Verbal Diorama

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...

Party on Wayne, and Party on Garth - it's only Aurora's finest basement-dwelling public access cable show. Wayne's World ! Wayne's World. Party time. Excellent! From its beginnings as a Saturday Night Live sketch, to its democratization of America's cable public access TV network, arguably Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar were the YouTubers of their day, and probably also invented podcasts... maybe....

Seven A.M., the usual morning line-up, start on the chores and sweep 'til the floor's all clean, polish and wax, do laundry, and mop and shine up, sweep again, and by then it's like 7:15 And so I read a book, or maybe two or three, I'll add a few new paintings to my gallery, I'll play guitar and knit, and cook and basically Just wonder when will my life begin? Tangled's life began like every other...

This podcast is now four year old, so to celebrate, here's the fifth of five very special episodes on Wallace and Gromit, on the final of their short films, A Matter of Loaf and Death Thank you for your support over the last four years! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

This podcast is now four year old, so to celebrate, here's the fourth of five very special episodes on Wallace and Gromit, on their only feature-length theatrical adventure Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit Thank you for your support over the last four years! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy OP3 - https://op...

This podcast is now four year old, so to celebrate, here's the third of five very special episodes on Wallace and Gromit, on the third of their short films, A Close Shave . Thank you for your support over the last four years! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

This podcast is now four year old, so to celebrate, here's the second of five very special episodes on Wallace and Gromit, on the second of their short films, The Wrong Trousers . Thank you for your support over the last four years! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

This podcast is now four year old, so to celebrate, here's the first of five very special episodes on Wallace and Gromit, on the first of their short films, A Grand Day Out . Thank you for your support over the last four years! This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

One doesn't know why. Perhaps it's his luxuriant beard, or his gleaming teeth, or the way he smells faintly of coconuts, but we have taken a shine to this pirate. With different names depending on where you are in the English-speaking world, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (or The Pirates! Band of Misfits ) already feels like an anomaly in Aardman's stellar back catalogue. Based on t...

Satoshi Kon's debut feature-length animated movie is often cited as not just as masterpiece of animation, but a masterpiece of cinema full stop. Darren Aronofsky, in particular, has not only credited Perfect Blue as inspiration for a scene in Requiem for a Dream , there are also striking similarities between Perfect Blue and his Oscar-winning psychological horror Black Swan . Mima and Nina, anyone...

The Emperor's New Groove , unfortunately lumbered as part of the blame for the beginning of the end of Disney's Renaissance period, is actually three movies in one: The original movie that was never made, Kingdom of the Sun The movie we got And the documentary that Disney does not want you to see, The Sweatbox In this episode, I'm going to be telling you about all three; plus the alleged DreamWork...

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a movie with a Guinness World Record, an Oscar nomination and, miraculously, an R-rating. That R-rating contributed to it being the highest grossing R-rated animated film for seventeen years, too. If the Motion Picture Association of America had their way, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut would have been rated NC-17, but the irony doesn't stop there....

Who's your friend who likes to play? BING BONG BING BONG! Inside Out captures the science of emotions, memory and personality remarkably accurately for an animated feature. In fact, getting the science right was paramount to the team at Pixar. It’s as accurate as the science in a Pixar movie can be, because it still needs to be entertaining, but it’s more accurate than it needs to be. Director Pet...

Comparisons to Avatar aside, FernGully: The Last Rainforest is a film of a lot of firsts.   It wasn't just one of the first animated features to combine traditional and computer animation; it was also one of the first to be produced with remote artists, Robin Williams' first animated role (no, not the Genie!), and the first movie to be screened at the UN General Assembly. It's also got itself...