, the show didn’t find its footing until we established the retrospective format, and while we eschewed the idea of re-recording those old shows, we couldn’t resist the idea of a live watch party with listeners.
If you don’t have a copy of Jason Takes Manhattan lying around, we’ll be streaming the movie on Amazon Prime Video. Join us at 9 p.m. and “press play” with our hosts to stay in sync.
If you missed our Oscars party and don’t have the Hot Mic app on your phone, here’s what to do:
1. Download the Hot Mic app
2. Sign up with invite code NOWPLAYING
3. Join us at 9p EST!
It’s that easy. We’ll see you soon Class of ’89!
Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in May 2020
Moviegoing looked much different at the start of 2020, with Marvel’s Black Widow and the Chris Rock-led Spiral: From the Book of Saw among the films Now Playing Podcast was set to review in the month of May.
With at least one major movie theater chain vowing to keep its doors closed until there is new Hollywood product to roll out, Now Playing Podcast has reorganized its schedule for May; with Stephen King, Steven Spielberg, and a highly anticipated live watch party added alongside new entries in the Viral Outbreak and Tom Cruise: Movie Star of the 80s retrospectives.
Here’s everything coming to Now Playing Podcast in May 2020:
May 1 LIVE Friday the 13th Watch Party on Hot Mic
Want to spend an evening at the movies with Now Playing Podcast? If that’s a yes, then grab your sleeping bags campers, because Now Playing is going back to Crystal Lake! On Friday, May 1 at 9 p.m. EST, Now Playing Podcast will host a live Friday the 13th watch party on Hot Mic. The entire Now Playing team is taking part in the show, giving listeners the chance to interact with hosts as they watch one of the Friday films streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Listeners who download the Hot Mic app and sign up with the invite code NOWPLAYING will be able to see and chat with the hosts in real time, as they revisit the iconic horror franchise for the first time since Now Playing Podcast’s inaugural 2009 retrospective.
May 5 Outbreak
After four episodes examining pandemic disaster films from the 1950s to 1980s, Now Playing Podcast ventures further into virus territory with its review of 1995’s Outbreak. The thriller, directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, and Cuba Gooding Jr., centers on a team of doctors trying to contain the spread of an Ebola-like virus in small town California.
May 8 Cocktail
Back in 1986, Tom Cruise and Top Gun inspired a generation of would-be Maverick’s to join the U.S. Navy. Two years later, the actor inspired everyone to go to bartending school with Cocktail. The romantic drama, which grossed more than $170 million back in its day, stars Cruise as a business student who becomes a bartender under the tutelage of F/X star Bryan Brown. While it was a box office hit, Cocktail’s enduring legacy may be its soundtrack, featuring The Beach Boys hit “Kokomo.”
May 12 The Andromeda Strain (2008)
Michael Crichton’s viral thriller was turned into an A&E miniseries in 2008, with Benjamin Bratt, Andre Braugher, and Viola Davis among the headlining cast. For the remake, Crichton’s novel was condensed into a four-hour saga airing over two nights. While the premise of an alien germ remains intact, the “reimagining” will have a much different tone than its 1971 predecessor.
May 15 Rain Man
Tom Cruise may have been the biggest movie star of the 1980s, but he wasn’t too good to share the screen with fellow film greats. In 1988, Cruise starred as the brother of Dustin Hoffman’s autistic Rain Man in a film that helped bulk up his dramatic chops, as well as his box office clout. Though it was Hoffman who took home Best Actor accolades for Rain Man, the film helped propel Cruise further up the ladder of stars who can do action, comedy, and drama.
May 18 Contagion
While it was a box office hit upon release in 2011, Steven Soderbergh’s has gained new life in the streaming sphere, climbing the charts and becoming one of the most-watched films during the coronavirus pandemic. The film, which is praised for its medical accuracy, follows the spread of an airborne respiratory virus that originated in China. The parallels are jarring, which is why audiences have returned to the film, and why it will serve as the finale to Now Playing Podcast’s Viral Outbreak retrospective.
May 22 Born on the Fourth of July
Tom Cruise earned a Golden Globe Award and his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his turn as Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July. The biography traces Kovic’s life from Long Island to Vietnam and back to the United States, where, as a paralyzed veteran, he becomes a prominent voice in the anti-war movement. Born serves as the penultimate review in Now Playing’s Tom Cruise: Movie Star of the 80s retrospective, which ends with the release of Top Gun: Maverick in December 2020.
The Tommyknockers
The success of It spawned a wave of Stephen King television miniseries adaptations in the 1990s, with The Tommyknockers arriving on ABC in May 1993. The John Power-directed miniseries starred Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger as a poet and writer, respectively, who see their town transformed following the discovery of an alien spacecraft.
May Patron Review AI: Artificial Intelligence
Originally intended to be Stanley Kubrick’s follow-up to Eyes Wide Shut, this story of humanoid robot portrayed by The Sixth Sense’s Haley Joel Osment examines a future in which machines are capable of developing real emotions, as well as the consequences of global warming on the human population. After Kubrick’s sudden death, Steven Spielberg resurrected the picture, and it was released in summer 2001 to critical acclaim. AI: Artificial Intelligence is a Podbean patron exclusive review, chosen by a Now Playing Podcast listener.
Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in April 2020
With movie theaters around the globe shuttered and the COVID-19 pandemic postponing new releases for months, the Now Playing Podcast team has been rearranging its April 2020 (and beyond) schedule in order to keep up with the changes.
The fourth month of 2020 will see Now Playing Podcast debuting its “Viral Outbreak” retrospective, a deep dive into Hollywood’s most memorable pandemic and medical disaster dramas. Part “exposure therapy” and part history lesson, the series will examine the realistic (and often unrealistic) portrayals of virus movies on screen; and kicks off with Elia Kazan’s 1950 noir drama Panic In the Streets. In the weeks ahead, the retrospective will jump from decade to decade, showcasing films such as The Andromeda Strain, Outbreak, and Contagion.
While listeners get their “viral” fix on the main feed, Now Playing Podcast will continue its “Tom Cruise: Star of the 80s” retrospective as part of its Spring/Summer 2020 donation drive. Donors at the Gold Level will have already heard reviews of Losin’ It and Risky Business in March; with All the Right Moves arriving on April 3.
Here’s everything coming to Now Playing Podcast in April 2020.
April 3 – All the Right Moves
Hunky jock Tom Cruise butts heads with curmudgeonly coach Craig T. Nelson while romancing 80s icon Lea Thompson. Need we say more? All the Right Moves hit theaters in 1983 but the legacy lives forever, especially if you pause it just right. At least, that’s what we heard.
April 7 – Panic in the Streets
Elia Kazan directs the story of a New Orleans community overcome by paranoia (and panic) as a flu-like illness begins to spread. Like many films in the 1950s, there are underlying themes and metaphors woven throughout the production. The film kicks off Now Playing Podcast’s “Viral Outbreak” retrospective.
April 10 – Legend
Alien director Ridley Scott cast Cruise as the hero of his 1985 fantasy film, which is notable for Tim Curry’s “Lord of Darkness” makeup and its many different cuts. Legend is also notable for being the last Cruise film before Top Gun, when he became Tom Cruise, Movie Star.
April 14 – The Satan Bug
Loosely based on the novel of the same name, 1965’s The Satan Bug focused on a bioweapon with the potential to wipe out all life on the planet. To tell you anymore would give the plot away!
April 17 – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire is one of the most acclaimed films of its era, and the April 17 review arrives courtesy of Now Playing Podcast listener Clark Fisher, who chose the film through the show’s Podbean platform. Although a comedy, Dr. Strangelove’s examination of Cold War paranoia struck several nerves in its day, and still resonates nearly 60 years later.
April 21 – The Andromeda Strain
Virus movies took a turn into the realm of science fiction with Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain. The 1971 thriller, based off of Crichton’s novel, followed the spread of an alien germ after it attaches to a satellite and crashes in the New Mexico desert.
April 24 – Top Gun
Crank up the Kenny Loggins, because Now Playing heads to the “Danger Zone” on April 24. Top Guncemented Cruise’s star status when it hit theaters in 1986, and the film’s devoted following paved the way for this year’s sequel – still scheduled to be released on June 24, although the date may change.
April 28 – Warning Sign
One of the lesser known entries in Now Playing’s “Viral Outbreak” series will surely be 1985’s Warning Sign, which chronicles the release of a biological weapon inside a secret laboratory and the panicked, violent reaction of those inside. The film, which did not make an impact at the box office, stars Sam Waterston, Kathleen Quinlan, Yaphet Kotto, Jeffrey DeMunn, and GW Bailey.
Why That ‘Fast & Furious 9’ Reveal Weakens the Franchise
Han is alive. Take a moment, Fast & Furious fans, to let that sink in.
Sung Kang’s character returned to the franchise in the final moments of the Fast & Furious 9 (or F9, if you prefer) trailer, which arrived Friday via a massive Miami-set concert showcase that reunited fans with longtime stars Vin Diesel, Tyrese Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, and Nathalie Emmanuel.
F9, which also marks the return of popular series helmer Justin Lin, pits Diesel’s Dom Toretto against John Cena’s Jakob, a villain who is revealed to be (surprise!) Dom’s brother. The familial connection proves that Fastisn’t straying from its soap opera-like formula, but the resurrection of Kang’s Han Lue was the out-of-nowhere twist that left the largest impression, considering the character was last seen in the driver’s seat of an exploding Mazda RX-7.
The winding, continuity-challenged framework of this franchise — charming to fans and headache-inducing to others – is difficult to follow, but for the uninitiated, here is where things stand.
Han was introduced and killed off in 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, a film that, outside of a Vin Diesel cameo, was thought to have no connection to the original. However, Han returned for 2009’s Fast & Furious, 2011’s Fast Five, and 2013’s Fast & Furious 6. It’s later revealed that Tokyo Drift takes place after Fast & Furious 6, with Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw taking credit for Han’s murder. The same death sequence is also replayed at the beginning of 2015’s Furious 7, sending Dom into a fury and serving as the impetus for the film’s revenge plot.
Now, three sequels and one spinoff later, Han returns in F9, still munching on potato chips — a character trait that lets the audience know it’s really him.
Following the trailer’s release, “Han Is Alive” and “Justice for Han” became top trending topics on Twitter, with fans rejoicing at the return of the franchise favorite. While Han’s return should be a celebratory moment, it raises an important question: What happens when there are no stakes left in this series?
Fast has pulled the back-from-the-dead stunt once before, with Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty Ortiz returning in Fast & Furious 6 after her character was killed off in 2009’s Fast & Furious. Letty’s death, like Han’s, was a game-changer, but, as fans know, the franchise is all about family, and the creative forces behind the scenes just can’t seem to move on.
Even the villains of Fast & Furious live to antagonize our heroes another day, with Statham among those who have taken on anti-hero roles in subsequent films. Charlize Theron is back in F9 after her cyber-terrorist villain, Cypher, survived the events of 2017’s The Fate of the Furious. Knowing what we know, it would be truly shocking if John Cena’s heel turn lasted more than one film, as the WWE star will surely survive the events of F9.
It should be noted that the death that most impacted the franchise occurred offscreen, when Paul Walker was killed in a car wreck in 2013. His character, Brian O’Connor, was “retired” and given an emotional sendoff at the end of Furious 7.
Nine films in (10 if you count spinoff Hobbs & Shaw), Fast & Furious has taken great care to preserve its remaining core. But at what cost? How can characters evolve if every tragedy gets a do-over?
Star Wars fans just went through a similar experience in December, with Chewbacca’s “death” in The Rise of Skywalker. The iconic character was thought to have been killed when Daisy Ridley’s Rey zapped a First Order prisoner transport with Sith lightning. Just as the emotional weight of Chewie’s death was sinking it, Rey learned she zapped a different transport, and the Wookie was still alive. For a moment, fans thought Star Wars had actually gone there. The filmmakers had the rug pulled out from under the audience, only to have Chewbacca reappear, still alive and waiting to be rescued.
No tears. No loss. No risk. Luke Skywalker even drives it home, proclaiming, “No one is ever really gone.”
Fast & Furious revels in its melodrama and “family is everything” attitude. But its unrelenting loyalty to the family comes at the expense of advancing the story and its characters. The franchise turns 20 years old in 2021. Its Day One fans have grown up, maybe it’s time Fast did too.
Everything Coming to Now Playing Podcast in February 2020
If there’s one thing we love about February 2020, it’s an extra day (thanks Leap Year!) to listen to Now Playing Podcast. The month features a pair of new theatrical releases, bookended by new entries in the show’s King Kong retrospective, and the final episode in Now Playing’s 2019 Fall/Winter Donation Drive.
Mark your calendars, listeners, here’s everything coming to Now Playing Podcast in February 2020:
Tuesday, February 4 – King Kong Lives
It took 10 years to produce a sequel to the Dino De Laurentiis King Kong remake, and after you get a taste of King Kong Lives, you’ll wonder why the hell anyone bothered. The 1986 monster movie, starring Terminator icon Linda Hamilton, was a notorious bomb in theaters, putting the ape on ice for nearly 20 years. King Kong Lives could be “so bad it’s brown arrow good,” but we’ll have to hear what Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob think. Their review arrives on February 4.
Friday, February 7 – Rush Hour 3
The third (and so far, final) entry in the East-meets-West buddy cop franchise caps Now Playing’s 2019 Fall/Winter Donation Drive, a 20-episode run that includes the I Am Legend, Zombieland, Ju-on/The Grudge, and Rush Hour franchises. The second Rush Hour sequel sees Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan take their act to Paris, where audiences are treated to, presumably, a series of comic misunderstandings, stunt sequences, and old married couple bickering between the two leads.
Tuesday, February 11 – Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn escapes the stench of Suicide Squad and splits from the Joker in this DC Extended Universe team-up, which partners the villain with Black Canary, Huntress, Gotham PD’s Renee Montoya, and future Batgirl Cassandra Cain. The Quinn-tet will face off against Ewan McGregor’s Black Mask and a new iteration of serial killer Victor Zsasz. We’ll see if there are any other cameos in store for loyal DC fans.
Tuesday, February 18 – Sonic the Hedgehog
Now Playing’s long running video game retrospective makes a return in February, as Arnie, Stuart, and Justin chase down Sonic the Hedgehog. The 90s video game mascot makes his big screen debut in a hybrid CGI/live-action caper that, so far, is famous for botching the hero’s familiar design. After social media-induced hysterics forced the filmmakers to retool Sonic’s look, the film will finally hit theaters on Valentine’s Day, with Now Playing’s review arriving on February 18.
Tuesday, February 25 – King Kong (2005)
Peter Jackson’s 2005 take on King Kong grossed more than a half-billion dollars back in its day and remains one of the most critically acclaimed in the franchise. How the CGI spectacle holds up in the era of the Monsterverse will be one of the topics up for debate when Arnie, Stuart, and Jakob review the picture on February 25. If you missed the first episodes in the King Kong retrospective, which covers the 1933 original and its sequel, along with a pair of Toho-produced sequels, you can hear them in the Now Playing archives.
But wait, there’s more!
February Patron Review – Closer
Now Playing gets serious – seriously romantic – in February with a new review chosen by one of its listeners. The hosts will cover Mike Nichols’ acclaimed 2004 romantic drama Closer, starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen as part of its monthly Patron-sponsored series of reviews. This one comes courtesy of listener Jeff Roy, who chose the movie after backing Now Playing on Podbean.
Now Playing Podcast Host Arnie’s 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2020
It seemed in 2019 I was anxious each month for a new film. From Glass (a super-villain team-up!) to Avengers: Endgame (how can they follow up infinity war?) to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino back with DiCaprio and Pitt in a Charles Manson story!) to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (can they end on a high note?) there were so many films that had me hyped.
As we start 2020 my list is much shorter than 2019’s, but there are still some films that have me shivering with antici…….pation. Here’s the top 10:
10. The New Mutants (April 10)
Anticipation doesn’t always mean I expect it to be good. The X-Men films have been on a steady decline since First Class, and the years of delays, rumors of reshoots, then rumors that the reshoots didn’t happen, mean this film is likely to be a incomprehensible mess. Still…after wondering if it would ever come out, that they released a new trailer and it looks to actually be happening has me ready.
9. Fantasy Island (Feb 14)
How I picture a few dozen Valentine’s Day conversations (or maybe just mine):
Him: “Hey honey, for Valentine’s Day let’s go to Fantasy Island!”
Her: “Sure!”
Him: “This Fantasy Island has Hostel like torture and Wishmaster level ironies”
Her: “Ummm… How about dinner out instead?”
I can’t imagine why Blumhouse took a license like Fantasy Island only to make something so vastly different from the Aaron Spelling cheese-fest that ruled early ’80s television.
It could be laughably bad, or it could actually be Happy Death Day level fun. I’m hoping for the latter.
8. Black Widow (May 1)
Post Endgame I find little excitement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Its stars have left. They’re in what a sports team would call a “rebuilding year.” So they’re banking on their biggest marquee star, Scarlett Johansson, to launch us into Phase 4 with the second female-led Marvel film.
But…why? Didn’t she die in Endgame? If this is, as Marvel claims, a movie set in the past, between Civil War and Infinity War, what does it have to offer the Universe?
It looks exciting, the jokes in the trailer are funny, but there’s lots of funny action films. That alone wouldn’t put this movie on the list.
Two things make me ready for the Widow‘s sting–first, Johansson has taken Black Widow from a horrible inconvenience (Iron Man 2) to a rich main player (I still think The Winter Soldier featured her best). She deserved a solo film, and it will likely be very good.
But…is it possible Marvel is lying? Could there be bigger surprises in store? The glimpse of a very de-aged General Ross (William Hurt) in the trailer makes me hope there will be some Universe-impacting surprises yet to come…
7. Wonder Woman 1984 (June 5)
The DC connected movie universe has more hits than misses, but the original Wonder Woman was one of the brightest spots. I was skeptical about this sequel when I heard Kristen Wiig (Ghostbusters 2016, SNL) was hired to play Cheetah…but when that first trailer arrived I was hooked.
The ’80s aesthetic, the idea that the bad guy is what defined the ’80s–ambition–and the humor in the return of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) makes this look like a DC movie that would actually be fun! So let’s go to the mall…today!
(But, I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for New Order and so putting “Blue Monday” under any trailer is likely to get my hype level up.)
6. Underwater (January 10)
This movie seems to have no buzz about it. The premiere showings are tonight as I write this, but no one is talking about Underwater…and I don’t know why.
Kristen Stewart has proven herself a capable actress, and was practically the only good part of last year’s Charlie’s Angels. To see her take on a Ripley role in this film that looks completely like Alien underwater has made this a must-see.
5. Bill & Ted Face the Music (August 21)
When we last saw the Wild Stallyns they seemed ready to become a global phenomenon of hair metal music. Unfortunately their music never lead to nirvana as Nirvana brought a new sound that changed public tastes.
I’ll admit on paper the idea of bringing these two righteous dudes back together 31 years after their Excellent Adventure seems like a bad idea. And I imagine Alex Winter wasn’t one to turn down a gig. But Keanu Reeves has had his (2nd? 3rd?) career renaissance. He doesn’t need Bill & Ted. Something in Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon’s screenplay (the writers of the two original Journeys) must have captured his imagination. He even shaved his beard for the role!
I’ll be there opening weekend, ready to air guitar with this blast from the past.
4. No Time to Die (April 10)
At 51 Daniel Craig may feel a little old to play Bond…James Bond, but he’s still six years younger than Roger Moore in A View to a Kill so let’s have some optimism!
Craig has produced two of the best Bond movies in Casino Royale an Skyfall (still my favorite all-time Bond film). Then there were the forgettable Quantum of Solace and ill-advised Spectre.
If the pattern holds, then Craig’s odd-numbered films are the great ones…and Rami Malek impressed the hell out of me with his performances in both Mr. Robot and Bohemian Rhapsody. No Time to Die has me ready to be shaken, not stirred, by another spy flick.
3. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
I hate saying bad things about the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot because the issue has become so politicized by ugly people (one of whom was so butt-hurt by the idea of women Ghostbusters he leaked naked photos of Leslie Jones). Still, if I’m being honest, that movie didn’t match the quality of Ghostbusters 2, let alone the classic original.
The trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife seems to reach for an ’80s Spielberg vibe–or at least a variation on Stranger Things. Having Egon Spengler’s grandson rediscover a spectral world both honors the original (including the late Harold Ramis) and feels fresh for a new generation.
That the original Ghostbusters are also returning (for a cameo? bit part?) for a proper reunion has me very anxious for this new film.
But…please…can they not hire any more modern bands to play Ray Parker Jr’s song? Please?
2. Tenet (July 17)
Christopher Nolan has a large contingent of fans anxious for whatever his next project may be. I’m not one of them. Several of his movies, especially period pieces, failed to excite me. (You can hear me, Stuart, and Jakob review every Nolan film at NowPlayingPodcast.com).
But when Nolan does sci-fi tinged action films like The Dark Knight and Inception I feel he has no equal. While the teaser trailer for Tenet doesn’t give me much to go on, I get a big Inception feel from the trailer.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being my favorite film of 2020.
1. Top Gun: Maverick (June 26)
It’s been 34 years(!) since Tom Cruise lost that lovin’ feeling at the Top Gun academy in a film that tends to polarize modern audiences. It’s a movie I’ve come to adore (along with that near-impossible to beat NES game)…but Cruise donning his Maverick helmet again wasn’t something I need.
Besides, do we still need fighter pilots? It seems the future is here and fighter jets have been replaced with drones, our servicemen safely in a building, not at risk of dying in a dogfight.
Still, when Cruise partners with Christopher McQuarrie the results are usually good (I’ll forgive them The Mummy). I do wish McQuarrie was directing Maverick, not just co-writing, but he knows a tight script.
But what really got me excited is when Paramount announced only one shot in this movie is CGI. Nearly all aerial stunts took place with real FA-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornets. The dogfights, the navigating through a canyon, it’s all real. The actors are even in the planes pulling the G-forces (though, no, they didn’t fly the planes) and I can feel it in the trailer.
Plus Cruise seems surrounded by a great cast, with Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, and Miles Teller (forgive him his Fant4stic mistake, he was amazing in Whiplash and Bleed for This).
So enlist me now for an opening weekend seat back at Top Gun!
Will these movies live up to my expectations? You can follow me on Letterboxd where I log and rate every movie I watch.
Do you agree with my list? Disagree? Let me know in the comments!
Arnie’s Top 25 Films of the 2010s
I keep reading articles and posts about how movies aren’t what they used to be. From Martin Scorsese, bitter about his Irishman distribution woes, to Spielberg decrying the “movie-ness” of streaming services, to box office reports of lower attendance.
Yet I maintain the 2010s have had as many great films as any decade before.
