Speaker 1: Warning, Today's episode will not contain spoilers for the three
Speaker 1: thousand year old story The Odyssey has adapted by the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six summer Christopher Nolan some white Light spoil
Speaker 1: spoils you know the story. Hello, and it was Jason
Speaker 1: comes here and I'm Rosie Nike to welcome back to
Speaker 1: the next revision of the podcast where we divedt WITHO
Speaker 1: your Favorit, Joe's Movie, Colleges of pod Cult, Cobody or
Speaker 1: My Heart, where we'll bringing you three episodes a week.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: In today's episode, guys, is a tough day for me
Speaker 3: the Prestige Christphan Nolan hate the trailblazer of Christophan Nolan
Speaker 3: cynics because we are talking about The Odyssey and guess what, guys,
Speaker 3: if fucking bad, it's amazing. So we're gonna be talking
Speaker 3: about why it works, Why did it just hit so
Speaker 3: hard for me and Jason, Why does it feel like
Speaker 3: a timeless movie that's also completely timely. I feel like
Speaker 3: it's bringing back Technicolor. We're gonna be talking about all
Speaker 3: of that. Then we'll be talking about the kind of
Speaker 3: unexpected moments from the movie that really spoke to us.
Speaker 3: And of course at the end we're gonna be ranking
Speaker 3: our favorite Christopher Nolan movies because I think for both
Speaker 3: of us this changes that ranking.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: The Artisty by Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan, screenplay
Speaker 1: by Christopher Nolan, based on The Odyssey by.
Speaker 4: I Don't Know Tys.
Speaker 2: No Homeless Club.
Speaker 1: We think, guys, you know, hypotheadicly hypothetically, we do. We
Speaker 1: have no idea starring Matt Damon in the titular role Thomas.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call him Thomas because he did, as super
Speaker 1: producer Ian noted, become a man in this he became
Speaker 1: a mad Thomas Holland Thomas as as Telemachus, Telemachus telemicus
Speaker 1: the way I've been saying it wrong all these three Uh,
Speaker 1: and Hathaway Robert Pattinson just in his villain bag Bitch
Speaker 1: with Samantha Morton, Zendea, Charley's there on many many other.
Speaker 2: John Brey would about the Horse Do you want to
Speaker 2: Know about the Horse? From You Got to Know?
Speaker 1: And Uh with music by Ludwig Gornson.
Speaker 2: In his Fucking Bag and his Ancient Grecian Bag.
Speaker 1: We saw the film last night at Universal City Walk
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, you could tell that Universal is
Speaker 1: feeling like they got the juice, because I mean they
Speaker 1: had ushers waving my car in like from all the
Speaker 1: way out on the street, so oh, you exactly where
Speaker 1: to park. They had a thirty five foot trojan horse
Speaker 1: out in front of the cinema.
Speaker 3: Which if you follow anyone who has a film person
Speaker 3: in LA who was at the screening, you know they
Speaker 3: posted a picture it out, fucking horse.
Speaker 2: We all did it. We got how bad it looks good?
Speaker 2: You want to see the horse. You want to be
Speaker 2: inside the horse.
Speaker 4: Forget side. And of course Universal City Walk.
Speaker 1: You know, anybody that wants to it is visiting Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and wants to see a film. The Cinemama Dome,
Speaker 1: of course has been closed for a number.
Speaker 4: Of years and bring it back.
Speaker 1: In my estimation, the place to really see a movie
Speaker 1: on its debut weekend is Universal, if they're doing a
Speaker 1: premiere there or something. It's just a fantastic experience. We
Speaker 1: saw it in the seventy millimeters Imax and.
Speaker 2: It begs the top top lie it bangs, It's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's got vibes, it's got action, it's colorful, it's colorful,
Speaker 1: looks amazing, and every single person in this movie is
Speaker 1: at the top of their register. Just do killing it unbelievable,
Speaker 1: I think so one. I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3: CityWalk is a great place to get this experience, though
Speaker 3: I will quickly say give yourself extra time.
Speaker 2: They recently added some.
Speaker 3: Very dodgy downtown Disney esque security because they don't want
Speaker 3: homeless people in there, so you could gotta go get through.
Speaker 3: But once you get into that universal city Walk, you've
Speaker 3: gone through the crazy barriers.
Speaker 2: That movie theater is.
Speaker 3: So cool, it's so huge, and also they had the
Speaker 3: real costumes, the screen worn costumes from the Odyssey. It
Speaker 3: gives you that feeling that you're getting that old school
Speaker 3: Hollywood experience right and the huge hor outside. Jason obviously
Speaker 3: no surprise. I went into this with relatively low expectations,
Speaker 3: though if you've been listening to the podcast or you're
Speaker 3: my friend or you see me post on social I
Speaker 3: actually was starting to get hype for the movie because
Speaker 3: of Cinema com presentation, and I got a say.
Speaker 2: Man, it absolutely lived up to my expect It.
Speaker 3: Actually like over delivered, because I think what I loved
Speaker 3: so much about this was the way Christopher Nolan chose
Speaker 3: to tell the story, which I already know from speaking
Speaker 3: to other people, was quite divisive. But Jason, it really
Speaker 3: is ellergaic and like story, like lyrical storytelling. It's out
Speaker 3: of timing, it's it seems out of pacing, but then
Speaker 3: it starts to come together and by the time you
Speaker 3: get to the third act and you understand why you've
Speaker 3: been seeing.
Speaker 2: It that way, it's so fucking good.
Speaker 3: Like I was seeing it with a friend of the
Speaker 3: pod ron who we'd done some other pods with from
Speaker 3: oh hey, it's big wrong productions, and he, you know,
Speaker 3: was definitely more skeptical, and he's a big Nolan fan.
Speaker 3: First two acts I think did not really work for
Speaker 3: him in the same way. But by the third act
Speaker 3: it was just a little bit choppy. I've heard that
Speaker 3: from a few different people, like the editing was a
Speaker 3: bit choppy. It didn't hit for them immediately. But I
Speaker 3: think that even for people who didn't love that weird, poetic,
Speaker 3: kind of timeless jumping from here to their kind of storytelling,
Speaker 3: by the time the third act comes round and all
Speaker 3: of the plots are tied up, it even satisfied the
Speaker 3: people who were questioning it. But for me, the moment
Speaker 3: it opened with that it opens with a phrase that
Speaker 3: I believe it says in an apparent time of magic,
Speaker 3: and from then on it's just like boom, bitch, or
Speaker 3: in a Christopher Nolan fantasy movie, something you didn't even
Speaker 3: know you could get.
Speaker 4: I listen it.
Speaker 1: The one thing that kept leaping to my mind and
Speaker 1: watching this film is and why I think it's extraordinary,
Speaker 1: is that Nolan kind of all the nolanisms are here,
Speaker 1: the weird time flow, the poetic editing. If you like Dunkirk,
Speaker 1: that you will like the way this movie flows. But yes,
Speaker 1: uh uh father and sons, children and parents, uh little
Speaker 1: metal tokens given by a loved one, massive bass drops.
Speaker 3: Like boom, incredible, like never choosing to go back home,
Speaker 3: always being this strange like fight.
Speaker 1: Of circular circular storytelling, circular story arcs. He does all
Speaker 1: of that stuff that he's done before, but he does
Speaker 1: it in the most creative and tasting the way that
Speaker 1: I've seen him do it. Yet agree, I remixes himself
Speaker 1: in this way that's really interesting. And I kept thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, like thes since Tenant have been Away transformed
Speaker 1: the movies and movie trailers.
Speaker 3: I mean even back to like even back to Batman
Speaker 3: that she was doing the big gongs, but Tenant was
Speaker 3: definitely the totally silly, like almost brown noise level.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he's doing it in this but in a
Speaker 1: more painterly way.
