Diminishing Returns

Our hotly anticipated Christopher Nolan Season launches with a look at the first third of his career, comprising of Following, Memento., Insomnia and Batman Begins. Paul Brear joins us for a discussion that also spans the chronological cut of Memento. and the original, 1997 version of Insomnia of which Nolan's film was a remake. Listen, then come back next week for The Prestige, The Dark Knight and Inception!

It's Diminishing Returns' second live show! Presented here for those of you who couldn't join us on the night (and those of you who'd like to listen again). We needed to fill a week in the schedule at the last minute, so we thought we'd cover the new Netflix release Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga. Calvin and Emily join us to defend, while Allen regales with tales of his time spent on the movie's set.

Continuing our two-week discussion of Sacha Baron Cohen, we pick up from the failure of Ali G Indahouse to discuss the relative success of Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan followed by Bruno and a little epilogue touching on Who Is America?.

We're doing another live episode - and this time, it isn't exclusive to Patreon. Anyone can come along and take part in the fun, this coming Tuesday, the 7th of July, at 8pm (BST). We'll be broadcasting over Zoom. Check out social media accounts at Facebook (facebook.com/diminishingreturnspodcast), Twitter (twitter.com/dimreturnspod) and Instagram (instagram.com/dimreturnspod) for the log-in information, which should be posted sometime shortly after 7pm. The info will also be posted on our Patreon account at patreon.com/dimreturns and Patrons will be given priority access. Be there!

What started as a throwaway joke: Sacha Baron Cohen Season - posed in one of our Patreon-exclusive Diminisodes - springs into bizarre reality (but not particularly bizarre by 2020 standards). This week, we're covering Ali G from his origins on The 11 O'Clock Show, through Da Ali G Show, Ali G Indahouse and culminating in Ali G in da USAiii. We're also covering The Dictator and Grimsby so that we don't have to worry about them next week, when we do Borat, Bruno and Who Is America?.

Diminishing Returns takes a much-needed trip back into zombie territory to coincide with the upcoming (South Korean) release of Peninsula, the sequel to Train to Busan. Sol and Allen are re-joined by Grace Miller and they take a little look at animated prequel Seoul Station, too.

It's another Patreon vote episode... sort of. This week, we asked our Patrons to give us suggestions for an episode and then we held an internal Diminishing Returns vote to select a victor. Our choice was Tom Patten's suggestion to cover the 1996 Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet, so that we could get into a hot-take debate regarding literature. William Shakespeare: good or rubbish? Joining us, this week, is theatre (and, you know, Shakespeare) director, Nicky Diss!

Back on Bond! Calvin is determined to get us through the Brosnan era ahead of No Time to Die's release in November. This is our second step towards that goal, looking at Pierce's second time playing James: Tomorrow Never Dies! Listen for discussion of a wealth of name-actors and even No Time to Die's potential for a Best Picture nomination at the coming Academy Awards.

A rare non-franchise turn for Diminishing Returns - and our first real Martin Scorsese episode: a look at Taxi Driver, complete with Robert De Niro's (madness in the) method and how we'd react if taken to a porno theatre on a date.

You know the drill with these outtakes episodes by now: we needed a week off so we're releasing a load of never-before-heard material (unless you're one of our Patreon subscribers, in which case, you've had access to this episode for almost a year, now). This is all stuff cut from previous episodes for the sake of time or because it went too far off on a tangent. But it still makes for good listening, so hear we are. Guests this week, include Calvin Dyson, Judey Bignell, Daryn Ashcroft, Scott Chambers, Chris Hammond and Karl Pilkington.

After last week's live antics, we're going back to basics with a conventional Diminishing Returns episode looking at Starship Troopers, Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation, Starship Troopers 3: Marauder, Starship Troopers: Invasion and Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars.

A special live episode of the podcast, originally broadcast exclusively to Patreon subscribers on the 28th of April, 2020! (Please forgive the shaky audio quality - we're normally much better than this, but we're also not normally live). That's right, this whole corona virus lockdown pushed us to hold a special video stream event: a live episode of the podcast. Hopefully the first of many. Listen to this - the edited audio version - or head over to our official YouTube page to watch the (mostly) unedited video version! This episode features Sol, Allen and Calvin as well as Emily Slade from Why This Film? podcast, who was kind enough to compere the event for us. There's a James Bond quiz, Calvin is invited to add his own ratings to the films he missed in the currently in the Diminishing Returns top 10 list, the gang take various audience questions and more.

Our epic trilogy comes to its conclusion with this: The Returns of the Diminishings (our third episode covering The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, this time, looking specifically at The Return of the King). Emily Slade is this week's Lord of the Ringer, ushered in to defend the franchise against haters, Allen and Sol.

The trilogy of episodes covering The Lord of the Rings enters the exciting middle part as we turn our heads to The Two Towers, with the help of Grace Miller.

Diminishing Returns will be broadcasting a special, live episode at patreon.com/dimreturns on Tuesday the 28th of April 2020 at 8pm BST. The episode will be broadcast as a video, so you'll get to see us as well as listening to us, for once. It will involve Sol, Allen, Calvin and a special guest or two, as well as a Q&A section for viewers to get involved.

Corona virus has demolished the slate of movie releases we had episodes planned to tie into, so we scrambled for something else to do and asked Patreon which trilogy they'd like us to cover out of the ones we haven't done yet. The Lord of the Rings was the overwhelming winner, so here we are: the first of three episodes covering the first of three movies (no one mention The Hobbit).

It's a very special week at Diminishing Returns as we welcome the hosts of Overrated Everything podcast for a crossover! Did we mention that the hosts of Overrated Everything are Thomas Turgoose and Andrew Ellis who played Shaun and Gadget in This Is England? We probably should have done, because that's the film we're covering this week... We're also looking at the three miniseries follow-ups This Is England '86, '88 and '90 and, as always, chatting about the possibility of another sequel...

It's time, once more, for the annual Diminishing Returns Easter Special, in which things get a little bit religious... well, I mean, as much as you'd expect when covering Monty Python's Life of Brian.

To mark the show's 200th episode, we're putting on another big Diminishing Returns quiz! This time, Gareth steps in as Quiz Master, to emcee the proceedings and the gang are quizzed by past guests from Judey Bignell to Chris Hunter to Emily Slade. Even music-meister Tomo Fallows gets in on the action. Here's to the next 200!

In an unprecedented Diminishing Returns move, we're bringing you a second James Bond episode, the week after the first, all in anticipation of No Time to Die which, as far as we're aware, is released on the 3rd of April 2020! Calvin Dyson joins us, as always, as we enter the Pierce Brosnan era.