Stephanie Prange

April 19, 2023

On this month’s episode of the Media Play News podcast, hosts Charles Parkman and Charlie Showley open with a recap of what they’ve had time to watch in the time since they last recorded. Charlie watched Netflix’s wildly successful miniseries “Beef” about two damaged people who become entangled in each others’ lives following a road rage altercation between them. In his opinion, Netflix and other streaming platforms should embrace the miniseries format more since their offering of letting anyone watch content at their own pace allows for more experimental ways to tell stories. Charles has been revisiting older movies and shows in his collection, including the ’90s era Batman films and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

Charles then gives his quick review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and long story short, if you like Mario then this will be an enjoyable, if shallow, movie. Charlie hasn’t been the biggest supporter of the movie leading up to its release but has come around to it, even wanting to rewatch the original 1993 Super Mario Bros. The problem? It isn’t available to stream on any service. Regardless, in other box office news John Wick: Chapter 4 has since become the most lucrative release of the franchise, renewing interest for its past movies with John Wick taking the top spot on streaming for the past couple weeks and Chapters 2 and 3 also cracking the top 10.

Next, HBO Max has rebranded itself to Max, which leaves both hosts scratching their heads. It’s strange why it would appear to distance itself from the HBO brand, but it is ultimately not a very important change. At the very least. there’s not another streaming platform with a “+” at the end of it. More important from the Max service is its announcement of greenlighting a 10-year-long Harry Potter TV series to cover all seven of the original books with J.K. Rowling executive producing. Believe it or not it’s been over a decade since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 so it may be the optimal time to reboot the franchise. Charlie is slightly hopeful for it with the tone of modern TV shows becoming darker and more serious.

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Last up, Charlie interviewed Jeff Rauseo from the podcast and Youtube show “Films at Home.” As the name implies, it’s a show that focuses on home media and reviews of physical releases, so Charlie asked Jeff questions like what got him interested in collecting Blu-rays in the first place and what some of his favorite special features are. To listen to the audio of the full interview when it’s released in the next couple days, subscribe to the podcast feed.