Movie talk with tangents worth keeping.
Matinee Heroes is a film conversation show built around one movie at a time. Episodes mix plot setup, production-minded analysis, guest banter, and off-road personal tangents about pugs, road trips, conventions, Oscars, and genre obsessions.
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Matinee Heroes is a movie conversation show built around affection, argument, and the pleasure of remembering scenes together. The format is straightforward: choose a film, set up the premise, then let Craig Price, Elizabeth Rapp, co-hosts, and guests work through what makes it funny, strange, dated, sharp, or durable. It has range. Recent episodes move from alien-road-trip tenderness in Starman to Men in Black's secret-world comedy, then from Paul into the shadowy machinery of Mystery March. The show is comfortable with genre. It talks about noir, suspense, science fiction, creature features, detective stories, movie marketing, and the awkward seams where sincerity and comedy meet. The best moments often arrive sideways. A conversation about Rear Window can turn into memory, plausible deniability, and the problem of watching a movie too far before recording. Chinatown becomes a route into Los Angeles water politics, corruption, public goods, and the way American competition frames everyday life. The Third Man invites talk about Dutch angles, disorientation, black markets, and an inept protagonist who thinks he understands more than he does. Then the room snaps back into jokes. Pugs, deer, car names, convention fatigue, hockey chants, and tungsten underwear all wander through the episodes without turning them into pure digression. The tone is informal but not careless. When the show brings in CONversations with Craig, it widens from film discussion into behind-the-scenes entertainment talk, including Dane DeLiagro describing the hard physical work of playing the Predator in Prey. That episode adds a practical, tactile layer: suits, heat, motion capture, stunts, and the hidden effort inside screen monsters. Matinee Heroes works because it lets movie fandom stay human-sized. It values craft and story, but it also values the table talk that happens around them.
Made for: Matinee Heroes is for film fans who like recap, criticism, and casual panel chemistry in the same hour. It especially suits listeners who enjoy genre months, classic thrillers, alien comedies, and behind-the-scenes entertainment stories.
What sets it apart: The show balances movie-specific analysis with lived-in conversational drift, so a discussion can handle Altman, noir structure, pugs, conventions, and Hollywood creature work without feeling sealed off from ordinary life.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Matinee Heroes pairs relaxed movie-club conversation with sharp attention to story mechanics, visual choices, performance, and the practical work behind the screen.
Matinee Heroes treats familiar movies as arguments waiting to happen. Host Craig Price and co-host Elizabeth Rapp work through story logic, character choices, and filmmaking craft with a rotating guest, keeping the conversation loose without abandoning close analysis.
Jeff's window has a blind spot; Craig and Elizabeth invite you to argue about it.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Craig, Elizabeth, and Stephen revisit Starman's road trip, its growing bond, and that puzzling hotel stop.
An alien comes to Earth in peace, and the military shoots down his ship. Stranded, he takes the form of a dead man and forces the man's widow to drive him to a rescue ship in Arizona.
Dane describes the sweaty, awkward work of playing the Predator in *Prey*.
Former professional basketball player Dane tells host Craig Price what it took to play the Predator in Prey. To make the creature appear to look straight ahead, Dane had to look down through two holes in the costume's neck. He thought he would be in two or three scenes.
Matinee Heroes weighs Jeff's clues and blind spots in Rear Window.
In Matinee Heroes' discussion of Rear Window, Craig Price, Elizabeth Rapp and guest Tracy Mangum keep returning to a stubborn question: what can Jeff really know from his window? Thorwald's trips during the night look suspicious, yet the detective says witnesses saw Mrs.
Chinatown's water dispute leads to a conversation about AI, work, and who benefits from controlling what others need.
A Los Angeles private detective takes what looks like an infidelity case, until the man's real wife appears and he learns an imposter hired him. The husband's death pulls him toward corruption and disturbing family secrets involving the wife's powerful father.
Craig Price, Elizabeth Rapp and Derek McCaw connect Holly Martins's confusion in The Third Man to its tilted angles and debate whether his ineptitude is funny or depressing.
Holly Martins arrives broke to visit his childhood friend Harry Lyme, only to learn that Harry is dead. Reports of a mysterious third man at the scene draw him in.
Conroy discusses The Killing Joke and Batman fans, then recalls a parking-lot heckle.
Kevin Conroy knows Batman fans pay attention. In a 2018 San Francisco Comic-Con conversation with Craig Price, he says they would notice if the actors or writers took a shortcut.
Chicago voices, live and unfiltered.
Horror talk from the theater lobby.
Doctor Who fandom, recorded in motion.
Dallas banter with no clean exit.
FDNY stories, roasted and remembered.
Craig hosts a live panel at EmpireCon 2019 with six crew members who worked on the original Star Wars trilogy, sharing behind-the-scenes stories.
Host Craig Price introduces a recorded live conversation with comedy legend John Cleese at FanX Salt Lake in April 2019, discussing his career and the unexpected process of moderating the event.
Matinee Heroes opens its Starman discussion by framing Jeff Bridges' alien, the shot-down ship, and the forced drive to Arizona.
Craig, Elizabeth, and guest Tammy Anderson discuss the movie Men in Black, covering themes like immigration and neuralyzer damage.
Craig Price records this Conversations with Craig interview at the 2024 Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio with Dane DeLiagro, a Lexington-born UNH basketball alum who played the Predator in Prey.
A podcast episode discussing the movie Paul, featuring a conversation about sincerity, comedy, and Elizabeth's role, with a guest co-host.
The hosts of Matinee Heroes discuss Robert Altman's film The Long Goodbye, analyzing its disjointed style, plot, and connections to the Oscars and candle cults.
Craig Price, Elizabeth Rapp, and Tracy Mangum discuss Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, with Jimmy Stewart as photojournalist L.B.
Craig Price, Elizabeth Rapp, and guest Jeff Penn from Deep Cuts to Game discuss "Chinatown" as a 1930s Los Angeles noir built around Jake Gittes, Evelyn Mulwray, and a water scheme tied to the city reservoir.
Craig Price and Elizabeth Rapp compare post-war Vienna to "Madripoor," then tie cigarettes and black markets to survival.
Kevin Conroy traces his Batman audition at Warner Bros.
Craig Price interviews actor Enrico Colantoni about his career from Just Shoot Me to Person of Interest and his new series English Teacher, recorded live at FanX Salt Lake in September 2025.
Craig Price moderates a live panel with Rose McGowan and Holly Marie Combs at FanX 2023, discussing their careers, friendship, and life outside Hollywood.
Craig Price and Alan Cerny interview horror filmmaker Mick Garris about his Stephen King adaptations and the Horror-Thon charity event.