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Lost In The Odyssey
27 Plays12 days ago
Big movie, big episode. Join us this week as we discuss Christopher Nolan's, The Odyssey.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:14
Speaker
A man.
00:00:18
Speaker
A trick.
00:00:21
Speaker
A podcast.
00:00:25
Speaker
A frame.
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome back to Lost in the Frame. I'm your host Malik. I'm your host Kachi. I'm your host Alex. That intro took way too long for what I thought it was going to be. But today, we are excited, ecstatic, to come to you guys with our review of The Odyssey.
00:00:46
Speaker
How are you guys doing? You guys ready for today's episode?
Rapid Review Segment
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm really excited. I'm also excited. Alex, how are you feeling? I'm also excited. All right.
00:00:58
Speaker
Let's not dilly-dally. Do we have a rapid review this week? You guys have one? I do. I do have one. Okay, if you're new here, we'd like to open up our episodes with a rapid review talking about something we've recently watched, um followed by some movie news, and then we get into the movie. So, Alex, would you like to kick us off with your rapid review today?
00:01:17
Speaker
I would like to kick us off in my rapid review today, and I watched 2024 or 2025 for our U.S. release people. ah Cloud, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, of pure fame, of Pulse fame, and he's got a new movie called Prisoner and the Samurai coming out this year.
00:01:37
Speaker
I didn't really know anything about Cloud other than that it was a Kyoshi Kurosawa movie. And i didn't know what it was about. i didn't know really anything about it other than i wanted to watch it. And so I watched it.
00:01:52
Speaker
And it was absolutely fantastic. Oh, my goodness. The last act is so crazy. Like, it's insane. And there's this one character who is just an absolute force of nature.
00:02:09
Speaker
um You know, I'm standing up in my living room when this guy's on screen. I'm give it a 4.5 out of 5. Wow. watch this thing right now. Man, that one's been on my watches for quite a while. um And then speaking of The Samurai and the Prisoner, i think that comes out this month.
00:02:30
Speaker
US, like release date, like at the like the end of July, if I'm not mistaken. Let's go. um big Probably a limited release, so be sure to check your your local theaters to see if it's it's playing in your area.
00:02:44
Speaker
Tachi, what you got today? I've got a complete unknown. It's the Bob Dylan biopic played by Timothy Chowome. Also starring Elle Fanning, Edward Norton, and Monica Barbaro.
00:03:02
Speaker
It was really just not a pleasant watch. Really? it's it I, okay. So I'll say this. The performances were great.
00:03:13
Speaker
actually really, i was impressed by Timothy and Edward Norton. Um, But my God, Bob Dylan just sucks.
00:03:26
Speaker
If that's really how he was, i don't know how he had any friends. He seems so irritating. i i don't know. yeah i mean, like outside of his his talent and his ah admirable views, it I just don't and don't know how anyone could spend excessive time with this man.
00:03:46
Speaker
Did you not like the movie because of him as a character or was there like anything actually wrong? and plus wise or I mean, it it looks fine. It was like really dark for some reason. i don't I don't know what was going on with the color grading or why it was shot like that. But yeah, he was just really unpleasant to watch and listen to.
00:04:07
Speaker
I thought I also thought the movie what was your sorry what was your rating? of I don't know, three or three and a half. Okay, you haven't even rated it yet. No. Yeah, i also gave it a three. I thought it was very... ah i I was just like, all right, at the end of it, like it really didn't feel like anything special. It just felt like ah another standard biopic, which was which I didn't really expect because Timothy had a real big like marketing push and was doing this whole thing. freak He killed it.
00:04:36
Speaker
I thought he killed that. And it was still a three out of five, which tells you everything you need know about that movie. I thought it was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, one of his better acting jobs, and that's I'm not saying that as like a disservice to any other performance. I think it was just that good of a performance in just an otherwise extremely forgettable movie. Yeah, I mean, to to first of all carry on that accent for an entire film is pretty impressive. I thought he had the mannerisms and all that down really well. I mean, that takes it takes talent to completely... like
00:05:14
Speaker
redo your whole voice like that. He doesn't sound like Timmy. He just sounds like Bob Dylan. um It's funny you bring up biopics. There is a, so I'm a Criterion channel subscriber because I have issues.
00:05:28
Speaker
um And they're, for August, they're releasing a collection on the service called Biopics That Rock. Or no, maybe it's like, or no, it's rock biopics that don't suck.
00:05:42
Speaker
And so I'm really interested to see what they put in there. I know like Amadeus is in there, which has been on my watch list for forever. And then ah Control, the movie about Ian Curtis and Joy Division, which is probably my favorite music biopic. um So I'm interested to see what else they put in there.
00:05:59
Speaker
Wow. Anything over Michael. I just added Amadeus to my watch list like a few days ago. Was it because of the gif? No, I heard another podcast talking about it and I actually had not heard of Amadeus or I had, but it was just, it was not on my watch list. And I was like, this seems like something I absolutely need to see.
00:06:21
Speaker
like soon i've heard only good things about it it's just such a long movie that you kind of got to carve out some time to sit down and and do the thing oh it was a it was an episode of the big picture they were doing an epic movie draft where they were like drafting like epic movies like long movies like whatever the criteria was and i'm why didn't we steal that and they thought we should do something like that i think that'd be fun Lawrence of Arabia, if it doesn't go 1-1, I'm committing seppuku on camera. And we're on camera now. You guys can see us, so I'll i'll do it.
00:06:55
Speaker
I know you will. I'm worried for you. um My Rapid Review is a TV show that I've been watching. Silo, the newest season, season three, came out.
00:07:06
Speaker
um This is an Apple TV original show starring Rebecca Ferguson. Season one is is, like, excellent TV. Like... mysterious sci-fi like people living under a bunker just a lot of like mystery and intrigue surrounding like why they're there how they function as a society it's a really cool concept season two still pretty good um definitely has some like pacing issues um but i wanted to bring up season three because this shit is absolute trash right now oh we're three at we're three episodes in
00:07:40
Speaker
And they're using a specific plot device that I cannot stand. And it seems most people are just like, what is happening here? Like, did we get new writers?
00:07:50
Speaker
Is there a new writers room? Like, what's happening? It's... ah It's, it's, they massacred my boy. It, things could change and I wanted to bring it up.
00:08:02
Speaker
So hopefully in a future episode, I can be like, Hey guys, it turned around. We're back. We're good. But, um, three episodes in so far, I'm, uh, I'm not having a good time with it. Yeah.
00:08:14
Speaker
And it's, so ends and it was a really good show. I've recommended it to so many people, but you know, it shows season three is, um, excellent. Go ahead and tell me. Did you see Kyson?
00:08:25
Speaker
That's true. shorter i love the first two seasons. and i promise i'm not i'm not I'm not even going to promise that I'm going to watch it. You know I will. Or I won't. I don't know. Like you haven't watched Chainsaw Man.
00:08:37
Speaker
You just watched Chainsaw Man. Did you finish? I did finish. I needed do the movie, but I finished the show. And I still did it. I did the thing. I said I was going to do it, and I did it because I'm that kind of guy.
00:08:51
Speaker
if you could rate If you could rate the first season, what would you rate it?
00:08:56
Speaker
8 out of 10. I really liked it. Okay, nice. yeah I'm glad. all but Let's get into some movie news and then we can talk about The Odyssey. ah Kicking it off, Moana live action failure.
00:09:08
Speaker
Let's go. I'm stoked. Me too. or i hope they so I hope they stop making this. I hope they stop making these movies. um Moana had a budget of $250 million.
00:09:19
Speaker
And as of today, worldwide, it has only made $115 million.
00:09:25
Speaker
It grossed $63 million domestically. I do have bad news, though, is that they're not stopping because they're filming Tangled right now. Live-action
00:09:39
Speaker
Tangled. Maybe we're seeing like the train starting to stop. You can't stop a train just a abrupt within abruptly. Tangled was already in the works. Yeah.
00:09:51
Speaker
they They canceled the one live action Disney movie I was interested to see. So I hope they all burn. Yeah, I want to see. it Was it Questlove was yeah leading it? The one that sounded interesting? Yeah. They said, nah, fuck that. We're not going to do that. We cannot be original. um Another live action announcement.
00:10:12
Speaker
Naruto ah with Destin Daniel Cretton attached. Yeah. No, thank you. it's just It's really scary. But I don't know. i just feel like everything this guy puts out, i'm i just have to be hopeful for. It's like Shang-Chi. It's Spider-Man. It's whatever he's done before. Now it's Naruto.
00:10:36
Speaker
So just a lot of things that I've cared about for a really long time. Yeah, but... Name me a decent live-action anime remake.
00:10:48
Speaker
I can't.
00:10:52
Speaker
I don't know. We'll see. um Digger trailer. Was this in front of you guys' showtime for the Odyssey? Kind of. Not the full thing. Okay. the I'll pause on this one.
00:11:05
Speaker
once we're done with the movie news, to start the Odyssey conversation, we'll talk about the trailers that played before, and then we'll bring it up there. Okay. Next, I've got a the Nova movie is in early development.
00:11:17
Speaker
I think Nova is a character from the Marvel Universe. Is that right, Alex? Sure. Or is it like a group of people? You're the comic guy, right? i'm ah I'm a DC guy. I'm not so much a Marvel guy.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't even know if who Nova is or what that is. I think he's just like a super powered being, but in Guardians of the Galaxy, they have the Nova Corps, which is like John C. Reilly and all them, like their yeah their their characters.
00:11:44
Speaker
So he's part of that. And I thought... Just what I wanted to see was more of them. Yeah. That's what we all wanted. i don't know i don't know what his deal is i know it is. I know what his helmet looks like and everything like that. But that's basically it.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the Loki writer is attached, so could be good. Loki was mostly good. I really liked Loki. I did enjoy that show. Next bit is the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.
00:12:13
Speaker
I've never seen the original, so I have no feelings about this. Apparently, they're just caught. They're not even changing the script, apparently. That's what I heard. from From the original, really? Yeah.
00:12:25
Speaker
I saw it. So it's Paramount Pictures. They closed the deal to develop a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie. um The upcoming adaptation is set in the universe of the original 1984 film. Though plot details and casting are still under wraps. So maybe what I saw was just BS.
00:12:41
Speaker
It sounds kind of similar where it's just like not where it's just set in the same universe. Maybe not necessarily changing anything like that, but. Yeah. Sure.
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah. Another just sure. is Yeah. I play Rocky trailer, dude. Uh, this is a movie about the Rocky movie being created.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Go for it. Thanks. Couldn't get a, couldn't get a documentary. Yeah. But then you can't get an Oscar for that. ah It all loops back to a award season.
00:13:16
Speaker
We'll get there. It's almost time for our predictions. I know. End of August, we're going to do it. I'm also scared. But unfortunately, we have to address one piece of news before we do that. And that is the Batman part two has been delayed again February 18th, 2028.
00:13:38
Speaker
Please excuse me. All right. Thank you. um Apparently this is J.J. Abrams' fault.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yep. ah Because some slop he's making took priority.
00:14:00
Speaker
For that like October release release date, I think. um Gracie Abrams' new album just dropped, and I saw the rating on Pitchfork, and they gave it a 1.4 out of 10. Good. Abrams made one good movie.
00:14:15
Speaker
jj jamess made one good movie It was Super 8. I feel like he's made a couple. Like a couple good ones, no? That's the only one I can pull off the top of my head.
00:14:28
Speaker
Let me Force Awakens, which... No, i not I'm not going to count that. ah Mission Impossible 3... Okay, that was so funny. Okay, he hasn't made a good movie since 2015. I'll put it that way.
00:14:43
Speaker
Okay, wait, let me see, let me see. He hasn't made a good movie since the Obama administration. We'll put it that way Wow, yeah I don't think I've ever really looked at his filmography as a director. We hear his name so much, and maybe it's just more as a producer. But yeah, he doesn't have a lot directing-wise. It's the Star Trek remake, Super 8, Mission Impossible 3, and then The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker. Hmm.
00:15:06
Speaker
So I'm going to say he has two good movies, Mission Impossible 3 and Super 8. Well, know the third one isn't going to be added because the plot of whatever that slop thing is, I don't even i don't even want to bring it up. It's just it looks terrible.
00:15:18
Speaker
It sounded horrible. What is it? Do you have it? No, it just sounded bad. We don't support J.J. Abrams. No, no not on this part. Not anymore. But we did get a first look, a screen test of Robert Pattinson in The Batman Part 2. Yeah, and it looks so insane. Oh my God, it looks so good. beautiful The ears are a little longer.
00:15:40
Speaker
The way the eyes are lit. The snow falling in the background. He just he just turned around and I... I'm in.
00:15:51
Speaker
Why? This movie is taking way too long. I did see a Twitter rumor, and take it for a grain of salt, because haven't seen this corroborated everywhere, but some people think the delay and the delay in production might be because they're going to shoot two and three back-to-back, which... Please?
00:16:08
Speaker
I don't want to have kids when the third one comes out, because that's the that's the timeline we're taking, so I mean, that would be awesome if that's what they were doing, but I really think we're all just trying to cope.
00:16:21
Speaker
I think, bet yeah, I would agree. that That feels like cope, which is understandable. We got an entire Dune trilogy in between these movies. Come on.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:36
Speaker
We'll be there day one. We'll be there day one regardless. Right. In our old age. All right. A bit of news to La La Land 10th anniversary hitting theaters.
00:16:49
Speaker
Y'all going to Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I might. I saw it in theaters originally. So I did, too. Oh, actually, I haven't seen it in theaters. So maybe I should.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah. yeah think it's in my Letterboxd top four, so i I owe it to myself. You do. i just See, I saw it in theaters, and I just bought it on Blu-ray, so if going watch it again, I'll probably just throw it on at home. I got it for $4, unopened, at Barnes & Noble. It was on sale.
