Now Playing - The Movie Review Podcast

The scrappy crew always puts a smile on my face with their reviews and listened to them for years. So many episodes I re-listened to and find new things. Cheers to you guys here’s to several more years of amazing movie reviews and critiques.

I hang on Stewart’s every word. Of the three, no matter who is critiquing, his opinion is the most like a critic- educated, no favoritism, no freebies. That being said, the interplay between hosts is integral. Listened to hundreds of podcasts since their inception, this is the ONLY ONE that’s lasted the test of time.

I’m a huge music fan and never really got into movies, probably because I barely had TV growing up. This podcast has tipped me off to movies I ended up really liking but may not have otherwise watched, like Thief, Rumblefish, The Batman and Drive. It has also helped me become an adequate conversationalist with movie buffs (seems like every other other person is one!) I’ve tried other movie podcasts to listen to at work but it seems like other movie pods always start with a heavy dose of of blabbing, non-movie related personal stories, and aren’t edited very tightly. Now Playing has a clean structure they always follow that puts the movie as the top priority. The editing is always really tight and professional, no hiss and dead air. The hosts are all good at talking about anything at all (it’s a talent!) and have good chemistry because they’ve known each other a long time. Even if someone pays them a bunch of money to review a movie, they aren’t afraid to give honest opinions, and I feel like they’re always aware that opinions aren’t objective facts, and opinions will differ based on age and what you want out of art or entertainment. I think the first episodes I listened to were them tearing apart the Silent Hill franchise; the skewering they gave it was off putting, but after getting a larger sample size of their reviews I’ve heard them champion underdog movies (not the Underdog franchise though!) and find interesting, modern points of criticism in classics. I have a signed copy of the Now Playing book, am a monthly supporter, and I always look forward to the next review. Unless it’s of a Stephen King property, how are those still being spawned?

Long time financial supporter. Inspired me to start my own movie pod. Smart fun and honest. I actually rarely agree with the hosts, but I appreciate their challenges and perspectives on movies I love. They also really love their listeners and have given us a seat at the table for a long time. Love NP!

I used to like this podcast. Been listening for a long time. Maybe I didn’t notice its flaws before or maybe they’ve evolved over time, but the last year or so the podcast has gone downhill for me. The hosts will often cite events in movies that don’t actually happen, making me wonder if they pay attention at all to the movies they watch. They get character and actor names wrong, despite claiming to rewatch previous movies before a new one comes out, and doing research about topics. It’s a lot of little things that make them come across as either lacking the necessary effort to put on this show or just not caring about their audience. Also, if I had a dollar for every time Arnie says “and things” I’d have a whole lot of dinero, friends. Once you notice it, you can’t unhear it. We all have filler words and phrases, but it just seems unprofessional that a podcaster doing this for this long hasn’t worked on cutting those things out. All that said, despite the growing list of flaws, they usually have a decent discussion. There are a lot worse podcasts out there that you could listen to. Let’s hope this one gets back on track.

Hard stop while listening to the Sinners episode at the point when one of the hosts made very insulting remarks regarding the director’s accent. While I do not feel that this was racially charged in any way, I did take this to be a microaggression. Coogler has a distinctive Bay Area accent, which can admittedly be difficult to understand. However, it is very refreshing that he does not code switch in order to make himself more palpable to the masses. Being that his movie has elements noting the issues with cultural assimilation, it is in poor taste to highlight how he is so unintelligible to you. Minorities have spent generations making themselves easier for the majority to digest, often leading to the whitewashing and erasure of traditions and practices that shaped their cultures in the first place. I will not listen any further, but I challenge the hosts of this show to consider how slights such as this will affect their listeners.