Appreciate spending the $12 so I don't have to, which I wouldn't have anyways because movies are too long. If I can't turn a movie on between 9-10, when the kids are actually sleeping, and get to bed by midnight myself it's basically unwatchable.
I’ve been meaning to watch The Hawk which as far as I can tell is just Happy Gilmore with Will Ferrell but keep accidentally boning my wife when we climb into bed instead.
Many find the reek classics boring, mostly me too but I read The Iliad in....?1963? and found it a good book, the teacher suggested I might like the Odyssey as a follow up book and I did, bigly .
Those who don't ever want to chance a 3 hour (2hr, 54 minute) movie are showing their minds are closed to new ideas and even general learning .
The bullshit about the brief inclusion of a black woman is simply the same old racist bullshit, no one said a peep about well known hispanic actor John Leguizamo playing the part of an aging greek man .
If you're afraid of other cultures that's fine, you're allowed to be so here in the U.S.A. but you're also expected to man up and admit it, not hide behind bullshit dog whistles .
I'm sure if one took the time they'd discover many non greek persons in the flick, that's Hollywood for you, nothing wrong with using good actors not matter how badly they might scare you .
I might have to have Jack lock this thread so my wife doesn't see but I will occasionally leave work early and just watch a movie I want to watch without spending $150. Although, considering there is hardly anything I ever want to see anymore, this doesn't happen that often.
Get there on a half-price Tuesday afternoon and have yourself a good time. The theater I go to also has a bar. This is both very very good and very very bad for me, personally.
saw it last night. Didn't want to know anything about in advance and wanted to just see it since I like Nolan's movies. Overall it's ok, not a rewatch. I will add that I had some technical issues with it. The depth of field in close-up dialogue was so shallow the tiniest head movement would throw eyes out of focus. That was very distracting.
The mention of Hong Kong is funny because I wish the revenge scene had borrowed some of it. It was blurry shaky cam making the fight sequence very difficult to follow.
I have to say that the abscence of gratuitous opening credits was welcome.
You didn't even mention the part where Odysseus says "our age of bronze is collapsing" which was one of the worst crimes of cinematic dialogue I've ever witnessed .
I had to read Odyssey in high school and found the prose unbearably tedious back then. I certainly won’t go see a version staring an ugly black chick now because all the lefties hate Sydney Sweeney because she’s unapologetically hot.
Thanks for spending the money so loyal AFCers would not have to.
I imagine the popcorn cost as much as the ticket (think of the ticket as the new car your sales man sold you at below MSRP, the popcorn is the multiple extended warranties and paint protection that the finance guy adds to the sales contract in the finance office).
I could not care less about the "controversial" casting choices though.
The most controversial ones were on screen for like 3 minutes each and had very few lines of dialouge so, honestly, who could really give a shit? The only complaint I have is that Elliot Page is a bad actor, regardless of gender, so what precious little they had Sinon do anyway was wasted on him. Nyongo was fine, and I honestly can't remember Zendaya speaking more than a handful of words. Their casting doesnt matter because ultimately their roles didn't matter.
Which brings me to: Nolan's screenplay was the real crime of this movie imo. It was shot well. The set design and cinematography were very well done. The story sucked ass, though, and none of the actors really had much to work with.
More than anything, I'd also say that Nolan just desperately needs an editor that can stand up to him. You could easily cut 20 minutes of this movie and lose absolutely nothing.
Robert Patinson was basically made for his role as a slimey Antinous, and he did he best with what he was given. However a clear example of Nolan needing to be told "no" was the scene with the suitors at the end where they just keep cutting to him cowering behind a pillar shouting out "Spears! Get the spears!" followed by "Shields! Grab the shields!" and so on. It was comically bad writing. I cannot believe that was filmed intentionally and left in.
Anne Hathaway's performance was fine, but going on with Nolan issues, wtf was up with her screeching at Tom Holland about how she should sit the throne? Just to include something about girl power or whatever, and then ignore it anyway? It just didn't make any sense within the context of the movie, as it was never mentioned before or after and had zero effect on anyone or anything.
Also worth noting that Nolan has a huge issue with his audio mixing of late. The score just blows out everything else. It's can be an unpleasant theatre watch because of it.
In all, it's an entertaining visual spectacle but no more than that. Don't go in expecting anything greater than an "eh" summer blockbuster and you won't be terribly disappointed. Someone on psilocybin would love it.
I should also add that I watched "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" recently.
Perfect 10/10 movie. Peak Clooney, Fat John Goodman, and having Stephen Root do anything at all are already enough for me. Add in the music and baby we are cooking with gas!