00:17:14
Speaker
Wow. Just unbelievable. What a deal. Support your local Barnes & Noble people. Which is crazy, but it's better than Amazon. And last bit of news before we hop into the movie, a G.I. Joe remake written and directed by Danny McBride is in production.
00:17:36
Speaker
Danny McBride, for those who don't know, is... You know, he was Righteous Gemstones, Vice Principals. He's been around in a long time. you' you get a lot of comedies. Yeah, a lot of comedies. So I'm interested to see what he does with this one. Apparently, he's a huge fan of the franchise.
00:17:56
Speaker
Makes sense. I love him in Hot Rod in in the beginning of the movie when he when they bust through the RV ah after sliding down the hill. And the guy comes out and he's like what the fuck? And Danny McBride is immediately at like a 15. He's just like, I've been drinking Mountain Dew all goddamn day. And he starts throwing the trash can at the guy. um I'm also interested to see what he does with this.
00:18:21
Speaker
I'm in. All right. The moment we've all been waiting for. Let's get into the Odyssey. I'm scared. I don't want to. Before we do our Letterboxd Love Like Loathe, I want to ask what trailers did you guys have
Main Discussion on 'The Odyssey'
00:18:35
Speaker
before this? Did you get a Dune trailer?
00:18:37
Speaker
Yes. But it was one we already saw. Oh, okay. i did not get any Dune trailer. So boom i'm still I'm still fresh. um What else did you guys get? it So we had the Digger trailer.
00:18:51
Speaker
You guys said you had part of one? short snippet. Yeah, a teaser. Yeah. And then we had ah the Dog Stars. Yeah, new Ridley Scott movie.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah. Jake Mordy and Margaret Qualley. Yeah. i'm I love Ridley Scott, obviously. This movie looks like I've seen it before, though. I will watch it because maybe there's something hidden in the marketing because I'm like, this looks very like straight to the book. I don't know what's special about this movie. It's just an apocalypse survive movie, but I'll watch it.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, I like anything Josh Bolin is in pretty much. so Josh Bolin is also in it. Yeah, for sure. um I had the full Digger trailer and I'm interested.
00:19:41
Speaker
Cam said no. Oh, I'm I've heard a lot of people say no, but I'm like, I think I'm in. I'm in. Yeah. I'm in. I think it's off-putting for a reason.
00:19:53
Speaker
For sure. It seems very intentional that the vibes are like so weird. Very weird vibes with it, but...
00:20:00
Speaker
Tom Cruise in a fat suit.
00:20:04
Speaker
I'm sold. Last time did that, we were gifted greatness. With Les Grossman. Yeah. I also had the new Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers sequel with Ariana Grande.
00:20:19
Speaker
blue Yeah. Did you guys know about this? No. Yeah. yeah i mean I knew it existed. I didn't know Ariana Grande was in it. Yeah, it's Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Ariana Grande.
00:20:31
Speaker
um
00:20:34
Speaker
That's it, yeah. De Niro still cash and checks, I guess. Yeah. What else did I have? I had ah something similar. Oh, the new Brad Pitt dog movie. Another dog movie. I'm drawing a blank on the name, but it's Brad Pitt surviving in the wilderness with his dog.
00:20:49
Speaker
Sounds of familiar. And it looks like tearjerker. Like he's in like Alaska or something like a plane crash or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Something happened. And then there's also like wolves involved and flashbacks to him with the dog training him as a puppy. So i was like, oh man, that movie is going to get me yeah We we had a lot of ads in ours, like straight commercials.
00:21:12
Speaker
lot of, yeah. Yeah. AMC also does ads in between actual trailers. and i'm like, that's brutal. gro That's disgusting. Yeah. But I mean, I guess they got to make their their money somehow. What else did you guys have?
00:21:27
Speaker
I think that was it. We just might've been a three. was pretty brief. Yeah, it was brief. um It was definitely more commercials than trailers. Okay. I'm jealous of those who got the Dune prologue before the Odyssey. Yeah.
00:21:42
Speaker
It's like a four minute prologue of an opening war and it's been compared to Saving Private Ryan. Wow. Jesus. And it's it's out there.
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's out there. It's a really bold thing to say. Yeah, I've seen that from multiple people, but it's playing that plays before IMAX 70 millimeter showings of the Odyssey. Wow. So all four people who saw it in that format. Yeah. see Only four theaters.
00:22:10
Speaker
Okay. I'll read the synopsis of the Odyssey, cast and crew, and then we'll do our letterbox love like loathe. You ready? Yep. All right. The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's newest movie.
00:22:23
Speaker
Synopsis reads this. The Odyssey is a mythic action epic that adapts Homer's foundational saga. Thank you. This is starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, and more.
00:22:36
Speaker
Tachi has our five star. I have a three star. And then Alex reads the one star today. Let's do it. Yes, my five star comes in from. i don't know if that's a capital I or lowercase L. I'm going to go with L. LG three.
00:22:53
Speaker
Five stars. Nolan hit a homer run. That's good. It tickled me. It's right there. but That is good. I'm not. I didn't think of it.
00:23:06
Speaker
Today's three star comes in from Justin DeClew. Yeah, this one did not work for me. I usually enjoy Christopher Nolan films quite a bit, and I thought I knew what I was in for, but I didn't expect this one to be so straightforward and glum, like checking off all of the story's beats with the sour expression.
00:23:22
Speaker
Only Robert Pattinson and Samantha Morton got the memo that you're allowed to have fun. I'm glad people are enjoying it.
00:23:30
Speaker
I have our one star. And before I read our one star, I want to shout out two reviews. One of them, which is 110 errors with it.
00:23:41
Speaker
I think based on the original text, this guy's really angry. The a second one the the second one, i I just, I don't really know how to wrap my head around it. It's really long and I'll send it to you guys after, but it's,
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was going one way and then it was going another way. And yeah, but our one star view comes from Milena. ah Takes a lot of skill to turn one of the most beautiful, captivating and interesting stories into this. Why is a story about Greek gods love for home and longing for it? Sirens and all that. So devoid of whimsy and emotion.
00:24:28
Speaker
My Pinterest boards could tell the story of Odysseus's journey home better than this movie. And that's my opinion, ignoring, of course, the fact that I recognize every single face in the movie, which made the experience even worse.
00:24:41
Speaker
Hmm.
00:24:44
Speaker
All right. Let's talk about it. ah Excitement levels coming into this. I'll start. Obviously through the roof. Obviously, like there is absolutely no way to avoid any marketing for this to like not have any expectations to like not believe the hype.
00:25:03
Speaker
First and foremost, this is the first movie shot entirely on IMAX, which is Just insanely impressive. Reason being, IMAX cameras are super big.
00:25:14
Speaker
They're super loud. So whenever a scene is filmed for IMAX, it's usually without dialogue. So like an action scene, think Tom Cruise hanging out of a helicopter they shot on IMAX. Well, look at this.
00:25:25
Speaker
Cameras are way too loud. So they invented a blimp system to go over the camera to shut it up, to be able to audibly get the dialogue. This was the first movie where they invented that filmed entirely for IMAX.
00:25:36
Speaker
I hear that. I'm like, fuck, man. Sick as hell. Also, Nolan. He's a good guy. earned his hype. Yes, we like the Nolan. He is deservedly deserved the hype.
00:25:50
Speaker
um I assume the same. I'll throw it to you guys, but how hype are you for this? Extremely. Yeah, same c sentiment. I mean, I guess I kept referring to it as like potentially the movie of the year or like the the event of the summer. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.
00:26:07
Speaker
I mean, the last one was Oppenheimer and paired with Barbie, we had the most we're back at the movies we ever, we ever had Tom Cruise and Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig saved, saved theaters. I feel over those last, those, those first few years after COVID. Yes.
00:26:25
Speaker
Um, and I loved Oppenheimer. It was my favorite movie that year. I just, I, we'll talk about, we'll talk about our Christopher Nolan rankings. um But all that to say, yeah, sufficiently was hype for this.
00:26:40
Speaker
um Before we get into the nitty gritty, just quick gut reaction out of the theater. What did you guys think of this?
00:26:55
Speaker
I'll say scarier than I thought. but Some scenes were actually really freaky. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
I think there were, um, Oh, go ahead. I was saying, I think my gut reaction was, Hmm. Hmm.
00:27:18
Speaker
I think my gut reaction was similar. i walked at like credits rolled and I went, I went, wow. But then I went, huh? And then I went, hmm?
00:27:32
Speaker
And was like, all right.
00:27:35
Speaker
And it's a lot of movie to digest. um I saw this Thursday night. You guys saw this last night. Yep. yeah So I've had a little bit more time to sit on it. So I feel like, how are you guys feeling coming into the conversation?
00:27:47
Speaker
do you feel it's properly digested? This is a three-hour, massive, epic movie. um I'm ready to talk about it, and also I come with two books of context considering I read The Iliad and The Odyssey before this. I actually finished The Odyssey yesterday morning, about a couple hours before we went to the theater, so I'm ready for the discourse.
00:28:10
Speaker
Nice. Tachi, how far did you get for The Odyssey? I know you also made a a trek to to read it. I'm the only one on the podcast who didn't even open the book, sitting sitting on the shelf over there. i Yeah, I got about halfway through and then life just got really busy. So yeah i kind of spark noted the second half.
00:28:28
Speaker
um So I knew a little bit, but I had not ever heard about what the Odyssey was. i don't know why I didn't learn about it in high school. That's crazy. I guess my teacher just didn't have that in the assigned book list, but...
00:28:42
Speaker
that's yeah I had no yeah context. My brother, too, he said he never read The Odyssey in high school. So I have read The Odyssey, but in high school, which was, I'm not letting you guys know how long ago that was. It was a long time ago, guys. He's old. He's so old But we read The Odyssey, and then we watched Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? And that was my that was my introduction to the Coen brothers.
00:29:04
Speaker
And the rest is history, and I love that movie. but So that was the last time I read it. So yeah, I'll be curious to hear both of you guys' is opinions book versus movie as we dive a little bit deeper into it um where do we start I've been thinking about this the whole time and I'm just like I don't know like like what do we grasp onto first like it seems There's just, there's just, there's, there's so much. This is a massive, massive movie and it is a absolute feat and accomplishment um by Christopher Nolan and all involved.
00:29:46
Speaker
Maybe we can start with time because from the get go, the movie starts differently than how the book starts. And time is a, is just like, I guess Christopher Nolan's favorite movie.
00:29:59
Speaker
concept because he he tries to incorporate time into all of his movies or most of his movies. And yeah, you just from the offset, I was like, oh, this is not at all how the book started, like not even a little bit close.
00:30:17
Speaker
So what do you guys think about his uses of time and making things a lot less linear than what you're expecting? um I'll say like and feel like we're going to be jumping around a lot like the same similar ways to how the movie does so I feel like that's needed um the movie yeah like you said immediately kicks off with the nonlinear storytelling to be expected from Christopher Nolan ah the one thing I will say is i think the first 30 minutes is the weakest part of the movie so much so that I was actually worried
00:30:54
Speaker
um I am not a fan of the the opening 30 minutes of this movie. It feels very choppy. like I think it's the weakest part of the book as well. like It opens and you're like, why are we talking about this?
00:31:05
Speaker
yeah especially Especially if you haven't read it in a while and you open it thinking you're going to get just monsters and Trojan horses and it's like Telemachus is sad and yeah he wants his dad to come home. And it yeah I don't even think we see Odysseus for any like long period of time until Telemachus sails to go visit Nestor.
00:31:35
Speaker
In Sparta. Who is completely... no. Nestor is completely cut out of the book. He goes he visits Nestor first, who then tells him to go to Menelaus in Sparta. So there's like a whole other king that he talks to before ah he goes and visits Menelaus.
00:31:53
Speaker
um But I don't think we see like Odysseus for any like extended period of time until after Telemachus gets on the boat. Yep. But the the opening of the book is pretty...
00:32:05
Speaker
not choppy, but it kind of catch catches you flat footed because you were expecting something else entirely. I wouldn't say I was expecting like immediately to get like into the monsters or anything like it mainly has to do with the actual editing. And it was just a lot of quick cuts and we're kind of immediately leaning on Tom Holland, um, which we can get into his performance a little bit more.
00:32:30
Speaker
But I think that's also part of the reason in the beginning where I'm like, Like I wasn't, I just wasn't really feeling it those first 30 minutes. Um, where were you guys at?
00:32:40
Speaker
Before Tom, I do want to bring up the Travis Scott thing. okay. So right as the movie opens. Yeah. Um, he is one of the casting decisions that I was most skeptical about. Uh, we can get to do the others later, but i was like, why, why include him?
00:32:58
Speaker
Why, why him specifically? And for what purpose? Um, But it was really cool to me. I really loved it. I liked it. And I don't know whether to credit him or Ludwig more, but I really liked his arm his performance.
00:33:17
Speaker
I think, yeah, you also need to like think about like Nolan too, because I saw an interview talking about like why Travis Scott, and the reason being is In that time, a bard were the rappers of of then. Like, they're the spoken poetry while entertaining.
00:33:37
Speaker
so he's like, okay, well, what better to do than than a rapper of today? And so I think it's a really cool... Casting choice. liked it too. I liked it. I'm also a massive Travis Scott fan. I was wearing my Astroworld shirt too.
00:33:51
Speaker
To the theater? theater Yeah. Nice. nice Travis Scott has grown on me a lot over the last few years. um I did hate the man for quite a while.
00:34:01
Speaker
He's easily hateable. it's good He... ah I think I've told this story before, but I saw him open up for the neighborhood in 2012. 2012. twenty twelve In Austin, before I even moved to Austin.
00:34:16
Speaker
And I didn't know who he was, but I hated it. I hated the performance. I hated the people that were around us that were there for Travis Scott. And for the longest time, I didn't remember that it was Travis Scott that I watched open up for the neighborhood.
