Now Playing: God’s gift to film geeks.

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nowplaying_icon_small It’s happened a thousand times before. You’re sitting in a bookstore coffee shop, discussing Kafka and Dostoevsky when one of your friends gets the brilliant idea, “Hey, let’s go see that German Expressionist throwback film.” Only problem is, nobody knows what time it plays or where. Such a predicament, but that’s why God invented Now Playing (formerly Box Office).

Okay, fine. It was a white castle and we wanted to go see the Transporter 3. You happy now?

Various ways of sorting local films and review scores are easily accessible.

Regardless of your filmic tastes, Now Playing can help you out. It can find your location, and then you can change settings to list theaters within a certain radius of your location. The theaters are listed alphabetically. In addition, you can sort by movie (if you know you need some badass Jason Statham), look at upcoming movies, or scan DVD releases (where you will find synopses, ratings, runtimes, cover art, and cost).

For me, the app has already earned its place on my iPhone. But wait, there’s more!

When looking at a list of movies, the rotten tomatoes tomatometer rating, complete with a “percentage positive” rating, tells you whether the movie is worth a damn (Transporter 3 is at 36%. Effing critics). Click on the movie, and you get a synopsis (very handy when convincing friends to join you), rating, runtime, and a listing of all the theaters within your chosen radius that run the movie (and the showtimes). You can even select a theater and find the phone number as well as the address–complete with a “map” and “call” button.

Hey, let's go see Transporter 2! It's better than pounding nails through our feet for two hours.

No need to get directions or dial numbers. We are one step closer to unhinged sloth in this country; time to celebrate.

But a lot of movie apps and sites give you most of this stuff (though not nearly as well organized as this). Why is this better, you may ask.

There are four reasons–four features, actually–that make this app even cooler than I’ve already shown you.

First, for every movie you can hit the “read reviews” button and see Rotten Tomatoes mini reviews within the app. It doesn’t link to a third-party website unless you choose to read the entire review, and the mini review is usually enough. This is not only cool, but it makes the Rotten Tomatoes iPhone app pretty useless.

Second is the “email listings” button. It does exactly what it says so you can send the movie times to a friend to decide the best time for both of you.

Third is the visit IMDb button, which links you to the Internet Movie Database section for the movie. As an IMDb fanatic, this is very convenient for when I want to find out if the Best Boy Grip on Transporter 3 was the same as in Transporter 1 and 2 (he’s not).

And finally–coolest of all–is the “play trailer” button, which immediately begins playing high-quality trailers for the movies in which you are interested. I have used this numerous times to convince buddies to go see some obscure movie they have never heard of. It’s ridiculously convenient and well-maintained with very good compressions that stream fairly well with little lag time (over wifi, that is).

Overall, the load time is pretty good since the app isn’t terribly graphics heave, and it only loads information as you call it up. Be patient on edge, and you’ll find the answers you seek.

As a born and bred movie geek, this app is by far one of my favorites on the iPhone. If anyone knows of better movie apps, though, please let me know. I’m always on the lookout with my single glowing red eye.