Verbal Diorama

The MCU has changed a hell of a lot in 15 months. Back in June 2021 Loki was on everyone's lips, my Avengers series was winding to the end of Phase 3, and Marvel had officially started Phase 4 of the MCU with WandaVision ... (and June 2021 is when this episode was originally recorded.) Post Vision's death at the hands of Thanos, and the resulting snap, Wanda Maximoff is bereft. She ends up in West...

The daywalker returns to Verbal Diorama for Sequeltember, and this time he has a Blood Pack. Guillermo del Toro admired Stephen Norrington's Blade so much, he analysed it in depth once he took the reins for Blade II . He wanted to build on the world of Blade (1998) by upping the blood, gore, martial arts and monsters, while also staying true to Norrington's original vision. On its release in 2002,...

The power of the sun, in the palm of my hands... Welcome to Sequeltember: The Sequel. Another round of sequels to movies previously featured on Verbal Diorama, and the month starts with a sequel that surpassed its genre-defining original. Spider-Man 2 is, 18 years after its release, still widely regarded as one of the best comic book movies ever made. It's not hard to see why. It has a relatable,...

Spending my vacation in the summer sun, gettin' lots of action and a lots of fun, scorin' like a bandit 'til the bubble burst, suddenly it got to be August 31st! Come on everybody, gather 'round, I'm gonna show you how to knock 'em down. When I'm on the ball, I'm the number one, and I'm gonna show you how it's done. It's time for the annual birthday episode! While I pride myself on being your Girl...

Auguest concludes, with the first, second and third rule in a crisis situation... I have no respect for those who have no respect for logic. Joining me to talk about Ivan Reitman's fan-favourite Arnold Schwarzenegger & Danny DeVito buddy comedy TWINS are two hosts of a podcast that could be the twin podcast to Verbal Diorama; Drew and Matt from Sequel Pitch! I know, right! Practically twins! W...

Auguest continues! Impulse. Response. Fluid. Imperfect. Patterned. Chaotic. All words to describe this podcast, but also uttered by Nathan describing the brain of his ultimate creation; Ava. But can Ava pass as human? Let's find out as we delve into Alex Garland's (sort-of!) directorial debut, EX MACHINA ! This week's guest wasn't lucky, he was chosen. I had to use all of my self-awareness, imagin...

Auguest continues! Snootch to the motherf**king nootch! Verbal Diorama returns for another guest hosted episode for probably the best movie writer/director Kevin Smith has ever made - DOGMA . There's no pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater than being joined for Dogma by the human embodiment of the Buddy Christ, Andy from Geek Salad, for his Holy Trinity of guest appearances. He has a pen...

Auguest, a month of amazing guest-hosted episodes, begins! I'd have to be pretty stupid to host a podcast about killing and then kill him the way I described in my podcast. I'd be announcing myself as the killer. I'm not stupid. TW: This episode includes a discussion about a scene which depicts forced sex/sexual assault/rape as well as Sharon Stone's recent revelations that she did not consent to...

Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts for the latest episode of this podcast. What is it? Well, it's an audio file you can listen to at any time, but that's not important right now. Surely Verbal Diorama can't be serious? Well, Verbal Diorama is serious, and don't call me Shirley. I'm Em, I'm your pilot for this flight, and the life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: f...

Another Nanorama (episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information) on the history and legacy of Promising Young Woman , and how important this movie is, regardless of your gender. If this movie makes you feel uncomfortable, it's doing its job. TW: This episode covers suicide, rape, sexual abuse, lack of rape convictions, as well as a rant on the recent overturning by...

It was a fever dream while making Piranha II: The Spawning that gave James Cameron his idea for a terrifying metal endoskeleton crawling through flames. From that initial idea, he would write a draft, and with the help of Gale Anne Hurd, he would have a script that would sell to Orion, and funding from Hemdale Film Corporation. That script was called The Terminator. Made for a comparatively tiny $...

It's not every first time director who hits it out of the park with their first feature, especially one based on an original idea, with an unknown cast. Luckily (or rather unluckily for Halo ), an existing project that had brought them together had crumbled, and so a partnership began between powerhouse producer Peter Jackson, fresh off his The Lord of the Rings trilogy and newcomer Neill Blomkamp...

