Diminishing Returns

In which we take a look at all four films in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and On Stranger Tides) in the run up to Dead Men Tell No Tales / Salazar's Revenge (depending on where you live).

Lots of talk of pirates, Johnny Depp, zombies, monkeys... pretty much anything and everything you could want...

...and, as always, we pitch our own ideas for what the sequel should be. This week, Sol and Allen actually pitch real sequels instead of joking around like they normally do which makes for a nice change of pace.

Alien season concludes with our Prometheus episode. If you missed the last two week's, we highly recommend listening to the entire trilogy as we cover the real Alien movies (the quadrilogy), the shit Alien movies (vs. Predator) and, this week, the sort of in-the-middle Alien movie (Prometheus).

Opinions on this one vary between the group (spoiler alert: Calvin loves it, Sol and Allen hate it), so there's some great back and forth and discussion, not to mention a chance to hear Calvin's impression of Meryl Streep near the end!

We're continuing our Alien season, in anticipation of Alien: Covenant, by taking a look at the somewhat less acclaimed Alien vs. Predator spin-off series made up of AVP: Alien vs. Predator and AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem - two of the most stupidly titled films ever made.

Chat includes the likes of the original quadrilogy, Prometheus and Batman for some reason - and, as always, we pitch our own ideas for Alien vs. Predator 3.

If you're enjoying Alien season, be sure to come back next week for the thrilling conclusion!

Alien season is here! In the run up to the release of Alien: Covenant, we're taking a huge look at the Alien series starting with the core franchise (Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection).

Guardians of the Galaxy, the bad boy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is discussed in the latest edition of Diminishing Returns, which looks at its place within the superhero genre as a whole, the meteoric rise of Chris Pratt (as well as the work of other cast members Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, John C. Reilly, Benecio Del Toro and Howard the Duck), and, as always what Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 might have been, with three pitches for alternative sequels.

This week, we take a stab at Calvin's favourite film of all time (Psycho) and its surprisingly many sequels and off-shoots (Psycho II, Psycho III, Bates Motel - the TV movie, Psycho IV: The Beginning, Psycho - the Gus Van Sant / Vince Vaughn remake and Bates Motel - the TV series).

The sequel pitches are also particularly on form here, as Calvin dusts off an old Psycho sequel idea he had as a youth, Allen pitches a very different TV series based on the films and Sol takes the podcast into its most self-indulgent territory yet with an entire sequel pitch dedicated to mocking Calvin.

The Fast and the Furious franchise (The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast and Furious, Fast Five, Furious 6 and Furious Seven) shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, and with the impending release of The Fate of the Furious (aka Fast and Furious 8), we decided to take a retroactive look at the franchise and do the usual thing of pitching our own sequels to the films.

Topics include the differences between Vin Diesel and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, driving in general and some really self-indulgent stuff about plums.

This week, we take a break from the huge blockbuster fare that's been dominating our output lately and focus in on this classic B-movie franchise starting with 1990's Kevin Bacon vehicle: Tremors and followed by a number of sequels (Tremors II: Aftershocks, Tremors 3: Back to Perfection, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins and Tremors 5: Bloodlines, not to mention a SyFy TV series, an upcoming Tremors 6 and an upcoming Amazon original series).

Listen through headphones in order to minimise risk of Graboid attack.

Our love of discussing films where an actor portrays a character of another race culminates here, in an episode focused on Ghost in the Shell, the seminal 1995 anime adaptation of the manga of the same name and, also, the upcoming live-action remake starring Scarlett Johansson.

Is the old film any good? Does the new film look any good? How many puns based on the title can we think of? All of these questions are addressed and more in yet another thrilling installment of Diminishing Returns.

Go, go Diminishing Returns! Power Rangers will soon find new life in the movie of the same name, so we felt it apt to look back to our nostalgia (or lack of, depending on which host you're talking about) for the series, compiled from a re-edited Japanese series, Super Sentai, combined with new footage featuring American 'teens'.

As always, we round things off by pitching our own takes on what the new Power Rangers movie should have looked like.