Speaker 4: And when it there's a moment when it comes.
Speaker 1: Back at the end, oh man where because he uses
Speaker 1: it as a thematic device, less as this kind of churning,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling that rumbles the theater, although there is
Speaker 1: a lot of that that is, but when he hits
Speaker 1: this bass note again at the end, you're just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, yes, I know there's I think you
Speaker 1: touched on something there that I really do love.
Speaker 2: The remixing of his own work.
Speaker 3: I feel like that is why this to me feels
Speaker 3: like his magnum opus. Like I you know, I was
Speaker 3: talking about this with friends. Maybe it'll be cool to
Speaker 3: see him do something deletely original, non historical twenty million
Speaker 3: dollars next, like a Christophanola mini indie. I believe he's
Speaker 3: still got great movies in him, but this, to me,
Speaker 3: the mystery, the slow burn, the cinematography, the weird out
Speaker 3: of time flow storytelling, like you say it was like
Speaker 3: everything that he learned in film school as a nerd,
Speaker 3: watching Imax movies at the Science Museum. It all led
Speaker 3: to this in a way that emotionally connected with me
Speaker 3: that I have not felt with most of his movies.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of his movies, even.
Speaker 3: Ten Out, which I love, we know, is like very
Speaker 3: it has this cold sheen to it. I feel like
Speaker 3: a lot of his sci fi is very clinical and
Speaker 3: under Ellie harsh led lights, and it's very bright and sterile.
Speaker 2: And you can't connect with it. It's interstellar. It's the
Speaker 2: disconnect between like love and science or whatever. This is
Speaker 2: not the case. This shit has I mean, this was
Speaker 2: something that.
Speaker 3: Actually super produced. Joel did not love, but I did love.
Speaker 3: There is shit getting stuck on.
Speaker 2: Those Imax lenses at all time.
Speaker 3: Throughout, Like there is so much like artifacting. There's so
Speaker 3: much like weird fucking eyelashes on the screen.
Speaker 2: There's but it's just so all shit and colorful. It
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 3: I was like already excited from the New Dune trailer
Speaker 3: because we'd got on the hint that they were kind
Speaker 3: of going for a technicolor look that we haven't seen
Speaker 3: for a long time.
Speaker 2: This has that in spades.
Speaker 3: You might not have really realized from the trailers, but
Speaker 3: there are these unbelievable moments of Odysseus and his men
Speaker 3: going through these huge.
Speaker 2: Sprawling like bright green fields or gorgeous blue seas, these
Speaker 2: red banners uh la Peter Neongo.
Speaker 3: The way that her the tone of her skin contrasts
Speaker 3: with the incredible like lush jewel tones they dress her in,
Speaker 3: Like it has color and texture that I have never
Speaker 3: seen in a Nolan movie in my opinion, And I
Speaker 3: thought that on the Imax screen, and maybe I was
Speaker 3: imaxing again because I was kind of close, but like
Speaker 3: it was unbelievable to look at.
Speaker 2: I had many moments.
Speaker 3: Throughout the movie where I started to get that feeling like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is cinema.
Speaker 2: Like I was getting that feeling in my chest of like.
Speaker 3: Oh fuck, like this is why they made a big
Speaker 3: screen to watch a movie on.
Speaker 2: And that is a magical feeling.
Speaker 1: The other thing is that I think about this movie
Speaker 1: almost in the.
Speaker 4: The way that I think of you know.
Speaker 2: D W.
Speaker 1: Griveth was one of the pioneering early directors. He made
Speaker 1: the Birth of a Nation, which is one of the
Speaker 1: most racist movies ever made, but has some wonderful movie
Speaker 1: making techniques and.
Speaker 3: Was obviously has been held up by like the AFI
Speaker 3: and stuff over many many years.
Speaker 2: Sure as a big important place of.
Speaker 1: Film as an important I think technically it's important in
Speaker 1: terms of content.
Speaker 4: Is absolutely horrendous.
Speaker 1: Now he got absolutely ripped for that movie. So d
Speaker 1: W came back the next year with a movie called Intolerance,
Speaker 1: which was all about like how racism is bad. Although
Speaker 1: he would say in interviews he didn't feel that he
Speaker 1: needed to apologize for Birth of a Nation. It was
Speaker 1: like he just wanted to show actually it was my critic.
Speaker 1: It was my critics who were intolerant in a way.
Speaker 4: I in my my own.
Speaker 1: Like interior fictional universe, I believe that The Odyssey is
Speaker 1: a reaction to to Oppenheimer.
Speaker 4: I think it feels like either he felt like he.
Speaker 1: Was making an anti war movie with Oppenheimer, but it
Speaker 1: didn't come off that way, or it wasn't received that way,
Speaker 1: and so he in this movie dials it up and
Speaker 1: makes it in a way that that amplifies. I think
Speaker 1: the story telling elements in the original text in the
Speaker 1: original Homer and brings it forward, elevates it in a
Speaker 1: way as if to say, this is all horrendous. Look
Speaker 1: At how the character is ruminating on how much damage
Speaker 1: he's done.
Speaker 4: Look at how much.
Speaker 1: Damage has is done to these various characters as they
Speaker 1: seek to go home from this war. Everywhere they stop,
Speaker 1: they do something terrible to some unwitting group of people.
Speaker 4: Or some magical being.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the pain and the trauma and the
Speaker 1: death that they go through as they try to get
Speaker 1: home is all part of a penance that they have
Speaker 1: to pay for what they did in Troy. And he
Speaker 1: ties that up in a way that just kind of
Speaker 1: builds up, builds up, builds up, builds up, builds up,
Speaker 1: and there's a reveal towards there's a reveal basically at
Speaker 1: the end of the movie MM.
Speaker 4: That is just like a.
Speaker 1: Hammer blow to like hammer at home. He gives you,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like you're so used to Nolan movies now,
Speaker 1: twenty plus years of Nolan movies, and these he's giving
Speaker 1: you these like fragments of images and scenes, and you're
Speaker 1: used to this by now. But he again does it,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, in this much more organic way, where
Speaker 1: there's a fragment of a scene from the from the
Speaker 1: battle of Troy where the gates have been thrown open,
Speaker 1: and you see it is SEUs and he's reacting to
Speaker 1: something and you don't know what, and then you kind
Speaker 1: of forget about it and it comes back, and you
Speaker 1: forget about it and it comes back. And then when
Speaker 1: they give you the whole thing at the end, it
Speaker 1: is just like, oh.
Speaker 3: My okay, I love the people with that, because again
Speaker 3: I think this is Christopher Nolan learning from himself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, it's he does the fragmentation in the past, he
Speaker 3: does the miss he does the puzzle box, but often
Speaker 3: I feel like he leaves it ambiguous or he doesn't
Speaker 3: make a statement.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 3: This is why you listen to X ray Vision because
Speaker 3: Jason brings up d W. Griffith And I'm gonna tell
Speaker 3: you what this reminded me of, which is The Hunger Games. Right,
Speaker 3: if you don't remember, when Susan Collins relaunched The Hunger Games,
Speaker 3: she started with a book that was about President Snow
Speaker 3: and she thought it was a book about how easily
Speaker 3: corrupted someone can be who you think is good.
Speaker 2: But a lot of readers were like, wait, is this.