When putting this list together it was literally impossible to only do ten movies. I finally cut it off at 25, and then which order became a frustrating rearranging.
Finally, here are my Top 25 films of the 2010s:
25. It: A movie that genuinely horrified, and did Stranger Things better than Stranger Things. The opening scene is (pardon the pun) a grabber, and it didn’t let up much after that point. Had the sequel been as good there’s a chance this would rank even higher on the list as a duology. As it is, It is still the 25th best of the 2010s.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of It
24. The Hateful Eight: Tarantino gets two slots on this list, and the first is his underrated suspense film from 2015. Both funny and gruesome, I was unexpectedly pulled into this period piece.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of The Hateful Eight
23. Wind River: Jeremy Renner does his fair share of franchise films, but when he escapes those films he brings a depth and realism to his characters. He showed this in the incredible The Hurt Locker, and he did it again in this 2017 murder mystery. Likewise, Elizabeth Olsen keeps up with Renner as a FBI outsider investigating a murder on Native American lands (the best rookie FBI performance since Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs)
22. The A-Team: I was skeptical any new cast could capture the magic, the chemistry, and the unique personalities of NBC’s ’80s The A-Team. I was wrong. Christian Kaplan, the film’s executive in charge of casting, deserves an award for finding four performers who simply are the 2010 personifications of Hannibal Smith, Face, BA Baracus, and Howling Mad Murdock.
More, director Joe Carnahan’s use of montage to show how the team went from planning to execution was invigorating.
I love it when a movie comes together, and this one surely did.
Read Jakob, Arnie, and Marjorie’s reviews of The A-Team and 124 other movies in the Now Playing book Underrated Movies We Recommend. The eBook is available now, the print book is shipping soon!
21. Deadpool: Funny and irreverent–I’d expect nothing less from Ryan Reynolds or Deadpool. Romantic and exciting–those are the surprises in store in Fox’s R-rated (relatively) low budget comic book movie. While Fox studios is no more, the risks they took with first Deadpool and then Logan showed the big boys at Disney and Warner Bros. that comic book movies aren’t just for teenage boys. Without Deadpool there’d be no Joker.
Hear the full Now Playing review of Deadpool
20. Her: Joaquin Phoenix had his biggest box-office hit with 2019’s Joker. Likewise, moviegoers hail his lead performance (quite a trick to follow up Heath Ledger’s ’08 turn). But Joker wasn’t Phoenix’s best performance of the decade–that was in 2013’s Her.
For much of the film Phoenix’s character Theodore is the only person on screen. While Scarlett Johansson’s voice speaks to him in most scenes, but still Phoenix alone must carry the physical performance. He must be visually and emotionally bare as he alone has all the actor’s tools at his behest.
Moving and thought-provoking, I recommend spending an evening with Her.
19. Hereditary: That scene, right? That one scene (that I won’t spoil)… it is to Hereditary what the shower is to Psycho, the pig’s blood to Carrie, or the orgasm scene of When Harry Met Sally. But to focus only on that scene is to ignore the other 126 minutes of a deeply disturbing and creepy film. Toni Collette takes you with her on her spiral into…madness? And Alex Wolff’s physical performance creates a moment second only to that scene. Hereditary gripped me like a nightmare from which I didn’t want to wake.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Hereditary
18. The Social Network: Facebook is so central to communication that it’s difficult to remember the time before. It has become so engrained in American life that The Social Network is perhaps even more important today than when it was released in 2010.
The story of Facebook’s creation is so dramatic and sensational it’s hard to believe it’s real. In fact, the real Mark Zuckerberg disputes this movie’s accuracy saying, “This is my life, so I know it’s not so dramatic.” Still, it’s hard to not be drawn into the world of Facebook’s creation.
“Nerds” programming at computers could be terribly stale to watch, but director David Fincher brings his trademark visual panache and makes Facebook’s creation feel as suspenseful as Seven. And Jesse Eisenberg was a great choice to play Zuckerberg, bringing the right amount of whiny and nerdy.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of The Social Network
17. Baby Driver: Is Baby Driver a movie, or is it a 113 minute music video? The concept–thievery perfectly timed with music–was originally a music video for Mint Royale’s “Blue Song.”
Yes, the hook of Baby Driver is its gimmick–its soundtrack dominates the film. It makes a scene of getting coffee fun and visually appealing. Really, Baby Driver is an old-fashioned musical, only no one in this film sings–they listen to iPods.
But the magic of Baby Driver is the cast, specifically lead Ansel Elgort. This “one last job” story is given extra depth when it collides with Baby’s love story with Debora (Lily James). Jamie Foxx brings true menace with his character “Bats”, and Jon Hamm’s arc as “Buddy” is almost as involving as Baby’s.
Almost three years since the film’s release I still can’t stop listening to the soundtrack, but mostly those songs now make me remember the film.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Baby Driver
16. Whiplash: I came late to the 2014 film Whiplash. By the time I watched it I’d already watched J. K. Simmons accept his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. I really thought I knew what I was in for…and I was wrong.
Whiplash isn’t your standard “exceptional student” film like Finding Forrester or Good Will Hunting. It also isn’t the cliche “evil teacher” movie like 21 or Real Genius. No, Whiplash is a story of obsession where the student’s ambition is as big an enemy as his teacher.
Simmons earns his Oscar as abusive music teacher Terence Fletcher. It’s a role that, in the wrong hands, could have become camp, but Simmons rides that line. He’s not evil, just amoral and obsessed.
The film ends on a number of twists, the first of which made me roll my eyes…but writer/director Damien Chazelle is too smart to let this film end in a tired cliche, and the film’s final scene sticks with me.
15. Inception: I’ve gotten some guff for not being a paid member of the Christopher Nolan fan club. That said, I love three of his films: Memento, The Dark Knight and Inception. \
Nolan has a way of shooting a cityscape that is gothic and expansive, dwarfing its characters in a Metropolis. It worked so well in Dark Knight and he uses it to great effect in Inception where he adds another dimension as cities change and reshape themselves.
It’s a cinematic equivalent of a M.C. Escher artwork.
But the plot is as exciting as its visuals–a heist film with constant escalation. Add great performances from the entire cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Cillian Murphy are stand-outs) and Inception is a movie that’s incredible, and incredibly fun, to watch.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Inception
14. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: How unexpected is it that not only is the best Spider-Man feature film animated, but it doesn’t even star Peter Parker?
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the most comic-booky of all comic-book movies. It’s not afraid to tackle topics that live-action movies eschew, including multiverses and alternate versions of characters. But comics do that constantly.
Miles Morales was a Spider-Man created by Brian Michael Bendis in Marvel’s “Ultimate” universe. When Peter Parker was killed Miles Morales stepped up and inherited the Spider-Man mantle. Being biracial, young, and hip, Morales quickly developed his own following as Spider-Man. Now he got a big-screen starring turn…with Peter Parker (actually two Peter Parkers) in supporting roles.
Yes, it’s yet another superhero origin story–but it’s so fast-paced, and the characters come so quickly, that it manages to feel fresh despite audiences having seen hundreds of movies like this before.
I get more out of this film every time I enter the Spider-Verse
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
13. It Follows: Elevated horror often focuses too much on the “elevated” and too little on the “horror.” Not so with It Follows. The metaphor of death coming after intercorse is clear. Yet the horror and paranoia of being stalked by an unstoppable, invisible assailant pulled me in. I empathized with the protagonists and joined them in their fear of “it.”
Hear Now Playing’s full review of It Follows
12. Kingsman: The Secret Service: Matthew Vaugn’s visual style brings three movies to this list of 25…more than any other director. The first is this 2014 spy comedy. It both mocks the James Bond spy formula while also adhering to it, a post-modern, self-aware thriller. From its opening (to Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing”) to its end (to Brian Ferry’s “Slave to Love”) the movie is exciting and fun–but it’s the church scene (choreographed to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”) that cements its place as one of the decade’s best.
11. Maniac (2012): Lately movie reboots (and even sequels like The Force Awakens and Jurassic World) seem to only retell or remake the original film. Maniac does not fall prey to that lazy device. It takes inspiration from the grimy 1980 film, but director Franch Khalfoun and producer Alexandre Aja bring a totally different vibe to this slasher film.
Replacing large, grimy Joe Spinell with small, refined Elijah Wood already indicates this film will be vastly different than the original. But more, the choice to show most of the film in first-person, to in effect make the viewer the killer, is unlike anything in the 1980 film.
We’ve seen first-person slashers before (Halloween’s opening scene may be the best known, but Friday the 13th and others have used this technique). Doing an entire film in that style is a gimmick–but one that works so well here.
With Wood’s creepy performance as Frank Zito (and one of Frank’s arms) and the haunting score by Rob, Maniac is one of the best films I only watched because of Now Playing’s review. Truly one of the most original and best horror films of the decade.
Hear Now Playing’s review of Maniac (2012)
10. Contagion: Few things frighten me more than a fast spreading, highly contagious disease wiping out the population. From The Stand to Outbreak to even Rise of the Planet of the Apes, this all-too-possible scenario scares the hell out of me.
That fear is realized in Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film Contagion. The disease spreads through the global population as the film focuses on both the race for a cure and some of the individuals living in this crumbling world.
Never have I rooted more for a film’s protagonists. And Soderbergh’s ensemble cast of familiar faces from Gwyneth Paltrow to Laurence Fishburne helped me connect with nearly every character.
Contagion doesn’t end on the bleakest of notes, but it carries with it the bleakest of horrors. I hope to never find out if Soderbergh made a realistic film, but he made a thrilling one.
9. 12 Years a Slave: I can think of several horror films that start with a kidnapping and forced enslavement. Seven, Saw, and Hostel just to name a few. But imagine that horror told as a period-piece biopic–a true story of the worst American horror.
It’s unbelievable and horrible that a free African-American in New York could be kidnapped and sold as a slave, with no recourse to regain his freedom. Yet in 1840s America such a scam was commonplace, and happened to Solomon Northup (played here by Chiwetel Ejiofor).
The film is sad, and yet shows a genuine triumph of human spirit and perseverance. I was moved by the tale.
8. The Cabin in the Woods: Is this a horror film or a parody? It rides the line with its trite story of five college students going to a cabin for a weekend of partying. Yet the scenario is reframed here as manipulation by people who look like extras from Office Space. They release pheromones and use drugs to turn these five people into horror stereotypes…but the deaths caused are too real.
With a final twist and cameo appearance that work perfectly, I revisit The Cabin in the Woods often.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of The Cabin in the Woods
7. Django Unchained: Tarantinos’ second film on this list ranks with Reservoir Dogs as his best work. Django (Jamie Foxx) and King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) are a tremendous on-screen duo as bounty hunters who infiltrate the slave trade to rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda.
The movie starts as an action film, but ends up becoming a heist movie along the lines of Ocean’s 11 as the two protagonists plot their rescue. And Foxx brings a gravity to his role as a freed slave, while also being funny with his character’s clothes and turn-of-phrase.
To see Samuel L. Jackson play someone other than Samuel L. Jackson is a delight here as well. The strongest of recommends.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Django Unchained
6. Kick-Ass: Matthew Vaughn’s second entry in this list is this 2010 comic-book adaptation. Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman smoothed out the bumps in Mark Millar’s original graphic novel, creating an escapist super-hero fantasy. Voiceover narration and early hero patrols mimic Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man. But Aaron Johnson as the titular hero is an underdog that you can truly root for.
Then Kick-Ass teams up with Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and the film goes to another level of madcap carnage.
Like Kingsman: The Secret Service this film has over-the-top fights and a “happy” ending that works like a fairy tale. Yet the sheer joy of watching these performances and these characters really does Kick-Ass.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Kick-Ass
5. Mad Max: Fury Road: For 20 years or more I’ve read articles and heard complaints from movie critics and fans that sequels and franchises are univentive and tired, ruining American cinema. (Once more, see Scorsese’s comments regarding Marvel films).
I contend franchise films are like all films–there are some that are lazy and poorly made, but then there are moments of genius. Mad Max: Fury Road epitomizes that phenomenon.
Everything could go wrong with a fourth Mad Max film. The titular character was recast to Tom Hardy, and the last installment, Beyond Thunderdome, came 30 years earlier and was hardly a blockbuster. Yet septuagenarian director George Miller injected this film with high-octane action creating one of cinema’s best chase films.
More than just action-for-action’s sake, the film also co-stars Charlize Theron as female liberator Imperator Furiosa, giving the series a kick-ass woman who outshined Hardy and gave Mad Max a feminist bent.
Whether you watch it in the Black and Chrome edition or the color release, watch it on as big a screen as you can find, crank the sound system, and unleash the Fury.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of Mad Max: Fury Road
4. The Nice Guys: Writer/director Shane Black seems unable to recapture the box-office magic he had in the ’80s when he wrote Lethal Weapon (Iron Man 3 excluded as, let’s face it, Black was not the reason that film made a billion dollars). It’s a shame audiences are ignoring Black because his best screenplays have come in the 21st century (and I don’t mean The Predator).
In 2005 Black wrote and directed a buddy-crime film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang — a funny and exciting noir mystery set in Hollywood (and featured in Now Playing’s Underrated Movies We Recommend book). It barely broke even for the studio.
In 2016 he tried again with the comedic noir mystery The Nice Guys starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. Set in late ’70s Los Angeles the movie follows private eye Holland March (Gosling) as he investigates the death of porn star Misty Mountains. The case leads him to be beaten-up by tough-guy Jackson Healy (Crowe). Soon the two team-up to investigate a complex mystery. They are both aided and hampered by March’s daughter Holly (Angourie Rice).
Gosling and Crowe are perfectly cast. Crowe’s cinematic history and his large frame perfectly fit his character, while Gosling’s charisma makes a mediocre private eye fun to watch. The mystery is as complex (or is that convoluted) as Lethal Weapon, but the joy is in the characters.
But The Nice Guys did finish last, barely making its budget back, and Black went on to do the atrocious The Predator. I hope his creative spark wasn’t squashed when his two best films didn’t find an audience.
3. X-Men: First Class: Matthew Vaughn’s third film on this list may prove controversial. X-Men: First Class is a polarizing film among fans…though I can’t understand the view of people who dislike this fourth X-Men installment.
A prequel to the original X-Men trilogy, First Class is set in the early ’60s and shows the origins of classic X-Men characters Charles “Professor X” Xavier (James McAvoy), Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), Raven “Mystique” Darkholme (Jennifer Lawrence) and others.
It’s impossible to not be impressed with this cast. They got Lawrence one year before she became a superstar with The Hunger Games and an Oscar winner for Silver Linings Playbook. McAvoy and Fassbender never reached the popularity of their co-star, but both are magnificent actors able to bring a variety of emotion and pathos to their roles. With Nicholas Hoult, Oliver Platt, Rose Byrne, Zoe Kravitz,and Kevin Bacon in supporting roles, the cast is captivating and interesting.
The stakes couldn’t be higher as First Class offers a bit of revisionist history to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The story spans the globe from Germany to England to Russia and more.
Once again, Matthew Vaughn brings his visual style to a comic book adaptation in a way that’s fresh and fun, and gives us one of the best cameos I’ve ever seen.
With its message of “Mutant and Proud”, its character evolution, and its infectious score by Henry Jackman, there isn’t a moment of this movie I don’t love.
2. The Avengers: Honestly, this entire list could be films from Marvel Studios. Their output is remarkable in consistent quality, and their cast and characters improve from film to film.
Truthfully, I limited myself to one Marvel Studios movie for this list…but which one? Captain America: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame all truly deserve spots in any “best of the decade” list.
Marvel’s films have become a cultural touchpoint for people around the world. People who would never deign to read a comic book now wear Captain America T-Shirts and buy Funko POP! figures of their favorite characters.
So which to pick? The one that really started it all-– 2012’s The Avengers. Sure, you can argue Iron Man started it in 2008, but Marvel’s films were only moderately successful through 2011. While both Iron Man films made over $300mil domestic, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor all failed to reach $200 million (2015’s Ant-Man is the only post-2012 film to not gross over $200m).
It took Joss Whedon to make the Marvel Cinematic Universe coalesce, bringing a god, a super-soldier, a rampaging monster, and a playboy in an armored suit together to fight each other, and then an alien invasion.
In only 143 minutes Wheadon gave satisfying character arcs to six characters…the four listed above, plus Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston), both of whom failed to impress in their previous MCU films.
Wheadon did that and made it look effortless, while keeping the film moving at a good clip and having enough quips to keep the audience smiling.
The Avengers truly did assemble here, and an unstoppable cinematic juggernaut was the result. You may love that or hate it, but damn if that isn’t an impressive feat.
1. Scott Pilgrim vs the World: How is it the number 1 film is a comic book but isn’t a Marvel movie? Leave it to Edgar Wright’s action-romance fable Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
Based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s eponymous series of graphic novels, Scott Pilgrim takes place in a fantasy land where video game rules apply. Skateboarders grind down flights of stairs like in Tony Hawk games. People throw punches and kicks in the streets like Mortal Kombat. Battles of the Bands create large electronic kaiju. And when someone dies, a bunch of coins fly from where their body used to be.
But inside this video game is a romantic comedy where listless Scott Pilgrim (a perfectly cast Michael Cera) falls for the woman of his dreams–Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead at her most alluring). As with any rom-com there are obstacles to their romance. Not only is Scott dating high-school girl Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), but to date Ramona Scott must fight her seven evil exes.
Scott has never fought for anything, so can he keep up the fight for Ramona? Should he even do that?
The result is a light-hearted but emotional film where Scott and Ramona have ups, downs, and battles with the likes of Chris Evans and Brandon Routh.
I also love the entire cast here. Comic book movie veterans Evans and Routh are joined by Thomas Jane, plus future Captain Marvel Brie Larson. Yet the standout supporting character is Kieran Culkin as Scott’s gay and snarky roommate Wallace Wells. Culkin delivers his lines with such snide sarcasm I can’t help to smile.
Get a life and don’t miss out on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Read Jakob, Arnie, and Marjorie’s reviews of Scott Pilgrim vs the World and 124 other movies in the Now Playing book Underrated Movies We Recommend. The eBook is available now, the print book is shipping soon!
Arnie’s Best Films of 2019
As we approach New Year’s, it’s a time to look back at what 2019 brought…and that means best of/worst of lists.
I readily admit my movie watching in 2019 was dominated by Now Playing Podcast’s calendar. Many of the films in this list were reviewed on that podcast.
Now to the list:
10. Between Two Ferns: The Movie: I always found Funny or Die videos to lean more to the “die” side. But the awkward humor of Zach Galifianakis interviewing celebrities always made me chuckle. Thrown into narrative form for the Netflix movie, I laughed out loud often. The bloopers at the end, showing the celebrities cracking up at the jokes, made it even better.
9. Zombieland: Double Tap: It took 10 years to bring the Zombieland team back together. No doubt, my love of that original film and those characters tint my view of this lesser sequel. Yet the addition of new character Madison (Zoey Deutch) brings a new energy and life to this picture. The cameo at the very end cements this sequel on this best-of list.
Hear Now Playing’s full Zombieland: Double Tap review
8. Toy Story 4: When I was a kid I’d love my new toys, but after a while I’d get bored and want to move on to a new toy line. Smurfs went in a box to make way for Transformers, etc. Such is the case with Woody and Buzz on their fourth outing (not counting TV specials and shorts). The bloom is a bit off the rose as these character age and lead their post-Andy life. Still, Toy Story 4 finds a way to still have toys build a metaphor for real life, and the horror of the puppet minions was highly effective. Plus, once again Pixar blazes new trails in the realm of CGI animation.
Hear Now Playing’s full Toy Story 4 review
7. Us: Jordan Peele proved himself a master of horror with Get Out (hear Now Playing’s review), but could he repeat that success in his second film? Happily, Peele avoided the dreaded sophomore slump with this story of evil suburban dopplegangers. Like Get Out, it works both as horror and social commentary.
6. Marriage Story: A Kramer vs. Kramer for our time, Marriage Story features Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as parents going through a divorce. It starts amicable, but turns bitter as the stakes escalate. I do wish the film made me feel more for these characters’ loss, but the two lead performances are both impacting and real. I’d not be surprised to see both Johansson and Driver nominated at the 2020 Academy Awards (unless this being a Netflix film dooms it politically).
5. Knives Out: I wasn’t sure what to make of Rian Johnson’s whodunnit when I saw the trailers, with Daniel Craig being called out for his Kentucky Fried accent. But I am a sucker for a good murder mystery, and Knives Out is a great one. With a roster of A-list stars, Johnson counterintuitively makes the film’s focus the lesser known Ana de Armas. This works very well as she is a working-class maid surrounded by parvenu, the star wattage surrounding her sells that difference. The end reveal got me. I hear there’s now rumors of this $200mil grosser becoming a franchise. If Johnson can make them all this clever and funny, I’m ready for another cut.
4. Joker: DC had one of their best years in 2019. Shazam was a solid entry in their DC Extended Universe (hear the Now Playing review)–a movie that played it safe. Then the studio took some creative risks letting Todd Phillips, a director most known for comedy, co-write and direct the R-Rated Joker. With its Scorsese feel and a captivating performance by Joaquin Phoenix, Joker stopped anyone from laughing at DC’s movie offerings and proved comic book movies can span genres and achieve greatness. The camerawork and score emphasize the film’s theme while keeping the film visually interesting.
I fear what Joker’s success may bring (rumors of a sequel, as well as a series of more R-rated comic origins frighten me) but Joker truly is the Clown Prince of comic movies.
Hear Now Playing’s full Joker review.
3. Terminator: Dark Fate: I hear the derision now… “Anyone that includes Dark Fate on a best-of list needs to watch more movies.” The film was a commercial flop costing the studio over $100mil in losses. It was released to an audience seemingly tired with franchise revivals (or, at least, tired of Terminator‘s string of lackluster sequels).
But I am a champion of underrated movies (I even co-wrote a book about them) and Dark Fate fits that bill. Following the Halloween (2018) model, the film has creator James Cameron producing, and Linda Hamilton returning in a co-starring role. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terminator is both funny and sympathetic, making this the muscle-man’s best performance since before he was elected Governor of California.
With action that packs a punch, a cool two-for-one Terminator Rev-9, and a pace that rarely lets you catch your breath, I was hoping this Dark Fate would be back for more…but I’m positive this is “hasta la vista, baby” for the series.
Hear Now Playing’s full Terminator: Dark Fate review
2. Spider-Man: Far From Home: After the drama and high stakes of Avengers: Endgame audiences needed a breather. Something a little lighter. A funny film that is just a good popcorn film. Far From Home meets all those targets perfectly.
Spanning several European countries, Far From Home works as a road movie, a travelogue, a teen comedy, and a comic book action film.
Tom Holland has proven himself to be the best live-action Spider-Man in five movies from 2016-2019 (two more than any other Spider-Man actor). In his second solo outing, Holland’s Spider-Man still struggles with teen drama but also brings in a good villain in Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio. Gyllenhaal and Holland have great on-screen chemistry, as do Holland and love-interest Zendaya.