Ack ack ackack ACK ACK! Based on the Topps trading cards of the same name, a movie version of Mars Attacks! first started gathering pace in the mid-80s, but without Tim Burton's involvement. After several years in development hell, screenwriter Jonathan Gems and director Tim Burton got involved, with a script which was costed by Warner Bros at $250 million to make. Not even Titanic would cost that...

Enchanted started life as something very different to what it ended up becoming. Originally conceived as an R-rated comedy with no songs, it was purchased by Touchstone Pictures and eventually made its way to becoming a Disney property, which meant a serious tone down of the material. Going through several directors and writers, eventually it landed with Tarzan and 102 Dalmatians director Kevin Li...

Another Nanorama (episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information) on the history and legacy of 1984 smash-hit adventure romantic comedy Romancing the Stone and its rushed sequel The Jewel of the Nile ... Romancing the Stone was written by waitress Diane Thomas, and in a true rags-to-riches story was sold to producer Michael Douglas for $250,000. Filmed on location in...

GET OVER HERE! In a change to the scheduled episode, a smaller Nanorama (episodes slightly shorter, but focusing on interesting titbits of information) on the history and legacy of the original Mortal Kombat film adaptation from 1995, and its much maligned sequel... YOUR SOUL IS MINE! Mortal Kombat , as a video game, was a worldwide phenomenon. It made sense to make it into a movie. It really was...

Team America: World Police started out as an homage to Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds mixed with Jerry Bruckheimer all-action, post 9/11 US foreign policy and a hint of disaster movies. It's likely that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone simply had no idea what they were in for when they agreed to make this movie and release it in October 2004. They had five months(!) Five months to mak...

Heroes Through the Decades comes to a close in the 2020s with The Suicide Squad , proving that even villains can become heroes when given a second chance. Literally. When David Ayer's Suicide Squad was released in 2016, it was not the original movie he envisioned. Affected by the critical hammering of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , Warner Bros set about making Suicide Squad lighter and more...

After the financial success of X-Men: The Last Stand , X-Men spin-offs X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men Origins: Magneto were both being developed at about the same time at 20th Century Fox. Due to the Writer's Guild of America strike in 2007-2008, production on Magneto was halted and put on the back burner, whereas Wolverine managed to scrape through the system. When Wolverine was released and...

Spider-Man gave us an origin story of great power and great responsibility, in more ways than one, but also a story that ordinary nerds could relate to. From humble origins as a throwaway character in a cancelled comic book title, to Marvel's flagship character, a movie version of Spider-Man has been in the works since the early '80s with differing results. Enjoy my new feature "Corman, Cannon, Ca...

Heroes Through the Decades ass kicks into the '90s, with Wesley Snipes' cool, charismatic badass vampire hunter - Blade! In 1971 the Comics Code Authority updated its code criteria, which had been in place since 1954, relaxing the rules on the depiction of horror in comics. For the first time, vampires were allowed in comic books. Marvel's first pseudo-vampire character, Morbius the Living Vampire...

Heroes Through the Decades kapows into the 1980s, and is there any superhero as ubiquitous as Batman? Found in comics, in movies and TV, on lunchboxes, as toys and as one of the best-known silhouettes in the world, Batman's omnipresence in pop culture might be commonplace today, but while Batman was a hugely popular comic book series (and '60s TV show!), the Caped Crusader as we know him shifted i...

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Verbal Diorama's Heroes Through the Decades miniseries, continuing into the 1970s! Whether you know him as Clark Kent, Kal-El, the Man of Steel, the Man of Tomorrow, or just as Superman, that famous tights-and-cape combo emblazoned with the S on his chest is a symbol of a lot of things: Hope, courage, freedom, love... truth, justice and the American way, and a...

In the first episode of my Heroes Through the Decades miniseries, I'm starting in the sixties, and the crowing jewel of Ray Harryhausen's stellar career, with his trademark glorious stop-motion creature set pieces, in a movie I grew up watching - Jason and the Argonauts . Jason may be the hero on-screen, but Harryhausen is the hero behind it. From its basis in the Greek myth of Jason and the Golde...

What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can't any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone's sake the scanners do better, because if the scanner sees only darkly the way I do, then I'm cursed and cursed again. Welcome to the 150th episode of Verbal Diorama, and an episode on t...