Speaker 3: Trying to make us empathize with a Nazi during the
Speaker 3: time of Trump, like, what the fuck? So the next
Speaker 3: book she did, Sunrise on the Reaping, which is the
Speaker 3: Hemich book about Hamich in the quarter Quell, which is
Speaker 3: about to probably make a billion dollars when it comes
Speaker 3: out because the book was astounding. She very definitively said,
Speaker 3: this is a book about fascism being bad and how
Speaker 3: propaganda plays into it. Sometimes if you tell a story
Speaker 3: like I believe Nolan was trying to do with Oppenheimer
Speaker 3: that he felt was an anti war story, but it
Speaker 3: can be received as a celebration of war or a
Speaker 3: celebration of the person who created this terrible thing, then
Speaker 3: you have to reconsider and say, Okay, I need to
Speaker 3: make it clearer next time if I want to make
Speaker 3: a safe me. It's unbelievably clear here to the point
Speaker 3: where you cannot deny what the movie is stating. And
Speaker 3: I have to say, there were That was when I
Speaker 3: really knew I loved this whole movie. Like I did
Speaker 3: not have any of the issues, even the minor issues
Speaker 3: that I heard most people have.
Speaker 4: It it's a minor I could do.
Speaker 2: It just worked. We can talk, but we'll talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about that. But the thing.
Speaker 3: The thing that was crazy to me was in the
Speaker 3: final moments of the movie, when the reveal really happens
Speaker 3: and you learn a lot more and it all comes
Speaker 3: together and you kind of learn why Odysseus took so
Speaker 3: long to get home, which you know, in the academic
Speaker 3: world and in the world of the Odyssey is very
Speaker 3: funny because we always be laughing about how he's useless,
Speaker 3: but they make it really hit here in a very
Speaker 3: emotional way. I knew in my heart all I could
Speaker 3: think about was shit that was going on right now
Speaker 3: in the world, and I was like, Okay, he made
Speaker 3: it like this is the this is the masterpiece, because
Speaker 3: the connection is so organic that you can't deny it,
Speaker 3: like you're watching it and you know what it's really about.
Speaker 1: It more than an anti war film, I think. And
Speaker 1: this is how I know I really like the movie,
Speaker 1: because the more I think about it, the more I.
Speaker 2: Like it same.
Speaker 1: It's it's an anti the ideologies that lead to warm.
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is, I don't care what
Speaker 1: Christopher Nolan says in any press interview, I don't care
Speaker 1: what Universal says in any press interview. The casting of
Speaker 1: this movie is exactly what the people who hate this
Speaker 1: movie for the casting think it is exactly Oh it
Speaker 1: is is that he is making a statement with the
Speaker 1: casting throughout this film, and.
Speaker 4: He's doing that by one this wonderfully diverse.
Speaker 1: And creative casting, whether it's Elliott Page, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Wow, Elliott Page costs.
Speaker 5: Very important role nod minor spoiler minus spoiler cass Elliott
Speaker 5: Page as a character who is sacrificed for this great victory,
Speaker 5: who is cut loose by.
Speaker 4: Their society exactly.
Speaker 1: In service of accomplishing the defeat of another nation that
Speaker 1: they'll it's incredibly powerful and so like. And then when
Speaker 1: you layer that on top of the themes, the way
Speaker 1: that he keeps hammering home, like this idea of taking
Speaker 1: other people's land, invading other people's space, This is what
Speaker 1: Odysseus when he goes home, is angry about. And he
Speaker 1: himself is is ruminating on the fact that I am
Speaker 1: now angry, in ciated, rageful about to get extremely violent
Speaker 1: about the things that I did in other countries.
Speaker 2: For the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's coming home and realizing the horrors of war
Speaker 3: in such a visceral way.
Speaker 1: And when you layer all that together, I just think
Speaker 1: it's a tremendously powerful statement from top to bottom, from
Speaker 1: top to bottom, and even in the casting. And once again,
Speaker 1: I don't care what kind of pr and marketing statement
Speaker 1: that Nolan with like Anadyne like, oh.
Speaker 2: You know, I just wanted to the best people for
Speaker 2: the rule.
Speaker 4: And she did do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are the best people.
Speaker 1: They are the best intenervis in service to the message
Speaker 1: of the movie, and that is what makes the movie
Speaker 1: so tremendously powerful.
Speaker 4: I just think it's it's a masteriece.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's let's go to an atbreak and when we
Speaker 3: come back, let's talk more about the cost because I
Speaker 3: think there's definitely some cool shit that we.
Speaker 2: Can pull out. Elliott page wise, Yeah, he is why
Speaker 2: people are so good.
Speaker 4: And we're back. Okay, well, let's talk about Let's talk
Speaker 4: about the cast. Let's start with.
Speaker 2: So many people.
Speaker 1: There is so many people I want to start with.
Speaker 1: I want to start with Travis Scott because he's the first.
Speaker 3: And you know what I want to give again something
Speaker 3: I do not like to hand it to any man,
Speaker 3: let alone Christopher Nolan, but a use of Travis Scott
Speaker 3: that is so perfect, understated and understood of what a
Speaker 3: bard is what a storyteller is, and is not in
Speaker 3: any way some kind of cringey attempt to modernize anything.
Speaker 3: In fact, they just again chose the best person for
Speaker 3: the role, and that repeating kind of pentameter of him
Speaker 3: throughout the story and the gongs and the keeping time
Speaker 3: is so fucking powerful. And you're right, Jason, first person
Speaker 3: you see, the first person you.
Speaker 1: See on the screen, and to your point, note perfect beat, perfect,
Speaker 1: the exact right amount, the exact right register correct. I
Speaker 1: will also say that like because his voice is the
Speaker 1: first you hear. It's the first moment in the film
Speaker 1: where you register, oh, I'm not. This isn't one of
Speaker 1: those antiquity movie period pieces where everybody's speaking in a
Speaker 1: faux British accent.
Speaker 4: And this might be the place where you.
Speaker 1: Feel that discordantly for a moment, But let me tell you,
Speaker 1: you don't care.
Speaker 4: By two minutes into the movie, ye do not care.
Speaker 3: So I'm again let's talk about it, you know, let
Speaker 3: me tell you something.
Speaker 2: John Banthorwack, let me tell you something. He does say
Speaker 2: that the verse launch a thousand tips. That's it. The
Speaker 2: thing that I think is so.
Speaker 3: Un deratedly smart about Christopher Nolan in this choice is
Speaker 3: one we talked about the most recent Odyssey adaptation, like
Speaker 3: translation by the female academic.
Speaker 4: And Emily Wilson.
Speaker 3: Emily Wilson and I do think that her kind of
Speaker 3: plain language like.
Speaker 2: This is entertainment was a huge influence.
Speaker 3: And I have to say for me, it works because
Speaker 3: look is there is there like two percent of the
Speaker 3: movie where sometimes if you hear Tom Holland say Dad
Speaker 3: swords or something, you might be like that, lol, Spider Man.
Speaker 2: But otherwise I.
Speaker 3: Found and I was actually talking to two girls in
Speaker 3: the restroom about this afterwards. It actually eases you into
Speaker 3: a grounded realness that we do not get in movies
Speaker 3: where everyone's going, oh uh, dear sir, the thou doff
Speaker 3: thist blah blah blah, which, as Tom Holland has pointed out,
Speaker 3: not historically accurate either it would be in ancient Greece.
Speaker 3: So actually, the mom dad casual nature of the language
Speaker 3: I think is part of why it flows so well.
Speaker 3: I think it's one of the smartest choices, and I
Speaker 3: do think it's gonna make it really stand the test
Speaker 3: of time in a way that other historical period pieces don't.
Speaker 1: Often other casting that I love James Remars, Teresius, the
Speaker 1: Blind Prophet, ooh scary, really spooky and scary, like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, just a moment to say. The monster work,
Speaker 1: the creature work, the effects work is astounding.