00:34:32
Speaker
But that kind of informed my relationship with him for a while. And then I got over it and I was like, I actually do like his music. So I'm a fan. Was this before rodeo? Yes.
00:34:43
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Going back to Tom. um
00:34:52
Speaker
He grew on me throughout the movie. I will say that. I don't know if it's like just the character journey itself or. The the writing or I don't know what it was, but yeah, it was not great to just watch a a little whiny boy.
00:35:06
Speaker
for the opening he did yeah i i'll sing his praises he definitely did grow on me as the movie went on like i said already opening it with him i was just very i was really scared for for tom holland in this movie because outside of spider-man he hasn't been in anything where i'm like oh he was good in this right Like he feels very, and then watching him in interviews and everything, he feels very new and he feels like very green to this whole experience. Like this feels like the first movie he's been a part of. And like the way he talks about it, I know that's how he feels.
00:35:43
Speaker
Like the fact that he called Spider-Man producers and was like, why are we doing this? Like, why do we why are we making this movie? Like I'm on a Nolan set right now and this is how he's doing it. This is how we need to do it.
00:35:59
Speaker
But he did it. Incredible. Yeah. One of the all-time movie moves in recent, probably this decade. I agree. How did you feel about Tom Holland's performance, Alex?
00:36:10
Speaker
i I'm seeing a lot of hate for him online. I'm seeing, or I saw a lot of hate for the performance leaving the theater.
00:36:22
Speaker
And i don't think he was that bad. I think he gets outshined a lot by the people who are in his scenes. Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
And I think he his character also was neutered a little bit. to where he was just whiny and kind of getting bullied around.
00:36:45
Speaker
um i was really disappointed to see that a lot of the dialogue with Athena was cut and his interactions with Athena disguised as like mentor. And they hinted at it that maybe, ooh, maybe it was Athena in disguise, but...
00:37:01
Speaker
Um, yeah, a lot of it in the book is, uh, in those first couple of chapters is is very obvious. And think it, it, it helps develop Telemachus as a character in the poem.
00:37:13
Speaker
Um, But I was also a little nervous for him because outside... And I'm the only one on this pod who liked the devil all the time. But even then, he wasn't super enthralling in that one. liked it for other reasons.
00:37:30
Speaker
um So I was very curious to see how i walked out of theater. And I thought he did fine. i just think that he wasn't top five in the movie.
00:37:42
Speaker
But, and we'll talk about this a little bit more... There were some others that I think he... I surprisingly think he outacted. Agreed. Really? yeah Yeah. And there was there's one performance I can think where I was like, this is a waste.
00:37:58
Speaker
Okay. Let's get into it now. Mia Goth as Melantho. Just... didn't Yeah. Didn't know she was in this... she's not in unless She would have been and incredible Cersei. And that's literally who I thought they were casting her for.
00:38:16
Speaker
And she gets instead is Melantho, who just is kind of there.
00:38:25
Speaker
And we don't even really see what happens to her when in the poem, they do something after the whole suitors bit. Or it's like, oh, Melantho got her comeuppance.
00:38:38
Speaker
But no, in this, she's just like, oh, like go hide under the table. And that's literally it. That's all you see of her. Yeah. And but she doesn't do anything. And I think Mia Goth is a very good actress. Yep.
00:38:48
Speaker
I've liked her and everything I've seen her. And even if I didn't love the movie, like I thought she was crazy good and infinity pool, even though I didn't particularly love infinity pool. So I was like, what was she doing here? Was this directing? Was this just the script? I mean, it just seemed like she was there to have like a face in that role when it could have gone to anybody.
00:39:10
Speaker
I agree. I don't know if I would have wanted to see her as Cersei just because I really like Samantha Morton's take on the character. I think Mia Goth is little too obvious. Like, though good, would have been, like, great in that role. I think a little too obvious.
00:39:24
Speaker
Like, would have seen her as Cersei. Oh, yeah. But Samantha Morton, um I was like, she looks so familiar. And she's the, ah in Minority Report, i don't know if you guys have seen, but she's the, like, the twin, like the Oracle.
00:39:36
Speaker
But obviously a lot younger. And I was like, that's who she is. Yeah. So i I really like Samantha Morton for Cersei, but to get back to Mia Goth, I agree. i think Role could have gone to anyone and just, it's something that's just quite literally just shoved to the side and given a couple lines of dialogue to show us that Antinous is like plotting on the side, which could have been shown a number of ways, but tragic a tragic waste of Mia Goth as an actress because I do really enjoy her as an actor.
00:40:08
Speaker
Was that your one that you hinted at earlier, Tachi, was the Mia Goth character? No, I actually kind of forgot about her. Okay. Like entirely. Okay, I want to hear yours. I think this may have been, i don't know about the worst, I don't know about her entire filmography, but this was probably the most disappointing Zendaya performance I've ever seen.
00:40:29
Speaker
And I don't know if that's due to the writing. but She didn't get anything to work with. I'm going to defend Zendaya here. mean She was given nothing. Literally.
00:40:40
Speaker
in terms of what? Athena is a very central character in the Odyssey. She has a ton of speaking roles to Telemachus, to Odysseus. I mean, she is pretty much the one behind the scenes, like trying to get Odysseus to come home, petitioning to the gods. And, you know, she's giving Odysseus like advice and Telemachus advice. And she's like doing her thing.
00:41:05
Speaker
ah She's given none of that. and I was excited to see like, wow, Zendaya is going to be in this very key role to the Odyssey. And, and she wasn't like we, we, she's completely cut out of it.
00:41:22
Speaker
I don't know if that a lot of that was left on the the cutting room floor or not, but she's barely in the movie. Athena's the gods are barely in the movie at like in any capacity.
00:41:35
Speaker
She's the only one that appears. In any capacity. ah Calypso. she god? I thought she was like a... Demigod? Yeah. Or is she a god god? I think... My understanding is that Calypso is like a very minor goddess.
00:41:50
Speaker
I'll say a couple things real quick. um I do wish we got more of Zendaya. I think that kind of would have helped maybe drive the emotional. Calypso was a nymph.
00:42:03
Speaker
Nymph. Yeah. I think that more Zendaya might have helped drive the emotional theme of the movie a little bit more. I do think it hits specifically a scene at the end with Zendaya that I think wraps it all up really nicely, which is why I'll also defend her performance, if not just for that scene, though I do wish we had more of her.
00:42:27
Speaker
To on your point of that there's the lack of gods in the movie, Alex, I think works actually and is very intentional. um And I think actually something that I appreciated coming out of this movie was the whispers of the gods and not really seeing them.
00:42:50
Speaker
um Let me see if there's a performance I didn't like. I feel like we do have to get just... Things that maybe we're nitpicky about out of the way before. I got another one if you want more time.
00:43:02
Speaker
You got another one? Yeah. Go ahead. this is This is going to be pretty harsh. Okay.
00:43:12
Speaker
Charlie's Theron is probably in like 40 or 50 movies. And based on what I've seen... She's turned in maybe three good performances.
00:43:26
Speaker
Dang. and Cooked her ass. and Honestly, i just I don't think she's deserving of these roles that she's been in. she That was the most boring thing I've ever seen. Her her relationship with Odysseus is just like non-existent. She's like a wall.
00:43:47
Speaker
She's so boring. And I don't want her on my screen anymore. i never I've never been impressed outside of Mad Max. I was going to say, she is cashing in Furiosa.
00:43:58
Speaker
for eternity and I think Anya Taylor-Joy did as good of a job if not maybe be slightly better than her the character I loved Furiosa I loved that movie I thought that was a great entry into the Mad Max universe too and I loved Anya Taylor-Joy I think Anya Taylor-Joy is a fantastic actress top 10 I think for right now like this gen actresses easily I'd agree with you oh easily um
00:44:31
Speaker
I'm going to agree with Hitachi. Charlize Theron was so boring that I forgot that I thought she was boring. It's because you had the lotus flower. Yeah, I had the lotus flower. She just... I don't know. i the Like, this is the woman that kept you captive for seven years. Are you kidding me? There's no way. I will also agree with you.
00:44:54
Speaker
Walking out of the movie, this was one of the ah one of the nitpicks that Cam and I both had. That relationship is just not believable. At all. Whatsoever. um To jump back a little bit into the time narrative, while I think it does work in this movie, there's a lot of points where I feel that it also hurts it.
00:45:15
Speaker
because I don't have a good grasp on how long things have been going on. And that could also be, and I mainly say that for Odysseus being trapped on this island with Charlize Theron's character, Calypso, um I don't know, it doesn't feel like it's been that long.
00:45:33
Speaker
And I don't believe the relationship. And she says, I love you. And then I was like, do you? Like it just, it just, there was, there was no emotion behind her performance. Odysseus, like Matt Damon is doing all the heavy lifting yeah in those scenes and trying to remember.
00:45:47
Speaker
And i he's just talking to a wall. It feels in the poem. Calypso is kind of toxic. She won't let Odysseus leave. um She has to be ordered by the gods to do so. Like Hermes comes and visits her and is like, big man's telling you, you got to let him go. Like, Hmm.
00:46:06
Speaker
you gotta let him. She's like, fine. Like, and then begrudgingly like lets him go and in the, yeah, there was none of that. Yeah. Like she's supposed to be crazy about him and it's just like, there's nothing. Yeah. Nothing at all.
00:46:21
Speaker
It seems like there's an issue in this movie with like more on the emotional side and these, ah characters that are, uh, supposed to be written to get us to feel closer to Odysseus.
00:46:37
Speaker
So Athena and Calypso. And they're a little lacking, I will say. Yeah, I i can give Zendaya more the benefit of the doubt here. like It could just solely be a writing problem.
00:46:52
Speaker
But I've just seen so much evidence of Trawi's there and just not being... a positive addition to a movie that I'm just, I'm fully on the side of her. Just, just being bad, just straight up bad.
00:47:07
Speaker
It's, it's interesting. It's interesting having this convo, like knowing that no one has been accused many times of not being able to write female characters. Yeah. Oh, is that a thing? It is a thing. And leaving that theater, I thought he, a can,
00:47:27
Speaker
because I thought Penelope was very well done. She was a little different than in the poem, ah but Penelope was still, i thought, fairly well written, ah very well acted. Anne Hathaway crushes it.
00:47:40
Speaker
She did a job. But then on the flip side, I'm like, he also didn't give anything to the other female actresses in the, uh, in the role. Right. He had like Athena. I mean, just nothing that, that bugged me. I think a lot, I was very excited to see how they adapt to Athena and her like shape shifting and her disguises into the movie.
00:48:04
Speaker
Uh, and i was very disappointed to see them, not include at all and it doesn't help you know Zendaya's case and it doesn't help the argument that he can't write
Character and Scene Analysis
00:48:16
Speaker
you know a woman if one of the most famous women of all time is relegated to to three scenes where she mutters something prophetic and then disappears I think I think it's more than that though if we can go to the end um and we see
00:48:37
Speaker
Odysseus retelling the night of Troy and we see Athena quote unquote Athena and it's up for interpretation whether you think what he saw of the woman being about to be beheaded by his men um was was Athena or maybe just like the guilt is rejected onto you yeah yeah um That scene is the one I was hinting at earlier. And it all came together for the Athena character for me there. And that was like nothing short of Zendaya's performance.
00:49:15
Speaker
Just the fear in her eyes as like the sword is coming down. Cut to back at the temple of Odysseus with his hand out holding Athena's hand. And then she's gone and it just feels like that weight has been lifted.
00:49:28
Speaker
Like that's one of my standout scenes of the movie. And I think maybe on a rewatch, knowing that context throughout may help inform that performance just a little bit better. But I do wish we had more of Athena because I think it would have made even more sense. It hit even better if we had more of her prior.
00:49:51
Speaker
You want to get spicy? I do. Detested that scene. Whoa, wait, specify.
00:49:59
Speaker
For that scene to work, there is thousands of years of context and poetry and literature that has to be like ignored. Right?
00:50:11
Speaker
So it' was a it's a very good scene. It's very well done. It's very well acted. But there's so many assumptions about like the source material that you have to just be like, okay, like that's just not a thing. And it bugged me a lot, right? And here's why.
00:50:28
Speaker
The Iliad is you know the story. It's a very narrow scope of the Trojan War, right? Very, very narrow. um Starts with a conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon on the shores of Troy and ends with the death of Hector and his body being turned over after Achilles kills him.
00:50:47
Speaker
We don't see the Trojan horse. We don't see the fall of Troy. We don't see the end or the beginning of the war. um we are We're simply given this one scope of the battle of one battle within the the context of the greater war. ah Fun fact, the the Trojan horse that we actually know and love comes from a Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, his epic poem, which I think was written around the time at the time of Augustus, but that's where the traditional like Roman horror or Trojan horse story comes from.
00:51:18
Speaker
ah That one's about the story of Aeneas who flees Troy and then um it goes on to help they found Rome. so I haven't read that one. I really want to, but in the Iliad,
00:51:35
Speaker
Athena and Hera specifically, and Poseidon, but Athena and Hera hate the Trojans so much. Hate them.
00:51:47
Speaker
They basically, the entire time, are like, we cannot kill enough Trojans. We need the Greeks to kill more Trojans. Zeus orders them to stop helping the Greeks kill Trojans.
00:52:02
Speaker
So Hera seduces Zeus, lets him fall asleep, so Athena can go help the Greeks kill more Trojans.
00:52:11
Speaker
The whole war starts because Paris spurns Hera and Athena and goes with Aphrodite because he wants Aphrodite to help him steal Helen of Troy.
00:52:23
Speaker
That's how the whole thing starts, right? So Athena cannot stand Troy at all. Apollo is the one who loves the Trojans and helps the Trojans and helps Hector.
00:52:37
Speaker
Ares is there and he's got he's just there for the war. I mean, the guy's just there for the love of the game, right? But Apollo is the big Trojan god. in the i i mean In the Odyssey, right, Athena loves and helps Odysseus, the whole thing. But there's one specific line that I want to call out specifically about the Trojan horse. This is one of the few times the Trojan horse is mentioned.