"However a clear example of Nolan needing to be told "no" was the scene with the suitors at the end where they just keep cutting to him cowering behind a pillar shouting out "Spears! Get the spears!" followed by "Shields! Grab the shields!" and so on. It was comically bad writing. "
They assume the viewers are idiots. Either that or those are chatgpt prompts they forgot to put through chatgpt, like the earlier phrase in the film "They are taking the known provision route". The fuckin what now?
Too bad Monty Python didn’t film The Odyssey after Life of Brian. Would have been epic if they had.
I would have gone with Graham Chapman as a reluctant Odysseus where things just keep happening to him and made sure the Piranha Brothers dressed as Greeks made an appearance.
And you just know that the Pythons would have had a few serious but comedic interludes to explain The Odyssey, similar to some of the Life of Brian scenes. They could have done in a few scenes what Nolan couldn’t do in 3 hours.
Maybe someone can use AI to turn the Life of Brian into The Odyssey. I normally wouldn’t be a fan of such appropriation, but a Monty Python Odyssey must be made, and AI is all we have at this point.
I wonder how much of it was done with Second Screen viewing in mind?
I would assume none because Nolan is such a capital-A Artist (autist?) that he famously does not own a cell phone.
Perhaps he should try one out some day. Might make for a better movie. I was reading the wikipedia summary of The Odyssey on my iPhone in the theater and couldn't help but tell my wife about all of the parts left on the table that would've made this better.
I never believe stuff like a humblebrag “I don’t even own a cellphone!” Sure.
I’m betting he has 6 assistants each with 2 cell phones and 1 of them is always close by. That’s probably closer to the truth.
Years ago I read an NYT article about this woman who had this phenomenal minimalist co-op with basically nothing in it. I’m reading the article wondering how this place is even possible to live in, as she prattled on and on about her minimalist lifestyle.
But then towards the end of the article it’s revealed that she had *another* co-op in the same building where she really lived! And I’m assuming it was messy with socks and magazines on the floor and unwashed dishes in the sink.
Cell phones were essential when I worked in the gulag because you needed to text coworkers.
I would regularly text the wonderful woman I sat next to my last 10 years at work, and we sat so close I could have literally reached out and touched her. We only had trader stations that were 3 screens wide on an open floor plan with 100 people.
Texting was the only safe communication without Big Brother eavesdropping.
Considering how easily SMS can be spoofed and/or intercepted, using a cell phone isn't 2-factor authentication.... more like 1-1/2 factor authentication.
Authenticators (I prefer Duo) are much better and I wish more financial institutions would switch over.
There was a period in my life last year where I had to use MS Authenticator for 4 different reasons and Samsung for another and at that point I would have handed the entire world over to Christine Fang and the Chinese hackers to go back to SMS.
The damn app I have to use to prove I’m really me to sign into servers! (I can understand why the VPN uses it, of course; we apparently get a 💩-ton of cracking attempts.)
Haven’t needed it to authenticate to our desktops. Yet!
I just hate that if you happen to walk out of the house without your cell phone, woe be it to you! Might as well go back home and work remote at that point!
This movie would've been more enthralling to me if it didn't have such a stacked cast. I'm mostly ignorant when it comes to celebs and actors, but Damon (Caroll Shelby in my head), Holland (Spider-Man), Pattinson (sparkly vampire... Actually makes sense cause his character was a total bitch), Zendaya (bore, but also Challengers), Bernthal (The Bear, duh! I did like him in this too, though, but mainly during the bird hunting scene) all really took me out of the story when they were introduced. Anne Hathaway didn't bother me as I haven't really seen any of her previous movies. I also enjoyed the other side characters more because I just didn't know who the fuck they were, so to me, they were just the characters they were playing and it made sense. Plus I only have a vague recollection of the Odyssey from highschool. I could tell there were many liberties taken with the story and timelines, but I wasn't absolutely sure where and how so I didn't care too much. The one thing I was annoyed at was how they never even TRIED to talk to the cyclops and the cyclops never tried to speak to the Greeks. One thing I DO remember from highschool was a conversation there! As for Helen and her sister, anyone who knows what my wife looks like knows neither of my "heads" are racist... But they do have preferences, and I don't understand how those women would be so desirable without no tiddies or any sort of shape to their bodies to suggest they could bear strong children. I would've said the same of Ellen Paige before the times of Elliot as well, and so many y2k "super" models. I would've cast Javicia Leslie for that role if the goal was to have it played by an attractive black woman.
TLDR, many of the casting decisions were made because of who is Big Right Now -to the point my ignorant ass knows who the main characters are- not because it makes sense, and the movie is worse off for it.
I share the same problem with major stars getting in the way of making a movie believable. It’s really annoying today compared to decades ago because I don’t think most actors today are very good at acting compared to the actors from decades ago.