The cliffhanger ending (with a cameo sure to make Spider-Man fans smile) makes the web-head’s return to the screen my most-anticipated MCU film.
Is it 2021 yet?
Hear Now Playing’s full Spider-Man: Far From Home review
1. Avengers: Endgame: When I think of the duology of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame I’m reminded of a cliffhanger from Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Best of Both Worlds.” The first episode of that duology was dark, exciting, and ended with a feeling that all is lost. When the conclusion aired three months later…they just couldn’t stick the landing. Everything was neatly wrapped up easily…and unsatisfactorily.
Avengers: Infinity War ended on a similar note with Vision dead, along with half the population in the universe. Could the Avengers’ rematch with Thanos meet the adventure-filled Infinity War?
Directors Joe and Anthony Russo didn’t just give Infinity War’s story a satisfying conclusion–they made an amazing film that works on its own. It’s a final hurrah for the original Avengers, and the scaled-down cast allows Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor to each have their own satisfying character arcs. I cheered during the film’s high points, and tears streamed down my face as I bid farewell to some characters I’ve lived with for over a decade.
It feels like a conclusion to the MCU as a whole…I’m not sure Shang-Chi and The Eternals will bring as much to the table as the original Avengers, but damn…what a high note to end on!
Friday the 13th (2009) – Revisited
by Arnie Carvalho
“No matter how much you love the original films in the Friday the 13th series,
it’s virtually indisputable that the 2009 remake/reboot/re-
imagining is far and away the best made of all of them.”
— Adam-Troy Castro, Syfy.com
“Can we now admit ‘Friday the 13th’ 2009 was damn good?”
— Michael White, Bloody-Disgusting.com
“It is one of the best film franchise reboots put out in theaters in the past 15 years.”
— Jason Parker, Friday The 13th Franchise.com
“I’ve always been of the mind (and it’s a hill I’ll die on), that it kinda just
makes no sense to be a fan of the original Friday the 13th movies and yet not
a fan of Friday the 13th ’09”
— John Squires, Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting.com, on Twitter
“Stay away from this movie. It really is one of the bad ones…
Run from this movie. Do not reward the makers with your money”
— Arnie, Now Playing’s 2009 Podcast review
“In three years no one, absolutely no one, will remember that they saw it, that
they liked it, it will have no aftertaste whatsoever. People will remember
the original, they will not remember this movie.”
— Stuart, Now Playing’s 2009 Podcast review
Still Now Playing 10 Years Later…
Today is a momentous day in my life. It’s a birthday of sorts.
While Now Playing Podcast started in 2007 it (like many shows, TV, radio, podcast, and otherwise) went through some growing pains. Cast changes, an irregular release schedule, and format changes all marred the first two years.
That began to change on January 9, 2009 — the date we released the first episode in our first retrospective series: a review of 1980’s Friday the 13th leading up to the 2009 reboot. The show went from two hosts to three (that would begin rotating later that same year). The “Recommend/Not Recommend” finale was solidified, as were patterns of series-specific opening credits, art, and titles for each film series.
Yet it’s arguably today, Friday, February 13th, that could be seen as Now Playing’s true 10th anniversary. It was the day we recorded our final Friday the 13th review. By that point we knew the retrospective was a big hit. Despite initial misgivings, we decided to immediately continue the format and review Star Trek leading up to its reboot. Stuart even went out and bought a microphone and literally stopped “phoning it in.”
I’ll never forget the night of Friday, February 13th, 2009. I was in New York City covering Toy Fair International. I went to see the Friday the 13th reboot in a Times Square movie theater, accompanied by my wife Marjorie. The excitement that caused me to begin the retrospective series was reaching its peak as the lights went down and the movie started.
Flash forward to five hours later. I’m in our hotel room (small, as most all NYC rooms are). I’m pacing. My iPhone 3G is hot against my face from being on a call for so long. I’m on a telephone recording my disappointment with the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot. Brock is in Chicago recording the call, and he would edit the show released to our listeners the following Monday.
All three of us had very similar reactions, and the reboot became the fourth Friday the 13th, out of 12, to get three red arrows on our website.
I honestly never looked back.
“Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity” — Robert Morgan
As the 10th anniversary of the Friday the 13th reboot approached I came upon an interesting and unexpected turn of events: a number of think pieces were published celebrating the film. Even those who had reacted poorly to the movie initially had come around and not only enjoyed but celebrated director Marcus Nispel’s fresh take on iconic slasher Jason Voorhees (played by Derek Mears).
I started to question my own memory. Could they be right? Could that movie have aged well?
Having been a movie critic for over a decade I know from experience one of the hardest things to do when reviewing a film is to separate expectations from the final product. Movies are marketed to create expectations–to get you into a theater seat and spending money expecting delivery on what trailers, interviews, and even posters have sold.
Going into Friday the 13th in 2009 my expectations were sky high. I had loved Nispel’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake far more than the original Tobe Hooper film. I loved Jason as a killer. Jason’s last appearance on screen in 2003’s Freddy vs Jason was one of his best, and that movie’s writing team of Damian Shannon and Mark Swift were writers for the remake.
Could the movie have been good, or at least recommendable, but simply not met my expectations?
10 years have passed, so I decided to find out. For this re-review of 2009’s Friday the 13th I watched the extended “Killer Cut” released on Blu-Ray and Video on Demand. This cut was nine minutes longer than what I saw in theaters.
The Review
I watched the movie having not listened to our 2009 podcast since it was released. I remembered very little going in, only that Stuart thought Jason was a pothead. Then after watching the movie I listened to our old podcast to see what it was that got me so worked up.
SPOILERS BELOW for this 10-year-old movie!
I liked the opening. This is a reboot, and people want Jason as the killer, not old lady Pamela Voorhees. Yet Pamela’s plight from Sean S. Cunningham’s 1980 original Friday is integral to the Jason mythos. To have the climax of the original movie done in montage fashion pays homage and checks the boxes. It does create a confusing timeline as to Jason’s supposed drowning, but handled well.
Then we have the second prologue and, not having seen the movie in a decade, I was faked out. I thought this would be the movie and these five characters, Wade (Jonathan Sadowski), Richie (Ben Feldman), Mike (Nick Mennell), Whitney (Amanda Righetti), and Amanda (America Olivo), were going to be our core cast. They actually seem like a fun group and call back to so many earlier Friday the 13th casts where there’s couples hooking up…and the lonely odd man out. That Jason comes in and killed so many so quickly was a shock.
Then comes our new Jason by Derek Mears. One of my big problems in 2009 goes back to expectation: I was used to the Jason played by Kane Hodder. Jason had gone through many iterations, from bag-wearing woodsman to space-zombie, but the walking after people who run, the nearly supernatural way of catching the prey, seemed like a staple.
This Jason was fast and aggressive. He killed brutally. And he used tools and more thought power than earlier Jasons. Hanging one woman over the campfire to burn while setting a bear trap for another victim really wasn’t in Jason’s modus operandi. But then I had to remember, this is a reboot, not a remake. The Friday the 13th series had lost its luster by doing the same things again and again. In 2009 I couldn’t reconcile this Jason with the ones before. Now I realize this reboot gives us an entirely new Jason.
If I just accept this is a new character, perhaps call him “Jimmy Voorhees”, I’d have no trouble with these new killings. Nispel wanted to revitalize the character and return him to his violent, horror roots. Nearly 30 years had passed since Jason first wielded his machete. It may not be the Jason I wanted, but this viewing I can accept this “Jimmy Voorhees.”
The two characters coming upon Jason’s cabin (plus the bag over Jason’s head) took me back to 1981’s Friday the 13th Part II, and I can go with it.
Not only did the prologue surprise me in killing (seemingly) everyone so fast, I also understand the need to have a body count. One of the pressures with each new horror movie installment was to have more kills. Here, we establish Jason as a badass killer, and we got five good kills. And for those who expect topless women in your Friday films, you got that out of the way too.
Plus, the gore! I was watching the unrated cut, but I marveled at how freely the blood flowed.
Then we actually get to the movie. Again, my expectation was, since we had Shannon and Swift writing again, that we would have a group of fun, believable characters like they gave us in Freddy vs. Jason. Instead, we have a group of character types that would never be friends. I had a real problem with that in theaters.
Yet, when watching it at home on a television, I found myself more forgiving. How many groups of totally different people went camping together in the past? Sure, Parts 1 and 2 made them counsellors thrown together, and 8 had them as classmates, but the victims in parts 3 and 4, and especially 7, don’t feel like they’d hang out together either. So, is this bad writing…or is this an intentional homage to the bad writing in previous installments? More, if I can accept these weird groups in earlier films, why not here too? So, I compartmentalized that complaint and, instead, found these seven young adults appealing, flawed characters, most of whom were obviously going to end up impaled on a machete.
Trent (Travis Van Winkle) is a great douche you love to hate (and with a rich boy name like Travis Van Winkle I wonder how much he was acting). Bree (Julianna Guill) is a wonderful seductress, and the attraction Chewie (Aaron Yoo) shows for Bree takes me back to Crispin Glover’s character in The Final Chapter.
Lawrence (Arien Escarpeta) is a stoner that feels like he would hang out with Chewie. The other couple of Chelsea (Willa Ford) and Nolan (Ryan Hansen) aren’t in the film long enough for me to get a bead on them.
Which does raise one flaw–this group is too big to keep track of. They’re here for a body count, but I’m not sure they are disparate enough where I can even assign them tropes of “the smart one” and “the shy one”, etc. Especially Chelsea and Nolan, they are the flattest of characters.
Then we have typical last-girl Jenna (Danielle Panabaker). Like so many Jason survivors in films past, she’s a brunette, she’s smart, she doesn’t smoke weed, and she doesn’t get naked. And when she encounters, and partners with, Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) who is searching for his missing sister Whitney, I’m taken back (in a positive way) to the similar plot in The Final Chapter.
The kills also are varied. I had a problem with Jason using an arrow to kill Nolan, but he used a crossbow in Part II so this wasn’t so far off. And again, this is the new “Jimmy Voorhees.” He’s a survivalist. He has to hunt to survive. It makes sense he’d be good with a bow. (It equally makes sense that this Jason is far more intelligent than the previous incarnations and so he uses Kerosene to power his home). And Chelsea’s machete-in-the-head gave Jason his usual, nearly supernatural sense of where his victims hide.
So halfway in the movie I wonder…was I too harsh on Friday the 13th? Did I allow my expectation to cloud what was delivered?
The answer is….partially, for the movie really does fall apart in the second half.
Nispel was best known (and may still be best known) for his Texas Chainsaw reboot. I don’t know if Nispel rewrote any of Shannon and Swift’s script, but the second half does turn this new Jason into a wannabe Leatherface. Why are there catacombs underneath Camp Crystal Lake? It makes no sense. Why did Jason kidnap Whitney? It makes no sense. Why does Whitney look so good after six weeks of captivity? It makes no sense.
Yet the deaths continue to impress. In this “Killer Cut” Chewie’s slow death in the tool shed was painful to watch as he writhes, groans, and bleeds for a very long time. Lawrence’s kill by Jason throwing an ax goes back to the survivalist skills, and creates a more “realistic” Jason who can’t just walk after every person who runs.
The best death/fake-out may belong to Trent, though. Waving down a tow truck, a silent hand waves Trent to get on. Can this Jason drive a car? No…it’s an old man on oxygen, unable to shout to the young man whose hesitation results in his being impaled on the truck as it drives away.
Yet another decent fake-out is Jenna. She seemed like the perfect “last girl” and, echoing The Final Chapter‘s Trish, I thought it was a given she’d escape. But two brunettes is one to many in a Friday the 13th film so when Whitney is discovered alive Jenna had to die.
The rest is pretty rote action with Jason just dead enough for a climax, yet, of course, always ready to come back for another sequel.
The Verdict
So, was I too harsh on the 2009 Friday the 13th? Yes, I clearly was. My expectation of what the previous Fridays had given clouded my ability to appreciate the changes Nispel tried to bring to make a Jason that could be scary in the 21st century.
Yet, the writing becomes very lazy in the second half. The film is almost a straight downward line, its quality decreasing with every passing frame of film, start to end. At no point does the body of the film reach the highs of its two prologues.
While this is a totally new Jason, much of the film, including the group of victims, is a throwback to the installments released 1980-1984. I wasn’t a fan of many of those early groups, so this is not a success, but it’s not worthy of the damnation I gave on the podcast.
So is it a recommend or not recommend?
It is on the borderline. I think that slasher fans will have a lot to enjoy, while old school Friday the 13th fans will have a lot to swallow.
The ridiculous ending, including everything after the rescue of Whitney (the tunnels under the camp, the convenient machinery, the obvious final “jump scare”), make me stand by my red arrow. But it’s a close call, and it’s what I’d call on the podcast “A very weak not recommend”…which is the most positive thing said about this movie in the entire history of Now Playing Podcast. |  |
(the tunnels under the camp, the convenient machinery, the obvious final “jump scare”), make me stand by my red arrow. But it’s a close call, and it’s what I’d call on the podcast “A very weak not recommend”…which is the most positive thing said about this movie in the entire history of Now Playing Podcast.
Yet the film has had a longer lifespan than I had imagined ten years ago today and, had it not been for endless legal wrangling over Friday the 13th’s IP rights, I have no doubt “Jimmy Voorhees” would have returned to slay again.
Yet while lawsuits continue over who has the right to make the next Friday film, I look forward to it. Ten years is the longest Jason has ever gone without a movie since his inception in 1980. He is missed, and hopefully Jason Voorhees, not “Jimmy”, will return to the silver screen again in the near future.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below!
Hear Now Playing Podcast’s original retrospective series, 12 reviews of Friday the 13th films (plus a bonus recap episode), all available now at NowPlayingPodcast.com
Star Wars Cyber Monday Savings Give Your Wallet Force!
May the Savings be with you on this Cyber Monday where, finally, there are some great bargains to be had on Black Series and Vintage Collection Hasbro Toys, LEGO, and more!
Black Series/The Vintage Collection Hasbro Toys
The best bargain at Amazon today is the Black Series Force FX Z6 Riot Control Baton. This $200 prop replica is 1/3 off today–just $134.39!
Also in the Black Series Roleplay, the Stormtrooper Helmet is 38% off, down to $49.99 from $80 today only!
The Vintage Collection Imperial Combat Assault Tank from Rogue One is now 40% off at Amazon — just $47.99, down from $79.99. I jumped and got one at that price.
The Black Series Dewback with Sandtrooper is also over 25% off, marked down to $42.97 (not the cheapest it’s been, but a good price on a great toy)
Also in the Black Series, the Kylo Ren Centerpiece set is almost half off, just $28.96 (which is the right price for a non-articulated figure and diorama base)
It’s also a good time to army build your Jawas! The Black Series Jawa figure is down to $12.41.
Also the troop builder Black Series Range Trooper from SOLO is 41% off, just $11.77
And it seems stores can’t give away the Vintage Collection Snoke figure. You can get one now from Amazon for just $6.96 (down from $13), but it’s an Add-on item only.
Other Hasbro Toys
The Ultimate Co-Pilot Chewie is a great gift for kids (or those who are still kids at heart). This $130 toy is almost half off today only, $69.92!
In the 5POA line, the ForceLink 2.0 Resistance A-Wing with Pilot Tallie is 42% off, just $17.31. Likewise the ForceLink 2.0 Millennium Falcon with Escape Craft is 20% off, down to $23.99
And can you ever have enough Rathtars? The 3.75-inch Rathtar with Bala-Tik is 70% off–just $6.07
From Solo in the 5POA line, the Han Solo Landspeeder with figure is 15% off, $25.49 shipped.
In the kids focused Galactic Heroes line, the Galactic Rivals 10-Figure pack, with Grievous, Yoda, Luke, Vader, Sidious, Obi-Wan, and more, is 43% off, $17.14.
In that same line, Amazon’s exclusive Galacitc Heroes Millennium Falcon with Han and Chewie is $25, down from $40.
Amazon also still has the Sphero R2-D2 for just $39.99. Given that it’s sat at that price for about a week I could see a cheaper lightning deal, but that’s still a great price.
LEGO
Amazon has many Star Wars LEGO sets on deep discount today.
It’s the perfect time to get the 2018 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar. it’s 18% off, and you’ll get it in time to start opening on the countdown to Christmas!
The LEGO Imperial Patrol Battle Pack is also 27% off — just $10.99.
The Imperial TIE Fighter set is 20% off, $55.99.
LEGO Brickheadz Boba Fett is 20% off, down to $7.99
The Jedi & Clone Trooper Battle Pack is also 20% off, just $11.99
Also LEGO, Entertainment Earth has the Jakku Quadjumper for 35% off, just $32.49
The LEGO Porg Building Kit is 20% off, down to $55.99
From SOLO, Moloch’s Landspeeder set is 20% off, down to $31.99
Getting to the OT, from Empire Strikes Back comes Yoda’s Hut, marked down 20% to $23.99
GAMING
For gamers, Amazon has several discounts as well:
Star Wars CLUE is almost half off, marked down to $24.95
The Black Series Star Wars Trivial Pursuit is also almost half off, just $20.50
The Star Wars: Rebellion game is over 20% off, just $78.99
The Star Wars: Legion core set is $54.69, down from its usual $90.
The Star Wars: Legion Snow Troopers Expansion is 24% off: $18.99
Star Wars: Edge of Empire – Beyond the Rim is 11% off, down to $21.01
And many more Gaming Bargains can be found on Amazon’s site!
Got a deal we didn’t list here? E-mail us at show@swactionnews.com and let us know about it!
Finally, if you’re a Star Wars Action News listener, you may want to know about the Cyber Monday deal our sister podcast Now Playing Podcast is having right now — for just the next 18 hours!
Movie Review – The Theta Girl
The Theta Girl
Director: Chris Bickel
Writer: David Axe
Starring:Victoria Elizabeth Donofrio, Shane Silman, Darelle D. Dove
Studio: Barron Perter Productions
Release Date: October 13, 2017
The Theta Girl is a psychedelic horror/thriller made for $14,000 by first-time filmmakers. Director Chris Bickel stated his main goal was just to finish the project no matter what the final product was. That could have resulted in something like one of the many direct-to-video sequels from the Children of the Corn or Hellraiser franchises we’ve reviewed on Now Playing (or even worse if you’ve experienced the movies of Neil Breen). However, The Theta Girl‘s end product is a must watch for anyone into grindhouse cinema and surreal storytelling.
John Carpenter’s “The Fog” Getting a 4K Theatrical Re-Release
As Halloween fans wait patiently for this year’s John Carpenter-endorsed sequel, word comes that a bonafide Carpenter original is coming back to the big screen with a full 4K restoration.
Rialto Pictures will showcase the director’s Halloween follow-up, 1980’s The Fog, in a limited run beginning October 26 at New York’s Metrograph theater, Landmark’s Nuart in Los Angeles, and The Music Box Theatre in Chicago.
For those who missed the film when it first screened in theaters, and for those who only know of the its much-maligned 2005 remake, The Fog stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Hal Holbrook, and Janet Leigh as residents of a coastal California town that is besieged by the titular fog, which carries with it a crew of ghosts bent on revenge for a 100-year-old sleight.
Carpenter filmed the picture for $1.1 million, and it grossed more than $21 million in theaters.
Following its October 26 re-release, Rialto Pictures will screen The Fog in select Alamo Drafthouse and other specialty theaters.
The announcement comes on the heels of Now Playing Podcast’s planned Fall 2018 Donation Drive, which includes The Fog as part of Jamie Lee Curtis-centric “Scream Queen” retrospective.
SDCC 2018 Exclusive Reveal! Entertainment Earth Deadpool with Baby Cable!
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Entertainment Earth has a huge selection of exclusives at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International. Now Marvelicious Toys is excited to bring you the exclusive reveal of their next item: The Deadpool with Baby Cable Wooden Push Puppet!
These Push Puppets stand like wooden figures, but when you push the bottom they crumble to the ground. Release the button, they stand back up again. (Pump the button to make them dance!)
This baby Cable/Deadpool combination is a fan favorite from the “House of M” storyline, plus Deadpool popularity is ever-higher thanks to this summer’s Deadpool 2 co-starring Cable!
The Push Puppet is limited to only 1,500 pieces–each one has an individually number holographic sticker. And it is only $8.99
If you’re going to SDCC you can get this at the Entertainment Earth booth #2343. If you’re not going to the show, you can place an order now at Entertainment Earth’s site and, if you’re lucky like Domino (meaning if any are left after SDCC), you may be able to get your hands on one!
Hasbro Q&A — HasLab Sail Barge (and Yakface!) Update
From Left to Right, Steve Evans, Mark Boudreaux, and Joe Ninivaggi
Today Star Wars Action News was privileged to be one of only three fan sites participating in a Q&A with the Star Wars Brand Team at Hasbro. The topic was, of course, their current crowdfunding project for the Khetanna — Jabba the Hutt’s Sail Barge playset that measures 4-feet long.
Participating in the conversation were our long-time friends from Hasbro: Steve Evans (Design Director for Star Wars toys), Mark Boudreaux (Senior Principal Designer for Star Wars toys), and Joe Ninivaggi (Director, Global Brand Strategy & Marketing – Star Wars).
The conversation revealed some new information about the current campaign, and also had a nice video tour of the newly painted Sail Barge.
You can read the transcript of the interview below, but the high points are:
- The Yakface figure included with the Khetanna, on the Power of the Force card with the silver coin, will have the lowest production run of any modern Star Wars figure (assuming the Barge’s numbers don’t end dramatically above 5,000)
- If you live in the US or Canada the crowdfunding is the only way you will ever be able to buy the Barge. If the Barge is backed then Hasbro will make a small quantity of Barges available, but only for those living outside of the US and Canada.
- The paint on the barge took over 200 man-hours. (The design of the barge took over “one thousand” Mark half-joked.)
- The team is looking at only one Star Wars HasLab project per year. HasLab will do multiple projects per year, but the others will be for Marvel, Transformers, and My Little Pony.
- This is the team’s first crowdfunding effort and they’re using it as a learning experience. Future HasLab projects will take current feedback into account regarding payment plans, cost of items, duration of the campaign, etc.
- The Barge is incredibly cool with so many details that can only be seen close-up, including a sink faucet in the galley and a retractable microphone in Jabba’s dais.
- If the Barge is funded the Hasbro team is looking at producing an updated Jabba the Hutt figure with an improved paint application and perhaps facial sculpting from their previous efforts.
Below is an rundown of the conversation.