00:53:00
Speaker
What a thing this was, too, which that mighty man wrought and endured in the carven horse, wherein all we chiefs of the Argives were sitting, bearing to the Trojans' death and fate. But come now, change thy theme, and see and sing of the building of the horse of wood, which Epius made with Athena's help.
00:53:17
Speaker
She helps him build the horse. She wants the horse. The horse is her baby. like The gods, specifically Athena, wants to to sack Troy. and so if you're like And I guess that's where my problem with this was, right?
00:53:33
Speaker
Taking the gods out of the Trojan War and out of the Odyssey, I did not love. Because I think you can tell the story by keeping that all in. or keep the story that Nolan was trying to tell with Odysseus' guilt around the whole thing and and still keeping that in. Because it it just doesn't make sense.
00:53:53
Speaker
Like, the they all the context of why the war was being had, everything that's going on, you know, it's as an adaptation, it's not very good. Mm-hmm.
00:54:03
Speaker
Like, it's it's just not. You can't have... there There's so many pieces that just you cannot have without like being like, the gods exist.
00:54:16
Speaker
Nolan kind of dips his foot in with like some of it, right? It's like, oh, well, they're kind of here, but like not really. They did as little as they could with the the fantasticness and the whimsiness.
00:54:29
Speaker
And so when I'm sitting here watching, you know... Odysseus be like, we disgraced Athena. It's like, no, she was ecstatic. She loved this.
00:54:42
Speaker
If you had done Apollo, then yeah, sure. Right. But, but not Athena. Like, yeah I just wasn't a huge fan of that. I think what, I think what you're saying makes sense. Um, I can definitely see both sides because while I'm not like ecstatic about,
00:55:03
Speaker
the lack of gods, I do wish we could have leaned a bit more into that fantastical realm. it's It's Greek mythology, right? yeah i mean, it's... We're trying to make it a little too real in this movie with all the mentions of the the Bronze Age sea people and the Bronze Age collapse, like, teasing that up. It's like, no, no, no, no. no no This is the Odyssey.
00:55:28
Speaker
This is a myth. This is an epic poem. Like, let's not... Let's not ground this to humanity's level. This is something else entirely. This is this is an epic.
00:55:38
Speaker
I think there's something interesting in grounding it into a more grounded human story. But we just got that story three years ago with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Exactly.
00:55:53
Speaker
This is a companion piece, in my mind, to Oppenheimer. I agree. You have two men... That can't bear the weight of what they've done and the guilt and how they changed and will leave the world a worse place.
00:56:12
Speaker
That's how Robert oppen Oppenheimer feels. And that's how Odysseus feels with specifically not the war in its entirety, but the trick. And the movie uses the horse...
00:56:27
Speaker
differently in that way and that it is the the trick in itself as the root of the guilt that Odysseus feels and the reason he doesn't want to go home and and even then that also boils down to a problem that I have because that's just so against Odysseus's character his whole thing is that he's incredibly smart and a trickster Yeah.
00:56:51
Speaker
And he's very cunning. And it's like he the gods want him to be a trickster. His whole thing is that he is better. that He is basically smarter than everyone else. And he is trickier than everyone else.
00:57:04
Speaker
And that's what gets him into trouble. Like his hubris is ultimately what, what lets him be, or what forces him to be lost at sea for so long.
00:57:14
Speaker
Cause the Poseidon will not let him go home because of what happened with Polyphemus, the Cyclops. Yep. Yeah. And
00:57:25
Speaker
That's another problem I have with this. So it sounds like you just have an overall issue with just the overall like adaptation. So you're not a fan of the way Nolan's adapted The Odyssey? Because I think it's interesting the way he adapted it. and i i think it's interesting as well, but I don't think you can have this story and ground it in reality. like It just...
00:57:48
Speaker
it's It ends up lacking something because its whole setup is that it this is fantastical. This is mythology. It's supposed to be grand. It's supposed to be epic. And I think you can tell the Odysseus guilt narrative and not lose that.
00:58:03
Speaker
But they tried to force it a little too much, right? By bringing in like the Bronze Age collapse, the, you know, oh, where're you're the sea people? Like,
00:58:18
Speaker
i like banrow i was like okay wow but I like that. like that. Part of what makes the Sea People so great is that it's a mystery. No one knows who they are. I mean, I don't know anything about the Sea People. Yeah. So the the Sea People, the Sea People.
00:58:31
Speaker
Here we go. The Sea People were, and this is a very high level, very high level because this is a whole other can of worms to open up. ah There are multiple references in Mediterranean Bronze Age history to these sea people who came and raided and sacked Bronze Age civilizations, which led to the downturn and collapse of those civilizations.
00:58:51
Speaker
There is no historical consus consensus on who these people actually were.
00:58:58
Speaker
And it's fascinating. It's one of history's biggest mysteries. like there who were these Who were these raiders of the sea who came in and and sacked... Just for the love the game? it's it's Yeah, I mean, but that's just the way things were then. And so it's a little bit hubris, I think, to identify those people, especially in an epic mythology.
00:59:25
Speaker
You know, it takes the whimsy out of that. I'm going to throw it to you real quick, Tachi, but I wanted to just wanted to shout out this tweet. It says, RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris, but I'm different and better, maybe even better than the gods. um um good Yeah, where do where are you at, Tachi, as far as like the like as this movie, like as an adaptation? like does Do all of these points work for you or don't work for you? Does it break it?
00:59:57
Speaker
I don't feel feel so strongly that it's that it breaks the the story of the original text. I just wonder if maybe he felt like his hand was forced to ground it a little bit because of like, i don't know, time constraints, like the runtime, um all of things that he still had to cut out.
01:00:22
Speaker
Like, um, in, in the book, like Odysseus, one of his stops that wasn't even in the movie at all. It lasts a long time because he, he lands on some island that is like describing his entire life and journey to this King.
01:00:39
Speaker
And, um, that's just like one of many examples that just like, it just doesn't work. It doesn't fit. The Fasian King with Nausicaa. Yeah. Like where, where he washes up after he leaves Calypso's Island. Right.
01:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I just wonder if maybe that was, i don't know, either a sacrifice or just something he wasn't really interested in showing us at all was like evidence of the gods because,
01:01:11
Speaker
I think you could even interpret Odysseus's experience as just like a purely psychological relationship with Athena, like her maybe not even being there and he's just seeing her and is trying to process his feelings like through her wisdom.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know, but I, I, yeah, I think it's definitely like a personification of, of his guilt for, for what he's done. um I mean, I think oh let's let's try to go, let's go, i guess, island by island. Yeah, let's talk about his journey.
01:01:48
Speaker
Yeah, let's let's actually get into the journey. So like I said, first 30 minutes is the weakest for me. And then we get to Odysseus as they arrive to the island and then eventually with the Cyclops.
01:02:01
Speaker
um This scene is top three for me. Money. Insane. Insanely tense. Way scarier than I thought it was going to be. You are absolutely correct. Cam was gripping my arm, and I was like, this shit is terrifying.
01:02:17
Speaker
And the look of the Cyclops is he's straight up the scariest guy I've ever seen in my life. Literally. Oh, my God. like A masterclass at tension and sound and the score was just...
01:02:33
Speaker
So fun and a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. like And i was I was happy for it. I think it was like 15, 20 minute sequence. It's one of the longest passages of like of the description of his journey. it's So for context, the one with the Lacedragonians, the the silver giant silver people, that's three lines, like three or four lines.
01:02:54
Speaker
The Cyclops one is multiple pages. um It's the longest. I would say it's the most famous story from the Odyssey. Yeah. um I was so curious to see what this dude looked like. And I think I think they nailed it because he looks so uncanny.
01:03:11
Speaker
But he was like morphed. Like, I don't know. looked like you looked like a giant baby, too. Like, yeah. Just very like. o If I saw this thing, I'd hate it It was like a Titan. It wasn't like a Titan. It was like a tight Titan. need Christopher Nolan to make an Attack on Titan make um remake. Yeah, man this was This was excellent. And the sound of the Cyclops screaming when they poke his eye. oh
01:03:45
Speaker
Yeah. That was gnarly. it has been It was so fucking loud. And it was just the scream mixed in like with the score. And it was like the most haunting sound I've like ever heard in my life.
01:03:57
Speaker
It was really... Yeah. The sound design in this movie in general was... I think a little, for the most part, fantastic, like top notch. There was a couple bits in the beginning where I was like, this is very muddled. I'm having a hard time hearing people.
01:04:11
Speaker
It sorts itself out. It does. But specifically that scream was one of my favorite things in the whole movie. Same. And Nolan said he wants to direct a horror movie and he's basically done two horror sequences in his last two movies with the Cyclops and Colonel Pash. Yeah. Colonel Pash is the scariest guy I've ever seen in my life.
01:04:35
Speaker
Casey Affleck he killed his part. Unbelievable. like You can't even find it on YouTube. That's the most frustrating part. I saw a lot of discourse about it this week, and so I wanted to go back and watch that scene. It's not even on YouTube. The Colonel Pass scene isn't on YouTube. You have to go and watch the movie to re-same. Only exists in our nightmares. That scary guy. ahead.
01:04:58
Speaker
um um
01:05:01
Speaker
This was another scene, though, where I was like, what are you doing, Chris? In what way? How do you not have the nobody? The nobody conversation. Yeah. That was crazy.
01:05:15
Speaker
Where Is them talking to the Cyclops? The Cyclops talks to them. Speaks to them. He does speak in this, and his voice was real... the But they have a conversation, right?
01:05:29
Speaker
And Odysseus, you know, it's the whole, Odysseus tells him, oh, my name is nobody. So when they poke his eye and he busts out of the cave in pain, he's like, like, nobody has poked my eye out. No one has hurt, nobody has hurt me. And the other Cyclopses on the island are like,
01:05:48
Speaker
shut up like you're an they're literally like yeah go back to bed dude like quit your whining um and then they sneak out and that's one of the most famous like jokes tricks passages in all of written literature and where is it what are we doing here where Where was that? um And it's so key to why Odysseus is stuck at sea for so long, because again, his this is where his hubris comes into play and, you know, ruins it for everybody is when they are leaving, like they have gotten away from the Cyclops. He says on the boat at this point. Yeah, he's on the boat and he's like,
01:06:32
Speaker
Actually, I'm not nobody. My name's Odysseus. yeah just got your ass. like you know game But then the Cyclops is like, Poseidon, my father.
01:06:43
Speaker
Odysseus is the one who did this. I finally know it wasn't nobody. And oh Poseidon is furious and keeps Odysseus trapped at sea for for years. He won't let him go home.
01:06:54
Speaker
Did you know that apparently RDJ was in talks to play Poseidon? Hmm. I think in early early forms of the script, there was a Poseidon character, and I think RDJ was being looked at.
01:07:09
Speaker
Wow, i didn't i I didn't know that. But how do you not have that? I mean, that's half the reason they're stuck at sea. It's the most famous thing from the story is that nobody the nobody trick.
01:07:21
Speaker
And then they kind of just say they're like he was praying to Poseidon. like after Yeah, that's, I didn't like that. That's very tell, not show. Hmm.
01:07:31
Speaker
Yeah. Well, but I will say there's, there's a Christopher Nolan quote, quote, where it goes like, don't try to understand it, feel it. And I think that's when he was talking about tenant.
01:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. But I think that quote applies to two scenes in this movie. One when the Cyclops is screaming and you can likere find itself's like, It's like, he's like trying to say something, but you can't really tell what it is. Yeah. Like it might not even be English or the language of the movie.
01:08:01
Speaker
And then the other scene when they're at sea and shit is like really going bad. The the boat gets split in half like that whole sequence. And you can't really, you can't really hear or pick up what anyone's saying.
01:08:15
Speaker
They're just screaming and terrified and, and like being thrown off the boat and stuff is horrible. So that was incredible as well. Yeah. Like two of my favorite scenes in the movie is when you just have to feel the fear. You have to feel the, feel the feelings that no one's trying to make you feel.
01:08:37
Speaker
Um, life dragonians. I think that's the next, the next stop. What's their problem? They're cannibals. I think in the book, yeah the poem, I will say book. It's a poem.
01:08:50
Speaker
I will say my least favorite sequence in the movie was a the big, big silver knighted men. um Parts of it that I did really like, I love the the playing of the um perspectives. I think they used seven foot stuntmen and then five foot body doubles too to kind of play with perspective la Lord of the Rings style.
01:09:12
Speaker
So I thought that was awesome as well as like the trees kind of shifting around trap them. That was cool. um You did say that it was only a few lines in the poem, Alex. And it feels like that in the book. It's like they get there and like, fuck. And then they like run away. That's basically it. It's even funnier in the poem where...
01:09:32
Speaker
They find the kid and then the kid's like, oh, yeah, I'll take you home. Like, yeah, no worries. Like, yeah, let's go. Let's go see the king and the queen. And then they walk in and they're like 30 feet tall and they start screaming because they're terrified. And then the queen gets offended. So the giant king is like.
01:09:49
Speaker
Time to kill like. And these are also Poseidon's sons or Poseidon's children. Is that correct? I don't know. i don't it it did It didn't say in the book. to era the poem They might be.
01:10:02
Speaker
Okay. They're angry bunch, though. They're very angry. Pissed. um Cersei.
01:10:14
Speaker
I was very curious how this scene was going to be handled of turning the men into pigs. And I will say, talking about top three scenes, this is also there.
01:10:26
Speaker
Samantha Morton kills it and we get another horror sequence, yeah but body horror, apparently all done practically. It looked practically. this one had yeah ah This one had one person in our troupe that we saw the movie with absolutely screaming.
