Diminishing Returns

We're whizzing through the James Bond franchise because what else is there to do in 2020 but watch old movies? This time, it's The World Is Not Enough. Is this finally the film to win over Sol and Allen? Obviously not, but it's a funny journey, we promise.

Christopher Nolan Season comes to a thrilling and much-better-thought-through conclusion than The Dark Knight Rises with this: "The Christopher Nolan Season Rises", a look at the third Nolan Batman movie, Interstellar and an in-depth look at Dunkirk (following us touching on it in our 2018 Oscars episode, where we covered all of the Best Picture nominees).

Gareth Allen joins us to lend a third voice among the split opinions that dominate this episode.

Diminishing Returns continue their exploration of Christopher Nolan's filmography with the help of Emily Slade, on hand to guide them through The Prestige, The Dark Knight and Inception.

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!