Just when you thought the show couldn’t get any more magical, the Screeners are back for some more sleight of film. Now You See Me came in second at the box office last weekend, and it edged out Fast and Furious 6 for a spot in this week’s main event. As we sit back and prepare to be amazed, though, we have a lightning round to speed through...or not.

Sequels, Adaptations, and the Critics Who Spoil Them

Jump Cuts starts off with a tribute to the thrilling conclusion of everyone’s favorite trilogy. That’s right, they’re talking about The Hangover Part III. How many nights of partying can the Screeners take before they realize they’re too old for this sort of thing? You might be surprised...

Next on the list:  Summer is always sequel season, but it’s not every day they pull an 80’s sci-fi classic out of the vault for a follow-up. The recently announced Blade Runner sequel is the exception that proves the rule. Ridley Scott’s at the helm, but the writer of such Hollywood gems as Fantastic Four and Green Lantern is at the keyboard; will the Screeners give it their blessing?

As it turns out, our hosts like playing studio exec—the next Jump Cut focuses on which of their favorite old-fashioned ink-and-paper books they’d like to see adapted for the screen and which should stay on the shelf. For the books to green-light, one of the Screeners picked a Tom Clancy classic (guess who that was; we dare you), two picked a Stephen King series that’s often the subject of the Hollywood rumor mill, and Josh unrepentantly picked a book no one else has read.

Finally, we saved the best of this round for last, depending on how much you like arguments (we love ‘em). Should you read critics’ reviews, or at least look at Rotten Tomatoes scores, before you see a movie? OK, folks, we want a clean fight here...touch gloves...and go! We’ll be listening from a safe distance.

Did We See You? Did We?

Our main event this week is a little tough to summarize without giving away some of its twists and turns, so we won’t go down that road. Instead, we’ll say that Now You See Me is about magicians who are not Steve Carell. We’ll also say that, in contrast to some of the films we’ve seen recently on the show, this one’s generated a bit of disagreement among the hosts, and as we established in the last segment, disagreement = fun.

Oh, one more non-spoiler:  The rule for tonight’s Screeners drinking game is “drink whenever Josh says ‘narrative’”. You might want to stick with a light beverage for this one—say, lemonade.

From the Mailbag

Our final segment this week is all about you, the listeners. It seems that the Screeners’ shameless pleading is paying off; feedback has been coming in, both on the site and on Facebook, and they wanted to devote some air time to discussing it. Since they just can’t resist themselves, the responses might even include a mini-review or two.

See? When you write in, we all win. Keep the comments coming, and we’ll be back in a couple weeks when the podcast odometer rolls over to double digits!