Verbal Diorama

The first ever triple-bill episode, as voted for by Patrons of this podcast for Sequeltember, on the history and legacy of Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D & Jaws: The Revenge ! The sequels to the previous episode on Jaws . Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water. JAWS 2 was wanted pretty much immediately after the success of Jaws , but Steven Spielberg wasn't interested in reprising his dire...

We start Sequeltember 2023 with the sequel to last June’s episode on X-Men: First Class - itself a movie that didn’t deserve to be as good as it was, but it really was. When a sequel to X-Men: First Class was announced, fan expectation was high. Not only did it adapt a much beloved and influential comic book series, it also announced it was bringing the original trilogy cast and the new cast toget...

Welcome to 1985! Where CD players were brand-new, everyone loved Flock of Seagulls, everyone wanted to join the Mile High Club, "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" and Billy Idol gets it, I don't know why she doesn't get it... The Wedding Singer started life as one of Adam Sandler's trademark man-child comedies. It became something different after the involvement of two incredibly famous women - Drew...

SURPRISE! No-one knew this one was coming. Not the Patrons, and no-one on social media. This week was going to have no episode, but I really wanted to do an episode on the crazy story behind Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey , and how a sequel this wacky and ambitious ever got made in the first place. A sequel that references Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, as well as containing evil robot version...

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure almost wasn’t so excellent. Its original plot had to be changed during shooting, a major role was left uncast until the last minute, its original ending was abandoned for being, honestly, most heinous, and its production company went bankrupt during post-production. But, just like the movie, its ending was most triumphant. Bill and Ted would pass their history re...

Two households (Baz Lurhmann & 20th Century Fox) , both alike in dignity, In fair Verona (Australia / Hollywood) , where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge (Strictly Ballroom was a huge success) break to new mutiny, (mutiny = partnership) Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. (there was no blood that I'm aware of) From forth the fatal loins of these two foes (they decided to collabor...

A spec script sitting in development hell at Touchstone Pictures, called There's Something About Mary , wouldn't be the raunchy r-rated comedy it ended up becoming. Originally written more straight, with Ted as a creepy stalker hiring a PI to track down the girl he crushed on at high school, once the Farrelly Brothers got involved, it became more of a comedy (with traces of those stalker tendencie...

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned; It's been almost 20 years since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was released, and it feels like nothing else comes close to depicting the cyclical nature of relationships so honestly, or so deftly. With pitch-perfect performa...

"They're coming to get you, Barbra!" You always ask for more horror, so I'm giving you the original and best. The genre-defining low budget zombie movie, an influential horror classic, an unintentional social and political commentary on racial inequality. George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The story of zombies has been rooted in culture for decades, and black history has its own myths, b...

Don't Panic “Hitchhiker’s by its very nature has always been twisty and turny, and going off into every direction. A film demands a certain shape and discipline that the material just isn’t inclined to fit into.” This is a quote by Douglas Adams, creator and writer of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . Despite his (and many others') opinion that the material was mostly harmless (and unfilmable...

Another Nanorama (episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information) on the history and legacy of Jim Abrahams and Pat Proft's follow-up to the wildly successful Airplane ! and The Naked Gun ... Hot Shots! prime target for spoofing was Top Gun , but despite the material being right there, writing it turned into a potential life-imitating-art situation, when tensions sta...

Guillermo del Toro loves Japanese cinema, no more so than his passion for kaiju films, and it's this joy that fuels a loving homage to kaiju cinema like Pacific Rim , and it's this movie that concludes Kaijune for this very reason. A director known for his cinematic monsters, and his metaphors for man being the monster, was surely ripe for a kaiju movie. Pacific Rim is often misjudged and misunder...

It was the US Godzilla remake that spurred Toho into making their own brand-new Godzilla remake. Not the previous episode's 1998 Godzilla , but Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla , which ended up becoming a huge hit worldwide, and giving Toho the confidence that they could continue the long-running franchise. Shin Godzilla was announced in 2015, and just like the 1954 original it emulated, it would be...

