Verbal Diorama

Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln! Toy Story 2 has a story to tell! Yes, it's the first Pixar sequel, momentous in its own right, but it started off as a Disney direct-to-video sequel, with a character called Senorita Cactus and a talking Bullseye, voiced by Martin Short.... Then it became a theatrical release! Then it got deleted accidentally! Then it got deleted on purpose! Then it got remade in n...

Mutants. Since the discovery of their existence, they have been regarded with fear, suspicion, often hatred. Across the planet debate rages. Are mutants the next link in the evolutionary chain? Or simply a new species of humanity, fighting for their share of the world? Either way, it is an historical fact that sharing the world has never been humanity's defining attribute. X-Men 2 took the mould m...

Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered , It's my birthday and because I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave , I've brought you a gift ! Here's the third annual birthday episode - a special episode based on one of the defining movies of my life. You've had The Iron Giant and Jurassic Park , and now.... I have reordered time, I have turned the wor...

Most of us grew up on adaptations of fairy tales; on stories of princesses, animal companions, and ultimately a happily ever after ending. Guillermo del Toro successfully interprets and deconstructs the fairy tale in his 2006 masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth, by blending a nightmarish fantasy world of fauns, fairies and quests, with a similarly nightmarish real world of war, fascist regimes and evil st...

In space, no one can hear you scream. Thankfully though, they can hear a podcast. I think. Comparisons to Jaws aside, Alien remains one of the seminal science fiction horror movies of all time, generating fear through its H.R. Giger designed sets and creature work, and the copious amounts of sexual and phallic imagery denoting the ultimate in terror - the fear of sexual violence, specifically male...

Last Action Hero had everything going for it. An in-demand script which enticed the biggest action star in Hollywood in Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Shane Black re-write, a credible action director in John McTiernan, a huge production budget (for the time) and a huge marketing budget. This was going to be the cinematic event of 1993. Except, it wasn't. A certain dinosaur movie went ahead and became th...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water this summer season, the cultural and societal behemoth that is Jaws finally makes an appearance in the waters around Verbal Diorama. But, don't worry, it's probably just a boat propeller killing all these random victims. Certainly not a huge 25ft long shark. Nope. No sharks in these parts. Jaws has a rather famously tumultuous production,...

Mad Max: Fury Road is not the movie you'd expect after the three very masculine Mad Max movies that came before it, but it's the Mad Max movie we needed. While arguably Tom Hardy's titular Max is side-lined by Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa, it's done for a good reason - to give Max something pure to fight for and alongside. Women are not treated kindly in this post-apocalyptic wasteland, and...

From the same studio who brought you Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse , and the producers of literally everything great that came out in the last 10+ years comes the best movie of 2021. Yep, I said it. The Mitchells vs. The Machines is the best movie of 2021. No hyperbole, either. This is also the studio that brought us The Emoji Movie , proving that things can only get better if you have a passi...

The Frighteners is more important than you realise. Not only was it a landmark of visual effects in 1996, it also starred one of the biggest Hollywood stars of the 80s/90s in his last live-action leading role: Michael J. Fox. Directed by Peter Jackson, The Frighteners languishes nowadays in some sort of film-based purgatory. Not cult classic enough to be deemed one, not good enough to be seen as a...

Wade Wilson: mercenary, talker, fourth-wall breaker and extremely self-aware comic book super-anti-hero. In a cinematic world where superheroes are commonplace, it makes sense for Deadpool to be the perfect tonic. A hero who isn't a hero, but is super. Deadpool, as a character, is pretty different to anyone else. Deadpool, as a movie, is certainly unlike anything Sony, Fox, Universal or Marvel Stu...

To celebrate the 100 episodes preceding it, here's a special episode about Tommy Wiseau's cult classic disasterpiece The Room , and the movie all about the making of The Room , The Disaster Artist . The Room holds a special place in many peoples' hearts, despite often being labelled as one of the worst movies ever made. The Disaster Artist is based on Greg Sestero's book of the same name, which is...

So, Infinity War finished, Thanos won. He snapped away half the universe's population and what was left? Less people, a cleaner environment and more resources to go around? Sure. Thanos was right on that point, but there was also international grief, overwhelming loss and an inability to move on for some. Five years later while Tony Stark retired to a cabin in the woods with his now-wife Pepper an...