01:10:45
Speaker
Toes curling, just quietly going, I don't know if you heard him, Tachi. He was sitting in between us. It was miles. Nice. Yeah. You could feel people like shifting in their seats as she's like sticking her hands down throats and rearranging jaws and shaping like clay.
01:11:05
Speaker
So cool. Yeah. Really, really awesome way to show her sorcery. Um, and just freaky. Yeah. Freaky, freaky. The sound design of them not being able to stop eating the soup.
01:11:20
Speaker
just that entire that entire lead up into her transforming them into pigs was just so like so tough to like sit through and the slurping and the just gargling he went on so long oh my god yeah i don't know i don't want to know what that white stuff was it looked like octopus tofu forbidden tofu Nasty as hell, but yeah, Samantha Martin was a standout in this scene.
01:11:47
Speaker
um And I will say I was also appreciative of the animals that we see on the way to her home not being CGI. Yeah, thank God. Real animals! There there were real animals. I know they weren't there, but I was stoked to see an actual lion instead of a CGI blob that have taken me out. cannot replicate that like dead stare lions have where they're like... yeah Yeah.
01:12:13
Speaker
You know the one. We've all seen it in a zoo or something. It looks funny when you do but it's absolutely terrifying you.
01:12:23
Speaker
I love lines. I love cats. um One of my favorite lines from that whole sequence was at the tail end of it when... Odysseus convinces her to change the the men back.
01:12:36
Speaker
And she says, back to your disguises. Back to disguises. I thought that was awesome. Back into men. I was like, oh. Yeah. 10 out of 10. 100%. Lost from all that is Odysseus piped Circe in the poem.
01:12:51
Speaker
for a while but it is it is a year i went back and looked it is it is a year okay they're there for like a year having like a pretty good time and they're like oh it's time to go how do we get home and cersei's like go to uh hades and figure it out you the blind poet teresius that's another one where hermes shows up and no hermes in the movie so how did you guys feel about the hades scene That was so cool.
01:13:21
Speaker
It was really cool. The rising out of the ground was... That might be my favorite scene of the movie. I did see someone on Twitter um talk about how the soundtrack for the Hades bit sounds like the Cisco phone.
01:13:35
Speaker
I saw that, but i didn't I didn't click it. You have to click it. It's so funny. Okay. I'll have to go back and listen to it. And it's pretty close. But Tachi, actually, this... um This scene relates to the meme you sent last night.
01:13:51
Speaker
Yeah. So why don't you tell us your feelings about a certain character who appears in this scene? Yes, I would love to. So Agamemnon in the Troy sequence is one of, probably one of the coolest depictions of like, I'm the greatest.
01:14:08
Speaker
Aura. Yeah. like Like truly like aura farming at the gate of Troy. And I'm like, damn, he looks so cool. He looks so sick and intimidating and awesome.
01:14:22
Speaker
And Benny Safdie in Hades, he takes his helmet off, right? you No, not not in Haiti. or you just We see it off in the flat. We see it off in a flashback.
01:14:33
Speaker
OK, yeah. But then Benny Safdie speaks and I'm like,
01:14:41
Speaker
that's That is not the energy or cadence or volume or like, I don't know. just Exactly. Energy of one of the most famous and powerful like kings of all time.
01:14:59
Speaker
I did kind of like that though because Achaemnon is such a douchebag in the Iliad that I'm like, you deserve this. But even so, he's like warmonger. You deserve that voice.
01:15:11
Speaker
And he's supposed to be like the ultimate badass. I think it works though, because like at the heart of it, this is a very anti-war movie. So who better to personify ego in this awesome costume that he is just aura farming and to see him without it. And he's just like a frail man. That kind of sounds like a bitch. jo and you just i think do walk i'm Sorry, Benny. Stay behind the camera. i especially machine shocked while While I agree with you, like in the feeling of the Benny safety of it all, I think it works perfectly.
01:15:54
Speaker
I just and I really liked it. maybe Maybe I'm just like missing context on who Agamemnon is and what he's supposed to represent. But, you know, you you do kind of have the context. Right. But the one thing I will say is like the great warrior from the Trojan War is Achilles.
01:16:09
Speaker
yeah Right. It's Achilles and it's Hector. um Neither of whom sadly appear in this movie. ah But Agamemnon is is such a tool. Like, he's such a douche.
01:16:22
Speaker
The whole Iliad bit, like, the whole Iliad is his fault, basically. um And there's a ton of deaths on his hands because he pisses Achilles off.
01:16:33
Speaker
So, you know, the whole bit with him you know getting killed when he comes home, it was very I mean, that was very fitting. Right. And so it's so I think it's a very interesting choice to have Benny Safdie play. I wasn't the biggest fan of the casting when I saw it.
01:16:49
Speaker
Same. um I was like, Benny Safdie. I I still think we could have. I don't know. I mean, it could have been like anybody. like he wasn't, he didn't make or break that role.
01:17:01
Speaker
Agamemnon will be remembered in the movie because of the aura. It's the aura sequence. Um, But I didn't feel super strongly about it like you did Tachi, but there was like a half second where I'm just like, oh, so that's what he sounds like. Because I'm going to be, I'm going to, the only thing I can, the only two voice moments from Benny Safdie I remember, like his actual voice, are, it's Good Time and it's Oppenheimer. And in Good Time, he's playing like a developmentally disabled guy.
01:17:36
Speaker
Yeah. And in Oppenheimer, he's got this very thick accent. So when he did speak, I was like, oh, that's what he sounds like. I do. I that's a good point. I do forget. i only hear a good time. Just a guy. Yeah. um Yeah. he He just felt like just a guy. And exactly.
01:17:54
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think. Sure. It can like subvert our expectations that he's like a little loser, whatever. I'm going to gaslight you next time you rewatch it. You're going to, you're going to like it. You're going to be like, all right. The, sad bit about the Hades sequence though is Achilles is in there in the poem.
01:18:15
Speaker
that was a little sad for no Achilles. But I think it's made up with Elliot Page's performance. Oh, yeah. Of Sinai. Yeah, let's talk about him. So, so good to see the flashbacks um with Antinius and the betrayal of But before we get to that, I love the, yeah, the scene of them popping out of the rocks and them having to take the blood in order to see like the living.
01:18:44
Speaker
So sick. Oh my God. So cool. But yeah, Elliot page, like absolutely killed it in this role. I was there. he He's in the opening of the movie um and dies. And I was like, that's, i was like, that's it. That's, that's all the Elliot page performance that we get. yeah,
01:19:02
Speaker
It just loops back around and I think puts so much weight and context into the overall story. yeah And he he just absolutely sells it. And I was like, God damn, God damn. The scene is topped here.
01:19:17
Speaker
One of one of my favorites, really. And and honestly, his his performance in the whole movie, like every scene he's in, i just think he nails because like he's got this his character that is just like so naive and earnest and hopeful in like his mission and what he's trying to accomplish. Yep.
01:19:39
Speaker
And he even like portrayed that. I don't know. I'm sure it's intentional. I'll give him to the credit. But even the way that he gets off the sand and is like running so like Like he can't even handle the weight of his armor. Like he's just like running goofy and like a newborn deer. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's what makes the betrayal from Antinous like so like powerful and painful is like knowing that it was supposed to be him and Odysseus now like vowing to protect and like watch over.
01:20:13
Speaker
And I know he felt that's part of the guilt that he felt. It's like, like why he's like signings like, why didn't you tell me the truth? He's like, I needed you to believe. And while shitty from Odysseus' part, like you could tell that he wanted to come from a good place. He's like, I needed you to, I just needed you to believe.
01:20:28
Speaker
And your help and your decision won us the Trojan War at the end of the day. um So I thought it was excellent. Tiresias is played by James Remar, who...
01:20:40
Speaker
has a pretty standout scene in Oppenheimer when they're deciding what cities to bomb. And he's like, oh, not a he's like, i don't want to bomb. I forget what he says, but he's like, my wife and I vacation there.
01:20:51
Speaker
And it's like one of the most like haunting lines, I think in Oppenheimer, but he plays the the blind prophet um in that sequence. Yes, Ox. You raised your hand. I did raise my hand on the topic of sin.
01:21:07
Speaker
I did not like sin's inclusion in this movie. Wow. Why? First of all, they're not even a character in the Odyssey. That's fine. They are brought in. They're they're from the Aeneid.
01:21:20
Speaker
Sinan is a character in the Aeneid. And Sinan is part of the trick. Like, he's in on it in the Aeneid. He is a deserter, a deserter, who brings or who brings the Trojans to the horse and says...
01:21:38
Speaker
Then we left. And they fall for it. And i i didn't love the whole bit, the the Sin and Antinius connection, because in the story, in the poem, it's just...
01:21:53
Speaker
Antinius is a dick. All the suitors suck. yeah Like we didn't need anything more to be like of this betrayal. Like, no, like Antinius was kind of like the lead suitor. It was him. And there was a guy who's whose name is slipping my mind at the moment, but paul up like polybus or, um, I'll begin with an E, but that's besides the point. Um, yeah. it's just, it felt like, like, I don't know.
01:22:21
Speaker
It just felt like fan fiction. Like maybe he didn't trust the audience enough to understand like how truly cowardly Antinous is.
01:22:33
Speaker
Yeah. Like, yeah, that's that's a great, that's a great way to put it it. It felt like fan fiction to make it be like, okay, this guy's really bad. You're not supposed to like him.
01:22:48
Speaker
where I thought Robert Pattinson was doing a great job portraying that we're not supposed to like this guy because he sucks. Yeah, so slimy. I mean, his character is so grimy and and and slimy, and you you hate him every single moment he's on screen. He doesn't do, like, one good thing this movie, and we didn't need that with Sinan, who just isn't a part of this story. Mm-hmm. I disagree. I do think it pays off well um as Odysseus comes home and gives Antinous the scroll back um as well as just like providing more context into like Odysseus as a person for showing how he's like a protector and wants like the best for for his men and carried out his word at the end of the day. So i I enjoyed it and I think it was a great inclusion in the movie.
01:23:47
Speaker
On the topic of that, I think Nolan kind of forced his own hand with that, because Odysseus pretty clearly cares about his men in the poem, but they took out a lot of the scenes where he pretty clearly cares about his men.
01:23:59
Speaker
so it's like, oh, we have to show him that he's not a dick. So let's write Sinanen. Hmm. I also wonder where Odysseus was storing his this Penelope thing and then the Sinon thing, because he's just on a life raft holding on for dear life for...
01:24:20
Speaker
a while. So I wonder, you know, I don't love those little things. I lose my chapstick once a week. Um, I would not be able to hold onto those two little things for 20 years.
01:24:31
Speaker
No way on a boat. 20 years. Done. Yeah. This, this story ends with me pretty quick. ah You're not him. I'm not him. I loved Himesh Patel, who played Eurylichus.
01:24:47
Speaker
Eurylichus. Eurylichus. Thought he was a great great buddy to Odysseus. Loved his performance. yeah um As well as John Leguizamo. legguisamo Is that how you pronounce it? you're laguz yamo but I'm going say Leguizamo.
01:25:04
Speaker
John L. Yeah. yeah john yeah I thought that was also a fantastic performance. so John Odyssey. it's it's It's so complicated. John Odyssey. It's complicated because there's a handful of like these supporting performances that I think we all agree where we're that they're weak. But then there's another side where it's like, oh shit, they're good. Yeah, flip-flop. yeah. flip flop yeah So it's just ah it's a complicated spot to land. um Where do we go to next?
01:25:32
Speaker
Scylla and Charybdis. yeah Whirlpool and whirlpool Poop Dragon. Yeah, but right before that, the sirens. Oh, yeah, yeah, Matt Damon kills it in this scene.
01:25:44
Speaker
and i love Very good. I love not hearing the siren song. Yeah, that was that was a neat touch. I was of pleased in the moment because I was like, same I wanted to hear what Nolan was going to make the siren song or what Ludwig was going to make the siren song, but I'm like, like okay. like They did a good job, though. Yeah. They did an excellent job with that.
01:26:05
Speaker
the, uh, the line about it being about your broken promises. That was pretty nice. really like that. Like saying like what the song, what the song was about and in all of that, what each person would hear. Yeah.
01:26:19
Speaker
thought that was a neat, neat concept. I really, really enjoyed that scene. Um, and then yeah, we get to the whirlpool and the, what's it called? The sila Silla Silla.
01:26:30
Speaker
Um,
01:26:33
Speaker
This one also doesn't really work for me. this The biggest disappointment in the movie for me was Scylla looked like poop. Yeah. I didn't know what it was. And then I was like, oh, and then I looked it up after and I was like, that's what it was.
01:26:46
Speaker
Now I like it even less. That's probably how they felt. They were like, what the fuck is this thing? Is that poop? I thought it an alien. i didn't know what was going on. um It was just, yeah, was it was it was just there, i guess. Like, I didn't really feel the tension as I felt that in other sequences.
01:27:05
Speaker
just kind of happened. I'm not going to lie, though. Loki, this is not about Soa. This is about the whirlpool. I kind of believed Odysseus there about using the the whirlpool to slingshot out. Yeah, I was like, i makes I'd be on board. Yeah, I was like, makes sense to me.
01:27:24
Speaker
How'd we do it? Oh, yeah. He's right. Everyone dies. All this love for the Cyclops and Scylla is the description of Scylla in the Odyssey is just insane. Like one of those things. It sounds insane.
01:27:39
Speaker
Like the description of Scylla in the Odyssey rivals like like a biblically accurate angel or like one of the things you see in Book of Revelations where it's like the dragon seven heads and seven bodies and seven whatever.
01:27:53
Speaker
And it looked like a ah poop barnacle. i was so, I was so sad. yeah
01:28:01
Speaker
It was like a season five stranger things monster. Yes. Yes. That's exactly what it looked like. Yeah. I was, I was a little disappointed with this scene. Um,
01:28:13
Speaker
But we do get a really good conversation with Himesh Patel and Matt Damon immediately following with Himesh kind of telling him that he knew like what had to be done. And Matt Damon is just kind of just the way he's just kind of sitting there and you can see the weight on his shoulders again.