Speaker 3: Also very short credits under six minutes for a movie
Speaker 3: like this, which will let you know that there was
Speaker 3: a lot of practical, a lot of different like on set,
Speaker 3: on location shooting. I'm glad you talked about the monsters,
Speaker 3: because that's one of the things I think the movie
Speaker 3: does so well is we're talking about the cast. We're
Speaker 3: talking about these incredible performances, a lot of people. Elliott Page,
Speaker 3: for example, probably on screen fifteen minutes right Teresiu's similar situation.
Speaker 3: And it's really incredible how they can balance the humanity
Speaker 3: and the character kind of aspects, which I think is
Speaker 3: what we usually get in these stories.
Speaker 2: But Nolan does not shy away.
Speaker 3: From monsters and creatures and the mythical elements that make
Speaker 3: these stories so enchanting. And for me, that is what
Speaker 3: made this feel like kind of adjacent and the argonauts
Speaker 3: Harry Howsen level hit because I think that modern ones
Speaker 3: often try and don't They don't commit.
Speaker 2: To the magic, the accurrent magic.
Speaker 3: And I think that when you look at a casting like,
Speaker 3: for example, we can talk about the double bill of
Speaker 3: like Calypso with Charlie Sterron playing Calypso and then Samantha
Speaker 3: Morton as Circe, that is some of the coolest representations
Speaker 3: of mythological magic that I think we ever scene and
Speaker 3: on a Hollywood film at least. And that's so different,
Speaker 3: like it's two completely different characters who are both women
Speaker 3: in a Christopher Nola movie. Crazy also very few dead
Speaker 3: women in this movie for a christ of Vanola movie.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, and I will say that,
Speaker 1: so Mia Goth plays Melantho oh kind of a lady
Speaker 1: and lady in waiting of of of Ueenay of van
Speaker 1: Hathaway's character Penelope, and or a maid servant, I should say.
Speaker 1: And in the Odyssey, there is a kind of famous
Speaker 1: slash infamous slash much discussed scene in the late in
Speaker 1: the homecoming Odysseus his come home. Now he's taking revenge
Speaker 1: on the suitors and it's it's unclear if the maids
Speaker 1: are slaughtered, if they are salted, like what something bad
Speaker 1: happens to them, And there's a lot of debate on
Speaker 1: what that means within the text, and to your point,
Speaker 1: if there's any violence that happens against women. First of all,
Speaker 1: there is no shying away from the concept that not
Speaker 1: that this happens in war and that men are responsible,
Speaker 1: of course, but it's powerfully gestured at, hinted at, and
Speaker 1: never like egregiously given to you in kind of any
Speaker 1: you know on screen way right, which just makes you recoil,
Speaker 1: And if anyone is more powerful for that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's a lot of restraint here, Jason.
Speaker 3: I think that is because also if you think about
Speaker 3: how much restraint there is in the way they choose
Speaker 3: to tell Odysseus's story, right, and how much restraint there
Speaker 3: is in what the payoff is, right, even it's actually
Speaker 3: quite emotionally low stakes, but hits for us right in
Speaker 3: a huge way. And like, I think that that element
Speaker 3: and that kind of restraint is why the movie works,
Speaker 3: because this is a film where we are talking about
Speaker 3: the kind of deep political analogy of it, but there's
Speaker 3: also just people getting eaten by crazy monsters. Yes, And
Speaker 3: it's like that balance is so crazy to me, and
Speaker 3: I kind of love I'm not gonna lie Obviously we're
Speaker 3: very House of the Dragon pilled over here, especially with
Speaker 3: season three coming out as like an all time a
Speaker 3: franchise season. But it was reminding me of that because,
Speaker 3: like you said, there is so much violence. We see
Speaker 3: people getting eaten by monsters, we see people getting murdered.
Speaker 2: It's a war film.
Speaker 3: There is deaths, but we do there's a huge more scene,
Speaker 3: but we do not get a lot of the gendered
Speaker 3: violence that you would presume, but it also never shies
Speaker 3: away from it.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things.
Speaker 3: That I adored about this movie, which is very funny
Speaker 3: because it's a similar critique that I had, I had
Speaker 3: a critique that may sound similar of Supergirl, but what
Speaker 3: I think they did really well here that was very different.
Speaker 3: In Supergirl, there's a lot of like, oh, child sex trackers,
Speaker 3: they're gonna marry you off. So it's very like just
Speaker 3: like textual what I love here led by an incredible
Speaker 3: stea Weasel performance.
Speaker 2: By Robert Pattinson.
Speaker 3: Obviously, we adore the suitors being such a huge part
Speaker 3: of the story and essentially this invading force in the home,
Speaker 3: that threat of constant male violence was so viscerally represented,
Speaker 3: but in a way that worked and added to the tension.
Speaker 3: I mean, Jason, it's not necessarily like a big spoiler.
Speaker 3: So let's just talk a little bit about some of
Speaker 3: our Pat's best.
Speaker 2: Moments, because he does have some great ones in this right.
Speaker 1: As we continue with the casting time, I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: it's clear at this point that Robert Pattinson loves to
Speaker 1: play a weak slime, like a villainous, sniveling, sniveling kind
Speaker 1: of like character two faced character. He is an absolute
Speaker 1: fucking revelation as Antonomus, the kind of unbelievable suitor of
Speaker 1: Penelope who has been camped out in Odysseus's palace for
Speaker 1: like ten years or whatever, trying to oo Penelope. And
Speaker 1: he's got this like he's both a bully and weak,
Speaker 1: but there's this wonderful complexity about him where the character
Speaker 1: understands that he's got these very toxic, negative, distasteful traits.
Speaker 1: And so in these very public moments when he's addressing
Speaker 1: the entire crowd of suitors and Penelope and all the
Speaker 1: household of Odysseus, he goes to this other register that's
Speaker 1: like this very almost political and wise. Oh, we would
Speaker 1: never seek to tell place no One could no one
Speaker 1: could ever replace Odysseus. And there's this moment a mild spoiler,
Speaker 1: where he, after all of this shit that you've seen
Speaker 1: stir up and manipulate over the cour the movie, you
Speaker 1: hate him so much, he makes a speech about how, oh,
Speaker 1: no one, I would never seek to replace him, nobody
Speaker 1: can replace it. And it goes on for a while
Speaker 1: and I have to and I thought to myself, like
Speaker 1: I would fall for this.
Speaker 2: I would fall for it.
Speaker 3: That's the best thing about this performance. And I think
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie again. It's not my dream scenario
Speaker 3: to be here predicting this, but I do predict that
Speaker 3: this is gonna be an Oscar heavy hit.
Speaker 2: I don't see.
Speaker 3: Oh it isn't like if you could have a whole
Speaker 3: supporting category. It's just people from this because Robert Pattinson.
Speaker 3: Something he does in this role that, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: we have not.
Speaker 2: Seen him mutilize yet. Is it is the sniveling. We
Speaker 2: see that all the time. He's so good at it.
Speaker 3: He did it for Batman even like the impressed sniveling kind.
Speaker 1: Of hiding behind a pillar is like this fight is
Speaker 1: going on and yelling it get him, get it.
Speaker 2: Get him.
Speaker 4: Someone does that better.
Speaker 3: Than But something we haven't seen that I think works
Speaker 3: here so well is he utilizes a bit of that
Speaker 3: Twilight handsome charm right and it works in a really
Speaker 3: haunting way because again, this is a perennial story that
Speaker 3: has been told for three thousand years, you know, because
Speaker 3: everyone can universally relate to it.
Speaker 2: But it is really funny.