The team started with a run-down of the Entertainment Weekly reveal of the painted Sail Barge, and the inclusion of the Power of the Force Yakface figure. Steve said the paint job was “200 man and woman hours” of work, to which Mark added “And that’s just to paint it. Not including the work that’s been done since… another 1,000 hours there.” They also noted a pick-up in orders since yesterday’s news, but they still need almost 1,800 orders in 12 days.
Then the Q&A Began
Question: What is your ideal rate for Star Wars campaigns? One per year, two per year, etc?
Answer: Joe said HasLab will likely have multiple initiatives per year across Transformers, My Little Pony, and Marvel, but they are starting with only one Star Wars initiative per year “and take it from there.”
Q: Why was a payment option not made available for the Barge as other companies do for items of similar price.
A: Joe replied, “I think this will answer a number of questions but this is our first time doing this. We’re learning a lot on this. HasbroToyShop, which, of course, is our partner that allows us to sell directly to fans, they’re set up a certain way and we went out with this particular model. There’s always opportunity to learn in the future, we’ve definitely seen that come up as a request and something that would hopefully make the product more accessible to all fans.”
Q: At Toy Fair Steve told Star Wars Action News that if the Barge is funded then there may be opportunities for it to be sold other methods. And on the HasLab FAQ it states “We reserve the rights to make the products (or similar versions of the products) available at other sources, such as online stores and retail locations, but such availability is not guaranteed.”
But in an Instagram post on March 19 Hasbro said the Barge would not be available via traditional retail outlets.
Can you clarify these statements? Is it possible the Barge will be available at retail if it is funded?
A: Steve clarified that if you live in the US and Canada then backing at HasbroLab.com is the only way you will be able to purchase the barge. There are no plans to take this to retail in the US and Canada. However, since only US and Canada can purchase from HasbroLab.com then, if the Barge hits its 5,000 orders, they would make an additional, limited quantity available to international buyers only.
Q: People say there’s not enough time to budget for a $500 item in the time of the Barge. In the future can we get a bit more notice?
Steve said they are getting insights daily and have learned a lot going for future projects like this. Their team read studies indicating 45 days is the optimal time for crowdfunding* and that longer campaigns have lower success rates. For future crowdfunding campaigns they will look at “everything” and see how to adjust timing.
(Note: In my own research I’ve read campaigns over 30 days have a lower success rate. Either way, Steve’s point is valid. -Arnie)
Q: Perhaps in the future could Hasbro announce the campaign at Toy Fair, but launch it at San Diego Comic-Con so collectors have a few months to save up, not just 45 days.
A: Joe said that is a good idea and they may look at doing that next time. They added that projects do not get much more ambitious in terms of size and price than the Sail Barge. They’ve wanted to do it for decades. But they know that price points for future items don’t always have to be this expensive.
Q: The Jabba on display in the published Sail Barge photos looks like the Toys R Us exclusive from a few years ago. Is it an old Jabba or is it a new Jabba?
Mark clarified that Jabba is the same sculpt that came with the Jabba/Rancor set, but they wanted to make a special Jabba for the barge so they’re looking at enhancing his deco. The photos released show more weathering on the body and highlights to the face than the Jabba/Rancor set had. They’ll be looking at techniques, either photo-real or more traditional techniques, to make this new Jabba noticeably different from the older version.
Q: Can Slave Leia be rereleased to pose in the Barge
A: Steve said for characters that enhance the Barge, they’re doing Yakface and Skiff Guard. They’ll look at other background characters from these scenes if the Barge is successful. As for Slave Leia–no plans but they’ll look at it.
Q: If the Barge meets its goal of 5,000, but not much higher, will this carded Yakface with the coin have the lowest production run of any modern Hasbro Star Wars figure?
A: Steve gave an emphatic “yes”. Historically Hasbro does not give production numbers for its products, but Steve compared the Yakface to their San Diego Comic-Con exclusives. For that convention he said they produce more than 5,000 of the exclusives (“not a lot more, but more”).
Steve added that Yakface on the Power of the Force card will not only be a “physical rarity” but also an “emotional rarity” given how Yakface and Blue Snaggletooth are the holy grails to many vintage Star Wars figure collectors.
Q: How will Hasbro handle broken/missing parts, and keep backers informed of progress?
A: Steve said for broken parts the usual Hasbro policy to contact Customer Service applies.
But Joe went on to say that the packaging team has been challenged to make the box secure. Additionally, they hope for the box to have nice presentation, including perhaps trays that slide out when packaged. They hope to make the experience of the unboxing as cool as the item itself. They feel presentation is really important with this, so it needs more than just printed inserts. “This is a vintage item, after all, and we want to make sure to present it,” Mark said.
In regards to communication with buyers, Joe said “It’s not everyday you buy something for $500 and don’t get it for a year afterwards.” As such, if the project is successful, the Hasbro team plans to take backers on a behind-the-scenes journey, keeping them updated with the inner workings of Hasbro on how the Barge is made and shipped.
Q: Will there be tape on the Vintage box?
A: The team asked what we would be interested in, and unanimously the sites requested no tape on the Vintage box, just a flap-fold, and tape the shipping carton.
There was also discussion if the Yakface will be shipped inside the same box as the Barge. Steve said they don’t know for sure–currently it is in the box but that could change.
Q: With less than two weeks away from the end of the campaign, with about 1800 orders needed, what is the mood at Hasbro? How has this impacted you emotionally?
A: Steve said, “We’re on the edge of our seats. The trajectory is what we expected. It spikes, levels off, and spikes in the end.” He said that the released pictures of the painted Sail Barge helped make it real for some people, and adding the exclusive Yakface also helped.
They all agreed the campaign is emotionally draining. “It’s taken up a lot of our time personally and we have invested ourselves greatly on something that doesn’t yet exist,” Steve said. “I feel confident because it’s a great project but it’s up to the fans.”
“You don’t want to see a grown man cry,” Mark added on as the interview came to an end.
Then we were treated to a video tour of the painted Sail Barge and the Hasbro team pointed out many features that have not had much attention from fans:
- The jail in the lower level has a sliding metal door to differentiate from the wood. The Barge will come with two metal chains of different sizes to put different character sizes (perhaps a human and a Wookiee?) in the jail.
- In the galley they wanted to “set a tone for the interiors” and then let fans embellish and fill it out to what they felt their fantasy for Jabba would be. The Barge has a kitchen counter, a couple sinks, faucet, and Chupas hanging from the wall in the back, setting the stage for how fans might like to complete their diorama. That’s one of the reasons they wanted to go with the Sail Barge: it’s awesome to start with, they said. Very iconic, a great movie beat with lots of characters involved, so they wanted something that could really push dioramas to the next level and interact with a lot of your characters both new and old.
And they have some “Work in progress” images of painting that will be coming soon.
- Next to the galley is the armory. Axes are mounted to the wall as decoration. They also have some horn racks on the back wall where you can hang your blasters, staffs, etc. and there’s a table in the back where you can repair your weapons.
There are a couple staffs in the model photographs that were released, but those are not included with the barge. You will need to supply your own weapons and staffs. The axes on the wall are permanently attached decoration.
- Moving into the lounge it’s more about comfort. A lot of wooden surfaces, wooden walls, wooden floors. There are opening and closing shutters on either side, as well as the dais which you can move back and forth a bit to adjust the floor plan.
- You can actually pull the microphone out of the control panel on Jabba’s dias. It’s attached to a cable and for production they’re going to increase the length of the cable so you can have a C-3PO figure hold it.
- One question they had was about foot pegs. They talked about it and, other than 2 foot pegs on the platform on the deck cannon, they’ve elected to not include foot pegs in the vehicle itself. They didn’t want to disrupt the aesthetics by putting traditional foot pegs and they didn’t want to limit character placement.
- They have the rancor trophy mounted to the wall, Ishi Tib heads, a Gammorrean Guard head, and Jabba’s mural mounted to the wall. They wanted to include all the details seen in the film and then let you embellish with your own accessories.
- There is a side hatch with a larger port where the Weequay can come out to surprise Luke (it’s larger as the barge isn’t QUITE to scale with 3.75 in figures).
- They worked closely with Lucasfilm for all the details on the cockpit. They went to the archives and looked at all the reference photos, and also went into the vault to get any inspiration they might need to include other details.
- There is a corridor so a figure can walk from the Cockpit all through the ship.
- There will also be a trap door in the deck above that goes down into the jail. A button on the side will allow you to activate the trap door. “Gotta have some fun right? It can’t be all serious display stuff,” Steve said.
- They’re making a subtle revision to the rail so if you have a Vism with a cannon open stock it will be able to fit onto the rail.
- The sails would be removable so if you wanted to open the deck up for play it’s easy to do. The sails will stay in tact but you’re able to lift them off!
And with that Steve concluded the interview saying “Thank you for all your support. Fingers crossed, trust in the force, #BacktheYak, #BacktheBarge!”
If you want to order, the campaign is open until April 3, 2018. You can back the project now at HasbroLab.com
You can see newly released photos of the Barge and its accessories in the gallery below!
THE LAST JEDI Comes Home in 4K Ultra HD Mar 27
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| The biggest movie of 2017 comes home this month! Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is available in HD and Ultra HD 4k digitally via Movies Anywhere on March 13. Physical Blu-ray and 4k discs will be released March 27.This marks the first 4k releases of a Star Wars film, and it is Disney’s first title available on 4k Ultra Blu-ray disc in both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio.
Bonus features accompanying this release include*:
* Digital bonus offerings may vary by retailer. |
Toy Fair 2018 Roundup — Dimond Select Toys’ Marvel Selects, Minimates, Gallery Statues, and More
Diamond Select Toys have long been the go-to company for Marvel fans who like highly-articulated, finely detailed figures with their Marvel Select line. And for fans of articulated mini-figs, the Diamond Select Minimates are up to Assortment 76!
But the past couple of years Diamond has expanded their Marvel offerings with the Diamond Gallery PVC statue line and the Marvel Milestones statue line, and this will leave collectors like me with a problem: not enough space for all the cool things they have coming!
Check out all the items in the video below, and see detailed photos in our gallery!
Toy Fair 2018 Roundup — Marvel & Movies Come to Life with Mezco
The clear winner of Best in Show for Toy Fair 2018 is Mezco. Their One:12 series of Marvel figures is entering its third year, and Mezco unveiled some truly awesome and surprising upcoming releases!
On display at the Javitz center were some figures we’d seen before at San Diego Comic-Con, such as the Gladiator Hulk and Thor from Thor: Ragnarok, and the Spider-Man in his homemade suite from Homecoming. New additions to the line however include Black Panther with his movie-style outfit. The silver accents and the detail in the black outfit really make this six-inch figure stand out!
Also new in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was revealed Hela–Mezco’s first female Marvel One:12 figure! She comes with her large headdress and a Cate Blanchett likeness that is downright perfect. My only hope for this figure would be an alternate head (or variant released) without the helmet.
Similarly, in the Marvel Television Universe, three figures were shown. Daredevil is coming in both his Season One black outfit and his season two red. And also from Daredevil Season Two (and his own series) comes The Punisher. He is wearing an armored chestplate, and has an amazing beat-up Jon Bernthal likeness.
For comic-based Marvel fans, though, there was some real excitement! Revealed at the show were two new mutant figures, Cyclops and his son from the future, Cable! Cyclops is in his classic yellow-and-blue outfit, and the soft goods fit the figure perfectly. The shade of blue is spot-on with the ’90s version of the character.
Cable is on a much larger buck than usual, and has more solid plastic than soft goods from what I could see. The robotic arm has incredible sculpting detail, and he is a good size to stand among your other One:12 figures without dwarfing them!
Finally, for horror movie fans of Now Playing Podcast some of Mezco’s horror line of One:12 figures were revealed. They continued their look into the many iterations of Jason (leaving me hoping for a Jason X in the near future!), plus Michael Myers and Ash from Evil Dead 2. I did ask if a Pinhead might be joining this One:12 series soon. Mezco has the Hellraiser rights (as shown with their large figure and fuzzy-dice puzzle boxes). Drake could not confirm Pinhead being slated for the line, but he gave me hope stating, “I’m not saying no…”
Two surprising reveals included John Wick–with an uncanny Keanu Reeves likeness. With the third film, and a TV series, in production there seem to be several companies looking to light the fuse on this new action star.
Plus–in the single most incredible valut-pull I saw at Toy Fair, they are making a One:12 figure of Diabolik from the 1968 film Danger: Diabolik! This is a movie championed in Now Playing’s book Underrated Movies we Recommend and to see the John Phillip Law character realized in six inches was nothing short of astonishing.
Check out our video and photo coverage of Mezco below, and be sure to follow Marvelicious Toys for updates and reviews as these products start to ship!
Toy Fair 2018 Roundup — Marvel Collecting with Monogram International
Monogram International was out in full force during February’s Toy Fair International!
Of course, for collectors the hot item from Monogram is their blind-packaged foam keyrings, and they had two new sets on display. More, they were one of the only companies showing their new Infinity War merchandise–including a new set of keyrings with a blonde-haired Black Widow, Dr. Strange, Nebula, and others!
They also showed an assortment of X-Men related keyrings with characters including Professor X, Magneto, and Cyclops, and a Marvel Zombie Villians themed set with ghoulish versions of Venom, Thanos, and others
But the Marvel goodies didn’t stop at keyrings. Their vinyl bust banks continued to make a showing, with a Gladiator Hulk from Thor: Ragnarok and a new Black Panther joining the ranks of classics like The Punisher, Spider-Gwen, and Deadpool.
A new line of collectibles was shown — blind packaged, figural magnets. These items measure about 2-3 inches tall, and have environmental bases showing the superheroes popping out at you! Initial offerings showed Iron Man, Daredevil (in both Red and Yellow outfits), Deadpool (in his gray X-Force outfit), Captain America, Black Widow, and others.
Finally, for the more practical, there were a number of household items including Marvel chracter-themed neck pillows for flying. There were also pens which are topped with Marvel characters in the same style as their cute keyring collection.
Check out the gallery below for pictures of their booth, and stay with Marvelicious Toys for updates and reviews as these hit retail!
Get Your Shark-Fin Hat Ready — DEEP BLUE SEA 2 is coming April 17!
The original Deep Blue Sea didn’t sink when released in 1999–but it didn’t thrive either, barely breaking even. Yet nearly 20 years later comes the direct-to-video sequel Deep Blue Sea 2, coming to Blu-Ray, DVD, and VOD on April 17, 2018.This sequel follows shark conservationist Dr. Misty Calhoun (Danielle Savre) as she is invited to consult on a new, top secret project run by pharmaceutical billionaire Carl Durant (Michael Beach). She believe the project, performed at a remote, sea-based facility, focuses on extracting shark antibodies to help work toward cures for human diseases. However, Dr. Calhoun is shocked to learn that the company is using unpredictable bull sharks as its test subjects, and Durant as bio-engineered a shiver of highly intelligent, super-aggressive bull sharks. When science meddles with the time tested process of nature and nurture, the outcome can be deadly! The film is directed by two-time Independent Spirit Award nominee Darin Scott (Menace II Society, To Sleep With Anger), and written by Hans Rodionoff (Lost Boys: The Tribe) and award-winning writing partners Jessica Scott & Eric Patterson (Another Cinderella Story). “Deep Blue Sea 2 is a true sequel, staying within the mythology of the original film, and taking the next step in the evolution of the sharks … and their human counterparts,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, WBHE, Vice President, TV Marketing, Family & Animation. “This time, there’s more perspective from the sharks, giving greater personality to the ‘villains’ in this film. It’s a thrill ride that will keep the audience guessing throughout.” Deep Blue Sea 2 stars Danielle Savre (Heroes, Boogeyman 2) in the lead role of shark conservationist Dr. Misty Calhoun; Rob Mayes (John Dies at the End, Mistresses) as Trent Slater, a highly decorated ex-Navy SEAL; and Michael Beach (Third Watch, The 100, upcoming Aquaman) as Carl Durant, a big pharma billionaire with questionable ethics. Rounding out the cast is Nathan Lynn (Outlander) as tech expert Aaron Ellroy, Kim Syster (Sterlopers) as neurobiologist Leslie Kim, and Jeremy Jess Boado (House Party: Tonight’s the Night) as clinical neurophysiologist Daniel Kim. The bonus features on the Blu-Ray Combo Pack, DVD, and Digital include: Returning to the Deep – The Making of Deep Blue Sea 2 (Featurette) – Go behind the scenes with the cast and crew of Deep Blue Sea 2 as they film the highly-anticipated sequel. Deep Blue Sea 2: Death by Shark (Featurette) – In this wildly fun featurette, the cast and crew of Deep Blue Sea 2 discuss their characters’ demise and the jump-out- of-your- seat moments in the Deep Blue Silliness (Gag Reel) – A collection of fun outtakes and bloopers from the feature film showcasing the cast and production team. Deleted Scenes – A few filmed moments that didn’t make the final cut of Deep Blue Sea 2. |
Win “Black Panther: The Art of the Movie” Book and the “Black Panther” Soundtrack CD!
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Facebook is changing its News Feed so you see less news (ironically).
There will be less videos, less news articles, and more items that your friends have commented on.
But there is a way to keep your favorite Pages (like Now Playing Podcast) in your feed. Below you will find instructions how to do it on iPhone, Android, and Desktop.
And by doing this you could win a copy of Black Panther: The Art of the Movie book or the Black Panther soundtrack on CD!
Simply follow the instructions below. Then head to our Facebook page and post a screenshot showing Now Playing having priority in your timeline on our pinned post! You have until March 31 to post it. Two winners will be randomly selected from all entries! The first prize winner gets The Art of Black Panther book ($50 value), and the second prize winner will get the Black Panther soundtrack on CD ($15 value)
The photo posted should be of this screen, with the Blue Star on the Now Playing logo:
International winners may be responsible for some or all of the shipping costs.
Here are the instructions on how to make sure you keep seeing Now Playing’s posts on your timeline:
For Facebook app on iPhone:
1. Select the three line menu in the bottom right corner of the app
1. Scroll down in the menu and click “Settings”
3. Select “news feed preferences” from the pop-up menu
4. Select “Prioritize who to see First” on the next screen
5. Click on “Now Playing Podcast” and any other pages you want to remain in your newsfeed
For Facebook app on Android:
1. Tap on the three line menu in the top right of the app.
2. Select “News Feed Preferences” from the next screen.
3. Tap “Prioritize Who to See First” on the next screen
3. Click on “Now Playing Podcast” and any other pages you want to remain in your newsfeed
For Facebook app on Desktop:
1. Click the arrow in the top right corner to show the drop-down menu
2. From that menu choose “News Feed Preferences.”
3. Select “Prioritize who to see first”
4. Find Now Playing (and all other pages/people you want to see in your feed) and click on them. The Blue Star means you’ll see us in your feed!
New Podcast: Star Wars Action News — 501st Episode: Marching on Toy Fair
Hosted by Arnie Carvalho and Marjorie Carvalho
Toy Fair international begins TOMORROW! In this episode Marjorie and Arnie discuss the things they hope, and expect, to see at this weekend’s show. Listen now, and then follow Star Wars Action News on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter for live VIDEO updates from the show!
Also in this episode, Arnie talks to Nathan P Butler, author of A Saga on Home Video about his Star Wars video collection, his book, and what the digital revolution means for physical media.
With Brock reviewing the novel Cobalt Squadron and more, it’s all in this pre-Toy Fair episode of Star Wars Action News!
New Podcast — Star Wars Action News Episode 500!
Hosted by Arnie Carvalho, Marjorie Carvalho, Daryl Whitlow, Andrew Harrison, Brock, and more!
This weekend is Toy Fair International 2018! Tons of new Star Wars collectibles will be revealed (including, likely, the first look at SOLO toys)! Star Wars Action News will be there to cover all the releases.
Facebook is Changing. Here’s how to keep up with Now Playing Podcasts
Facebook is changing its News Feed so you see less news (ironically).
There will be less videos, less news articles, and more items that your friends have commented on.
But there is a way to keep your favorite Pages (like Now Playing Podcast) in your feed. Here’s instructions how to do it on iPhone, Android, and Desktop:
For Facebook app on iPhone:
1. Select the three line menu in the bottom right corner of the app
1. Scroll down in the menu and click “Settings”
3. Select “news feed preferences” from the pop-up menu
4. Select “Prioritize who to see First” on the next screen
5. Click on “Now Playing Podcast” and any other pages you want to remain in your newsfeed
For Facebook app on Android:
1. Tap on the three line menu in the top right of the app.
2. Select “News Feed Preferences” from the next screen.
3. Tap “Prioritize Who to See First” on the next screen
3. Click on “Now Playing Podcast” and any other pages you want to remain in your newsfeed
For Facebook app on Desktop:
1. Click the arrow in the top right corner to show the drop-down menu
2. From that menu choose “News Feed Preferences.”
3. Select “Prioritize who to see first”
4. Find Now Playing (and all other pages/people you want to see in your feed) and click on them. The Blue Star means you’ll see us in your feed!
You Can’t RUNAWAY from CHILDREN OF THE CORN 10
No matter how far you run, the past will always catch up to you.
That is the tagline for Children of the Corn: Runaway — and the same could be said for this franchise.
Stephen King’s eponymous short story, originally published in a 1977 issue of Penthouse magazine, has now spawned ten movies–the first starring Linda Hamilton in 1984. The previous installment, Children of the Corn: Genesis was released by Dimension Films in 2011. Now it’s harvest time once more.
Children of the Corn: Runaway tells the story of young, pregnant Ruth, who escapes a murderous child cult in a small Midwestern town. She spends the next decade living anonymously in an attempt to spare her son the horrors that she experienced as a child. Ruth and her son end up in a small Oklahoma town, but something is following her. Now, she must confront this evil or lose her child.
The film is directed by John Gulager (Piranha 3DD, Feast) and written by Joel Soisson (Children of the Corn: Genesis, Dracula 2000Hellraiser: Judgment). It stars Marci Miller, Lynn Andrews, Mary Kathryn Bryant, and Jake Ryan Scott. (Bryant is also in Dimensions’ upcoming ).
The movie will be on VOD, DVD, and Blu-Ray March 13th. The Blu-Ray is priced at $21.99; the DVD at $19.98. All formats have only one special feature: a deleted scene
The hosts at Now Playing Podcast have already reviewed the first nine Children of the Corn films. Their review of Runaway will be coming later in 2018.
Here is the teaser trailer and cover art for the film:
Star Wars Toy Sales Down as “Movie Fatigue” Sets In
Are you suffering from “Movie Tie-In Fatigue?”
Per a Bloomberg article, Star Wars toy sales are down. Specifically adult collectors are still buying (but, judging by some “fan” sites, they’re complaining the entire time they shop); however, kids have less interest in the Star Wars toys.
