Verbal Diorama

For the longest time I knew I wanted to cover Grave of the Fireflies . This is a movie that needs to be talked about, but I've put it off so many times. Honestly, this is a movie burned into my brain, and one that always makes me sob uncontrollably every single time. This is why it's a slightly shorter-than-normal Nanorama episode. The shorter episode is not a comment on the quality of this movie....

Meant to be the first animated DreamWorks movie (it wasn't, thanks to DreamWorks bringing the release date of Antz forward to annoy Disney), The Prince of Egypt takes a well-known Biblical tale (the basis of three of the biggest religions in the world; Christianity, Islam and Judaism) and grounds it in humanity and empathy, by making it a simple tale of two brothers; one who's destined to be Phara...

Corpse Bride , a co-production between Tim Burton Productions and Laika, is a genuinely heart-warming, beautifully made gothic fairy tale based on Jewish-Russian folk tales. It has a great cast and stunning visuals, but honestly despite seeing it several years ago, I could not remember a thing about it. Watching it again for this podcast was like watching it for the very first time. And therein li...

Wolfwalkers takes the myth and legend everyone knows surrounding werewolves, and transports it to a stunning 2D hand-drawn animated version of Kilkenny in 1650's Ireland, during the Cromwellian occupation of the country, and a dark time for Irish Catholics. At its heart it's a story about the unlikely friendship between Robyn, an English immigrant to Ireland and daughter of the new local wolf hunt...

Welcome to Animation Season 2022! Happy New Year and Ba weep granah weep nini bong to you all! We're starting this new season with a movie that traumatised a generation of children - The Transformers: The Movie . Transformers started out as a toy line, and became a comic and a TV series, and it was making huge profits for parent company Hasbro, but what do you do when you want to introduce a whole...

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays! It looks like you’ve been good this year. How do I know? Well, this episode will only show in your podcast app if you’re officially on Santa’s nice list, so well done for being a really good person and keep up the excellent work! And who better to help you celebrate your good deeds, than Klaus ? Verbal Diorama will return in 2022! Wishing you a fun, s...

Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays! It looks like you might have been a little bit naughty this year. No judgement from me, but this episode will only show in your podcast app if you’re on Santa’s naughty list! And who better to teach you a lesson if you’ve been naughty, than Krampus? Verbal Diorama will return in 2022! Wishing you a fun, safe and brilliant holiday season! This podcast...

What were you the God of again? Joining me on this special bumper conclusion to Chris-mas 2021, is the awesome Sam from Movie Reviews in 20 Q's. He's an all-round legend, and a well-known Marvel nerd, and I simply had to have him for this episode on Thor: Ragnarok . After two previous Thor movies, Marvel decided to hire Kiwi Taika Waititi, impressed with his show reel consisting of Big Trouble in...

After the success of Kenneth Branagh's Thor in 2011, a sequel for the God of Thunder was quickly put into motion, with a quick turnaround of two years. The race was on to find a director with a passion for the project, which they did in Patty Jenkins. Her appointment was a big deal too: she would have been the first female director to helm a movie in the MCU. Ultimately Jenkins' passion didn't ali...

Whosoever listens to this episode, if they be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor. It's Phase 1 of the MCU. We've just had Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 - all very grounded and Midgard-based. It was the perfect time, therefore to not only introduce a cosmic location, but a character steeped in rich Norse mythology. In 2011, we got Thor , aka Doth Mother Know You Weareth Her Drap...

Welcome to the third Nanorama episode - episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information. For this episode, I'm concluding the Alien franchise by talking a little about the saga's attempts at crossover events: Alien vs Predator was conceived instead of James Cameron's Alien 5, and was going to be the crossover event to end all crossover events. An Alien and a Predator...

1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4.... Everyone's favourite movie uncle Tom Hanks isn't as known for his directorial or screenwriting career, as he is for his many Oscar-winning acting roles. That Thing You Do! was his first foray into both directing and writing, and boy does he knock it out of the park with this. It's a charming, sweet, nostalgic tale of Erie, PA teenagers Guy, Jimmy, Lenny and Tobias (the retrosp...