01:28:30
Speaker
um So I do really like that scene. But the actual look of Scylla, I was just like, all right, well. It was very grounded in realism as well. Yeah. it It was not fantastical. It was just like, this is a thing that lives in a sea cave.
01:28:43
Speaker
Yeah. All right. um Where else do we go? Are we arriving back to Ithaca? No, he goes to this calypso no he goes the sun gods island first with the cattle.
01:28:58
Speaker
That's right. That's right. They eat the cattle. Yeah.
01:29:03
Speaker
Big steak, guys. The beef couldn't have been that good. Is there a world, though, where they would have survived not eating the cattle? No, because they're stuck there.
01:29:16
Speaker
And then... Yeah. So it's like like they were going to die regardless. Yeah. Whether that be from like starvation or what ends up happening. Just day Poseidon's wrath.
01:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, they...
Critiques and Adaptation Choices
01:29:30
Speaker
They break Odysseus. I mean, i guess they could have fished. Maybe there was no fish.
01:29:38
Speaker
They do break the oath, though. They be breaking that oath.
01:29:43
Speaker
Me and I be breaking notes. um And then they get back on the water. Dude's gonna die at Yeah. And then they're all gone. That was a very intense sequence. So intense. Yeah. And then Odysseus washes up on shore with Athena.
01:29:57
Speaker
She says, you don't recognize the beach of your own home. I go, yay, we're home. um And then he comes across John L. And the movie does pick up a lot in the third act.
01:30:12
Speaker
It has my... You skipped Calypso. after After Calypso is when he lands on the beach. We don't what do we did talk Charlize Theron. She's like, all right, you can go. I don't want to think about anymore. Yeah. but yeah john um Yeah, John L. ah We get that entire interaction.
01:30:31
Speaker
um The plan of Odysseus showing up as a stranger, which was a suggestion from the from Agamemnon um in hell.
01:30:42
Speaker
And we get the scene that sold that sells me on Tom Holland's performance as Matt Damon walks up to the door and Argos is out there waiting um and his tail wags.
01:30:56
Speaker
I know. And we get the flashback to him as a puppy and Telemachus is like seeing this and then the look on his face as he realizes it's his dad and like the tears that well up in his eyes and Argos takes his last breath and Tom Holland goes, welcome home, stranger.
01:31:12
Speaker
i was like, Yeah, this is it. Oh my God. So good. That emotional climax really worked for me. shed a tear. did too.
01:31:24
Speaker
it was a period right now. And that's kind of when it came full circle with me on Tom on on him selling like this, this young guy who just wants to meet his dad.
01:31:37
Speaker
And I thought that scene was brilliant and really well acted. Yeah. Alex, you're giving me a face where I feel like you're goingnna disagree.
01:31:47
Speaker
I am. knew it. I knew it. I knew it. What's up This is where the movie started to really lose me. Wow. Yes. The opposite. Okay. Because this, none of how that.
01:32:06
Speaker
My favorite part of the Odyssey is when Odysseus comes home. Because he he leaves Fascia and he comes home and he he meets John L's character.
01:32:22
Speaker
And there's this whole interaction between the two of them where Odysseus is testing him to make sure that like he's still loyal before revealing that he's Odysseus to John L. Eumaeus, the the swine hermit. Eumaeus. I just can't that one.
01:32:40
Speaker
And this is ah another bit with the help of Athena, where they start to conspire against the suitors. They're there for a few days. Telemachus shows up.
01:32:53
Speaker
He realizes it's his dad. um And he he knows all this before Odysseus even enters the house. Like they are planning on, okay, here's our move. Here's our next move.
01:33:07
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of like conspiring and tension starting to build because what's the famous Hitchcock quote about the bomb where it's like the most tension is where the audience knows it's going to be, or it's ticking, but the the characters don't. Yeah. yeah um That's what it feels like. It's like,
01:33:24
Speaker
Every time it jumps over to Penelope and the suitors, you're like, okay, like here it comes. I guess it's about to get real. Like Odysseus is on Ithaca. um And then Telemachus, the way he comes home, like, what was that? That was just invented for the movie to have an action sequence. I was very disappointed in that. Oh, in Sparta?
01:33:43
Speaker
the way Yeah, coming home from e Sparta. in in this In the poem, he just parks his ship like down the coast, and like they sneak in, basically. um So then like when the suitors are like, oh, like he's home, they're like, like, what? Yeah.
01:34:00
Speaker
Like, literally, they're super caught off guard. And and the the the people they sent to go stop Tlamakis had no idea they were duped. Like, there's just like... Like...
01:34:15
Speaker
On the topic of the dog, I think this in the poem it hits way harder. Because Argo recognizes Odysseus, but Odysseus can't... And Odysseus is in disguise. And this was another thing that I did not like. Because Odysseus in disguise was a cloak.
01:34:31
Speaker
In the poem, he literally, like, gets old. Like, he turns into an old man. Like, a very old, weak beggar. Like, that's his appearance. um there wasn't any makeup on Matt Damon. He had a beard.
01:34:43
Speaker
And I, I was very disappointed in that because there's, when we read the Odyssey in high school and when we watched a movie adaptation of it, we watched this 1990, like made for TV adaptation, which is very cheesy, but I liked, I really enjoyed it.
01:35:02
Speaker
um But the scene in that where Odysseus goes from old beggar to Odysseus is so good. For what it is that I was so excited to see how Nolan did that. And we didn't get that transformation. He literally transforms.
01:35:18
Speaker
Right. So he's in this, this view as the old beggar. The dog still recognizes him. But to not break the the secrecy that they're going for as he's entering the palace, he like looks at the dog, acknowledges it, but doesn't like interact with it.
01:35:41
Speaker
But that's enough for the dog, and the dog dies. And to me, that highlights how tragic it actually was that when he came home and all these things, all these like signs of him coming home that he was probably so excited to see— he still didn't get to do it because he still had there was still work to be done. He wasn't quite home yet.
01:35:59
Speaker
So for him to bend down and like play with the dog, like the flashback, I was like like, you're not a better writer than Homer.
01:36:09
Speaker
It's hard to improve on the foundational text from... thousands of years ago, right? I mean, there's a reason the Odyssey is still pertinent to this day.
01:36:20
Speaker
It's probably, like, one of, if not the greatest piece of literature ever written. It's so groundbreaking. It is, it's so unbelievable.
01:36:32
Speaker
um And it's so, it's still, it's so incredible how pertinent and relevant it is. i was just very disappointed. It's, like These are key things that I think help make the story so emotional, right? And we're just... We're making it so obvious.
01:36:48
Speaker
like We're spoon-feeding it to the audience. And it it lost me. I was starting to be like... All of these emotional beats I was looking to see and hit, we just they weren't coming.
01:37:01
Speaker
They weren't doing them. And it wasn't even like they were doing them and missing them. They weren't doing them. And I'm like...
01:37:09
Speaker
What's happening? I was so confused. Wow. I mean, I think those are all like really valid points. like i'm I'm imagining a movie of Odysseus being like more cunning, more of a trickster. and
01:37:27
Speaker
i mean, yeah. i i see I see where you're coming from, so I can't like argue against you and I can't like fault you for for those feelings. like If I had read the book, maybe I'd have... The same type of gripes.
01:37:39
Speaker
I think the movie, like these like that scene in particular, it does work for me, but it does feel, um like you said, like with the context behind it, just purposefully, emotionally like manipulated.
01:37:55
Speaker
It's like a Redditor dog moment. like to to get on they They Marley and meet us, and it worked. so But it it worked. It worked on me. um And then we get to the the contest of Penelope choosing a suitor. Actually, before we get there, we'll talk about the ah Odysseus sitting with Penelope um on the steps and recounting the Knights of the Trojan War, which I thought was a really cool way of throughout the movie getting little snippets of that night and it finally closing off in the third act of the movie. i thought that was a really cool way to
01:38:34
Speaker
To kind of show what happened throughout the night. Those flashbacks were some of the best scenes in the whole movie. They were so good. yeah It made me want ah just a Nolan Trojan War movie. Yeah, it would be so sick. But when Odysseus is on the wall and drops the lantern on the floor and explodes and reveals the rest of them, but I was like, bro, this shit is so sick. I really want to see like a bird's eye view of the whole set.
01:39:00
Speaker
think that'd be so cool to see all the whole Troy And we kind of got that too, right? In that one scene with the flaming arrows like. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of a a drone shot just like flying over. Looks so awesome.
01:39:13
Speaker
um And yeah, this is where the, I think the emotional theme of the movie comes full circle is now we're realizing it's, it's the guilt of it all. Um, and what he, and trying to like come to that realization of, of the trick and breaking Zeus's law.
01:39:33
Speaker
And he thinks that that basically broke humanity. Um, Tachi, how did you feel with, uh, I guess this reveal? Did it, did it work for you? we hit on it a little bit earlier.
01:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think guilt is the central theme of movie, which you pointed out earlier with the comparison to, Oppenheimer.
01:39:58
Speaker
And there was a line, I think that Odysseus says it's like, um Basically, like I knew in the moment I knew that night that like I i committed this like unbelievably like.
01:40:16
Speaker
Cardinal sin essentially. And the recap of that. It did work.
01:40:28
Speaker
I don't know. feel a little conflicted. I don't know that I.
01:40:35
Speaker
I don't know that I loved how he was just kind of giving this monologue to Penelope. It wasn't really a conversation.
01:40:44
Speaker
But the Troy scenes themselves really worked for me. I just don't know that I love the delivery of it. I do agree. I feel like it's a little clunky.
01:40:56
Speaker
i think the script overall is is kind of all over the place and a mess like throughout the whole movie, which is... After the movie, I was having a hard time really like digesting and finding the connection, like the through line, through through all of it.
01:41:12
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I get this, this, and this. It just feels a bit convoluted and maybe wasn't delivered the cleanest. um Which is disappointing. i know on a rewatch, those issues will probably go away. But these are the types of feelings that I'd want to not have on the initial viewing.
01:41:30
Speaker
i Like, I wanted to walk out of the movie just like, wow. wow And like, loving it. like And I didn't walk out like that. i there was i walked out knowing, I'm like, there's a lot that I really, really liked.
01:41:42
Speaker
But there was also quite a bit that I was... iffy at best on it's the huh of it all it's yeah exactly and so so i i agree with you i think thinking about it more and then seeing other people analyze it put it a bit better into into context for me but again it's like i just didn't walk out with that feeling and that's what i wanted to walk out with and it took and it took a couple of days to get there and then maybe on a rewatch it will be there but i don't know
01:42:18
Speaker
um like And then we get to the suitor, the final contest ah for Penelope to remarry. I was a little thrown off by like at the end of Odysseus talking that at that point Penelope was like, all right, time to remarry.
01:42:33
Speaker
yeah Like through the whole thing, she's just persevering and patient. um I don't know if there's like more context like in the book or in the poem around her decision to hold the contest. Athena puts the idea in her head to do the contest.
01:42:47
Speaker
Okay. It felt very jarring all of a sudden that he's telling this story. And even though she doesn't know it's him that at that point, I don't, I don't, I might be missing something as to what in that story made her be like, all right, I got to remarry then.
01:43:01
Speaker
Because he also said Odysseus is here, like he's almost here. And then at that point, she's like, all right, I'm to remarry. He's close. Am I missing something there?
01:43:12
Speaker
don't I don't know. I've already told you my thoughts on that scene. so Yeah. um So we get to the contest. They've got to string the bow, shoot the arrow through the bow.
01:43:22
Speaker
um This has one of my favorite moments as the suitors are all going through. Unable to string the bow that Matt Damon does. We have a lot of callbacks through the movie that Odysseus, even though like when he's hunting, he'll pluck his bow to alert the prey.
01:43:37
Speaker
Because he wants he he wants a fair fight. like He wants things to be fair. That's why he's got this guilt for not being fair with a Trojan horse. um But Penelope's walking away and he plucks the string as as he ties the bow.
01:43:51
Speaker
And it just like reverberates through the theater with the score. And I just had like full body chills. I thought it was awesome. loved the strum. It yeah sounded so cool. it was I thought that was an amazing scene and a great use of sound. It was so, so cool.
01:44:06
Speaker
um He was also kind of aura farming a bit. I think the transforming and into an old man would have been really awesome to see. And I think I would have preferred to see that over just like a hooded Jedi cloak.
01:44:16
Speaker
Yeah. Like maybe he he takes off the cloak and then he like regrows into like his full. Yeah, there's like, yeah, there's there's there's some type of just more magic, more whimsy. I think yeah i think he could have done it.
01:44:30
Speaker
It's a shame that he didn't. um How do you guys feel about the last confrontation of him versus the suitors? I was I wanted more Telemachus. Telemachus and Eumaeus both get in on the action.
01:44:42
Speaker
Like there are more it's more than just Odysseus involved in killing all the suitors and they kill all the suitors. Yeah. All of them. Even the ones who were like respectful like they're all cooked.
01:44:54
Speaker
ah in In my book, I did go back and read a little bit. I read like a very small snippet of this final fight. And from what I remembered, I thought the the first arrow that flies enters and exits out of the the guy's throat.
01:45:14
Speaker
And I was kind of hoping to see that. like I really thought i was going to see Matt Damon just... pull that shit back and let it rip. Um, we didn't get that. It's fine. I guess. we Yeah, we did. The cutoff was cool.
01:45:26
Speaker
No, like the, the arrow, like fully going through the neck. Oh, instead of getting stuck I get what you mean. Um, yeah. Yeah. go ahead. Um, I was hoping for that. I thought it'd be really cool, but it's okay. I think what we got was fine, but yeah, I was hoping for more let me kiss for sure.
01:45:44
Speaker
i think there should have been more gore in this movie.