Speaker 3: To see how a smart, conniving man can emotionally manipulate people,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of the reveals about him are
Speaker 3: about deception and about the lengths that he would go
Speaker 3: to not be a coward. And it's really interesting because
Speaker 3: he is essentially or not be seen as a coward,
Speaker 3: but he is essentially also like not really much worse
Speaker 3: than Odysseus, Like if you look at all the things
Speaker 3: Odysseus has done. And that's why I think is really powerful,
Speaker 3: because Pattinson sells it and makes you know he's still
Speaker 3: a bad person Odysseus. The difference is he has regrets
Speaker 3: and he has had time to understand.
Speaker 2: That he is a bad person. Jason, I would like
Speaker 2: to quickly ask a canonical question the People from the
Speaker 2: Sea reveal, which we will not get into, is that
Speaker 2: canon to the Odyssey or is that something new.
Speaker 1: That's a historical So in there's a period of antiquity
Speaker 1: called in which various cities like around the Mediterranean and
Speaker 1: around the Aegean collapsed, and several of the chronicles independently
Speaker 1: mentioned that people from the sea came and raided the
Speaker 1: place and then overthrew these cities.
Speaker 2: And so kind of House of the Dragon expansion.
Speaker 1: So there's like it's a real life mystery that has
Speaker 1: been applied from that era and that part of the
Speaker 1: world that has been applied to this story because nobody knows.
Speaker 1: Historians will debate, and there's some likely suspects, but nobody
Speaker 1: really knows who the quote unquote see people were, Okay,
Speaker 1: So another question kind of tied to that with the costing.
Speaker 3: Let's just talk a little bit about Penelope. Anne Hathaway's
Speaker 3: Penelope and.
Speaker 2: Tomland as fucking Telemacus. He does have the juice.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, I think this proves he has the
Speaker 3: leading man juice. He just needed a good script and
Speaker 3: a good fucking director.
Speaker 4: He needed the juice. First of all, Anne Hathaway will
Speaker 4: get nominated for this movie.
Speaker 2: She won't get nominated correctly so correctly.
Speaker 4: So there is a.
Speaker 1: She has a rip roaring, fucking monologue towards the end
Speaker 1: of this film that is like hairs on the back
Speaker 1: of the neck, standing up stuff, And when the camera
Speaker 1: pulls in close to her, it's like she just delivers
Speaker 1: an intensity of emotion.
Speaker 2: That is like the fucking i'mac close up.
Speaker 3: Me and Joel were going crazy because like you know,
Speaker 3: the h d imax close up, the forty foot and
Speaker 3: halfaway close up. There is a line where she truly
Speaker 3: reveals what she wants, which is something she's to reveal. Yes,
Speaker 3: and it is fucking I mean fire like I want
Speaker 3: to quote it, but I'm not even quote.
Speaker 1: Your about the constant presence of and potential for for
Speaker 1: gendered male violence in this world, and half Away.
Speaker 4: Talks about it. She says it in that speech.
Speaker 2: It's very panetic way, but very dry and true.
Speaker 3: That's why I think is so powerful about the choice
Speaker 3: to use very straightforward language, because a lot of times
Speaker 3: they'll be like, you know, I was ravaged in thy
Speaker 3: beddest by thy soldier hoops, I did not know or whatever.
Speaker 3: But here she's like, look, guess what I gotta do.
Speaker 3: I gotta fucking marry one of these guys, or I
Speaker 3: gotta kill them all. That's my fucking options. And I
Speaker 3: love that shit, like and yeah, you're right, she's gonna
Speaker 3: get numbed. And let's talk about how Tom Holland became
Speaker 3: a man because he said before this, he said, this
Speaker 3: was my last chance to play a boy. I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna be taking on those roles anymore. And people laughed
Speaker 3: that was a lot funny, like transition jokes and stuff.
Speaker 3: But actually watching the movie, you know exactly what he means.
Speaker 3: That is the journey, and after this he is in
Speaker 3: adult roles like it's he did it.
Speaker 2: This is the coming of age role.
Speaker 1: He was incredible this, I mean, his character is struggling
Speaker 1: with the fact that the world and all these suitors
Speaker 1: see him as the prince, a boy, his father's son,
Speaker 1: not ready to rule, and he simultaneously got to prove
Speaker 1: to himself and to them that he can do it
Speaker 1: while also trying to not dishonor his father, who he
Speaker 1: doesn't even know is alive or dead.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And it is a wonderfully complex role. He's fantastic in it.
Speaker 1: I mean, to your point, it is Tom Holland showing
Speaker 1: that he does have the juice.
Speaker 2: He absolutely very cool use.
Speaker 3: In my opinion as well, I'm not sure who the
Speaker 3: action choreographer was for this, but I really liked the
Speaker 3: direction of using Tom Holland's billetic kind of style. It
Speaker 3: really feels like you're watching an old Errol Flim movie
Speaker 3: or a Harry Howsen movie. Like he's always kind of
Speaker 3: it's always about his flow and his flex and it's
Speaker 3: never about the speed. He learns that from his mentor.
Speaker 3: Which actually, let's talk about that too, because we do
Speaker 3: also get a legendary John Legazamo performance that's like I mean,
Speaker 3: Joelle said she thinks it's the best since Tibble in Romeo,
Speaker 3: and Juliet I would say it is up there for him.
Speaker 3: He's very grounded. He plays the kind of blind shepherd
Speaker 3: who is also, you know, Odysseus's most kind and loving friend.
Speaker 2: He's also he's unbelievable, and they expand out the role
Speaker 2: of Odysseus's dog Ugust two.
Speaker 3: Jason, you want to talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 3: because I mean, there is some dog warning stuff here, guys.
Speaker 3: We have some fans who are big did the dog
Speaker 3: die uses? There is some emotionally wrought stuff here. And
Speaker 3: you do see animals die, including.
Speaker 2: Dogs, but I will see them die, but you don't
Speaker 2: see them die.
Speaker 3: You see that, but I will say, I will say
Speaker 3: in this case, I'm gonna say, guys, I think emotionally
Speaker 3: it's still worth it. I don't think this is done
Speaker 3: for shock value. It's not horror movie.
Speaker 2: It is more about the time we were living in
Speaker 2: and the emotional.
Speaker 3: Story of August, which is very expanded here, is really
Speaker 3: powerful as a dog owner.
Speaker 2: Where you crying, Jason, I was crying, and I don't
Speaker 2: know very.
Speaker 4: It was very tough to watch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But I mean, like just a moment about Legsamo,
Speaker 1: this is I'm like, fuck man, legs Amo.
Speaker 4: Is he underused?
Speaker 2: Is he ahead like underrated? Dramatically? I do think so.
Speaker 4: He You know, I don't know what people think of
Speaker 4: leg Wisamo.
Speaker 1: It's probably based on John Wick at this point, and
Speaker 1: it's very funny to me that now he is in
Speaker 1: his second movie in which violence towards dogs is like
Speaker 1: a major I wonder if I almost wonder if that's
Speaker 1: like a wink and a nod from Nolan. But this
Speaker 1: is I I loved him in Summer of Sam not
Speaker 1: a great Spike.
Speaker 2: Lee movie, great great performance though.
Speaker 1: Loved him in that film. But really it's like the
Speaker 1: one where you're like shit, like Juice Man is uh
Speaker 1: Roman Baslerman's hallucinogenic Romeo and Juliet and this channels that,
Speaker 1: but in a completely different emotional way. He represents and,
Speaker 1: because of his ties to Argus, represents pure loyalty to
Speaker 1: an ideal, to a person, to goodness, to the idea
Speaker 1: of goodness unlike and he is very strongly contrasted with
Speaker 1: some of the other kind of unfaithful servants. Melantho played
Speaker 1: by Mia goth I forget who's the other one?
Speaker 3: Uh oh, the guy who's always wearing the fucking cowboy
Speaker 3: spurs and is so noisy, right, he's always annoying Leguizamo
Speaker 3: because he's like, I can hear you your coward?