From the depths of Kaijune comes the King of the Monsters.... GODZILLA ! But not the Godzilla many fans were expecting when a US remake was announced in the '90s, and not the first attempt to make a US version of the legendary kaiju. Steve Miner had tried to get a 3D version off the ground in 1983, and then there was the infamous Jan de Bont version in 1994. Both stories are fascinating enough, bu...

Bong Joon-ho is a fascinating director, and for the start of Kaijune, a theme month dedicated to cinematic monsters, I simple had to start with The Host , one of his lesser-known films but also one of his most accomplished. Bong Joon-ho does tend to make movies about monsters, but usually they’re figurative monsters. Capitalism, colonialism, greed, class inequalities, social injustice. But here, t...

Heathers wasn't the first teen black comedy, but it certainly would go on to define teen movies going forward, with movies like Clueless , Jawbreaker and Mean Girls all benefitting from Heathers ' influence, either vernacularly, sartorially or thematically. A candy-coloured world juxtaposed against the metaphorical "high school is hell", Veronica Sawyer is a member of the Heathers, the most popula...

"Play Ja Ja Ding Dong!" Ok, ok... But also, to celebrate the Eurovision Song Contest being held here in the UK, and in support of Ukraine, the history and legacy of not only the contest itself, but also Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Will Ferrell first saw the contest in 1999, and became a huge fan. It would take him over 20 years to bring a movie to the big screen, and it would...

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me. Wreck-It Ralph may be really good at wrecking, and Fix-It Felix really good at fixing, but Disney had been working on a video game movie since the late 80s without success. Starting as High Score, and then Joe Jump, it would be 2008 when the project would finally be "rebooted" as Reboot Ralph....

I'm sexy, I'm cute, I'm popular to boot... the introductory scene to Bring It On is infamous in 2000s pop culture for its tongue-in-cheek look at the world of cheerleading. Bring It On though, was born of a fascination with competitive cheerleading, and the fact that as it's seen as primarily a women's sport, and not really a sport in itself, despite the skill and athleticism necessary. Writer Jes...

Hustlers was always going to be a tough sell. Based on the true story of a group of strippers who conned rich, white men, writer and director Lorene Scafaria found herself trying to sell it to... rich white men, who were less than enthusiastic about it. The key was the involvement of Jennifer Lopez. Not only was it the casting of Scafaria's dreams, Lopez had the skill and connections to make the p...

More than half a century after NASA launched astronauts into space, you’d think all the stories about these groundbreaking missions had been told. But they hadn't. Margot Lee Shetterly's father worked at NASA, and the stories of the women of NASA were commonplace among the local community, but the world was yet to know the incredible true story of the African-American female mathematicians, and ho...

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a witty social satire on gender and class that also serves as a celebration of female ingenuity and solidarity, decked out in beautiful brightly coloured ball gowns and diamonds. It’s a love story, but not in the traditional sense; it puts female friendship front and centre, and remains one of the best buddy comedies. Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe are electric togethe...

Another Nanorama (episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information) on the history and legacy of The Lonely Island's debut and sophomoric cinematic comedies: Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Hot Rod was written originally for Will Ferrell before it ended up in development hell. The Lonely Island, then brand new on Saturday Night Live, were utilising the i...

It's the apocalypse of 2020 with dragons, and that's really all you need to know about this movie. But also, in the late '90s, the estimated $300 million spec script for Reign of Fire was toned down and eventually made for just $60 million, starring two future Oscar-winning actors, and visual effects that would leave a lasting legacy on cinematic dragons going forward. It makes Reign of Fire even...

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. Thanks for supporting 200 episodes of this podcast! The Wizard of Oz is still as relevant, vibrant and perfect as ever. It was a beloved children’s book, that manifested into a cultural cinematic icon. And despite the colours, the textures, the joyous wonder of the wonderful world of Oz, there’s...