01:45:48
Speaker
For a rated R movie, it seems kind of tame. it was think about it the the the The descriptions in this in the the poem are very gory. They actually, ah the the slave that Telemachus kills in the book, it's like they cut off his genitals.
01:46:05
Speaker
Oh. oh yeah I don't need to see that. In the poem. And then they all the female slaves who were like betraying Penelope, in the house where they were hung in the front front yard.
01:46:18
Speaker
Oh yeah. That's tough. Um, a lot of people are singing the praises of the third act. And I think it's specifically like this final confrontation of him versus the suitors.
01:46:31
Speaker
I liked it, but I didn't love it. Same. I have issues, with like one person versus many. Sometimes if it's not done well or like shot well it just takes me out of it a little bit and this had a bit of that where i'm like is get them and they're just not like the dark knight rises fight choreography type yeah yeah i i think i think that's a ah nolan weakness to be honest and it felt kind of flat for me and i think if telemachus was down there with him
01:47:11
Speaker
It would've just maybe flowed better. Would've been a little more realistic as well. Yeah, but we get Robert Pattinson giving a really funny scene of him just cowering behind the wall, yelling as the weapons, the spirit, I get that one.
01:47:26
Speaker
The shield was the tweet. you said, Alex, the clock, get the clock. the clock I would have thought Telemachus would be better at, at a hand to hand combat, seeing as he is like a, a prince pretty much being trained by birth.
01:47:44
Speaker
Um, But i don't know, whatever. we We got the cool callback with his spin move, neck slice thing. i love a good spin move. Yeah. um And then the the movie wraps up, basically.
01:47:58
Speaker
I had a hard time kind of hearing the dialogue at the end of the ship. I don't know if you guys did. did much much. It was strange. I found... Really, really, like... i think this is kind of the...
01:48:13
Speaker
Worst dialogue in the movie is the last few lines. It's so bad. Yeah, I found someone um write out the dialogue that ends the movie. And ah I'll read it here.
01:48:26
Speaker
So it's Odysseus talking. It's Odysseus. Telemachus will be king. We'll head into the unknown west to honor my men together. Penelope, take your fastest ship and brightest crew and head for the horizon. And then we get that shot of the the the horizon on the water.
01:48:39
Speaker
And then Odysseus says something about music and song. This person also didn't get that. Penelope, why will the stories only be sung? Because song will be all they have to remember, those of us who could write. Penelope says civilization will rise again. And then Odysseus says, and dawn will break over the darkened world and our mistakes will once again be forgotten.
01:48:59
Speaker
I was not a fan of that No, and I wasn't a fan of, right before that is the, the you're the the people of the sea, like. right yeah Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what happened at the end. They weren't talking like that for the entire movie. Yeah, I don't know what that was.
01:49:17
Speaker
And then, then, Like, you're going to tell, like, don't die on me, Odysseus. Like, not death. Exile.
01:49:27
Speaker
Again, and this is also so divorced from the source material because at the end, Odysseus becomes king. And the suitors' families come to fight Odysseus and, like, those loyal to him.
01:49:39
Speaker
And Athena makes them be like, nope. This is it. And makes them all swear to, like, no more bloodshed. And Odysseus does have some penance to do, especially towards Poseidon.
01:49:51
Speaker
they like He does say, like, okay, well yeah I have to go here. i have a sacrifice to make, and I have to honor, you know, the dead, and, you know sacrifice to Poseidon. and But he's a king at the end of the story. He he comes home, and he claims the throne.
01:50:07
Speaker
And so...
01:50:11
Speaker
the end was what I thought I was having like a stroke. And so when I called my dad to tell him how the movie was, i was like, Odysseus was, was the King at the end of the Odyssey. Right. And I was like yes. And I'm like, Oh, you're never going to guess what happens in the movie. Telemachus King.
01:50:30
Speaker
um The last line just reminds me of, ah and this works in The Dark Knight. This just felt like The Dark Knight regurgitated. It's always darkest before the dawn type of line.
01:50:43
Speaker
in Love that in The Dark Knight. But it felt like that. like It felt like a reheated nacho of like that line and this. And I was like, where did this come from? And then it ended and then i was like, oh! For a second.
01:50:59
Speaker
The Travis Scott song. It just an awkward way to leave that movie. Yeah. I think that's, that's the hub of it all. We're all like, what was the end there? What was that?
01:51:11
Speaker
I don't know. it was so different from the rest of the movie and not really what we were. It fell out of place. Yeah. Like the, the vast majority of telemachus story is how unfit he is to rule for now.
01:51:29
Speaker
And then he becomes king. Well, they they Game of Thrones themselves by removing all of the god bits. And they're like, oh, crap, how do we end this?
01:51:42
Speaker
Because Athena ends the story. Athena ends the poem. But if Athena is a PTSD ghost, then she's not going to come and be like, everybody stop. Yeah.
01:51:55
Speaker
I can't get over thinking that there's a better story in here with more Athena, with more Zendaya. Malik, you're never going to believe this. I got a book for you. There's there's this great poem. It's really long.
01:52:14
Speaker
But, I mean... like Overall, the the scale of this movie is like astounding. There are a lot of great performances. Matt Damon is really good in this. He's kind of he's carrying this movie.
01:52:31
Speaker
um In a world of comparing it to Oppenheimer with ah with with a great performance there, I also think Oppenheimer just has stronger supporting performances all around.
01:52:43
Speaker
Every single one. Okay, i don't think Matt Damon reaches the height as Killian Murphy does. He doesn't. don't think this is a winning performance. No, no, no, no. I don't i i think he's good. I was i was comparing it with like just, I think Killian Murphy is a lot stronger and is also carried by await a much stronger supporting cast where Matt Damon is doing all of the heavy lifting with just a couple of ah support from the supporting cast.
01:53:09
Speaker
Agreed. And let's talk about supporting like the two supporting cast people that I loved, right? thought Anne Hathaway, Penelope, spectacular. yeahp Robert Pattinson, Antinius, fantastic, right? I don't think we've sung their praises enough outside of the little bits and pieces that we've dribbled here. Both of them lived up to the hype. They they understood the assignment. They...
01:53:32
Speaker
um They were their usual selves, right? Yeah. I've seen enough performances from both them at this point to expect um Anne Hathaway's and some stuff where she's just, you know, there, right? But the movie isn't all that much.
01:53:48
Speaker
But when it it's her time to shine, she has answered the call every single time. And I think she's one of the screen underrated actresses right now. I love Anne Hathaway. And Robert Pattinson is a bummer. That's my go. Yeah. So good.
01:54:02
Speaker
And the fact that we have two more Robert Pattinson movies this year. i did get the primetime trailer. I'm not remembering, but we've talked that before. And one of them is one of the freakiest, weirdest guys he will ever play in his whole career. Sidetail.
01:54:18
Speaker
Yes. I'm so excited. I'm so stoked. It's going to be so good. want to also shout out Lupita playing Helen and her twin sister. i can't remember her name. Clytemestra. Clytemestra. Yeah. Yeah.
01:54:32
Speaker
I think she had like maybe not even 30 seconds of screen time, but I was going to say 45. Yeah, but she was awesome. The yeah, her reaction of of stabbing Agamemnon in bed was like fully felt.
01:54:47
Speaker
Yeah. And I thought that was awesome. um God, who is that? Who is that? I was running out there. tell you what. As much as I hate to say that, as much as I hate to say it, though, I love Jon Bernthal.
01:55:05
Speaker
He was Jon Bernthal in this movie. He's like, yeah you want to know about Odysseus? Gather around. I'll tell you something about Odysseus. Let me tell you something. I hate taking naps. he He is a very one-note guy. And I mean that in the way with the most love that I can possibly give. Because Jon Bernthal's in it. going to watch it.
01:55:27
Speaker
there's been a lot of hate on Jon Bernthal in the timeline. I still love Jon Bernthal. I do too. he's he's He's a beast. He's an animal. I love, you know, but I do think the most complex character he's ever played is is Shane on The Walking Dead, and that was over decade ago. ago yeah You know that show's still going? i know.
01:55:51
Speaker
I saw a screen grab of one of the latest episodes and it looked like nik it was Negan and Maggie. I'm surprised I remembered her name. I thought that was fake.
01:56:02
Speaker
and like Maybe it was. Maybe it was. I'm genuinely saying I think it was real but when I first saw I was like Like, what is this? It was. Yes. Yeah. It was Negan. it looked like they were at a bar and it was Negan smiling. And then Maggie smiling as they like shared a drink. And I was like, huh?
01:56:22
Speaker
Didn't you beat Glenn to death? but Spoilers, by the way. it wasn't even just beating him to death. He eviscerated his skull yeah into a pink mist.
01:56:33
Speaker
I didn't even see that. i never That was the last season I watched. That was the last season I watched. I think it's like the
Final Thoughts and Audience Reactions
01:56:40
Speaker
season five, maybe. i probably would have bowed out there if I hadn't bowed out earlier because I loved Glenn. He was my favorite character. same and and dar Logan Marshall Green is also in this as Melanthias.
01:56:54
Speaker
he's in there slave the tree yeah steve yeah he's in there for like 45 seconds i I really like him um yeah guys ah
01:57:06
Speaker
again a lot that I really liked but also a lot that I was very skeptical on and were we not sure it fully works no I don't think so at all. Tachi, this is an adaptation of the seminal text outside of the Bible.
01:57:24
Speaker
yeah All of Western canon for literature can trace itself back to pretty much the Odyssey and the Bible. So no, you're we're not being too tough on it. All right.
01:57:37
Speaker
it's It's a massive movie by a huge director that I think could easily get lost in the scale and the sheer magnitude of who's behind it, both camera-wise and in front, that it could be hard to dissect and talk about it a little bit outside of peak peak cinema.
01:58:02
Speaker
I think we did a really good job. i I do too. And I feel good with the conversation. Also, i don't think we talked about this yet somehow, but it was a beautiful movie.
01:58:14
Speaker
Like really outstanding sets um shooting on location. The beaches were awesome. um and I love the story of the cave.
01:58:28
Speaker
when they hiked up to it to film the cyclops scene and Matt Damon was like some like tech or intern was carrying my armor. And then I turned around and everyone else was carrying their own armor. And he's like, I felt like the worst person on the planet. Oh, I haven't seen that clip. Cause it's like, it was a very long hike to get up there, like 30 or 45 minutes or something.
01:58:47
Speaker
Dang, with that heavy ass cameras and all the equipment. I know. That's insane. um i agree with you, Tachi. Yeah, the movie just looks excellent. There's there's a lot to love like in this movie. Yeah, there truly is.
01:59:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's an accomplishment.
01:59:07
Speaker
For sure. And the Cyclops chasing did not feel ah like cheesy or fake. was pretty scared. i was It was scary. I was One of my favorite shots in the whole movie.
01:59:22
Speaker
is the one where they're on the boat getting chased by the Cyclops and the camera like shakes a little bit and it turns and in like the bottom right corner of the Cyclops you can see him walking down. I'm like, oh my God, it felt like found footage. Yeah, you could see like through it like through the trees for like those split seconds. yeah It was so cool. I was like, this like, that's that's cinema right there. That's yeah you know just incredible filmmaking.
01:59:52
Speaker
And for all the the grief I've given it, I'm such a negative Nancy in these episodes sometimes. It it truly is, i think, one of the most well-made movies ever.
02:00:05
Speaker
Yeah. it's It is a true testament to the skill and the mind's eye of Christopher Nolan to make this movie, especially in the way that he made it. In an era of CGI and green screams and sound... Green screams? screams.
02:00:26
Speaker
They make me scream. ah And sound stages. For him to go and make this movie this way is just... It's art. I mean, it it is a true reminder that cinema is a medium of art.
02:00:40
Speaker
It's not media. It it is art. Right. And a lot of times it can feel the other way, but this was not one of those times. Agreed. Yep. All said. All right, guys.
02:00:54
Speaker
Do you want rate it? It's time to rate it. It's time to rate Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Um, Is there anything else to get off your chest that you want to say before you we finalize this forever?
02:01:13
Speaker
This is your rating forever and you cannot change it ever.
02:01:21
Speaker
I think I've said my piece. I think i've covered everything. Yeah. yeah All right. I'll go first. I'm giving this a four.
02:01:41
Speaker
There are so many reasons I want to give this a 4.5, but I just, I feel like the way that I walked out of theater, I can't. So I have to give it 4. Yeah.
02:01:51
Speaker
I'm actually surprised about that, Tachi, because I feel like your immediate reaction was a little bit colder than a 4 out of 5, so...
02:02:03
Speaker
i'll so I'll say, and you can tell... You weren't there, Malik. You weren't there. No, no, i i no, no, no. Because I feel like I had a similar reaction. So let me know let me know if this is correct, Hachi. Yeah. It's the hype of Christopher Nolan.
02:02:15
Speaker
It's the hype of this movie that I feel like giving this a four and walking out like with issues feels like like gut punches.
02:02:28
Speaker
it It just feels like it's opposite of like, I feel like we're engineered to feel like this is going to be the greatest movie of all time, unfortunately. And that's because he's got a ah great track record.
02:02:40
Speaker
And we're we were, it said at the beginning up so we're very excited. So I feel like walking out with anything other than mind-blowing, I loved it, feels like, oh, fuck, the world's ending.
02:02:52
Speaker
Mm-hmm. is this our Is this our sinners 2.0? No, this is a four. like I get it. i thought this was an excellent movie. It's just not without its flaws.
02:03:03
Speaker
And we'll talk about it in the context of his filmography once we get Alex's rating.
02:03:13
Speaker
As I said, it's a true technical masterpiece. It has an adaptation of the Odyssey. think Oh Brother clears it. I love Oh Brother. Which is crazy. Which is crazy.
02:03:27
Speaker
I'm going to give this a 3.5. Wow. the The issues with the script and the story and and what they changed, it it it felt like like fan fiction. And to me, Nolan's hubris burned him here.
