Verbal Diorama Verbal Diorama

Starting life as a skit for the VH1 Fashion awards, Derek Zoolander would become an international sensation, and be vying for his fourth consecutive VH1 Male Model of the Year. It's an impressive feat for a man as ridiculously good-looking as he is.
Inspired by the success of Austin Powers, the idea was to make a feature length movie out of Derek's life and successes, but filming during the 2000 Autumn fashion season in New York, and at the real VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards, meant they could only film during commercial breaks.
Luckily, Derek's fashion industry and celebrity friends were there to help, with Donatella Versace agreeing to co-star alongside Derek in that moment, and his life story, the movie Zoolander, would eventually be released in September 2001.
And nothing bad happened in September 2001... right?
I would love to hear your thoughts on Zoolander !
Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! I won the Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards recently. I am beyond thrilled, and hugely grateful to the Ear Worthy team. It means so much to me to be recognised by a fellow indie outlet, and congratulations to all the other winners!
CONTACT....
Twitter @verbaldiorama Instagram @verbaldiorama Facebook @verbaldiorama Letterboxd @verbaldiorama Email verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com Website verbaldiorama.com
SUPPORT VERBAL DIORAMA....
Give this podcast a five-star Rate & Review
Join the Patreon | Send a Tip | Buy Merch
ABOUT VERBAL DIORAMA
Verbal Diorama is hosted, produced, edited, researched, recorded and marketed by me, Em | This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song. Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe. Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!) Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan of Ewenique Studio
Patrons: Sade, Claudia, Simon, Laurel, Derek, Vern, Cat, Andy, Mike, Griff, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Will, Jack, Dave, Chris, Stuart, Nicholas, Zo, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Aly, Stu, Brett, Philip, Michele, Xenos, Sean, Ryno and Russell!


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
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Cloverfield, or one of its many other names, was greenlit in a shroud of secrecy, and that secrecy continued throughout production.
Actors were auditioned without even being told what they were auditioning for, just that it was a new untitled J.J. Abrams project, and the Abrams name was enough to whet the appetites of not only the actors involved, but also the general public.
After a teaser trailer debuted alongside Transformers in the summer of 2007, fans were desperate to find out anything about this mysterious film, titled 1-18-08, with online theories suggesting it was a massive lion monster or a new Godzilla entry.
Websites for the movie started to weave a web of intrigue, with a whole backstory evolving, leading to one of the most effective viral internet marketing campaigns of the 2000s...
I would love to hear your thoughts on Cloverfield !
Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! I won the Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards in July 2024. I am beyond thrilled, and hugely grateful to the Ear Worthy team. It means so much to me to be recognised by a fellow indie outlet, and congratulations to all the other winners!
CONTACT....
Twitter @verbaldiorama Instagram @verbaldiorama Facebook @verbaldiorama Letterboxd @verbaldiorama Email verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com Website verbaldiorama.com
SUPPORT VERBAL DIORAMA....
Give this podcast a five-star Rate & Review
Join the Patreon | Send a Tip | Buy Merch
ABOUT VERBAL DIORAMA
Verbal Diorama is hosted, produced, edited, researched, recorded and marketed by me, Em | This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song. Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe. Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!) Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan of Ewenique Studio
Patrons: Simon E, Sade, Claudia, Simon B, Laurel, Derek, Vern, Cat, Andy, Mike, Griff, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Will, Jack, Dave, Chris, Stuart, Nicholas, Zo, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Aly, Stu, Brett, Philip, Michele, Xenos, Sean, Ryno and Russell!


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Remember when action movie heroes didn’t have to think and just beat up a load of bad guys? Jason Bourne heralded the change when The Bourne Identity came out in 2002, and heroes became as vulnerable as they could be dangerous.
It was a troubled production, led by Doug Liman, who fought for years to get the rights to the material, and get the movie made in his own chaotic and frenetic directorial style - a style that didn't sit well with the producers or the executives at Universal.
Liman didn't just want another generic action spy movie, but an art film that the studio could sell as an action movie, and his lead actor Matt Damon agreed. Damon wanted to play this every man hero - the All-American boy next door who could also take on several trained operatives at once.
The production was plagued with multiple delays, rewrites, reshoots and shots of Jägermeister.
Warner Bros had let the rights they originally hold revert back to the original author Robert Ludlum in 1999, so how did they end up in a lawsuit over lost royalties from The Bourne Identity, a movie not even made by them?
I would love to hear your thoughts on The Bourne Identity (2002) !
Verbal Diorama is now an award-winning podcast! I won the Best Movie Podcast in the inaugural Ear Worthy Independent Podcast Awards recently. I am beyond thrilled, and hugely grateful to the Ear Worthy team. It means so much to me to be recognised by a fellow indie outlet, and congratulations to all the other winners!
CONTACT....
Twitter @verbaldiorama Instagram @verbaldiorama Facebook @verbaldiorama Letterboxd @verbaldiorama Email verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com Website verbaldiorama.com
SUPPORT VERBAL DIORAMA....
Give this podcast a five-star Rate & Review
Join the Patreon | Send a Tip | Buy Merch
ABOUT VERBAL DIORAMA
Verbal Diorama is hosted, produced, edited, researched, recorded and marketed by me, Em | This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song. Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe. Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!) Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan of Ewenique Studio
Patrons: Simon E, Sade, Claudia, Simon B, Laurel, Derek, Vern, Cat, Andy, Mike, Griff, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Will, Jack, Dave, Chris, Stuart, Nicholas, Zo, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Aly, Stu, Brett, Philip, Michele, Xenos, Sean, Ryno and Russell!