Speaker 4: Yeah, coward? Who plays him anyway? But that's Logan Marshall Green.
Speaker 4: That was Logan Marshall Green.
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You want to know. It's really funny. I was like,
Speaker 2: is that logo Marshall Marshall Green. He's like a Tom.
Speaker 2: He looks like Tom Hardy.
Speaker 3: He's amazing in the invitation this Tim Tom Harbady, but
Speaker 3: he's great.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's another funny thing about this cast is
Speaker 3: like you could be naming people for the entire episode
Speaker 3: and you would not name all the people from like
Speaker 3: l A and the scene that is in this movie,
Speaker 3: like everybody is in it and everybody's having.
Speaker 2: The puff amount of fun.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing I want to touch on here
Speaker 3: because look, I know for some people, and I guess Jason,
Speaker 3: this is a good place to kind of if you
Speaker 3: do have any wrinkles on casting. I know that for
Speaker 3: say like Aboo and Joelle, they were not really feeling
Speaker 3: John Burnhalpe, I have to say, he to me was
Speaker 3: an example of what this movie did perfectly, which is
Speaker 3: it has a lot of that person's seen an air
Speaker 3: on face or Tom Holland's modern eyebrows. But there was
Speaker 3: to me, everyone was playing on exactly the same level.
Speaker 2: So it immersed me.
Speaker 3: And there were many times when I was just like, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's fucking Menilaus, I'm gonna fucking stab him. Like I
Speaker 3: did not keep I was not pulled out at any
Speaker 3: time by the fact that every single person in this
Speaker 3: is a modern day star. And I think that is
Speaker 3: equivalent to a Cleopatra or a Lawrence of Arabia, where
Speaker 3: I am perfectly online enough and celebrity aware enough that
Speaker 3: this should be pulling me out, but it's so well
Speaker 3: done that even you know New York inside the horse
Speaker 3: John Bunthorpe, I was just like, yeah, he's perfect casting.
Speaker 2: He was so impassive to me, but was an that
Speaker 2: didn't walk for you.
Speaker 1: No, because again I said, I think that Nolan was very.
Speaker 4: I think he was.
Speaker 1: I think he's playing with the public images of the
Speaker 1: people that he creates, and he is making statements through that.
Speaker 4: I think it is.
Speaker 1: I think it's a statement of some sort that the
Speaker 1: kind of the most pro what we did in Troy
Speaker 1: was awesome. Figure is medalay Us, played by John Bernhal
Speaker 1: who is this kind of swaggering king who just loves everything.
Speaker 4: They'd all let me tell you this great war story. Kid.
Speaker 4: Here's Hill and Detroit.
Speaker 2: Look at her face, you know, like he I'm evil.
Speaker 1: He's He's not evil. He's just kind of like a
Speaker 1: he's like a bro. He's a toxic guy. He's like,
Speaker 1: like you said, incredibly, it's a cost he's pro war masculine,
Speaker 1: like if soulages. If this was twenty twenty six, he'd
Speaker 1: be driving like the biggest four f one P fifty,
Speaker 1: like lifted truck, like you know with.
Speaker 4: The gun rack.
Speaker 1: He's that kind of guy, and it's and Nolan like
Speaker 1: Nolan uses that archetype in a way that is I
Speaker 1: think like acknowledges that, Hey, people that you disagree with
Speaker 1: that look at war differently than you, that look at
Speaker 1: violence differently you, that accept it, that have a different
Speaker 1: relationship to it, and are therefore less stressed and anxious
Speaker 1: about war and about the violence that they commit or
Speaker 1: that they have taken part in, or they take part
Speaker 1: around them. They live very easily and this noble kingly fashion.
Speaker 1: Those people exist.
Speaker 4: What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: We can't pretend that they don't exist. And because of
Speaker 1: that I loved I thought.
Speaker 4: I thought it was a brilliant casting.
Speaker 1: And I really like the I know, I totally agree.
Speaker 3: And also you make a great point because something I
Speaker 3: really love, like, in my opinion, Menialist is evil, right,
Speaker 3: I hate like an abusive piece of shit man, but
Speaker 3: he is also easily the most honest, transparent, legit ally
Speaker 3: that Telemachus could have in that situation. Like, and it's
Speaker 3: really interesting and complicated and almost an agnostic take, which
Speaker 3: I kind of like.
Speaker 2: But you're right, I think the burnth all of it all.
Speaker 3: You know, it works for me because it does feel
Speaker 3: like an understanding and again adding to my complex complex
Speaker 3: feelings about Bernthal, because I feel like he has such
Speaker 3: interesting choices and it is such a just enigmatic figure
Speaker 3: when it comes to what need Listen is knowing or
Speaker 3: unknowing or whatever it is, like is so fucking intriguing
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: Bernthal spends a lot of time on his pod talking
Speaker 1: to like vets, Yeah, former special Forces.
Speaker 2: That was a big part of his Punisher leading.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: In this movie he's kind of like the ancient Greece
Speaker 1: version of the guy he might interview.
Speaker 3: Yep, well let's talk about that, because you're right, it's
Speaker 3: a lot of this movie they talk about Trojan veterans.
Speaker 3: There is a big conversation here about how the rich
Speaker 3: kings and lords abandon the veterans and how there are
Speaker 3: so many veterans of this Trojan war who essentially were
Speaker 3: never able to live normal lives again, something that until
Speaker 3: we're talking about it now, I didn't even realize is
Speaker 3: another anti War analogous moment that Nolan is saying, look,
Speaker 3: even three thousand years ago, veterans were forgotten about just
Speaker 3: as they are now.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: That's this movie is so good, Jason, Like, I was
Speaker 1: not expecting it.
Speaker 4: It's very very deep. Even the casting is deep. And
Speaker 4: to say again, like.
Speaker 1: I know that, I'm sure that Universal and Nolan have
Speaker 1: a million different ways to like avoid the cultural war conversation.
Speaker 4: This is this is a statement in the cultural war
Speaker 4: this way.
Speaker 3: I know, I kind of love that he's been really
Speaker 3: good at that where he's just been like, you bitch,
Speaker 3: just haven't even seen the fucking movie. And I also like,
Speaker 3: by the way, let's talk about probably the last main
Speaker 3: cast member we haven't talked about.
Speaker 2: The Queen, zendeya our love. She's amazing.
Speaker 3: She's on scene for a few minutes, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: realistically and makes so much fucking impact. Again, extremely meta
Speaker 3: casting and costuming because it's very evocative of June, It's
Speaker 3: very evocative of you know, perfume Ad Zendeia, but it
Speaker 3: is utilized the recognizable visage of Zendea and who she
Speaker 3: is is utilized in this emotionally devastating way.
Speaker 2: That to me is one of the strongest parts of
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 3: Like I agin think that's a five minute supporting role
Speaker 3: that you could non for an Oscar In my opinion,
Speaker 3: I just and I love how Christopher Nolan, even though
Speaker 3: we have now seen the movie and no she is
Speaker 3: barely in it because of the nature of her character.
Speaker 2: I love how much he has just backed and been
Speaker 2: like bitches and there is a fena like fuck you.
Speaker 2: So I'm enjoying he is.
Speaker 3: I think you're right, like, in general gonna be able
Speaker 3: to navigate the cultural war aspect because he is Christopher
Speaker 3: Nolan and he hates that ship and also his universal
Speaker 3: He's like one of the biggest filmmakers in the world.
Speaker 3: But I also kind of love that he is being
Speaker 3: much more upfront about it than your PTA's or your
Speaker 3: James Guns.
Speaker 2: That's what I really like.
Speaker 1: Well, I think PTA has been pretty upfront.