The article states: “While ‘Star Wars’ was still the top-selling toy line during the nine-week holiday period, sales fell from 2016 and the brand lost its No. 1 position for the year…This was despite “Last Jedi” being the top-grossing film released in the U.S. last year “
The most telling quotes? “Adult collectors, who grew up with the brand, are still buying a lot of merchandise when the toys come out, but demand dies down afterward… That doesn’t bode well for Hasbro, which has the main “Star Wars” toy partnership, or Jakks Pacific Inc., which has a secondary license. ”
What do you think? Is the problem fatigue? Is a new movie per year too much? Is it the types of toys offered? Why do YOU think sales are down? Let us know in the comments!
THOR: RAGNAROK Video Release: Streaming Feb 20, Disc Mar 6
Marvel’s God of Thunder will roar in your home starting next month!
One of 2017’s biggest super hero movies, and recipient of three green arrows from the Now Playing Podcast critics, Thor: Ragnarok will strike digitally in HD and 4K Ultra HD on Feb. 20. The 4k Ultra HD and Blu-ray discs will follow on March 6.
The 4k Blu-ray release will include HDR as well as Dolby Atmos audio.
The movie will also be part of the digital “Movies Anywhere” program where a digital copy purchased at a participating digital retailer will be available through all of the following platforms: Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu
In Marvel Studios’ “Thor: Ragnarok,” Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is imprisoned on the other side of the universe without his mighty hammer and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok – the destruction of his home world and the end of Asgardian civilization – at the hands of an all-powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela (Cate Blanchett). But first he must survive a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against his former ally and fellow Avenger – the Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – and grapple with his silver-tongued adopted brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the fierce warrior Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and the eccentric Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum).
Fans who bring home the Ultimate Cinematic Universe Edition (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital) of “Thor: Ragnarok” will experience all the thunderous action and lightning-fast wit in stunning 4K Ultra HD with next-generation high dynamic range (HDR) visuals and Dolby Atmos immersive audio. Exclusive, never-before-seen bonus features include deleted scenes; hilarious outtakes; an exclusive short: part three of the mockumentary “Team Thor,” retitled “Team Darryl” and featuring an eccentric new roommate; the evolution of MCU’s heroes culminating in “Avengers: Infinity War;” numerous making-of featurettes which explore the unique vision of director Taika Waititi; the story’s unstoppable women; the effortlessly charismatic Korg; the tyrannical leader of Sakaar, the Grandmaster; and the film’s comic-book origins; audio commentary by Waititi; and more.
You can hear Now Playing Podcast’s review of the film now. Stay tuned for a review of the 4k Blu-Ray set when available.
See below for further release specifications:
Bonus features may vary by retailer, but there are disc and digital exclusive videos:
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Blu-ray:
- Director’s Introduction
- Deleted/Extended Scenes – Deleted Scenes: The Sorcerer Supreme, Skurge Finds Heimdall & Hulk Chases Thor Through Sakaar and Extended Scenes: Thor Meets the Grandmaster, Stupid Avenger vs. Tiny Avenger & Grandmaster and Topaz
- Gag Reel – Watch a collection of goofs, gaffes and pratfalls starring the cast
- Exclusive Short/Team Darryl – Fresh off being unseated as the ruler of Sakaar, the Grandmaster makes his way to Earth to start a new life. It’s been over a year since Thor left Australia and Darryl has been struggling to pay his rent. Now Darryl needs a new roommate to help make the monthly payments. Unfortunately for Darryl, the Grandmaster was the only one who answered Darryl’s “Roommate Needed” ad and with no viable options, the Grandmaster moves in.
- Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years – The Evolution of Heroes – Marvel’s universe is vast and transcends both time and space. We’ll examine the Cinematic Universe as a whole and revisit each of our heroes’ current location and their place in the current MCU timeline, as it all leads up to the one culminating event: “Avengers: Infinity War.”
- Getting in Touch with Your Inner Thor – “Thor: Ragnarok” director Taika Waititi has brought his unique sensibility and sense of humor to the film in a great many ways but it is the evolution of Thor’s own sense of humor, which stands out the most in the new film. This piece explores the impact Chris Hemsworth has made on the development of his widely-loved character and celebrates the mighty cast and crew who reveal the fun and hard work that went into assembling Thor’s eccentric counterparts.
- Unstoppable Women: Hela & Valkyrie – This piece explores the strong female characters in “Thor: Ragnarok,” their importance in the MCU, their incredible casting and their epic comic origins.
- Finding Korg – A tongue-in-cheek interview with Taika on casting Korg. He describes the difficult search for just the right evolution of the character design, and the nuances of this instantly classic character in the MCU. This conversation will also delve into all the extraordinary visual effects that brought Korg, Sakaar and the worlds of “Thor: Ragnarok” to life.
- Sakaar: On the Edge of the Known and Unknown – Sakaar is the collection point for all lost and unloved things. This documentary will answer all known and unknown questions while also exploring the hard work and creativity that went into creating the look and feel of Sakaar. From design inspired by Jack Kirby’s classic artwork to the dedication of the visual development team to the awe-inspiring physical and digital production, you will see this distant world come alive.
- Journey into Mystery – A deep dive story piece with the writers, director and producer Kevin Feige about the inspirations for “Thor: Ragnarok” within the comics. Most notably, the contest of champions limited series where the Grandmaster pitted our favorite heroes against one another as he does in the film. This piece also further explores Thor’s comic book origins and classic arcs through interviews with some of the most important comic creators, such as Walt Simonson and Jack Kirby.
- 8bit Scenes – Final Bridge Battle + Sakaar Spaceship Battle. Dive into these climactic sequences presented in retro video-game format.
- Directors Commentary
Digital Exclusives:
- Evolution of Thor and Hulk’s Bromance – We’ll examine this Super Hero friendship, which has spanned through several Marvel films. From their original Helicarrier fight match to the now iconic Hulk punch from Avengers 1, see how Marvel’s most powerful Super Heroes become the most extraordinary Super Hero buddies.
- Additional Deleted Scenes – Travel to Asgard & Race To The Wormhole
DISC SPECIFICATIONS (applies to film content only):
- Product SKUs: Cinematic Universe Edition (4K UHD+Blu-ray+Digital), Multi-Screen Edition (Blu-ray+DVD+Digital), Digital HD/SD/4K UHD, DVD and On-Demand
- Feature Run Time: Approximately 130 minutes
- Rating: PG-13
- Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
- Audio:
- UHD BD: English Dolby Atmos 7.1.4, English & Spanish 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus, French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
- Blu-ray: English 7.1 DTS-HDMA, Spanish & French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
- DVD: English, Spanish & French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
- Digital UHD: English Dolby Atmos 7.1.4, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
- Digital HD: English & French Canadian 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 2.0 Dolby Digital, English DVS 2.0 Dolby Digital
- Languages/Subtitles: UHD BD: English SDH, Spanish, French Canadian
- Blu-ray: English SDH, Spanish, French Canadian
- DVD: English SDH & CC, Spanish, French Canadian
- Digital UHD: English CC, Spanish, French Canadian
- Digital HD: English CC, Spanish, French Canadian
HELLRAISER: JUDGMENT – Trailer Released, On Video Feb 13
| Lionsgate continues to breathe life into seemingly dead franchises. First Day of the Dead: Bloodline, now they bring us the first footage from Hellraiser: Judgment.
This new direct-to-video Hellraiser was filmed in 2016 but only recently completed post-production. It was written and directed by Gary J. Tunnicliffe, writer of Hellraiser: Revelations and make-up designer on the Hellraiser series since 1992’s Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. Tunnicliffe had previously directed (and starred in) a Hellraiser “fan film” No More Souls which was included in Arrow Video’s recent box set (and can be seen on YouTube). Hellraiser: Judgment appears to be based on Tunnicliffe’s existing Judgment script, which only reached 4% of its crowdfunding goal. Like Hellworld and Deader before it, this is (at least) the third Hellraiser film to be made from previously Pinhead-less ideas. Judgment’s official synopsis is: “The dreaded Pinhead returns in the next terrifying chapter of the classic Hellraiser series. Three detectives trying to stop a diabolical serial killer are sucked into a maze of otherworldly horror, where hellish denizens including the Auditor, the Assessor, and the Jury await to pass judgment.” Starring in the film is Randy Wayne (The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning) as David Carter, Damon Carney (“Jackson’s Henchman” in Logan) as Sean Carter, Rheagan Wallace (Malcolm in the Middle) as Allison Carter, and Paul T. Taylor (Super, Sin City) as Pinhead. Heather Langenkamp (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare) is on board in the cameo role of “Landlady.” The movie is scheduled for release on DVD, Blu-ray, and Video on Demand February 13th. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. The Blu-Ray, Digital HD, and DVD with all include bonus features of Deleted & Extended Scenes and a Gag Reel. Now Playing Podcast has reviewed all nine released Hellraiser films. Their review of Judgment will be released in February. What do you think of the Judgment trailer? Can it be the first great Direct-to-Video Hellraiser? Let us know in the comments! |
 Hear NOW PLAYING PODCAST’S reviews of all the HELLRAISER films! Their review of JUDGMENT will be out in February. |
Day of the Dead: Bloodline — on Blu-ray Feb 6
Lionsgate has announced their new Day of the Dead: Bloodline will be released on DVD and Blu-ray February 6.
The film is described as a “terrifying retelling of George A. Romero’s zombie horror classic” starring Jonathon Schaech (Prom Night, Ray Donovan) and Sophie Skelton (Another Mother’s Son, Outlander). Romero’s Day of the Dead was previously remade in a 2008 film starring Mena Suvari and Ving Rhames.
Bloodline is currently available for rent through Video on Demand. On February 6 it will be available to own on VOD as well as on physical media.
All versions of the movie will come with the featurette: Day of the Dead: Bloodline: Reviving Horror. The Blu-ray will be 1080p with 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio.
You can see the trailer for the new Romero Remake below–and Now Playing Podcast’s review will be coming in February! Stay tuned…
Marjorie’s Top 10 Films of 2017
by Marjorie Carvalho
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I expected not to like this movie and was pleasantly surprised. A nice action film with some solid acting, it’s interesting enough to keep you watching. It seems as if they played fast and loose with the historical accuracies, and some of the characters actions don’t make sense (looking at you Tom Hiddleston) but it was an enjoyable movie. | ||
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An over the top gore fest written by James Gunn, The Belko Experiment is full of inventive kills, human prey and suspense. A mysterious voice tells captive office employees that 2 employees must be killed or double that will die. The audience, nor the characters, are given any clues as to why this is happening or who is responsible. Trapped inside the office, things turn chaotic and brutal. The twist ending is original and an oddly satisfying end for the movie. | ||
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If the opening scene of this movie doesn’t get you, I don’t know if you have a heart. Little Georgie’s encounter with Pennywise is terrifying, sad and had me on the edge of my seat. The children in this movie are all fantastic actors and Bill Skarsgard undeniably scary as Pennywise. While it felt a little long in places, it still delivered creepiness and I’m looking forward to part 2.
Now Playing will review It (2017), It (1990) and the It sequel upon its release September 6, 2019. |
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A crime caper by Edgar Wright shines due to it’s stellar use of music as a character. From the opening scene, down to the end scene, music is as part of this movie as any human. The soundtrack is eminently playable. In addition to the music, the visuals are top notch. A coffee run early in the movie, filmed continuously is a great sequence, almost like a music video. And let’s not forget the clean cut Jon Hamm portraying a foul mouthed criminal. | ||
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Wolverine is by far my favorite X-Men character and until Logan, he had not had a proper movie to showcase his tortured soul. With self healing powers, he has suffered while those around him have perished and he is left caring for a demented Professor X in a strange future with self driving cars. When he meets a child with similar powers, I feared he would turn fatherly, when instead we get a meaningful redemption movie and the door left open for future X-Men. | ||
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A movie about the making of the worst movie of all time might be one of the best movies of 2017. James Franco, along with brother Dave, make you feel both pity and empathy for Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero. Dave really pulls off the earnest star seeking Greg while James, well, he is Tommy better than Tommy can be Tommy. Both Franco brothers really shine in this movie. You don’t need to have seen The Room to get the jokes or the movie, it’s enough itself so you never feel like you are missing anything.
Hear Now Playing’s full review of The Room now. The full The Disaster Artist review will be out 1/31! |
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If the 80’s were a movie, this would be it. From the stellar New Wave soundtrack to the use of neon, and the Hasselhoff nod, Atomic Blonde is thoroughly 80’s. Charlize Theron is seriously badass in her role as a spy, while James McEvoy was great as a spy who has spent too much time in Berlin. Between double agents, and brutal fight scenes, you still don’t know who is double crossing who. The cold gray and starkness of the Berlin on both sides of the wall adds a dreariness to this movie in stark contrast to the bright neon and music of the decade.
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A tongue in cheek biopic about the everyone’s favorite working class hero Tonya Harding, I, Tonya paints a brutal picture of her upbringing, as well as her tumultuous marriage to Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) leading into “The Incident” and its aftermath. Margot Robbie’s Harding is wickedly trashy and Allison Janney, playing Tonya’s mom, is a national treasure. Often breaking the 4th wall, this movie doesn’t get too serious, how can you when the actual events are crazier than any movie? | ||
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In a hard to look at portrayal of social media in our lives, Ingrid Goes West shows what happens when reality can’t be separated from social media. Ingrid moves to California because an Instagram influencer, Taylor, replied to her comment. She then works her way into Taylor’s life via kidnapping Taylor’s dog. It’s painful to watch Ingrid attempt to achieve #bestie status with Taylor, it’s so #desperate and #cringeworthy but you can’t stop watching. Aubrey Plaza is astounding as awkward Ingrid and her performance makes you feel sorry for Ingrid, even when she is making bad decisions. | ||
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At times sweet, and at times heartbreaking, Kumail Nanjiani true story of the courtship of his wife is a great story. Not only does he stand by when his estranged girlfriend falls seriously ill, he also wins over her parents while at the same time, trying to break free from his parents and Pakistani traditions. Though a bit long, the movie is touching and sweet and that mushy stuff I usually don’t fall for. | ||
Marjorie Carvalho is a movie critic on Now Playing Podcast. Read more of her reviews in the Now Playing Podcast book–Underrated Movies We Recommend. You can also follow her on Twitter.
Jakob’s 10 Notable Films for 2017
| by Jakob Conkling
I feel I’ve never seen an adequate number of films to declare of “best of” until at least half way into the next year. As of writing this, I haven’t seen many of the films I’ve been anticipating in 2017, such as The Shape of Water, Phantom Thread, and Baywatch. Rather, here are 10 films that stood out to me (and focusing—with one exception—on films not reviewed on the podcast) for better or for worse in 2017… |
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A Dog’s Purpose
Worst film of 2017 This story of a dog’s soul inhabiting various breeds is saccharine drudgery. Marketed as a family film, have fun dealing with your crying children, moms and dads! The movie believes reincarnation makes numerous dog death less traumatic for kids (and pet-loving adults). WRONG! Melodramatic, sappy, manipulative trash; I hope Dennis Quaid wishes finds a real life shrink ray from Inner Space so he can disappear from the public eye for staring in this. This film’s only redemption is that it can never be worse than Kevin Spacey-turned-cat in Nine Lives. |
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The Great Wall
Most entertaining bad movie of 2017 Matt Damon speaks in a baffling, generic European accent not heard since Kevin Costner’s in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Costume design inspired by the Power Ranger’s colorful armor. Willem Defoe looks as confused as I was about why he was on set. There is a whole wing of the military dedicated to fighting monsters via bungee jumping (with inelastic rope???). And the evil creatures having a weakness so bizarre, you’ll be asking, like the Insane Clown Posse, “Magnets? How do they work?” |
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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Best first five minutes in a 2017 movie Luc Besson’s Valerian is a galaxy-sized mess but features an awe inspiring first five minutes. Set to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” various nations of Earth come together on an international space station, and then are joined by aliens across the universe. It’s full of the optimism and discovery space travel can arouse. Truly, it is a moment of genius that balances out this very uneven film from its most embarrassing moments (any scene featuring Rihanna as a shape-shifting burlesque dancer). |
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Batman & Bill
My favorite documentary of 2017 Liked the caped crusader, documentarian Don Argott seeks justice. While everyone knows about Batman’s credited creator, Bob Kane, there was another. Behind the scenes, Bill Finger contributed the most iconic elements to the Dark Knight. Finger died alone in poverty and, reportedly, buried in a potter’s field. Argott’s journey for an eligible heir to bring suit against DC Entertainment to have Finger’s name added to the creator byline is full of twists and reveals in this engaging journey for recognition. |
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The Founder
Best anti-commercial of 2017 I was expecting another (alleged) heartwarming, inspiring ad for a giant corporation the way Saving Mr. Banks tried to convince me Disney knows best and was the savior for a financially struggling artist. While Michael Keaton brings a lot of charm with his portrayal of down-on-his-luck, milkshake-mixer salesman Ray Kroc, the actor is equally capable of depicting the sinister turn Kroc takes as he steals the McDonald’s brand from the brothers who conceived the fast food restaurant. Forget about the high calorie count in its food, this dark tale of capitalistic greed preying on naive innovators should keep you away from purchasing that next Big Mac. |
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I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore
The best Sundance film that went straight to Netflix in 2017 Having starred in violent thrillers Blue Ruin and Green Room, Macon Blair’s directorial debut reframes those movies’ violence and tension into a dark comedy. Melanie Lynskey plays Ruth who undergoes an existential crisis after her house is robbed. She befriends Tony (Elijah Wood), a religious, heavy metal loving, ninja-weapons enthusiasts. The two go about reclaiming Ruth’s stolen property; but, their attempt at vigilante justice goes horribly wrong. Funny, violent, quirky, tense, bittersweet. The film hits the right beats to balance its various tones to create a comedic thriller. |
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Get Out
Best 2017 film reviewed on Now Playing Patrons have heard my thoughts (along with Arnie’s and Stuart’s). A smart and tense social commentary on race in America, Get Out isn’t only relevant but also a masterfully crafter horror-thriller. Sketch-show-comedian-turned-director Jordan Peele obviously loves horror and has studied the greats in this story that warns us about the dehumanizing effects of racism even if the stereotypes are positive. Reviewed on the podcast or not, this film deserves to be recognized on any top movie list. |
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A Ghost Story
Best 2017 movie based on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown I only slightly jest. Looking at the poster of Casey Affleck dressed as a ghost—wearing a sheet with eye-holes cut out—I thought I was in for an indie comedy. Rather, this is a poetic story of the living haunting the dead. The camera holds on images until you stop asking what their narrative purpose are and, rather, focus on what you feel in each moment. Never have the folds and frayed edges of a bed sheet portrayed so much loss and sorrow. Director David Lowery channels Terrance Malick and Stanley Kubrick with this slow paced, beautifully framed journey through time and the cosmos.
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Detroit
Best film of 2017 most have an opinion about based on their politics before even seeing it Political. Polarizing. Inflammatory. If you’re inclined to ignore this film because you think you know what it is, I ask then to focus on the craft. Katheryn Bigelow has created one of the tensest hours in film as she retells the Algiers Motel Killings during the 1967 Detroit 12th Street Riot. I would hope that anyone could watch this film and walk away with a little more understanding of why people of color have a seemingly innate fear of police authority. Fifty years later and these real life events feel more relevant than ever. |
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best acted film of 2017 There’s good reason Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell received Golden Globe nominations for their acting in this film about horrible people trying to cope with loss and hard times in the unhealthiest of ways. Even Woody Harrelson and Caleb Landry Jones (who plays the opposite of his menacing character from Get Out) are at the top of their game. Writer-director Martin McDonagh knows how the audience expects this movie to play out and, therefore, zigs when we expect it to zag to create an unpredictable, emotional story of damaged characters. |
Jakob Conkling is a movie critic on Now Playing Podcast. Read more of his reviews in the Now Playing Podcast book–Underrated Movies We Recommend
Arnie’s Top 10 Films (and Bottom 1) of ’17
by Arnie Carvalho
2017 was a bit of a rough year for blockbusters, but I did see some all-time great films. As archived per my ratings on Letterboxd, here are the 10 best new films I saw this year.
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In January this year DC superheroes seemed doomed. Other than the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, these heroes couldn’t catch a break. Warner Bros’ new Justice League universe of films stumbled repeatedly. But, apart from all that, the filmmakers at LEGO created the best DC superhero film since Nolan’s The Dark Knight with The LEGO Batman Movie. Batman, voiced by Will Arnett, has an emotional character arc but the film never forgets to amuse as it teaches. The lampooning of other Batman movies, plus the inclusion of so many Batman baddies, and bad guys from surprising places, it’s a solid POW of enjoyment that bests both Wonder Woman and Justice League as best DC film of the year! | ||
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It’s a great time for kick-ass women in movies. The epitome of that seems to be Furiosa, Charlize Theron’s one-armed warrior in Mad Max: Fury Road. Theron continues her streak with Atomic Blonde–a cold-war era period piece spy film. Theron plays MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton. On the surface she’s “Jane Bond”, but when the fights begin she pulls out fight moves that would take Bond out with one kick. The action is balanced with great performances from Theron, James McAvoy, and Sofia Boutella, and scored to a slew of ’80s New Wave hits. The fights and the story make this the movie I wished Kingsman: The Golden Circle had been. | ||
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Stephen Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven holds a special place in my heart for being the epitome of the ensemble heist movie. But I don’t need to wait for next year’s Ocean’s Eight to experience that same thrill–Soderberg recaptured that magic with Logan Lucky. The movie follows a group of blue collar criminals who plan to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The able cast keeps our allegiance with the criminals, and the plot has more turns than the Speedway itself. The script is tight and the characters fun. Forget Ocean’s Twelve or Thirteen—this is Soderbergh’s best follow-up to Ocean’s Eleven. | ||
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The Room is widely considered the worst film ever made–a Rocky Horror for the 21st Century. When a film is that obviously broken, where is the fun in picking it apart? Can there be a bigger punchline than the film itself? James Franco clearly proved the answer to be “Yes.” Disaster Artist starts off like many movies of wannabe actors dreaming of becoming stars in Los Angeles–but one of these wannabes is the mysterious and strange Tommy Wiseau. In that way the first half of the movie feels like a comedy-drama. But when Tommy has the idea to write, produce, and fund the picture himself the laughs truly begin. Rarely is Tommy the butt of the jokes (pun intended), but his actions, borne of ignorance, are funny just the same.
You don’t need to have seen The Room to understand the comedy of The Disaster Artist — but it helps. Either way, the film is a sensitive and funny portrayal of perhaps the most enigmatic figures in Hollywood. Hear Now Playing’s full review of The Room now. The full The Disaster Artist review will be out 1/31! |
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Blade Runner is one of the all-time great sci-fi movies, and great noir detective films. There was great skepticism in my mind if 35 years later any follow-up could match the original. Blade Runner 2049 doesn’t quite hit that mark, but it is close.
The plot centers around new Blade Runner K, played by Ryan Gosling. On his latest mission K uncovers a trail that may indicate he may be the first child ever born to a supposedly-sterile replicant. And not just any replicant–Rachel, the love of Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford reprising his role from the original). With this plot 2049 takes the subtext from the original, the never answered “is Deckard a replicant” question, and makes it the plot. Is K a new messiah for replicants, or is he all-too-human? More, 2049 deepens the series’ mythology. We learn replicants are not androids, there’s no circuitry inside those bodies, they are simply genetically engineered and constructed beings. “If you cut them, do they not bleed?” This makes the “retiring” of replicants even more cagey, for how human are they? Do they have a soul? 2049 also has a love story that mirrors the original–our protagonist in love with a machine. Only now, like in Her, it is his personal assistant. It begs the question of what love means, and is love strictly human. With a visual style that echos the original while making it to heights of nearly-unreal color and a score that, while not being by Vangelis, is a suitably atmospheric replacement, Blade Runner 2049 is a feast for the eyes, ears, and mind…be that mind natrual-born or created. |
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I’m seemingly one of the few who remembers the 1990 TV-miniseries It as being a dull, sometimes laughable, failure. Trailers for this new theatrical It had me thinking it would repeat the mistakes of the past. I simply couldn’t envision, even from trailers, how a supernatural clown played by Bill Skarsgård could be scary.
I was dead wrong. It was a suspenseful, terrifying horror film. It’s ’80s setting did make it seem like a Stranger Things clone, but unlike that Netflix series It never pulls It’s punches. Skarsgård is indeed chilling as Pennywise the Clown, and while his screen time is minimal, his presence permeates every frame of It. Aided by solid performances by its young cast, It restored King’s cinematic legacy to glory (let’s just all forget about The Dark Tower) and has me salivating for the 2019 conclusion! Now Playing will review It (2017), It (1990) and the It sequel upon its release September 6, 2019. |
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In an era of YouTube celebrities and Instagram professionals, people measure their self-worth through “likes” and retweets. Doctors have recently discovered that social media is not just a psychological addiction, these online interactions and responses trigger a dopamine high. Getting your post “liked” can chemically make you feel as good as a hug.
This idea is taken to its extreme in Ingrid Goes West, a dramatic comedy starring Aubrey Plaza as an aimless young woman obsessed with Instagram, and the perfect lifestyles portrayed in that media. We watch as she tries to shape her life as many people shape what they share online. It’s a manipulative car-wreck from which I couldn’t look away. Plaza shows a dramatic range I’d not seen in her mostly comedic filmography, and it enabled me to root for her while knowing tragedy is inevitable. It helps that most movie-goers will be able to relate to her obsessive phone-checking. It’s a film that has a message I endorse, and performances that rivet. |
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Of the original Avengers‘ movies, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor, the Thor franchise is the one that hasn’t found a footing. It took Ragnarok — the mythic Norse view of apocalypse — to give actor Chris Hemsworth the superhero he deserves. Literally, everything about Thor is wiped away over the course of this film, including his mighty hammer and his homeworld (and these aren’t spoilers–they’re in every trailer). Yet with all the cataclysmic events, Thor: Ragnarok finds its heart in Guardians of the Galaxy-esque humor. Of course the “He’s a friend from work” line was (over)played in the trailers, but from start to finish Ragnarok left me with a smile on my face…and a lead-in to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.
Though Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 was released this year, Ragnarok was the film that best captured the mirth and magic of 2014’s original Guardians and has become my favorite film in Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. |
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Odds are you’ve seen The Belko Experiment. While the movie only grossed $11 million worldwide, you’ve still seen it. Perhaps it bore the name Battle Royale, or The Hunger Games — movies in which groups of people are trapped in an arena and forced to murder each other. Those who don’t will have their heads blown off by explosives planted on their bodies.
But Belko sets itself apart by adding in a healthy dose of humor. In this movie the setting is an office building in Columbia filled with American employees. The usual corporate alliances and rivalries are stretched to homicidal extremes, with fun results. It helps that our protagonist Mike, played by John Gallagher Jr., bears a striking resemblance in both looks and performance to John Krasinski, making this feel like the best Office series finale ever! With a dose of Cabin in the Woods type world-building, Belko was my single biggest cinematic surprise of 2017. I walked in expecting okay horror–and walked out with a grin on my face having had a great time. That is one successful Experiment |
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If for no other reason than the three-minute continuous, highly choreographed, opening credits sequence scored to “Harlem Shuffle” Baby Driver is the best made, most artistically ambitious film I saw this year. Yet it has so much more going on than just that spotlight scene. The car chases are equally devised (and done almost entirely practically) creating a vehicular dance that is mesmerizing to behold. It’s a musical in which they only sing along to songs they’re playing, and most of the dancing is done on four wheels, but I can’t look away.
The soundtrack has been on near-constant rotation in my life since the movie’s June release. I can’t get enough of it. More, the film has heart. Ansel Elgort’s Baby may be a criminal getaway driver, but his caring for his deaf foster father Joe, his pure love for waitress Debora, and his “one last job” mentality make him a complex, yet relatable, hero. Add in some Edgar Wright humor (the sunglasses scene is pure gold), a stellar cast, and as many plot turns as U-turns, and Baby Driver speeds past every other movie to be my top of 2017.
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And I’d like to give special mention to the absolute worst movie of the year: Transformers: The Last Knight.
The movie was so loud, obnoxious, stupid, and incomprehensible that it makes Transformers 2 look like The Godfather Part II. It’s complete abuse of respected and returning stars like Anthony Hopkins, Tyrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, and Stanley Tucci is horrifying. And (other than Hopkins at Stonehenge) it’s not even funny-bad, it’s just excruciatingly painful to your ears and your mind. Don’t try to figure out the plot…this film is actually less than meets the eye. Hear Now Playing’s full review of Transformers: The Last Knight
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Arnie Carvalho is a movie critic on Now Playing Podcast. Read more of his reviews in the Now Playing Podcast book–Underrated Movies We Recommend. You can also follow his movie watching on Letterboxd, and his random ramblings on Twitter.
Stuart’s Top 10 Films of ’17
| by Stuart Atkinson
This whole year seemed riddled with animosity, upheaval, and social breakdown – qualities reflected in most of my favorite 2017 films. |
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10. Downsizing – Hang the marketers for pushing this apocalyptic sci-fi story as a broad comedy. It’s fairly short on jokes once Matt Damon gets small, and definitely leaves audiences uneasy with unanswered questions. Still, I found Downsizing to be a thought-provoking look at a man who is never sure whether he should be living for himself or others. |
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09. The Florida Project – A coming-of-age story that draws a sharp contrast between “have” and “have not” families. A 6-year-old girl living in a fleabag motel gets into all kinds of trouble playing in trash created by neighboring Disney World. I futilely tried to think of options available to single mom Halley that would lead to better outcomes, but ultimately left the theater just grateful I wasn’t a parent. |
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08. Call Me By Your Name – Wealthy academics living in 1983 Italy might sound a world away from the dead-end squalor of Florida Project. But both coming-of-age stories keenly demonstrate how problems in childhood can often go unspoken. Timothee Chalamet gives a remarkably intimate performance as a teenager wrestling with being gay and Jewish in a household where everyone can identify obscure artifacts, but no one dares to articulate their carnal desires. |
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07. The Big Sick – Can a coma bring two cultures together? Silicon Valley star Kumail Nanjiani wrote and starred in the best romantic comedy I’ve seen in ages (which becomes even more impressive when you find out its the true story of how this Pakistani comedian met his wife). |
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06. The Disaster Artist – Watching The Room is no longer enough. Fans of “brown arrow” bad movies must also include a screening of behind-the-scenes tell-all The Disaster Artist. It’s the role of a lifetime for James Franco to be able to star and direct himself as wannabe star/director Tommy Wiseau.
Hear Now Playing’s Full Review of The Room — The Disaster Artist podcast will be released Sunday, 1/31! |
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05. The Square – As fun and feel-good as The Disaster Artist is, I loved Swedish film The Square even more for taking a deeper dive into the tension between art and mainstream society. It’s the story of a museum curator who desperately wants to provide context for the unexplainable nuttiness found in modern art, only to realize how little he knows about being a good man. |
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04. Good Time – I’m going to let Robert Pattinson out of movie jail after seeing how great he is as a failed bank robber going to extremes for his mentally slow brother. The best way to enjoy Good Time is to go in knowing nothing (though I recommend putting lots of pillows on the floor to catch your dropping jaw once the crazy schemes begin). |
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03. Get Out – Much has been made about this Blumhouse horror movie getting nominated for a Best Comedy Golden Globe. But no genre label captures all the things that Get Out does so well. From the tender romance between Daniel Kaluuya and Alison Williams, to the stinging social commentary about cultural appropriation, a climax full of blood and brain splatter, and yes the comedic stylings of scene-stealing TSA agent Rod… there’s something for every taste in this one. |
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02. Detroit – I was shaking when I left Katherine Bigelow’s intense re-enactment of the 1967 Detroit race riots. But then to come home, turn on the TV, and immediately see the fallout over Confederate statues in Charlottesville… it was like I never left the movie theater! Detroit was too hot topic to succeed as escapist summer box office fare, but future generations will likely declare it one of the great summations of our times. |
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01. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – Still, nobody captured small town American rage better than British writer-director Martin McDonagh. His story of a grieving mother who takes to shaming the local police via unused billboard space held a mirror up to the world and dared us to laugh. How WILL we ever come together if everyone thinks their pain gives them the right to lash out in whatever manner they see fit? Watching Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell squash their beef and head into an uncertain future together summed up everything I’ve been feeling in 2017… and advertised a sequel I desperately want to see (but assume they’ll never make). |
Stuart Atkinson is a movie critic on Now Playing Podcast. Read more of his reviews in the Now Playing Podcast book–Underrated Movies We Recommend
New Podcast: Now Playing — Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Hosted by Arnie Carvalho, Stuart Atkinson, and Jakob Conkling
Episode VIII finds General Leia (Carrie Fisher), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), and a dwindling number of Resistance fighters beating a hasty retreat from the rising armies of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). Their only hope lies with recently located Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) – The Last Jedi in the universe. But can Master Luke trust feisty apprentice Rey (Daisy Ridley) to learn the ways of The Force without succumbing to the Dark Side like his previous pupil, the murderous tyrant Kylo Ren (Adam Driver)? Join Arnie, Jakob, and Stuart for a deep dive into the biggest movie of 2017.
JIGSAW Coming to Blu-Ray and 4k January 9 — Bonus Features Announced
In the latest terrifying installment of the legendary SAW series, law enforcement find itself chasing the ghost of a man dead for over a decade, embroiled in a diabolical new game that’s only just begun. Has John Kramer, the infamous Jigsaw Killer, returned from the dead to commit a series of murders and remind the world to be grateful for the gift of life? Or is this a trap set by a different killer with designs of their own?
Immerse yourself within Jigsaw’s world with the release’s extensive Special Features, including an all-new 7-Part Documentary, an Audio Commentary with Producers Mark Burg, Oren Koules, and Peter Block, and “The Choice is Yours: Exploring the Props” featurette. The 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray versions feature Dolby Atmos audio mixed specifically for the home, to place and move audio anywhere in the room, including overhead. The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray also features Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR), growing Lionsgate’s library of titles featuring both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Dolby Vision transforms the TV experience in the home by delivering greater brightness and contrast, as well as a fuller palette of rich colors. Together with the captivating sound of Dolby Atmos, consumers will experience both cutting-edge imaging and state-of-the-art sound technology for a fully immersive entertainment experience.
The must-see Jigsaw will be available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray Combo Pack, and DVD for the suggested retail price of $42.99, $39.99, and $29.95, respectively.
4K UHD / BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES
- Audio Commentary with Producers Mark Burg, Oren Koules, and Peter Block
- “I Speak for the Dead: The Legacy of Jigsaw” 7-Part Documentary
o “A New Game”
o “You Know His Name”
o “Survival of the Fittest”
o “Death by Design”
o “Blood Sacrifice”
o “The Source of Fear”
o “The Truth Will Set You Free”
- “The Choice is Yours: Exploring the Props” Featurette
DIGITAL SPECIAL FEATURES
- “I Speak for the Dead: The Legacy of Jigsaw” 7-Part Documentary
o “A New Game”
o “You Know His Name”
o “Survival of the Fittest”
o “Death by Design”
o “Blood Sacrifice”
o “The Source of Fear”
o “The Truth Will Set You Free”
- “The Choice is Yours: Exploring the Props” Featurette
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
- Audio Commentary with Producers Mark Burg, Oren Koules, and Peter Block
- “The Choice is Yours: Exploring the Props” Featurette
Hear Now Playing’s review of Jigsaw then pre-order it now at Amazon!
Marvel Launches New Animation Franchise: Marvel Rising. Theatrical Movie due in 2018.
MARVEL TO LAUNCH NEW ANIMATION FRANCHISE ‘MARVEL RISING’
Feature Length Film And Six, Four-Minute Digital Shorts Set to Debut the Property
Key Voice Cast Includes Dove Cameron, Chloe Bennet, Tyler Posey, Kim Raver and BooBoo Stewart Among Others
(Glendale, CA) December 7, 2017 – Marvel Entertainment announced today, “Marvel Rising,” a brand-new, multi-platform animation franchise starring the next generation of Marvel heroes set to launch in 2018. The program will launch with six, four-minute digital shorts that spotlight Spider-Gwen with her new secret moniker, Ghost-Spider, and introduce audiences to the world of “Marvel Rising.” Following the shorts, a feature-length animated film, “Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors” will premiere later that year. Distribution partners for the content to be announced at a later date.
Meet the characters and all-star voice actors behind the all-new franchise “Marvel Rising” here:
The content features an all-star line-up of voice talent including Dove Cameron, Chloe Bennet, Tyler Posey, BooBoo Stewart, Kathreen Khavari, Milana Vayntrub, Cierra Ramirez, Kamil McFadden, Skai Jackson, Kim Raver, Ming-Na Wen, Steven Weber, and Dee Bradley Baker among others. Future stories and content are also being developed across Marvel’s digital and publishing platforms and will be announced at a later date.
“Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors” is a long-anticipated event, bringing together Marvel’s newest and beloved characters that have garnered major fan excitement over the last few years. Powered teens Ms. Marvel, Squirrel Girl, Quake, Patriot, America Chavez, and Inferno join forces as an unlikely, but formidable crew of aspiring heroes. When a threat no one could have expected bears down on the Marvel Universe, this ragtag, untrained band of teens have no choice but to rise together and prove to the world that sometimes the difference between a “hero” and “misfit” is just in the name.
“Marvel characters are so relatable because they live in our world and face the same challenges we do. So I’m very excited that our Marvel Rising team of heroes is so inclusive, reflecting characters with different backgrounds, particularly a set of strong female leads that our young audience can connect with,” said Cort Lane, Marvel’s Senior Vice President of Animation & Family Entertainment.
Sana Amanat, Marvel’s Director of Content & Character Development, added, “This project is unlike anything we’ve done before—from featuring the rising and fan-favorite stars of the Marvel Universe, to a visually distinct animation style, this is a groundbreaking animated event. It’s an action-packed adventure, full of comedy, heart and powerful messages for every kind of Marvel fan.”
Meet the characters behind “Marvel Rising”:
Gwen Stacy aka Ghost-Spider (formerly Spider Gwen) voiced by Dove Cameron (“Descendants,” “Hairspray Live”) – a free spirited teen who found her calling to be a super hero after being bitten by a radioactive spider and gaining spider-like powers. As Ghost-Spider, she aids those in need, but has to keep her alter-ego a secret from her father, Captain George Stacy, who sees Ghost-Spider as more of a menace than a hero.
Daisy Johnson aka Quake voiced by Chloe Bennet (“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Nashville”) – a leading agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. whose tendency for rule-breaking gets her into trouble now and then. Daisy befriends the young group of heroes and through them discovers how to become a better leader. She can generate powerful vibrational waves, which produce effects similar to earthquakes.
Dante Pertuz aka Inferno voiced by Tyler Posey (“Teen Wolf,” “Lincoln Heights”) – a brooding, dark loner on the run. Dante has the power of pyrokinesis, which makes him capable of generating flames – however, he is not fully in control of his fiery abilities. It’s a thin line between good guy and villain for the unpredictable Inferno.
Victor Kohl aka Exile voiced by BooBoo Stewart (“Descendants,” “The Twilight Saga”) – a charming, handsome, and troublesome young Inhuman whose quest for superiority places him into the wrong crowd. He can use Darkforce energy to create weapons and portals that allow him to teleport.
Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel voiced by Kathreen Khavari (“Marvel’s Avengers Assemble,” “Big Little Lies”) – a devoted fan of Super Heroes, especially of her mentor Captain Marvel; she is determined that she too can be a great hero! If only she’d be taken seriously. Kamala is equipped with metamorphic powers that allow her to stretch, enlarge, or shrink her overall size, parts of her body, or alter her physical appearance. She is especially fond of “embiggening” her fists.
Doreen Green aka Squirrel Girl voiced by Milana Vayntrub (“Marvel’s New Warriors,” “This Is Us”) – the uber-positive, hilarious best friend and teammate of Ms. Marvel. With advanced computer skills, enhanced strength, agility, durability, and senses of a squirrel, Doreen (along with her squirrel partner, Tippy Toe!), is primed and ready to become a successful hero.
America Chavez voiced by Cierra Ramirez (“The Fosters,” “The Secret Life of an America Teenager”) – a strong, independent young hero whose painful past drives her to reject leadership and remain a loner. America’s powers include superhuman strength, speed, and durability, plus the ability to fly.
Rayshaun Lucas aka Patriot voiced by Kamil McFadden (“K.C. Undercover,” “Grown Ups 2”) – a natural born leader who is quick to leap into action to impress his colleagues at S.H.I.E.L.D. Rayshaun strives to live up to Captain America’s legacy with integrity, honesty, and order above all. His skills include heightened strength, speed, stamina, and durability.
Gloria “Glory” Grant voiced by Skai JacksFron (“Bunk’d,” “Jessie”) – Gloria, or ‘Glory,’ is Gwen Stacy’s friend and member of their garage band “The Emm-Jays.” Gloria is a smart, hard-working girl that genuinely cares for Gwen, but has felt a distance growing between them ever since their friend, Kevin, was murdered. When being casual, Gloria’s known to be funny, sarcastic and sassy.
Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel voiced by Kim Raver (“Grey’s Anatomy,” “24”) – a bold leader who doesn’t sugar-coat and is guided by a strong sense of duty and honor. She’s the ultimate inspiration for our band of misfit heroes. She is equipped with superhuman strength, can fly at high speeds, and can project intense energy blasts.
Hala voiced by Ming-Na Wen (“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” “Mulan”) – Hala is a Kree Accuser bent on galactic domination. She’ll go to any length or treacherous means to achieve what she, and the entire Kree race, wants: Power. Hala is cold, cryptic and nefarious, often challenging those who try to oppose her.
Captain George Stacy voiced by Steven Weber (“13 Reasons Why,” “NCIS: New Orleans”) – Chief of the NYPD and Gwen Stacy’s loving, but fiercely protective father. Captain Stacy is a very disciplined, hard-working man that will stop at nothing to obtain justice – who unfortunately sees Ghost-Spider as a menace and a threat to society.
Lockjaw and Tippy Toe are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker (“Star Wars Rebels,” “Gravity Falls”). Two lovable and heroic sidekicks: Lockjaw is Kamala’s trusty, teleporting mutt and Tippy Toe is Doreen’s partner in crime and best squirrel friend.
“Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors” is executive produced by Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, Cort Lane, and Eric Radomski; co-executive produced by Stan Lee, Sana Amanat, and
Marsha Griffin. The film and shorts were written by Mairghread Scott. Alfred Gimeno served as supervising director.
For more information, check out “Marvel Rising” at www.Facebook.com/MarvelRising, www.Twitter.com/MarvelRisingSW, and www.Instagram.com/MarvelRising
Now Playing Announces Bonus Review, New 10th Anniversary DVD-ROM Bonus Features
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New Podcast: Marvelicious Toys — Issue 186: Sweet Christmas 2017 – Black Friday & Holiday Shopping Guide
Hosted by Justin Kozisek, Arnie Carvalho, and Marjorie Carvalho
Happy Thanksgiving, Marvelicious Toys listeners! And welcome to our 8th Annual Holiday Shopping Guide!
In this issue Marjorie, Arnie, and Justin run down all the major Black Friday toy sales. Find out where to get Marvel Legends, movies, games, and other toys with the biggest savings! Then follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the best online Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals!
Then the hosts, aided by the entire Marvelicious Toys team, run down the best Marvel themed gifts for 2017. With prices from $5 to $800, there’s something for fans of all ages and interests! What are the must have collectibles this year? Join us to find out!
Marvel Black Friday
- Titan Figures
- Wal-Mart: 4 Pack Avengers, $20
- Toys R Us: 20-in Titan Spider-Man, $12.49
- Legends
- Meijer – Buy 1 Get 1 Half off Marvel Figures
- GameStop – Deadpool Back in Black exclusive $18.99
- Gamestop – 12-inch Agent of Weapon X Deadpool $44.99
- Games
- Movies
- Best Buy – 4k Movies (Spider-Man Homecoming) for $19.99
- Misc
- Gamestop – USB Groot Car Charger $19.99 (half off)
- Gamestop – Exclusive Marvel Gallery Red Hulk Statue $39.99 ($10 off)
- Kohl’s – Mr. Potato Spider-Man Iron Man Set $21.24 (Half off?)
- Record Store Day – Guardians of the Galaxy Baby Groot Picture Disc (RST FIRST)
- Guardians Inferno on Side A
- Score Track on Side B
Marvel Items
- Hasbro Retro Action Figures
- Legends Hydra Soldiers
- Mezco One:12 Ragnarok Hulk (preorder)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 S.H.Figuarts Rocket & Baby Groot Exclusive
- Marvel Mei Sho Manga Realization Samurai Iron Man Mark III
- Tsum Tsum Comic Box Mini Set – SMASH
- Hulk Interactive Figure
- Thor Interactive Figure
- Marvel Now ArtFX+ Venom Statue
- Diamond Select Gallery Statues
- Hot Toys that Ship in time for Xmas
- Netflix Punisher
- Netflix DareDevil
- IronMan MK XLVI (46)
- Hulk buster (Wait List, so hurry!)