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Roland Emmerich is not known for being an auteur director, but he is known for his disaster movies; the most defining and well-known of which is Independence Day. A movie that was almost called Doomsday. Can you imagine celebrating our Doomsday every 4th of July?
A movie called Independence Day, released around Independence Day 1996, was never going to be anything other than a spectacle of American patriotism and the archetypal blockbuster. It was expensive, it was lucrative, and it was bombastic, and it could have only come out in the 90s. It would pay homage to The Day The Earth Stood Still, The War of the Worlds, and 70s disaster movies like The Towering Inferno, Airport and The Poseidon Adventure.
Emmerich and his writing partner Dean Devlin knew they wanted to make an alien invasion movie. Surely no one else was doing one at the same time?
Oh, hi, Tim Burton. Checkmate.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Independence Day !
CONTACT....
Twitter @verbaldiorama Instagram @verbaldiorama Facebook @verbaldiorama Letterboxd @verbaldiorama Email verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com Website verbaldiorama.com
SUPPORT VERBAL DIORAMA....
Give this podcast a five-star Rate & Review
Join the Patreon | Send a Tip | Buy Merch
ABOUT VERBAL DIORAMA
Verbal Diorama is hosted, produced, edited, researched, recorded and marketed by me, Em | This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song. Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe. Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!) Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan of Ewenique Studio
Patrons: Simon E, Sade, Claudia, Simon B, Laurel, Derek, Vern, Cat, Andy, Mike, Griff, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Will, Jack, Dave, Chris, Stuart, Nicholas, Zo, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Aly, Stu, Brett, Philip, Michele, Xenos, Sean, Ryno and Russell!


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Last year, Super Mario Bros celebrated its 30th anniversary. It was a fairly muted celebration, but its acknowledgement for the most part came with the release of the new Super Mario Bros Movie, an Illumination animation starring Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy & Jack Black, with many websites also acknowledging the movie that came thirty years before.
It's well documented that this is a movie with problems, but what it really was, was the true definition of "creative differences". It would have a young directing team with previous experience of futuristic dystopia, an Academy Award-nominated producer, and would take inspiration from Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everyone involved agreed they wanted something different to the light, fluffy games, but at least eight different scripts would confuse the tone, switching between serious brotherly drama, to The Wizard of Oz style fantasy, to Blade Runner and Mad Max inspired action, to something more family-friendly.
The producers didn’t want to work with the directors, the directors were getting the blame for everything (and they continued to get the blame for thirty years), the writers were being told one thing by producers and another by the directors - no-one was talking to each other. Threats were being thrown around, the set was chaos, no-one knew what was going on, no-one knew what they were going to be filming.
But while the producers, directors and stars were at metaphorical war, literally everyone else was stepping up and going above and beyond on this movie, despite all the problems, including the terrific special effects teams, set designers and production designers.
What we ended up with was something brave, bold, innovative, pioneering and special; most definitely not the bob-omb everyone has been led to believe it is...
The entire Super Mario Bros: The Movie Archive - a comprehensive fan site detailing everything you could ever want to know about the making of Super Mario Bros. - can be found at smbmovie.com
I would love to hear your thoughts on Super Mario Bros. (1993) !
CONTACT....
Twitter @verbaldiorama Instagram @verbaldiorama Facebook @verbaldiorama Letterboxd @verbaldiorama Email verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com Website verbaldiorama.com
SUPPORT VERBAL DIORAMA....
Give this podcast a five-star Rate & Review
Join the Patreon | Send a Tip | Buy Merch
ABOUT VERBAL DIORAMA
Verbal Diorama is hosted, produced, edited, researched, recorded and marketed by me, Em | This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song. Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe. Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!) Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan...

As a movie about movie making, Bowfinger leaves no stone unturned in its ruthless attempt to expose filmmaking in Hollywood, and just like this podcast, how difficult it is to get any movie actually made. Granted, it is slightly harder when your action hero doesn't know he's in it...
It mocks the range of cliched Hollywood personas, from the waning diva to naïve ingenue turned sexy starlet. It pokes fun at studio executives who seem to be primarily concerned with their vintage vehicles rather than their children or ex-wives, and shows Mexican immigrants as highly capable and intelligent people, who learn on the job, and become probably the most professional people in the whole crew.
Bowfinger is more than just a funny movie, although it definitely is that. It also makes astute observations about immigration, institutional racism, ageism, sexism and the cult of cults (definitely not Scientology).
Gotcha suckers!
I would love to hear your thoughts on Bowfinger !
CONTACT....
Twitter @verbaldiorama Instagram @verbaldiorama Facebook @verbaldiorama Letterboxd @verbaldiorama Email verbaldiorama [at] gmail [dot] com Website verbaldiorama.com
SUPPORT VERBAL DIORAMA....
Give this podcast a five-star Rate & Review
Join the Patreon | Send a Tip | Buy Merch
ABOUT VERBAL DIORAMA
Verbal Diorama is hosted, produced, edited, researched, recorded and marketed by me, Em | This podcast is hosted by Captivate, try it yourself for free.
Theme Music: Verbal Diorama Theme Song. Music by Chloe Enticott - Compositions by Chloe. Lyrics by Chloe Enticott (and me!) Production by Ellis Powell-Bevan of Ewenique Studio
Patrons: Simon E, Sade, Claudia, Simon B, Laurel, Derek, Vern, Cat, Andy, Mike, Griff, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Lisa, Sam, Will, Jack, Dave, Chris, Stuart, Nicholas, Zo, Kev, Pete, Heather, Danny, Aly, Stu, Brett, Philip, Michele, Xenos, Sean, Ryno and Russell!


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy