The subject of Now Playing is the institution of conventional film as I saw it in the early 1980s in the United States. The simple juxtaposition of the fragments of text followed by the single shot of the facade of a movie theater proposes a criticism of the institution of commercial cinema by suggesting the sameness and predictability of the experiences offered by movies made within it…. The concern is that cinema-goers who are in turns conditioned by prior movie going experiences may find it difficult to accept anything outside of the familiar narrowness of commercial films. The marquee of the theater is represented as blank to suggest that any one of the excerpts might serve there equally well. Viewers of Now Playing are asked to consider the possibility that the interchangeability of the critical comments presented suggests the interchangeability of the films themselves. At the same time the actual text composed from the excerpts is left to speak for itself. [Source: Susan Rosenfeld]