- Hasbro Hulk Hands
- Disney Toybox Figures
Games
Misc
- Tony Stark Document Holder
- Spidey Crocs
- American Tourister Luggage
- Cross Pen Gift Set – Sign up for newsletter and get 10% off
- Ironman Portable Phone/Tablet Charger by eFx
- eFX Collectibles Winter Soldier Stealth Shield
- Learn to Draw Guardians of the Galaxy
- Her Universe Mjolnir Tie Dye Shirt
- Hulk & Thor Tiki Mugs by Think Geek
- Thor Mjolnir Tool Set Think Geek
- Marvel Calendar
- Marvel 2018 Calendar
- International Groot with candy bowl
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 or Spider Man in 4K (with player and TV)
- Marvel Unlimited Subscription
- Marvel Graphic Short Box
- Marvel Themed Hoodies, Sweatshirts and Sweaters @ Superherostuff.com
- Bop It Baby Groot
- Captain America Barbell Plates
HASCON – Hasbro Deadpool Marvel Legends figure SDCC – Thor Battle For Asgard Marvel Legends 5 pack set Deadpool Duck Pop Vinyl figure – Walgreens Exclusive
New Podcast: Star Wars Action News — Episode 498: Black Friday & Holiday Gift Guide 2017
Hosted by Marjorie Carvalho and Arnie Carvalho
Video by Berent Lawton and Daryl Whitlow
It’s time for Star Wars Action News’13th annual Black Friday sale report, and holiday gift guide!
BLACK FRIDAY SALES
- Entertainment Earth
- Black Friday: Starting Wednesday November 22 and continuing to Friday 24th: Star Wars The Black Series Clone Troopers of Order 66 6-Inch Action Figures – Entertainment Earth Exclusive are reduced from $99.99 to $39.99!
- Cyber Monday: Starting Monday Nov. 27 and continuing to Tues. Nov 28th: Star Wars The Black Series Astromech Droids 3 3/4-Inch Action Figures – Entertainment Earth Exclusive reduced from $79.99 to $29.99!
- Sideshow Collectibles Sideshow has some serious savings starting NOW! Black Friday comes early!
- $250 off C-3PO Legendary Scale Figure
- Over $125 off Hot Toys FO Stormtrooper Set
- $50 off Hot Toys Phasma
- Tons more! Check it out!
- Toys
- Walmart AND Jet.com: Hasbro BB-8 RC toy $30
- Target: LEGO Battle on Takodana Set – $34.99 (30% off)
- Bon-Ton: Mattel Star Wars Toys (Hot Wheels) 50% off – DOORBUSTER
- JC Penny: 30% off all Star Wars toys $10 to $30 (so they’re $7 to $21)
- Toys R Us: 3.75-in figures from Ep 7 and Rogue One 40% off — $4.97 ea
- Toys R Us: Rogue One Rapid Fire AT-ACT – $99.98 ($150 off)
- Toys R Us: Star Wars Interactive Figures 50% off (normally $99.99)
- Gamestop: Porg Electronic Plush $29.99 ($10 off)
- Gamestop: Sphero BB-8, R2, BB9E on sale. $50 off R2 ($129.99), $20 off BBs ($129.99)
- NERF Rival Apollo Mandalorian Blaster set $69.99 ($20 off)
- Video Games
- Best Buy: Free Darth Maul POP if you buy Battlefront II (Store Only)
- Gamestpo: Get up to a $50 bonus in Galaxy of Heroes when you buy a Google Play gift card
- Meijer: Playstation 4 Star Wars Battlefront II 1TB Console — $299.99 and save $50 on your next Shopping Trip
- Other
- JC Penny: Kids (boys) Star Wars clothes 50% off
- JC Penny: Men’s Star Wars Gifts 60% off (cups, mugs, Yoda Slippers etc)
- Staples AND Meijer: Star Wars Drones $50 off (99.99)
- Petco: ENTIRE STOCK of Star Wars Pet Collection 25% off
- Watch us on FB & Twitter for live reports of online sales
Toys
LEGO
Hot Toys
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- K-2SO – shipping now
- Jyn Erso (Deluxe version) – shipping now. So many accessories!!!
- Grand Moff Tarkin – preorder
Books
- Star Wars novels/reading for 2017:
- Rogue One Novelization
- Rebel Rising (YA)
- Thrawn
- Battlefront II: Inferno Squad
- Phasma
- Leia: Princess of Alderaan (YA)
- From a Certain Point of View
- The Legend of Luke Skywalker (YA)
- Doctor Aphra Vol. 1 (TPB)
- A Saga on Home Video: A Fan’s Guide to U.S. Star Wars Home Video Releases by Nathan P. Butler
- 99 Stormtroopers Join the Empire
- Canto Bight (releasing Dec. 5, 2017)
- The Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi (releasing Dec. 15, 2017)
- Star Wars The Last Jedi The Visual Dictionary (releasing Dec. 15, 2017)
- Star Wars The Last Jedi Incredible Cross-Sections (releasing Dec. 15, 2017)
- Topp Trading Card books
- Retro Draughtsman Coffee Table Book
- Rogue One comic trade paperback
- Star Wars Adventures
Games
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- Battlefront II (2017)
- Destiny 2-Player Game Everything you need to start playing in one box! Also a CCG, so single packs would be good stocking stuffers in addition to the 2-player game, or if they already play.
Household Items
- Kid’s furniture and rugs
- Star Wars Bounty paper towels
- Jabba/Salacious Tiki Mugs
- Title crawl floor runner
- Stormtrooper Claret Jug (actually a whisky decanter)
- 1:6 dioramas for ikea cases
- Porg Soup Cup from Hot Topic
- Vader Tea Set from Hot Topic
Other
- Hard Enamel Porg Pin
- Captain Phasma NIXON watch
- Swarovski Crystal Threepio
- Swarovski Crystal R2-D2
- Swarovski Crystal BB-8
- Retro Draughtsman Empire Strikes Back Calendar
- Maped Helix ‘Star Wars 40th Anniversary’ Stationary
- Stance star wars socks
- Gift card to get art prints framed
- Little Bits Droid Inventor Kit
- Cross Darth Vader Rollerball Pen
- Darth Vader Men’s Suit from Think Geek
- FigureShields
- American Tourister Luggage
- Star Wars Lip Balm Pack
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi Porg Stationery Set – Exclusive | ThinkGeek
- Now Playing: Underrated Movies We Recommend
New Podcast — Books & Nachos: Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II by Christian Sellers and Gary Smart
Hosted by Arnie Carvalho
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and it’s immediate follow-up Hellbound: Hellraiser II were low-budget productions, shot in the UK. Despite their small beginnings their impact was global, skyrocketing Clive Barker to fame and fortune and terrifying a generation. How did that happen? The book Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II details the making of these first two Hellraiser films. What insights does it provide, and is it worth a read? Join Arnie on this review to find out!
Source: Books and Nachos
Go or Pass on MOVIEPASS – Should You Use This Service?
by Arnie Carvalho
Though the service is six years old, MoviePass has become a hot topic for theater goers this week, from the take-over by Helios and Maheson Analytics, to the price drop from $30 to $9.95 per month, to AMC Theaters pursuing legal action to stop the service. But should you buy in?
What is MoviePass?
MoviePass is a subscription service where, for $9.95 per month, you can see one (2D, standard format) movie per day in theaters. This means you can literally see 365 movies for under $120. That comes to about $0.33 per movie, compared to the current national average of $8.84 per ticket.
This is not a scam or a trick. There are no blackout dates. You can see movies the day they come out if you want, any showing, any day of the week.
How does this work?
MoviePass is not a service offered by your local theater chain. Unlike Regal Theater’s “Ultimate Ticket Program” where, for $100, you can see an individual movie (like Wonder Woman) once per day for its entire run, MoviePass is its own company operating outside the theater chains.
Here’s how it works:
1) You sign up to their service online for $9.95 per month, cancel any time. They will then send you a physical “credit card” which will arrive in 5-7 days.
2) Once you have their card you must go to the theater and then use their app to pick the movie. You cannot order your movie tickets online. You must be within 100 yards (yes, yards) of the theater to get the tickets.
3) You can only buy tickets same day. The app only shows you today’s showtimes. So you cannot use this to pre-buy any tickets.
4) Once your movie is selected, MoviePass will “load” your card with enough money to buy a ticket. Then you use your card to get the ticket at the kiosk or the box office at the theater.
5) This does not work for premiere screenings. IMAX, 3D, etc. is not included in MoviePass’ $9.95 option. As their site clearly states: “ We currently do not support (in part or entirety) any enhanced or special screenings that involve an upcharge at the theater. Examples of these would include 3D, IMAX, Fathom Events, DBOX, ETX/RPX, film festival screenings, etc.”
Wait–isn’t MoviePass losing money? Nope–they’re going to sell your data.
If you do the math it doesn’t take long to realize that if you see 2 movies per month on average you’re saving money with MoviePass. If, on average, two movies cost $19, you’re saving $10 per month. And that’s real money MoviePass is paying to the movie theater. Though newly aquired, some sites have already declared the service “doomed.” But MoviePass, run by Netflix exec Mitch Lowe, actually intends to lose that money for a period. Their business strategy is to build a loyal customer base of millions of users. Then the money they lose on movie tickets will be made through data mining.
Much like Fandango, Netflix, Google, and Fandango do now, MoviePass will gather information about your viewing habits and use them to sell you stuff. They will make money through ads targeted directly to you. They also may make even more money by selling your data (albeit anonymized) to larger data mining companies.
Finally, the executives at MoviePass hope theaters will buy into the service to help offset the losses. Through increased attendance and more concession sales (which reaps theater chains the most profit) MoviePass views themselves as a partner for theaters.
Why is AMC upset?
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem that theaters are as happy about this. AMC has threatened legal action against MoviePass.
On the surface AMC is claiming MoviePass is setting customers up for disappointment, lowering the “perceived value” of a movie ticket.
In truth, theater chains like AMC and Regal are investing heavily in their own rewards programs, like the AMC Stubs Premiere service which costs $15 per year. They want 100% of the ticket price and also the ability to collect the same data MoviePass desires.
So should you subscribe?
Perhaps you should subscribe, but I will not be signing up for MoviePass.
I will admit–on the surface this service looks like a great way to save money. In the first eight-and-a-half months of 2017 I’ve seen 32 movies in theaters. I have spent over $400 at the movie theater box office; 9 months of MoviePass would have cost me less than $90.
However, there’s a deal-breaker for me in that fine print: MoviePass is only good for standard, 2D movie showings.
Of the 32 films I’ve seen this year, only 12 were 2D, standard. The other 20 were 3D, IMAX, D-BOX, or AMC Prime experiences. If a movie is released in IMAX that’s the way I want to see it — big and loud. While 3D films are in decline the IMAX experience is still one for which I’m willing to pay a premium.
So in those 9 months I only spent $96 on 2D, standard movie tickets. MoviePass would have cost me $89. That $7 difference is not worth the trade-off of online ticket ordering.
Then when I look at the upcoming slate of films I plan to watch theatrically in 2017 most will be IMAX or 3D. Blade Runner 2049, Kingsmen: The Golden Circle, Justice League, Thor: Ragnarok, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and even the glorified television pilot Marvel’s Inhumans will all be IMAX experiences. With or without MoviePass I’ll be paying AMC full ticket prices for those.
Without the convenience of online ordering I would need to save at least $10 per month, $60 per year, with MoviePass. While there are many standard, 2D films I’m excited for, including Jigsaw, Death Wish, and It, I’m not sure I’ll be seeing 12 2D movies in the next three months to make the trade-off worth it.
If MoviePass were to reinstate their premium option, hopefully at $14.95 per month but even at $19.95 per month, they would likely have my money. But for now I will Pass on MoviePass.
Arnie Carvalho is co-host of Now Playing Podcast. You can read his movie reviews in the upcoming book Underrated Movies We Recommend, available for pre-order now.
Corrections: This article was updated at 4pm EST for the following items:
- The “Premium” ticket is no longer offered by MoviePass–they only have the $9.99 2D option now. That information, added after initial publication, was removed
- They have removed the “watch each movie only once” restriction. That information was removed from the article
IMAX, 4k, Ring the Death Knell for 3D
by Arnie Carvalho
Did James Cameron wait too long for his Avatar sequels? It seems that by the time Avatar 2 is released (optimistically scheduled for 2020) the 3D format utilized by that 2009 original may be a thing of the past.
IMAX Announces 2D “Preference”
IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond announced this week that the company will be reducing the number of 3D screenings on their high-priced, large format projectors and screens. He cited a “clear preference” from North American audiences for 2D films.
This statement of direction does not signal an abrupt shift. IMAX’s most recent release, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, was filmed and released only in 2D. (Nolan has a history of disliking the 3D format, refusing Warner Bros’ requrest for his Dark Knight films to be released in the format which commands a higher ticket price.) Before that, the 3D post-converted Spider-Man: Homecoming was shown on IMAX screens in a combination of 2D and 3D presentation. This is a change from even a year ago when most IMAX viewings required the audience to don a pair of special, plastic glasses.
This follows a recent history of movie-goers intentionally choosing 2D presentation and falling 3D ticket sales.
Home Video Flattens Out
It’s not only in theaters that 3D is dying. Movie viewers also have shown a preference for the 2D picture in their homes. In 2010, riding off Avatar’s success, High Definition Blu-Ray discs started shipping in 3D formats (the first of which was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs). 3D features were included on all high-end 1080p televisions and home projectors.
However, with the recent advances in 4k resolution, 3D has become a feature of the past. Over the past few years television manufacturers like Sony and LG have phased out 3D capabilities on most of their 4k televisions. With their 2016 models LG only offered 3D on their curved television sets; in 2017 3D was removed altogether. Likewise 4k home projectors are removing support for 3D, with only Sony offering true 4k projectors that are backwards-compatible with the 3D Blu-Ray format.
Indeed, there is no established standard for 4k home video content to be displayed in 3D; currently movie buyers must choose between the higher resolution or the greater depth in their films.
Is this a win for consumers?
These changes follow the standard market practice of meeting consumer demand.
The 3D format has long been rife with viewer complaints. In addition to being forced to wear glasses to watch 3D content, be it in theaters or at home, many viewers could not appreciate the added dimension. Per vision insurance company VSP, 5% of the population cannot percieve 3D, and another 25% have trouble perceiving 3D images. Another 25% or more have complained of headaches, eye strain, and eye fatigue from current 3D digital projection.
These complaints have gotten many people to buy special “2D Glasses” which allow them to see (non IMAX) 3D films in 2D format. (Now Playing Podcast host Marjorie can vouch for these glasses’ effectiveness.)
Many theater-goers also complained about the unreliable quality of 3D in films, much due to the post-conversion process many studios use to save money. The vast majority of 3D films were post-converted–in 2017 only Transformers: The Last Knight was shot natively in the 3D format. On Now Playing Podcast we have complained about lackluster 3D in Spider-Man: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and other movies.
Hollywood studios fought this trend. Many studios intentionally limited 2D availability of films, including 2012’s Prometheus, in order to reap higher profits from the inflated ticket prices.
Will this hurt studios?
Yet despite these consumer complaints, studios have continued to push the 3D format, which commands higher ticket prices. As movie budgets continue to expand, the higher priced 3D tickets, IMAX tickets, and other “premium” theater experiences have bolstered studio bottom lines. More, the 3D Blu-Rays sell for $30 or more, while their 2D counterparts are often half that. (Of note, the higher-resolution 4k Blu-Ray discs are often priced equal to, or higher than, their 3D counterparts.)
While the 3D Post Conversion can add $10 million or more to a film’s cost, the increased revenue often offsets that. Many older films, including Jurassic Park and Top Gun were post-converted and re-released to theaters to grab their studios a quick buck.
Yet this switch back to 2D may not bring cheaper ticket prices. AMC Theaters charges the same for 2D and 3D IMAX screenings. It’s possible theaters may raise all ticket prices to current 3D prices to help offset these losses. Also, studios and theater chains have discussed having “event movie” pricing, where tickets cost more for big-budget blockbusters with or without “premium” gimmicks like 3D.
No change for animation?
The movie format that has generated the greatest 3D success is kids’ fare and computer-animated movies, such as LEGO Batman and Moana. As these films are entirely computer-generated the 3D is more ingrained in their development. The effects are better, and the audience for those films are primarily younger and not yet burnt-out by the format. While Gelfond made no specific mention of animated films staying in 3D, it is likely these will remain in that format for years to come.
Modern 3D History
The modern 3D era was brought in by Cameron in two waves. In 2003 the first modern, digital 3D film was his IMAX documentary Ghosts of the Abyss. The format had a slow growth over the next six years, mostly as a gimmick in kids films including Spy Kids and The Polar Express.
The change to 3D was a clumsy one. Superman Returns and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix both had select scenes converted to IMAX 3D–requiring customers to don and remove
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_3D_films_(2005_onwards)
glasses through the films.
Modern 3D came into its own in 2009. By that time the 3D cameras required had come down in price. Horror films (which had heavily relied on 3D in the ’80s) got into the game with My Bloody Valentine 3D and The Final Destination. Animated films premiered in the format, including Coraline, Monsters vs. Aliens, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
But Cameron ushered in a new age with the 3D film Avatar. Somewhat bolstered by 3D and IMAX ticket prices, Avatar became the top-grossing film of all-time. This created a 3D “gold rush” among studios, exponentially increasing the quantity of 3D films produced.
This growth continued until 2011, when 63 3D movies were released. Growth then leveled off through 2015, when the number of films started to decline.
With these changes to home video and IMAX formats, it is likely 3D films may return to their pre-Avatar numbers.
What do we lose, besides depth?
I’m no great fan of 3D. However, as a movie-goer who prefers to see the movie as the director intended, I’m slightly upset by the loss of the 3D home format. Every movie I’ve purchased since 2010 has been in 3D, if available. I was especially happy with the Transformers films which not only were released in 3D but also changed to the IMAX aspect ratio for their home video releases.
I remember growing up watching movies like Friday the 13th Part III, Jaws 3-D, Emmanuelle 4, and Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare on video. All three films had 3D components in theaters which translated poorly to television. The moments of “I can tell that should be 3D” worsened each viewing experience.
I recently purchased my first 4k TV and had to go through great pains to find one that would continue to support my 3D Blu-Ray discs. It seems in the next five years any movie with great 3D, such as Avatar, Tron: Legacy, and X-Men: Apocalypse will only be seen in their flattened versions.
Even movies filmed in 2D, such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had effects sequences specifically designed in 3D to showcase the technology.
Home movie viewers will lose the ability to view many movies from the past decade as they were intended to be seen.
Final Thought
But overall, I believe 3D is a gimmick that more than ran its course. I applaud IMAX for choosing consumers over studios, and I hope that filmmakers now focus on plot and character depth, instead of manufactured depth on the screen.
What do you think? Sound off in the comments!
THE CABIN IN THE WOODS arrives on 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack September 5
The horror-comedy film The Cabin in the Woods is coming to 4k Blu-Ray on September 5th.
Produced and co-written by Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon, this film brings to the big screen the meta comedy and horror that was Buffy‘s trademark. You can hear our full review of this movie in the Now Playing Podcast archives.
The 4k Combo pack (with Blu-Ray and Digital HD copies) is $22.99 and up for pre-order now. We’ll provide a review of the technical aspects of this release when it’s available.
Lionsgate’s full press release is below:
Discover the truth behind The Cabin in the Woods when it arrives for the first time on 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack (plus Blu-ray™ and Digital HD) September 5 from Lionsgate. Featuring an all-star cast includingChris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Kristen Connolly, Anna Hutchison, and Fran Kranz, the critically acclaimed horror will be available in stunning 4K Ultra HD resolution and High Dynamic Range (HDR), which delivers the brightest, most vivid and realistic color with the greatest contrast. The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray will also feature Dolby Vision™ high-dynamic range (HDR) and Dolby Atmos immersive audio. Dolby Vision transforms the TV experience in the home by delivering greater brightness and contrast, as well as a fuller palette of rich colors. Together with the captivating sound of Dolby Atmos, consumers will experience both cutting-edge imaging and state-of-the-art sound technology for a fully immersive entertainment experience. Co-written by producer Joss Whedon (The Avengers franchise) and director Drew Goddard (Cloverfield), The Cabin in the Woods 4K Ultra HD Combo Pack will be available for the suggested retail price of $22.99.
OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
A rambunctious group of five college friends steal away for a weekend of debauchery in an isolated country cabin, only to be attacked by horrific supernatural creatures in a night of endless terror and bloodshed. Sound familiar? Just wait. As the teens begin to exhibit standard horror movie behavior, a group of technicians in a control room are scrutinizing, and sometimes even controlling, every move the terrified kids make! With their efforts continually thwarted by the all– powerful eye in the sky, do they have any chance of escape?
4K/BLU-RAY/DIGITAL HD SPECIAL FEATURES
· Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Drew Goddard and Writer/Producer Joss Whedon
· “We Are Not Who We Are: Making The Cabin in the Woods” Featurette
· “An Army of Nightmares: Make-up & Animatronic Effects” Featurette
· “Primal Terror: Visual Effects” Featurette
· “The Secret Secret Stash” Featurette
· WonderCon Q&A
· “It’s Not What You Think: The Cabin in the Woods BonusView™ Mode” (Blu-ray™ only)
CAST
Kristen Connolly The Happening, Revolutionary Road, “Zoo”
Chris Hemsworth Thor franchise, The Avengers franchise, Rush
Anna Hutchison The Right Girl, “Go Girls,” “Power Rangers Jungle Fury”
Fran Kranz The Village, “Dollhouse,” Donnie Darko
Jesse Williams “Grey’s Anatomy,” Lee Daniels’ The Butler,Brooklyn’s Finest
Richard Jenkins Jack Reacher, The Visitor
Bradley Whitford “The West Wing”
PROGRAM INFORMATION
Year of Production: 2012
Title Copyright: The Cabin in the Woods © 2012, Artwork & Supplementary Materials © 2017 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Theatrical Release
Rating: Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, language, drug use and some sexuality/nudity
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Closed Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: English, Spanish, English SDH
Feature Run Time: 95 Minutes
4K Format: 2160p Ultra High Definition, 16×9 Widescreen 2.40:1 Presentation
Blu-ray Format: 1080p High Definition, 16×9 Widescreen 2.40:1 Presentation
4K Audio Status: English Dolby Atmos, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio, English 2.0 Dolby Digital Audio Optimized for Late-Night Listening
Blu-ray Audio Status: English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio™
DC Comics Offers Dedicated Shop for Wonder Woman Fans
Wonder Woman beat every box office prediction and broke opening weekend records. Its second weekend is expected to continue the trend as it buries The Mummy tomorrow.
But after you’ve seen the film several times, and listened to Now Playing Podcast’s review, how can you celebrate your love for the hero? Warner Bros and DC Collectibles have tons of options for you to display your Wonder Woman love.
At their new site, WonderWomanShop.com, they have iPhone cases, posters, T-Shirts, bomber jackets, and more. (The Protector of Humanity Sublimated Tee is especially cool)
For more serious collectors there are statues from Kotobukiya, DC Collectibles, and even a collection of Funko POP! Figures.
And, of course, you can pre-order the Blu-Ray to be among the first to have it when it ships later this year.