Speaker 2: But no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: Pta denies at all points that any of that shit
Speaker 3: is like political, and it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 4: He where did I see him?
Speaker 1: I saw him somewhere say like that he basically apologized
Speaker 1: to his kids that this is the world that they
Speaker 1: handed them.
Speaker 2: Well, that's nice. I agree that he shouldn't do that
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: Know, so, you know, listen, it's no mystery to me
Speaker 1: what that movie is about.
Speaker 2: The movie is the movie.
Speaker 3: I think that Christopher Nolan has preemptively, almost like Jessica
Speaker 3: Gow did with She Hulk, he cast the movie knowing
Speaker 3: the conversation it would start, and kind of is like
Speaker 3: reacting to the response, which.
Speaker 1: I like, well, you know, like, listen, there's a million
Speaker 1: different story. As we mentioned in a previous episode, there
Speaker 1: is no sack of Troy in the Odyssey. It's like
Speaker 1: a line, there's no horse in the in the Odyssey.
Speaker 2: If you're gonna.
Speaker 1: Get mad at a historical things, why aren't you mad
Speaker 1: about the horse?
Speaker 3: And also why aren't you mad about like which order
Speaker 3: it's in? Like did this he is see the giants first?
Speaker 3: Or did he see the cyclops? Like if you can
Speaker 3: that much? But Jason, I want to talk about the
Speaker 3: Trojan horse because I think that you clocked off.
Speaker 1: Okay, go go, which is one thing. Yeah, it's also
Speaker 1: striking me that And listen, am I are we reading.
Speaker 4: Too much into Nolan's maybe.
Speaker 1: Casting in his how how apparently like conscious he is
Speaker 1: of people's public facing characters Charlote Starn has stated in
Speaker 1: numerous interviews over the last several years how she's single,
Speaker 1: she's single by choice, that sometimes it's hard to be single,
Speaker 1: but she can never share her space again with somebody else.
Speaker 1: She certainly doesn't think that, and that certainly she could
Speaker 1: never date someone in the entertainment industry. And her character,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is so hardbreakingly heard. Her character is
Speaker 1: that it's it's about loneliness.
Speaker 3: It's about loneliness, it's about pain, it's about and I
Speaker 3: think as well, actually, I mean, even God, you are
Speaker 3: you break in my mind, Jason, because even the Odysseus
Speaker 3: storyline for Matt Damon is kind of this, like, what
Speaker 3: do you do when you were the hero of Hollywood?
Speaker 2: What do you do when you were the boy wander.
Speaker 3: Who wrote allegedly the screenplay for the movie with your
Speaker 3: best friend? And then you're kind of forced into this
Speaker 3: world where you're seeing as heroes. But then you know
Speaker 3: you're trying to go small, it's trying to go independent.
Speaker 2: Like this is kind of blowing my mind.
Speaker 1: Goodwill Hunting is a movie in which Matt Damon Starrs
Speaker 1: wrote the screenplay with Ben Affleck. As you noted about
Speaker 1: like a genius, the smartest guy in town. He plays
Speaker 1: now at age fifty whatever, the smartest guy revered by
Speaker 1: everyone around. Oh, he was always the smartest. He was
Speaker 1: the smartest of agnu menlons, generals. That guy had the
Speaker 1: most tricks. God, he was so smart. What a genius
Speaker 1: and he's tortured by it.
Speaker 2: I know. I kind of also like, Okay, now we're
Speaker 2: definitely reading too much into it. Let's go found, are we.
Speaker 2: I don't know?
Speaker 3: It does lie not because also I kind of love
Speaker 3: that notion too, because now you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3: With artists equity, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have tried
Speaker 3: to kind of change the way the industry works and
Speaker 3: the way that like workers are treated and go back
Speaker 3: to this kind of smaller, more personal space where they
Speaker 3: can kind of one of the people who make the
Speaker 3: movies that very much feels like where we leave Odysseus
Speaker 3: compared to the Hollywood success and the kind of horrors
Speaker 3: of what came after winning an oscar at twenty six
Speaker 3: and trying to like find your space in that world.
Speaker 3: I just think there's so many levels to this, and
Speaker 3: I think it feels to me like a movie that
Speaker 3: took twenty years to make.
Speaker 2: You know that, And I'm kind of crazy that it.
Speaker 1: Feels when did Oppenheimer came out twenty one? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's pretty nuts. Okay, let's take a break and
Speaker 1: then let's rank our yourp Top Nolan Films, new ranking
Speaker 1: of Top Nolan films.
Speaker 4: And we're back. Okay, here we go Top Nolan Films.
Speaker 2: Should we go? Why don't we do top top?
Speaker 4: I really want to do you want to do entire ranking.
Speaker 2: If you want to do entire regular, let's just do top.
Speaker 4: Let's do top five.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think it may okay, Okay, top five. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna start from five. Oh, this is tough for me.
Speaker 3: There's probably not five.
Speaker 2: Christopher Nolan movies I love.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm gonna start five is gonna be probably I
Speaker 3: think Batman Begins.
Speaker 2: That was like such a huge movie for me. I
Speaker 2: really loved it.
Speaker 3: Then it's gonna be Memento, which I do still think
Speaker 3: is one of his best movies. Then the top three
Speaker 3: for me, and this top two has always been similar,
Speaker 3: but it's gonna go three is gonna be the prestige.
Speaker 3: I still think it's one of his best movies.
Speaker 2: I love that movie. It's so much fun. The reveal
Speaker 2: is fun. I love Tesla Bowie as Tesla is crazy.
Speaker 3: Two is gonna be my previous favorite Christopher Nolan movie,
Speaker 3: which is Tenant, which I'm glad to see people are
Speaker 3: coming around to now. But Crazy, that's crazy and I
Speaker 3: love it. But undeniable to me, undeniable Number one now
Speaker 3: is The Odyssey, and I'll probably swing back and forth
Speaker 3: on it, but to me, this is like everything his
Speaker 3: career has been leading to, and as a non Christopher
Speaker 3: Nolan Superstan, this is the movie where I get it,
Speaker 3: like I feel how every Christopher Nolan bro has felt
Speaker 3: watching his other movies. I felt that way watching this movie.
Speaker 3: What's your top five, Jason?
Speaker 1: My top five is starting with number five. Starting with
Speaker 1: number five, I'm going to go inception. I know that
Speaker 1: I've heard all the criticisms. I have some of the criticisms,
Speaker 1: and so it's got banger, Blockbuster's massive plot holes. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I've someone Justice Kan, Obviously, I've seen like you know,
Speaker 1: comments from POD's movie Pods being like it's a dumb
Speaker 1: person's idea of a smart person's movie.
Speaker 4: I don't didn't necessary.
Speaker 2: I disagree with any of that.
Speaker 1: I just think it is so fucking stylishly done, and
Speaker 1: that whether or not when you take out the magnifying
Speaker 1: glass and and examine the seams, whether all the seams
Speaker 1: line up or not, it was an experience in the
Speaker 1: movie theater that fucking floored me. Now, unlike my spoiler
Speaker 1: by new number one, the honesty, the more I thought
Speaker 1: about it, the kind of like less I found like
Speaker 1: about it. But I still think it's a fantastic movie experience.
Speaker 1: Number four. Oh God, okay, Batman begins. Yeah, I just think.
Speaker 5: I remember I remember seeing it.
Speaker 4: I remember seeing it.
Speaker 1: I remember I was working as a waiter and we
Speaker 1: were going to a gig at the Museum of Art
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia the way Rocky runs up mm hmm the
Speaker 1: skoy One of the waiters, you know, they're busting us
Speaker 1: in from New York, and one of the waiters was like,
Speaker 1: have you seen Batman.