02:03:42
Speaker
I wonder what clip I'll post first. like I don't know if I should... post the conversation, and then at the end of the next week, then be our ratings? Or should it be our ratings to draw up some, ah what the fuck are they talking about? who the fuck are these guys?
02:04:00
Speaker
I think there's really two camps for this movie, and I've seen it online, is if you're big into like mythology and history, you're going to have, i think, a lot of issues.
02:04:12
Speaker
And if not, I think you're going to really enjoy it. See, I find myself in the middle. Of those two camps, I think. Like the knowledge of Greek mythology isn't all there, but it I have had an interest in it in years past.
02:04:27
Speaker
I just, I wanted an adaptation of the Odyssey and I wanted Nolan to blank check an adaptation of the Odyssey and we just didn't get it. We got the Aeneid and the Odyssey smushed together.
02:04:38
Speaker
it doesn't it It doesn't feel like a blank check movie. like felt like I felt like this was a blank check movie. He is coming off nearly... No, I mean, I agree with you. it is It is a blank check movie, but I don't think he took advantage of it like a blank check movie. He like should have blank checked two movies. Yeah, like an Eddington. Iliad, Aeneid, and then the Odyssey. Yeah. like I feel like...
02:05:00
Speaker
in a way like an Eddington is almost like Ari Aster's blank check where they're like, ah, he made hereditary. And then he just goes fucking like balls to the wall. It was a blank check movie after a blank check movie. This is, yeah, this is, this is a Christopher Nolan movie.
02:05:15
Speaker
This a Nolan movie. His, his most blank check movie, in my opinion, is Tenet, which might be his most critically panned, And I think everyone's wrong.
02:05:26
Speaker
And I think people will see that one day. think I still need to see Tenet. And we'll get into the the larger Nolan Cannon before or in in in just a moment. But um he should have treated this as a Blanchett movie.
02:05:40
Speaker
I agree. I think he towed the line a little too much, right? he He was...
02:05:47
Speaker
like He made it too realistic. you know He tried to do like a Nolan thing, but at the end of the day, I think myself, and I think a lot of people agree with me, is I think we just wanted an Odyssey adaptation.
02:05:58
Speaker
A true like big budget with ah a great director and a great cast, an adaptation of this thing, and put filmmaking to the absolute limit to get it done.
02:06:10
Speaker
Because this is such an incredible story. And it's so old. It's been done to death so many times, spoofed and riffed. And when you read the thing, when you actually sit down and read the poem, no matter the translation, um you walk away thinking, this is just, this is the story.
02:06:31
Speaker
The Odyssey is the story. like ah Like a Lord of the Rings or like a Dune level. Yes. Yes. i wanted I wanted the Odyssey to finally have like its own movie. The defining adaptation. Yes.
02:06:49
Speaker
there could have been There needed to be more of the whimsical aspect, I think. yeah I mean, we don't even see the Lotus Eaters. yeah They completely get over that. The bag of wind. I mean, one of my favorite bits in the Odyssey is when they are like they can see Ithaca, but they have this bag of wind that a god gave them, and they open it, and it blows them all the way back to the island.
02:07:14
Speaker
I did see God gave him the bag of wind a tweet pointing out that the SpongeBob SquarePants movie is an Odyssey adaptation and i was like oh my god it is I was like I never even realized that it straight up is it's an odd yeah alright let's talk about our personal rankings of Nolan now that we've tackled the Odyssey 11 feature films
02:07:38
Speaker
do we want to do a top 5 do you guys want to rank from bottom to top We can do whatever feels right. Okay. Can we do bottom to top? Sure.
02:07:50
Speaker
So, yeah, let's do that. um I haven't seen Insomnia or Following. ah Following is his first feature film. Is Insomnia his second? It's Memento second and then.
02:08:05
Speaker
And then Insomnia. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. At the bottom easily is The Dark Knight Rises. Me too.
02:08:16
Speaker
Me too. And I, so I, for my rankings, I've only seen nine out of the 12 because I haven't seen Batman Begins following or Insomnia or Tenet. So i haven't seen, yeah. 13. That's not right in here. So yeah, 13 movies. Yeah.
02:08:33
Speaker
So two blind spots in my filmography, but say, louisvie sorry, what was the other one you said? You haven't seen Tenet and what? uh batman begin and begins oh batman begins that's right that's so funny haven't seen i don't know why i haven't seen it it's just every time yeah i go and look at no one i'm like oh haven't seen batman begins still but then i go watch something else it's it's just one of those um i think next for me after after the dark knight rises is batman begins same
02:09:04
Speaker
oh what's your spot right there alex This the Odyssey. Whoa. What?
02:09:14
Speaker
That's crazy. I have everything else rated at a four or higher. Besides the Dark Knight Rises and the Odyssey. Holy shit. Granted, I haven't seen Batman Begins and I haven't seen Tenet. So Batman Begins could very well be below it and it probably will.
02:09:32
Speaker
Right. Like I said, this is one of the most fantastically made movies I've ever seen. So it's it's probably going to be Batman Begins unless the story wows me that much. So don't hate me.
02:09:44
Speaker
All good. sit um In my ninth spot, I think I'll do Dunkirk. Wow, me too. Again. It's the one I've rewatched the least because I've only seen it once.
02:09:58
Speaker
So... I think it would have been cool. i I didn't feel like I needed to do a rewatch of his filmography leading up to this episode. I think I did want to watch Insomniac and Following and Dunkirk just because that's what I've rewatched the least. But um one day I'll rewatch Dunkirk and i don't know if it'll change.
02:10:15
Speaker
I had Dunkirk in that spot as well. Okay. um Next spot. This is where it gets a little bit hard. Yes. What are we in number This is number eight? Number eight. Okay.
02:10:30
Speaker
Fuck I've got mine. If you want me to go, go ahead. This is TBD or I guess, um, this will be flexible. I think one through a will be flexible and I'm going to start with tenant because that first theater experience was so strange, just not being able to hear like any dialogue.
02:10:51
Speaker
So I want to rewatch it though. I really do. I think it's such a fun concept.
02:11:01
Speaker
I don't know. We'll see.
02:11:06
Speaker
Alex, what's your spot here? Inception.
02:11:12
Speaker
Huh. But I'm also too like ahead of you at this point. Okay. Yeah. I just... and I watched... i mean, I haven't seen Inception in probably over a decade.
02:11:24
Speaker
So... A lot of these rank... I've only seen like some of these once. Yeah. i think you'd like it more rewatch. I think I would love it way more in a rewatch. so It's a great heist movie.
02:11:36
Speaker
i do think I do think it would go higher. um i think this is the number eight spot, right? um I think I'm doing The Odyssey. Okay.
02:11:48
Speaker
Looking at everything else, I i i know how I feel. That's fair. All right. Number seven? Yep.
02:11:59
Speaker
Memento. Same. Okay. That felt right. where We're in my top five at this point, but it's Memento. Okay, top five. It's the fifth. ro i Really solid. Memento is solid.
02:12:11
Speaker
I really love this movie. I would love to see Christopher Nolan go back and do something like this again. something i loved Memento. I have Memento at a four. Everything from this point on is like a 4.5. Yeah. Or above.
02:12:24
Speaker
I loved Memento. Number six... The prestige for me. um I've been wanting to show Cam this movie and she's like, I don't want to watch it. I'm like, you're going to watch it.
02:12:36
Speaker
why not This is a great movie. I don't know. didn't Sometimes she just doesn't want to watch certain movies. Whenever it's like a... Sorry to dox you, Cam. um Whenever it's like a... a movie pre-2010.
02:12:49
Speaker
we'll watch older We'll watch older movies, but sometimes she wants to see trailers for movies that I'm trying to show her, so that way she can suss it out. But trailers pre-2010, guys, were not good. They're so goofy. No, they're terrible. In world. Yeah, I showed her the O Brother or Arthur trailer, and I was like, and she's like, I'm not watching that shit. And I was like, I get it. That was a really bad trailer, but I swear it's good.
02:13:09
Speaker
Same with the Prestige. Prestige is literally in a world. Crazy. Number six for me is The Odyssey.
02:13:17
Speaker
Okay. Number four, Alex, for you. Should I just not go until we catch up to top four? Okay, yeah, let me do my number five. What did just do? Memento? I did Memento at seven, Prestige at six.
02:13:36
Speaker
Hmm.
02:13:39
Speaker
I think at number five, I'll do ah Inception.
02:13:48
Speaker
Yeah. Number five for me is The Pro Siege. Okay. Number four for me is Tenet. It's pretty high. It is high. I'm one of, I'm one of few, but Tenet, I did not enjoy the first time I watched it.
02:14:05
Speaker
I agree with everyone there. And that movie, I don't know if a movie has ever grown on me so much like Tenet. um The Travis Scott song at the end of the Odyssey sucks ass.
02:14:16
Speaker
I think it's really bad. um The Tenet, the Travis Scott song for Tenet, fucking banger. The Plan, listener, if you have not listened to The Plan by Travis Scott, so good. Yeah, it's pretty. was the first song I played in my truck when i when I bought it. I turned it up and tested the speakers with that song.
02:14:33
Speaker
That's my number four.
02:14:37
Speaker
My number four is Oppenheimer.
02:14:41
Speaker
Mine is also Oppenheimer. Okay. My number three is Interstellar.
02:14:50
Speaker
My number three is Inception. really loved it i i think when i rewatched it i think was last year was like damn this a banger it's got one of my favorite scores like of all time um specifically the song time i think is beautiful i used to fall asleep to to this score and whenever i saw hans zimmer a couple years ago he played time and i legit bawled like it was i cried twice during that concert it was during um The Lion King, the the song of Simba chasing Mufasa through the clouds, when he's like, remember, he played that, bawled my eyes out, and then during time, which is how quiet the crowd, oh, so good.
02:15:35
Speaker
Number three, Alex? Dark Knight.
02:15:43
Speaker
Number two is the Dark Knight for me. Number two is the Dark Knight.
02:15:49
Speaker
Back to me again? Yeah. Yep. Number two. This is so close to being my favorite Nolan, but it's just edged out slightly. Slightly. The Prestige.
02:16:02
Speaker
As your number two. i love The Prestige. I do too. adore that movie. It is really good. It is good. Oh my God. The twist at the end had me screaming. Yeah.
02:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, final act is one of the best. It's so good. Absolutely insane. It kind of loses the plot a little bit with like the Tesla stuff. Yeah. um Where you're like, huh?
02:16:25
Speaker
But when it all wraps together, i mean I'm just going absolutely nuts. Do we think that that's his best writing? I think it is. I think that is best screenplay.
02:16:37
Speaker
Followed by Memento. Yeah. I would say. i think that's fair. My number one is Oppenheimer.
02:16:46
Speaker
I guess it's not surprising. Mine is Interstellar. It's generational. Mine's also Interstellar. The visuals is what... The visuals and the soundtrack take it over the prestige for me. it's It's just fantastic.
02:16:58
Speaker
I think it's a massive piece. There's obviously always an argument for Interstellar. I totally agree with you guys. It's obviously top five Nolan. um I think visually Interstellar is his best work. I think Oppenheimer feels like...
02:17:15
Speaker
the culmination of all of his work together. I think visually and um just like the screenplay, like overall and his writing. I think it all is just the perfect blend in Oppenheimer, especially that last hour.
02:17:33
Speaker
Some people don't like the last hour where it turns into like a courtroom drama. I think that's so good. I think that's some of the best stuff. yeah nolan is I think that is the best thing Nolan's ever done. The black and white, courtroom scenes, Rami Malek, RDJ.
02:17:49
Speaker
Fantastic. Money. Oh, What an episode. This is a doozy. tired I'm tired too. I'm sore.
02:18:01
Speaker
I think this was our odyssey. This was, I think all podcasts who do an episode on the odyssey are probably clear in two hours. This might be now our longest episode. Yeah, I believe it is. We've got a couple that over two hours, but this might be the one where it's just one movie and talking about it the longest, but, um, anything else from you guys before, before we wrap it up today?
02:18:21
Speaker
What's next from Nolan? What do you want see do next? Does he go bigger? Does he get smaller? I think it was small. I think it was small scale, like maybe at the prestige level or or memento.
02:18:34
Speaker
I think that'd be ideal. I'd love to see a smaller scale thriller. I don't think he'll ever go full horror, but I think he's got he wants to do a horror movie. I know he wants to do, but I don't think he will. I think I think it'll be a thriller with with horror elements mixed in. That's what I'm hoping for.
02:18:53
Speaker
What do we think this gets nominated for for awards? Oh, uh, I think it gets all the nominations for the major categories. Um, except lead actor and actress, I guess.
02:19:03
Speaker
I think Matt Damon gets a nomination and I think he doesn't win. Yeah, I do think he gets a nomination, but I don't, I don't think he, I think there'll probably be better performances.
02:19:19
Speaker
I think he's going to clean up the technical categories here. Yeah. Best actor and best actress. I guess we'll see. Yeah. Right. Well, we'll see what comes of that. I can see best sound.
02:19:29
Speaker
Um, I'll be pissed if they get best editing. Disagree. Nominated, not win. Hmm.
02:19:37
Speaker
We'll see Villeneuve can clean up. I think he will. i don't want to say that. just It just looks so... All of my eggs are in the Dune 3 basket. if They really are. if it is not a 10 out of 10, I am going to die. i will literally kill myself live on this podcast if it's not a 10 out 10. That is the one I will die for. If you walk out with a... huh Yeah, if there if there's any hesitation...
02:20:05
Speaker
Alright, well, thank you so much for listening to our Odyssey episode. Let us know what you thought of the movie. Crucify us if you want. I think we all still really liked it. So, we'll see in the next episode. You know who else they crucified for telling the truth? sure
02:20:22
Speaker
Who?
02:20:25
Speaker
We'll see you guys in the next episode. Peace. Bye.