Star Wars Collecting Sites Join Forces for Star Wars Celebration Patch Giveaway
Star Wars Collecting Fan Sites and Podcasts have again combined Forces at 2017’s Star Wars Celebration Orlando!
Visit the Celebration Collecting Track Social Lounge (Room W305) to meet the faces behind top Star Wars collecting sites and receive and get exclusive swag!
Jedi Business (JediBusiness.com), Jedi News (JediNews.co.uk), Jedi Temple Archives (JediTempleArchives.com), Star Wars Action News (SWActionNews.com), and This Week in Star Wars (ThisWeekInStarWars.com) each will be on hand to greet fellow collectors, and during their slots they will be giving out one piece of a six-part patch set featuring vintage Star Wars action figures.
The 6th patch is being given away by the Celebration Collecting Track Social Lounge itself. These patches will be randomly given away through the Collecting Track social media. Participants in the Collecting Track’s Collection Re-Collections: Your Star Wars Story video project will also receive this 6th patch piece. Details on this program are at http://bit.ly/2nN9Lpf
Collect all 6 patches to assemble a puzzle featuring all 12 characters from the first wave of Kenner figures released nearly 40 years ago!
The Scheduled Meet-And-Greet times are below. The first 300 people at each Meet-And-Greet are guaranteed that site’s patch. Plus, for those who miss out on the meet-and-greets, the sites will be randomly giving away 10 patches each day to Celebration attendees. Follow the sites on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for details how to win!
On Oscar eve, Now Playing Podcast hosts name their Best Picture picks
Let’s face it: Deadpool was never going to get a Best Picture nomination.
Despite the Golden Globes nom and those articles building up its Oscar chances, there was no way an R-rated superhero flick about sex and guns and unicorns was going to end up in the same category as 2016’s prestige films.
Now Playing Podcast host Arnie Carvalho put it best the morning the nominees were announced: #OscarsSoPredictable.
The Oscars are the Oscars. Movies like The Artist win Best Picture. Movies like Deadpool win MTV Movie Awards, which are still a thing all these years later.
So, in honor of the many films that won’t be celebrated at the 89th Academy Awards ceremony, the Now Playing hosts made their picks for Best Picture of 2016.
And the awards go to:
The Nice Guys
“I rarely give any movie a perfect 5-star ranking. It seems every movie has something that could be fixed, tightened, or improved in some way. For this score I demand a movie that feels perfect immediately. This year I only ranked one movie 5-stars. Only one film had the intelligence, the entertainment, and the charm for such a ranking. It’s a film I loved when I first saw it in May, and each home viewing has deepened my appreciation.“ — Arnie
“Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe are surprisingly good together. Being a period piece, you never know if it’s going to come off schlocky, but this worked. This movie turned me around on Gosling, who I had not been a fan of previously. The action and drama is just the right pace to keep you in the movie. And let’s not forget Angourie Rice, who played Ryan Gosling’s daughter. She was plucky and had an amazing presence for such a young actress.” — Marjorie
The Lobster
“Easily 2016’s most cracked and surprising discovery for me. I kept thinking as I was watching this crazy sci-fi story about people forced to mate or be changed into animals that it couldn’t possibly sustain its delirious energy for much longer… AND the thing just kept opening itself up to bold, new interpretations! You laugh because the situations are as absurd as our own deeply held conceptions of love and marriage.” — Stuart
The VVitch
“The VVitch is an almost perfect horror film that held me in suspense as American puritanism faces off against the supernatural. The movie spends great effort on authenticity, from its stylized spelling to sets and costumes to the dialect, making it easy to get lost in its haunting atmosphere. But even better is the depth of the film with its layered subtext commenting on religion, class, and gender.” — Jakob
Edge of Seventeen
“I think many people dismissed it as a Juno ripoff, but this movie has a big heart and Hailee Steinfeld’s performance as an outcast teen dealing with the death of her father and the inevitability of growing up is impressive and emotional. Woody Harrelson is surprisingly charming and down to earth here as well.” — Justin
Why ‘Jason Takes Manhattan’ was Now Playing Podcast’s toughest show
To mark the 10th anniversary of Now Playing Podcast in 2017, hosts and staff are looking back at defining moments throughout the show’s history.
On February 4, 2009, Now Playing Podcast released one of its most memorable early episodes. On the eighth anniversary of the Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan review, host Arnie Carvalho reflects on the behind-the-scenes craziness that listeners never heard on the air.
Friday the 13th Part VII was our most loved show on that series. It was also our first big failure. It was our third recording on a Sunday night. We suddenly learned recording this many shows is exhausting, even for shorter shows. We made a ton of jokes about Friday the 13th but there was no content. More, it was our shortest recording of the series by far.
I walked away from the conversation with my sides hurting from laughter, but exhausted and frustrated the show wasn’t better. Stuart the e-mailed me and said he didn’t think the show was very good either. We roped Brock into the conversation, he agreed, and we re-recorded that show top to bottom.
BUT… that attempt wasn’t very good either. We were much better about explaining the beats of the movie, but we had told each other all of our jokes, and the fun wasn’t there.
I spent about 60 hours working on that show. I took both versions into the editing software and I took the funny from Recording No. 1 and put it with the thoughtfulness and the structure of Recording No. 2. The result was what some people still call our funniest show.
By the way, while doing the series it was Brock that started pushing for Star Trek. He seemed as excited for the Trek reboot as I was for the Friday the 13th one. I wasn’t feeling it, but then when we saw the download numbers for Friday the 13th, and when we realized how much fun we were having, we were all excited to boldly go into our next retrospective!
Now Playing Podcast’s Friday the 13th Retrospective Series was released from January 9 to Feb. 20, 2009. The 13 episode series can be heard on the Now Playing Podcast website.
Now Playing Podcast Q&A: ‘Twin Peaking,’ Podbean, and More
 |
| The launch of Now Playing Podcast’s Podbean support page has given listeners something many have been demanding for years: access to the show’s celebrated bonus episodes, which had previously been available exclusively during Now Playing’s bi-annual donation drives.
With those episodes now available via Podbean purchase and subscription options, listeners have been able to catch up on classic series’ including Jaws, Alien, and Planet of the Apes. Yet, the question remains, does this mean Now Playing’s donation drives are going away? Host Arnie Carvalho answered that question and more in a Q&A with the Venganza Media Gazette. |
| Venganza Gazette: How does the new Podbean option affect the donation drives?
Arnie C: We’re going to have a Silver Donation Series for a new retrospective: Pirates of the Caribbean. That’s a five-episode series, one that listeners have been demanding for some time. The Silver level series will be available both through PodBean and, due to listener demand, also through the “classic” method through PayPal for those who want the shows in iTunes. The classic donation wiill be $10 for all 5 shows. With Podbean, the new Pirates series will be available for $2.99 per episode, pick which episodes you want. After the donation drive ends the Podbean episodes will increase to $3.99 per episode. That will be the only new movie series reviewed for donation this Spring. While we normally do three movie series, with Now Peaking and the opening of the vault we don’t want our listeners to feel over-extended. So the Gold and Platinum series will just be rereleases of series that are currently on PodBean, but getting new installments this Spring or Summer. All that said, there will be a couple other bonus episodes. We usually did some Easter Egg podcasts with donation drives. Now we are going to release those types of one-off reviews to Patrons who support the show on an ongoing basis. Details for that are on our Podbean Patron page. |
| Venganza Gazette: How long will the episodes be available through PodBean?
PodBean’s technology allows us to offer these old shows. Until now we’ve have had to process all donations by hand and could not balance offering so much. If we continue past our 10th anniversary depends on listener feedback. |
| Venganza Gazette: What are the major differences between Podbean and the “classic” donation?
Arnie C: The advantage to going Podbean is instant access. In the past, donors received those shows via email, now they don’t need to wait, and they can choose which episodes they want if they don’t want the entire series. The advantage of going “classic” is a slightly lower donation for the entire bundle. Those donors will also be grandfathered in for any future sequels, much like current donors with Alien, Jaws, etc. But we are still processing all donations by hand, sending out weekly e-mails by hand, and so on. PodBean purchases are by the episode so any new installments received would require an additional payment. |
| Venganza Gazette: And there’s a new Alien on the way…
Arnie C: And a new Planet of the Apes film. Both retrospectives will be available on Podbean — Alien is there now – but, again, those series’ will also be available through the “classic” donation method. Alien will be our Gold level series, for the traditional donation of $25 or more, also getting you the Pirates shows. The Platinum level series will be all three: Pirates, Alien, and Planet of the Apes. In total, that’s going to be 20 reviews for a donation of $40 or more. And of course, anyone who previously donated through Kickstarter, our 5th Anniversary DVD, or the original Apes and Alien series will get these new episodes e-mailed to them with no additional donation needed. |
| Venganza Gazette: What’s the plan for your Twin Peaks retrospective, Now Peaking?
Arnie C: Now Peaking is sort of a sub-show to Now Playing. It will not be on the Now Playing site, it has its own web site at NowPeakingPodcast.com. It also has its own Twitter and Facebook feeds. That said, it is being made by us at Now Playing. It will be hosted by me, Jakob, and Stuart, and edited by our crack team. Twin Peaks had an interesting formula–each episode of the series was one day in the life of Twin Peaks. We will follow that pattern. Our first show will be released February 24th (the day Laura Palmer’s body was discovered in Twin Peaks). That review of the pilot episode will be available for free both on the Now Playing Podcast feed and on NowPeakingPodcast.com. After that, future episode reviews will be part of a donation series, the money covering the costs of Now Peaking and also supporting Now Playing. These podcasts will come out one a day until late March, keeping up with Twin Peaks’ in-universe timeline. Then, when the Showtime series starts in May, we’ll release new episodes weekly. There will be a total of 40 episodes or more, depending on how many Showtime releases this summer. They will only be available through PodBean with each episode costing $0.99 each. You can also get a Season Pass of all the episodes for $29.99. We are all really excited about Now Peaking and a chance to deep dive into the Twin Peaks universe. Every book from The Secret Diary of Larua Palmer to The Secret History of Twin Peaks will be reviewed on Books & Nachos, the show itself will be reviewed on Now Peaking, and the Twin Peaks movie, Fire Walk With Me, will be reviewed on Now Playing, free for everyone to hear, on March 28, 2017! |
| The Now Playing Podcast Pirates of the Caribbean Retrospective Series begins May 5. The entire show schedule can be seen on the Now Playing Podcast website. |
Deadpool, Disney, and Teen Titans in Upcoming Monogram International Blind Bagged Key Chains
Vestron’s Wishmaster Collection Arrives on Blu-ray 3/28
Street Date: 03/28/17
Blu-ray™ SRP: $49.99
Your wish has come true with the Vestron Video Collector’s Series upcoming release of the Wishmaster Collection, a must-have for cult classic collectors, available for the first time on limited-edition Blu-ray™ on March 28 from Lionsgate. In the Wishmaster series, an evil djinn grants three wishes to the person who releases him, fulfilling a prophecy that will unleash his fellow djinn upon the earth. With brand-new illustration from renowned artist Thomas Hodge, the three-disc Wishmaster Collection limited-edition Blu-ray™ includes all four films, restored and remastered, plus never-before-seen special features, and will be available for the suggested retail price of $49.99.
WISHMASTER COLLECTION OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS
Magically powerful and supernaturally evil, the ancient entity known as the Djinn can grant your wildest dreams — and unleash your darkest nightmares. Follow the Wishmaster’s bloodcurdling quest to devour souls and plunge the world into eternal damnation in this fright-filled collection of all four horror-fantasy favorites.
WISHMASTER SPECIAL FEATURES
· Audio Commentaries:
o Director Robert Kurtzman and screenwriter Peter Atkins
o Director Robert Kurtzman and stars Andrew Divoff and Tammy Lauren
· Isolated Score Selections/Audio Interview with composer Harry Manfredini
· Featurettes
o “Out of the Bottle” – Interviews with director Robert Kurtzman and co-producer David Tripet
o “The Magic Words” – An Interview with screenwriter Peter Atkins
o “The Djinn and Alexandra” – Interviews with stars Andrew Divoff and Tammy Lauren
o “Captured Visions” – An Interview with director of photography Jacques Haitkin
o “Wish List” – Interviews with actors Kane Hodder and Ted Raimi
o Vintage Featurette: “Making of Wishmaster”
· Trailers, Spots, Galleries: Teaser & Theatrical Trailers, TV & Radio Spots, Storyboard & Still Galleries
· Behind-the-Scenes Footage Compilation
WISHMASTER 2: EVIL NEVER DIES SPECIAL FEATURES
· Audio Commentary with writer/director Jack Sholder
· Trailer
· Still Gallery
WISHMASTER 3: BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL SPECIAL FEATURES
· Audio Commentary with director Chris Angel and cast members John Novak, Jason Connery, and Louisette Geiss
· Vintage Featurette: “Making of Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell”
· Trailer
WISHMASTER 4: THE PROPHECY FULFILLED SPECIAL FEATURES
· Audio Commentaries:
o Director Chris Angel and cast members Michael Trucco and Jason Thompson
o Director Chris Angel and actor John Novak
· Featurette: “Wishmasterpiece Theatre”
· Trailer
WISHMASTER COLLECTION
Year of Production: 1997
Title Copyright: Wishmaster © 1997 Artisan Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved. Artwork & Supplementary Materials © 2017 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Catalog Release
Rating: R for horror violence and gore, and for language.
Genre: Horror
Closed-Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: English SDH
Feature Run Time: 90 Minutes
Format: 1080p High Definition, 16×9 Widescreen (1.78:1)
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio™
WISHMASTER 2: EVIL NEVER DIES
Year of Production: 1999
Title Copyright: Wishmaster 2 © 1999 Artisan Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved. Artwork & Supplementary Materials © 2017 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Catalog Release
Rating: R for horror violence and gore, strong language and some sexuality.
Genre: Horror
Closed-Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: English SDH
Feature Run Time: 96 Minutes
Format: 1080p High Definition, 16×9 Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English 5.0 DTS-HD Master Audio™
WISHMASTER 3: BEYOND THE GATES OF HELL
Year of Production: 2001
Title Copyright: Wishmaster 3 © 2001 Wishmaster 3 Production, Inc. & Pendle View (WM), Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Artwork & Supplementary Materials © 2017 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Catalog Release
Rating: R for violence/gore, some sexuality and language.
Genre: Horror
Closed-Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: English SDH
Feature Run Time: 92 Minutes
Format: 1080p High Definition, 16×9 Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio™
WISHMASTER: THE PROPHECY FULFILLED
Year of Production: 2002
Title Copyright: Wishmaster 4 © 2001 Wishmaster 4 Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Artwork & Supplementary Materials © 2017 Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Type: Catalog Release
Rating: R for strong violence/gore, sexuality and some language.
Genre: Horror
Closed-Captioned: N/A
Subtitles: English SDH
Feature Run Time: 92 Minutes
Format: 1080p High Definition, 16×9 Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio™
Arcana and Shout! Factory announce HP LOVECRAFT AND THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM
Pop Culture Icons Mark Hamill, Jeffrey Combs, Christopher Plummer and Doug Bradley
Lead All-Star Voice Cast for the Next Installment of Howard Lovecraft Animated Film Series
Vancouver, B.C. and Los Angeles, Calif. – January 2016 – Arcana Studios and Shout! Factory, a multi-platform media company, today announced the casting of Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Jeffrey Combs (Transformers Prime, Re-Animator), Oscar®-winner Christopher Plummer (Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, Beginners) and Doug Bradley (Hellraiser) in the upcoming animated feature HOWARD LOVECRAFT AND THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM. Mark Hamill is set to voice the role of Dr. Henry Armitage, and Jeffrey Combs has been cast in the role of King Abdul. Christopher Plummer and Doug Bradley will be reprising their roles as Dr. Herbert West and Nyarlathotep.
Written, directed and produced by Sean Patrick O’Reilly, HOWARD LOVECRAFT AND THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM is the highly-anticipated movie adaption of Arcana’s popular graphic novel of the same name, and the second installment of Howard Lovecraft animated film series. A veritable love letter to Lovecraft himself, HOWARD LOVECRAFT AND THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM is a fantastical animated feature that follows a young Howard and his friend ‘Spot’ on an awe-inspiring adventure from the frozen wasteland to the depths of a mysterious ocean. The movie entwines new storytelling, actual events of H.P. Lovecraft’s life, iconic elements of his writings and literary characters Cthulhu, Shoggoth and more.
A thrilling animated feature for any Lovecraft fan, HOWARD LOVECRAFT AND THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM is slated for a late 2017 release across major entertainment distribution platforms and in packaged media from Shout! Factory.
ARCANA STUDIOS presents a film by Sean Patrick O’Reilly. HOWARD LOVECRAFT AND THE FROZEN KINGDOM, based on the bestselling graphic novel series created by Bruce Brown and Dwight L. MacPherson, is written, directed and produced by Sean Patrick O’Reilly; producer, Michelle O’Reilly; art director & senior modeler, Gary Yuen; senior editor, Chris Trinh; CG supervisor, Martin Bastian.
About ARCANA STUDIO
Since its launch in 2004, Arcana has established itself as a successful entertainment company. Producing engaging storytelling with compelling art, Arcana is an innovative leader in the development of intellectual properties across all platforms. Arcana’s library of wholly owned intellectual properties contain well over 5,000 characters that transcend gender, age, and cultural and geographic boundaries. Arcana owns one of the world’s largest libraries of graphic novels.
In 2012, Arcana opened an animation division to develop and produce it’s content for all platforms including film, television, direct-to-home and digital media. Arcanamation is a full service animation company producing features and TV series based on Arcana’s comics including Pixies, the Howard Lovecraft trilogy and Kagagi. Arcana has a top notch team executive team, dozens of full time experienced employees and is a Canadian company that receives tax credit benefits for content production as well as research and development.
Now Playing Podcast hosts reflect on ‘Friday the 13th’ series
To mark the 10th anniversary of Now Playing Podcast in 2017, hosts and staff are looking back at defining moments throughout the show’s history.
This week a Now Playing Podcast listener generously pointed out that Jan. 9, 2017 marked the eighth anniversary of the show’s first retrospective series, Friday the 13th. While eight years – the bronze and pottery anniversary – doesn’t get the attention of 10 or 15 years, there are a couple of reasons Now Playing listeners will want to look back on the occasion.
A New Beginning
The original “Friday the 13th” poster.
Today’s listeners take for granted Now Playing’s weekly releases, the hosts’ heavy research, detailed plot summaries, and professional production value. But before that first retrospective in 2009, the show was still finding its footing. Episodes were released once or twice a month, with revolving pairs of hosts, and, most notably, very brief runtimes. Most shows averaged about 20 minutes, a far cry from the 90-120 minute format it’s known for today.
Those Friday the 13th reviews started Now Playing on the path, but at the time it was just an experiment. With a reboot of the series on the way, the idea was to go back and review all previous entries (unusual for a show that largely focused on week-of releases and had “Now Playing” in the title), take a new approach to the editing process, and add a third host.
Brock: “Friday the 13th was my first introduction to Stuart. I remember Arnie telling me he had a friend in mind for the third host – the one who did the Clone Wars cartoon movie review – but [Arnie] wasn’t sure if Stuart would want to do it.”
Arnie: “Stuart had also done the review of Midnight Meat Train with me and that long-time friendship led to great chemistry on the mic.”
Stuart: “I remember feeling uncertain about the necessity of a retrospective, or what I could contribute. I was very reserved, and was actually playing chess on my computer until my mouse clicking busted me. [I thought], ‘You mean I can’t do that?’”
Brock: “Those first few shows were not only an experiment in format, but also in our chemistry.”
Arnie: “We were getting a feel for what we were doing. My notes were scattered, Brock didn’t want to share points ahead of time, and Stuart sent long, written reviews of each film before recording.”
Here is an excerpt from Stuart’s write-up of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter:
I’m now convinced there never was much merit to this series, and the only reason it was so profitable was because it was created the ideal date scenario for teens in the 80s. Kids snuck off to watch a forbidden R-rated movie where they would be stimulated by nudity, sex, and violence. And like a gateway drug, watching would lead to doing and I wish we had statistics on how many station wagon back seats saw action post-screening. And since they came out in such quick succession, and movies didn’t get rushed to videotape in less than a year, you could practically guarantee that you could attend a FRIDAY film and get laid at a theatre or drive-in near you whenever you could land a date. Who would have guessed Jason had so much in common with Dr. Ruth? And why do I keep having to review soft porn like it’s worthy of intellectual discourse?
Brock: “I remember editing some of the Friday the 13th shows and how (by today’s standards) rudimentary our tracks were that it made for some, let’s call them ‘challenges’ in the editing process.
Arnie: “It was intended that each movie recording would be only 10 minutes. When I started sending notes Brock was afraid the shows would be too long.”
Brock: “Once the download numbers started coming in and the response we were getting exceeded all expectations Arnie and I were just blown away. We knew we hit in something. “
Arnie: “Before the Friday the 13th series we would get between 50 and 500 hits per show. With Friday the 13th we started at 5,000 and went up from there. I remember being ecstatic at getting 40,000 downloads in one month!”
Brock: “And then I advocated we do Star Trek as a follow up. That was a tight window but we made it and well, look where Now Playing is now.”
New Blood?
The eighth anniversary of Now Playing’s Friday the 13th retrospective is also a reminder that it’s been eight, EIGHT years since we last saw Jason Voorhees on screen. Proposals for a sequel, reboot, and television series have been discussed for years, but the most significant (and it is significant) development for the property has been Gun Media’s Kickstarter-funded Friday the 13th video game, which is expected to be released later this year.
As for the next theatrical film, that’s anybody’s guess. The Now Playing hosts will be there, but they’re not holding their collective breaths for any of the rumored release dates.
Arnie: “I expected a sequel in 2011 or 2012, especially after seeing the huge opening for the 2009 film.”
Stuart: “That Platinum Dunes reboot was not something to build on (ditto Freddy) so it doesn’t surprise me that they’ve been unable to come up with a proper sequel. That said, I thought for sure we’d have another TV series. A CW show with kids at a lake house that worry about pimples, peer pressure, and getting impaled by a guy in a hockey mask.”
Brock: “Studios keep coming back to Leatherface and his chainsaw, so it is only a matter of time before Jason dons the hockey mask once again.”
Arnie: “Paramount does have that new film about to go into production (theoretically). Is it coming out this year? It’s supposed to shoot this Spring for release…October? Next February? With so many false starts (the found footage idea being the worst) I’m not making any plans just yet. I’m ready to go camping whenever Jason returns to Crystal Lake, and hey, this Friday is Friday the 13th!”
Now Playing Podcast’s Friday the 13th Retrospective Series was released from January 9 to Feb. 20, 2009. The 13 episode series can be heard on the Now Playing Podcast website.
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