Speaker 2: Mcgin's was like, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you know Batman. I'm kind of
Speaker 4: like tapped down on it.
Speaker 1: He's like, m hmm, go see it now. It is
Speaker 1: everything you exactly, And that's what it was like. It
Speaker 1: was everything I wanted Batman to be number four the
Speaker 1: Dark Knight. I just it's I don't know, it's so quotable.
Speaker 1: If if I see it on cable, I'll watch it.
Speaker 3: I've watched it so many times at this point, I
Speaker 3: just can't.
Speaker 2: It's it's so complicated to me. But it is amazing.
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, Heath Ledgers on another level,
Speaker 1: obviously influenced.
Speaker 4: The character across media in a way that we've.
Speaker 1: Never seen any comic book character be influenced by a
Speaker 1: movie depiction in that powerfully.
Speaker 3: Not him that order either, like obviously seeing Samuel Jackson
Speaker 3: get aped for the Universe, you know, like Ultimates and
Speaker 3: then he became, but that was the other way round.
Speaker 3: This is it Ledja being so influential that he changed
Speaker 3: the comics and movies.
Speaker 2: And I mean think even about Gotham, the Joker.
Speaker 3: They did there was so heavily influenced, even the the
Speaker 3: Barry Ko and Joker that we saw for the moment,
Speaker 3: even just that second in Batman so visually influenced. You know,
Speaker 3: it was, Yeah, you're right, and it's it's it's a
Speaker 3: seminal movie.
Speaker 1: So what did I say, I'm going tenant not begin
Speaker 1: oh no, sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I went inception
Speaker 1: Batman begins, Dark Knight Rises. Number two is Dunkirk.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 1: I think just in many ways, Dunkirk is like the
Speaker 1: training Wheels for the artists.
Speaker 2: And Proto Odyssey. Yeah, I just find it.
Speaker 3: I find war movies so hard to watch, like, I
Speaker 3: just really struggle.
Speaker 2: But it is amazing.
Speaker 4: It's kind of.
Speaker 1: Again, it is his, it is his attempted an anti
Speaker 1: war movie.
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 1: It's a movie about people escaping from a battle, not
Speaker 1: necessarily fighting in it.
Speaker 4: It's a movie that.
Speaker 1: Centers just regular people within a massive military conflict.
Speaker 4: And the editing style, the way you don't know where
Speaker 4: you are in the.
Speaker 3: Kind of like the one short element trying to make
Speaker 3: it all see one Shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, maiece. And then finally The Odyssey. For
Speaker 1: everything we said, I just think the Odyssey is and
Speaker 1: obviously like fucking incredible.
Speaker 3: Could there be Recncy bias made? Yes, I don't think,
Speaker 3: like to me, to me, I was watching that ship
Speaker 3: on the Imax and was I Imax maxing, Yes, I was, guys,
Speaker 3: was me and Jason five verse from the front, Yes,
Speaker 3: but it was actually I have to say, very enjoyable,
Speaker 3: but like guys, I can't explain to you, as a
Speaker 3: nerdy person who loves the IMAX, to watch an entire
Speaker 3: movie in Imax, no ratio change, no jump.
Speaker 2: This is something we never seen before.
Speaker 3: I was on that boat and Poseidon was punishing them,
Speaker 3: and I was being punished like I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3: I think this movie would bang in forty X. I
Speaker 3: think it would be incredible, but I think my bag
Speaker 3: would be I would be well, okay, finally, let's let's
Speaker 3: talk about that, because I have to say personally, I
Speaker 3: did not think that the runtime felt too heavy for
Speaker 3: me at two minutes and fifty three, which I thought
Speaker 3: I would be dreading, but actually it felt pretty breezy.
Speaker 3: I loved I love out of continuity, like weird out,
Speaker 3: like our House kind of storytelling, and this definitely leans
Speaker 3: into that heavy Were there any moments, Jason where you.
Speaker 2: Were kind of like, speed it up. I'd put this
Speaker 2: on one point five speed.
Speaker 4: There was a couple.
Speaker 1: There was like a few moments that I thought I
Speaker 1: noted to myself, Oh, it's kind of dragging some of
Speaker 1: the late Penelope stuff.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, the late.
Speaker 2: And to Ninus or whatever is.
Speaker 1: True, A little pillery, little pillery calypso stuff, but but
Speaker 1: so minor.
Speaker 3: I like you, I did not feel it and I
Speaker 3: did not feel it man. And I also want to say, guys,
Speaker 3: one of my last recommendations for this movie is you
Speaker 3: ever wanted to see Christopher Nolan do like a horror movie,
Speaker 3: then watch this baby, because there is some.
Speaker 2: Scary ass shit in here. That my biggest takeaway.
Speaker 3: And I love this because I love the idea that
Speaker 3: Chrispinolan is just a movie.
Speaker 2: Fan, which we know he is.
Speaker 3: I've really felt like he had watched a lot of
Speaker 3: Eggers and a lot of VILLAINU Denis that I was
Speaker 3: just like, I feel like, there's so much June in this,
Speaker 3: and there's so much Yeah, there's so much Eggers in this,
Speaker 3: but in a way that's so much better in my opinion,
Speaker 3: Like the the detail of the spaces and costumes and
Speaker 3: all of the stuff that Eggers does is there. But
Speaker 3: there is this warmness and this unafraidness to have these
Speaker 3: tough conversations, the Circy sequence, which is a pure body
Speaker 3: horror sequence. And also I love Samantha Morton again incredible casting,
Speaker 3: because that is a woman who has brought up.
Speaker 2: In foster system.
Speaker 3: She has constantly lived outside of traditional culture. She has
Speaker 3: lived outside of Hollywood culture. She was blacklisted for speaking out,
Speaker 3: and they cast her as a witch who is a
Speaker 3: fucking outcast on an island, who has to constantly deal
Speaker 3: with men trying to come and take trip from her,
Speaker 3: like it's so fucking real.
Speaker 2: And then they give her this incredible.
Speaker 3: Cathartic, horrifying moment that they then, in a shocking twist,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, Nolan and through Odysseus give her grace. Jason,
Speaker 3: there is grace for her.
Speaker 2: At the end.
Speaker 3: It's so good, and that would be my final unexpected wreck.
Speaker 3: Is there something you would pull from this that you
Speaker 3: would tell a non Nolan fan this is the reason
Speaker 3: you have to go see it.
Speaker 1: Ah, I would say, because, as we mentioned in a
Speaker 1: previous Nolan centric conversation, every single Nolan movie, whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not. And there's some Nolan movies that
Speaker 1: I don't like. I'm not as big on the prestigious others.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm not.
Speaker 1: You know Memento, the last third of the movie, I
Speaker 1: was really disappointed.
Speaker 3: But it's very like if you've seen another House movie,
Speaker 3: you can guess by former.
Speaker 4: Event, but.
Speaker 1: Every single Nolan film has these indelible moments where you're
Speaker 1: just wow. Even Tennett, which I did not like, has
Speaker 1: two or three moments where you're just like wow. And
Speaker 1: this movie probably has four or five moments where you're
Speaker 1: just like wow.
Speaker 4: It's just as pure movie magic.
Speaker 3: There's moments in this where you go, oh, fuck, I've
Speaker 3: never seen that before.
Speaker 2: And that's the magic. Baby, Yeah, that's the magic of movies.
Speaker 1: Well, on the next episode of Extra Vision, we're diving
Speaker 1: into more House of the Dragon and the biggest news
Speaker 1: stories of the week.
Speaker 4: That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Bye x ray Vision is hosted by Jason steps Young
Speaker 1: and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 4: Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 3: Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan and Fay Wax.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and
Speaker 3: Heidi Our discord moderator