Remember when Joss Whedon's The Avengers was the ultimate in superhero team ups? A mere six years later, brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, fresh off Captain America: Civil War , upped the ante and delivered the ultimate ultimate superhero team up - with more action! More characters! More bad guys! More of everything! And then, the Avengers lost. Thanos not only collected all the Infinity Stones, he...

I'd wager that if you ask anyone at random what their favourite Avengers movie, Age of Ultron would rarely be the first choice. The middle child of the franchise, this was the one that had the most riding on it, and it suffered for its great ambitions. Because Age of Ultron , retrospectively, isn't a bad movie. It's trying to tell a horror story, in the vein of Frankenstein, and the themes of crea...

I am Em of Verbal Diorama, and I am burdened with glorious purpose. Because really, aren't we all here for Loki, God of Mischief, the wonderful Tom Hiddleston just chewing every inch of CG scenery? But he's not the only highlight of this movie, because pretty much everything about The Avengers (or Avengers Assemble as it was marketed here in the UK, don't worry though, it's still The Avengers to m...

In 1987, Fred Dekker made a little movie that did so badly it was pulled from US theatres after just two weeks.... Like all cult classics though, The Monster Squad showed it had nards, and only grew in audiences estimations through VHS and TV screenings, through to DVD and Blu-ray, and to sold-out fan screenings and events. While attempts have been made to reboot The Monster Squad, and in the shad...

"We're men. We're men in tights. We roam around the forest looking for fights. We're men. We're men in tiiiiiights. We rob from the rich and give to the poor, that's right!" Robin Hood: Men in Tights isn't here to be fine art, this is no Criterion Collection inductee. It's the simple story you know of the outlaw who robs the rich to feed the poor, except unlike some other Robin Hoods', he can spea...

All you need to do to summon him is say his name three times.... Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! For many, this is one of Tim Burton's greatest moments as a director. The sharp, macabre, funny story of Adam and Barbara Maitland, a recently deceased couple who find the living are haunting their house. They struggle to get rid of Charles and Delia Deetz through normal means, and so enlist the...

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a true phenomenon, in all senses of the word. To coin a phrase from its sequel, it found the Holy Grail of filmmaking for being not only a commercial smash hit, but also became a critical darling and received multiple awards recognition. With the juggernaut pairing of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg at the helm, you'd think Raiders of the Lost Ark would have had it eas...

Children of Men, a prescient dystopian science-fiction drama asks a simple question. If human beings couldn't reproduce, what would happen to the world? Director Alfonso Cuarón made, what I consider his masterpiece, in 2006 and yet it's never felt more resonant, or prescient, than it does today. This is a movie that hasn't aged a day, and probably never will. It's a bleak, grim look at a dystopian...

On the surface, a fan-favourite coming-of-age movie told through the eyes of young, innocent, naïve Baby Houseman as she has the time of her life meeting sexy, "bad boy" dance instructor Johnny Castle on her family holiday to the Catskill Mountains in the summer of 1963. She learns to dance, he learns to love. It's all very romantic. It's a feeling, a heartbeat. But, underneath it's more than that...

The Devil Wears Prada is often referred to as a "chick flick", which I'd argue is not only inaccurate, but also a little insulting to such a fantastic exploration of feminine status, class and power. It allows its female characters to have agency, ambition and respect, despite them not being the archetypal “female character”. Meryl Streep brings complexity, nuance and vulnerability to Runway edito...

Hook Hook, show us the Hook! Verbal Diorama is a podcast known for its very good form, and was given three days to learn to fly, fight and crow and become The Pan. I like to think I'm more of a Rufio (Rufio, Ru-Fi-Ohhhhhhh!) actually. Hook is one of my childhood favourites. It's my favourite Peter Pan movie by far, and honestly it pains me that most people don't like it, let alone love it. Yes, it...

Why don't we appreciate Samantha Caine and Charly Baltimore the same way we appreciate Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley? Why do we choose Die Hard at Christmas instead of The Long Kiss Goodnight? What is explosions, if not Renny Harlin persevering? I have so many questions about why we, as a movie-going public, don't appreciate The Long Kiss Goodnight enough. Geena Davis is an absolute standout, play...