Featuring five-time award winning podcaster Nicholas Haskins..... and Tits McGee. Actually, it's me, Em, Tits McGee is on vacation. Joining me is the Ron Burgundy of podcasting. A man who has many leather bound books and whose apartment smells of rich mahogany, a man who can play jazz flute like no other - Nicholas Haskins of the podcast Nikoli's Kitchen. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy , if...

I can't believe how cute this episode is! On the surface, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion is a very simple premise. Two friends, happy with their lot in life, suddenly realise that maybe their post-high school existence isn't as brilliant as they first thought. Car dealership cashier Romy White and unemployed fashionista Michele Weinberger decide to go to their ten-year high school reunion...

You know the name. You know the number. He has a licence to kill, he likes his vodka martinis shaken, not stirred. He's a sexist misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War.... And then, along came GoldenEye . Propelling James Bond into the post-Cold War, post-fall of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall, and a technologically advanced 1995. It had been six years since the previous Timothy Dalton...

SURPRISE!! In the grand tradition of surprise Halloween episodes, and following last year's Halloween episode Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight , I wanted to cover another underappreciated cult classic that probably not many other podcasts will this spooky season - Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Not the excellent TV series, (although I have done an episode on Hush ), but the 1992 movie that introduce...

You could say Jennifer's Body was wildly misunderstood on its release in 2009. Just seen as yet another titillating teen horror capitalising on the sexuality of its lead actor Megan Fox, and heralded as neither funny nor scary; the Diablo Cody-penned, Karyn Kusama-directed, horror-comedy seemed to be destined for the DVD bargain bin.... And then, in recent years, the tide has turned because now pe...

Welcome to the second Nanorama episode - episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information. For this episode, I'm continuing with the Alien franchise by talking a little about the saga's attempts at prequels: Prometheus brought back Alien director Ridley Scott, to distance itself from the franchise and delve into the origins of humanity, and the story around Alien's spa...

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky, and they're finally on Verbal Diorama. **click click** The Addams Family , based on Charles Addams' comic strips and the TV show that preceded it, might be a fun family Halloween movie, but the behind-the-scenes troubles for this production are so plentiful that it's a miracle that The Addams Family not only exists,...

Are we ready to talk about Keanu's best role in cinema? Ok, so it might not be exactly that, but I have a LOT of love for Francis Ford Coppola's lavish, sublime and gorgeous adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula . So much so that I don't even mind Keanu's stilted performance - it's no way as bad as many say it is, although that might be my bias shining through. It's a visual treat for the eyes, with...

James Gunn is mostly known nowadays for his work with Marvel Studios for the Guardians of the Galaxy duology (and his famous firing and re-hiring from said company), and his most recent DC release The Suicide Squad which he made during his Marvel hiatus (similarities between this movie and the character of Starro not withstanding!) Before Marvel took a chance on him, he was a reasonably well known...

The final episode of Sequeltember, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is, in many ways a total anomaly. It's likely many a millennial's first foray into the Gremlins universe (Gremlinverse?) due to it's focus on the cartoonish humour, rather than the horror aspects of the 1984 original. Plus it’s not often a director gets to make a sequel that the studio is so desperate for that they will relinquish creati...

Welcome to the first Nanorama episode - episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information. For this inaugural Nanorama, I'm continuing with the Alien franchise by talking a little about the multiple screenplay attempts for Alien 3 and the differences between David Fincher's experiences working with 20th Century Fox to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's on Alien Resurrection . Alien 3...

In the pantheon of great sequels, nothing comes close to James Cameron's Aliens . It takes everything great about Ridley Scott's Alien and builds on it. It gives us more backstory for Ripley, more human characters for Ripley (and the audience) to form relationships with, and more importantly (especially as it's in the name), more aliens! The Alien Queen is both antithetic and comparable to Ripley....

100 episodes ago, I covered The Mummy (1999). It's still the greatest movie ever made. The Mummy Returns , the 2001 sequel to The Mummy, was always going to struggle to live up to the fun, charismatic original (especially in my eyes) Nowadays, The Mummy is revered as a modern classic that reinvigorated pulp action adventure movies, but The Mummy Returns languishes in the sand dunes of Hamunaptra f...