Modern actors seem to be famous for being famous, and for the thinnest of reasons at that.
Of course I had to look up Javicia Leslie based on your recommendation, and she has an unintentionally funny line in her Wikipedia bio.
“Leslie is bisexual, Christian, and trained in Muay Thai.”
I only know who she is because my wife and I watch High Potential where she plays one of the secondary detectives... And usually appears in that show juuuuust a lil bit heavier than most image search results seem to look. Which, in my opinion, is actually kinda disappointing.
"You are under no obligation to pay money for any product that is obviously designed to upset and/or annoy you"
i pirate everything regardless
"Lupita Nyong’o is a talented person with her own sort of beauty"
felon of troy with a face that launched a thousand small boats
"Diane Kruger was German"
she gets a pass for being hot
"both of her characters are cousins to Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway. It’s just senseless"
because race doesnt exist or something
"Two hundred years from now, maybe our descendants won’t blink at a remake of “Boyz n The Hood” with a white Tre and a Doughboy played by a six-armed alien from Acturus"
the irl moana movie was careful to only use polynesians. the put that effort in but not in odysseus becuase they dont care about whites at all
"The goddess Athena is played by Zendaya, which is just silly"
understatement. it feels like some kind of joke that im not in on
"the sort of detail on which nothing more serious than a Hong Kong action flick should hang"
when can we get a review of hard boiled or project a or police story?
"It’s called “Inception”. Watch it again, and thank me later."
which may have been highly influenced by the animated film paprika of all things
I sometimes buy tickets for movies I enjoy or want to support, but I very seldom actually show up because “Arrrrgh, Matey”
The local theatre does cheap Saturday morning movie rereleases and we go as a family sometimes. Watching goonies on the big screen with the kids and a giant popcorn for under 30 bucks feels like winning.
This is the problem: accuracy might mean a lack of diversity so it's a. o. k to use the wrong race. But use a Caucasian in a live action adaptation of an Anime? White washing!
Even though in most Anime, like Ghost in the Shell, the Japanese almost always have many characters appear Caucasian or very light skinned with round eyes.
I won’t go see this mostly because I think Nolan is a dog shit filmmaker and his only good film is the dark night which was saved by heath ledger. I have never liked one Nolan film and he’s the intellectual equivalent to anyone that likes Hamilton; just npc liberals who like things they’re told to like. Tarantino is right up there as crap with Nolan, but his sin is theft and adherence to non-linear story telling.
Eh. They are usually really neat as visual experience. He's great at making a film look good. He's... less good at making a film Actually Good.
Interstellar is about 3/4 of a great movie (the last act is a bit too silly), and it's been some time since I've seen it but Dunkirk was a solid war movie.
I assume anything popular in the culture is not good. I know that’s not true but it’s served me well.
I also think special effects are not that special. They do nothing for me. I would prefer a good script and famous actors not playing themselves no matter the role.
Back in the Blockbuster days, I used to enjoy grabbing any movie from the foreign films section, because I usually didn’t know any of the actors, and the films were much better written.
I'm also a fan of the occasional absoutely brain dead slop media that looks pretty and doesn't make me think about things. I like stupid action movies and stoner comedies. None of that makes me a better person, but a) my wife already thinks I'm perfect and b) I do and read enough otherwise to balance it out. Or at least pretend that I do.
I can't keep up with anything more intellectually stimulating than blippy at this point. By the end of the day, I'm too flippin tired. My wife andI have this list of TV shows we haven't got past episode one because it's impossible to follow when a toddler or a puppy interrupts you every five minutes. So action movies and comedy shows.
I’ve watched the first two (or three? Who could say!) seasons and I genuinely have no idea what happens except Little Guys keep antagonizing The Big Guy and get smacked around for it.
It’s a great show. Just please don’t ask me to name any other characters but Reacher.
There’s three Nolan stories (if we count The Dark Knight as one) I really like: the aforementioned The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar (there‘s a great book by physicist Kip Thorne on the accuracy of it!) and Inception. I admit I also liked the brainf*** that‘s Tenet. Still don‘t fully get it, but I liked it nonetheless.
As a diehard Kurosawa fan and self-proclaimed early Spielberg lover (SPR was it for him), dude doesn't hold a candle to those guys. Even Batman was kind of a pussy in his movies.
Early QT is really good stuff imo. Jackie Brown being his best -- and most forgotten -- work.
Also Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a *brilliant* action movie. Everything from the staging, to the music/score, to the fight choreography is truly fantastic.
Tarantino's biggest issue was his editor, Sally Menke, dying before Basterds. Since then, he's able to give into his worst impulses and excesses. He's a weird, creepy little guy and that comes out too much when he doesn't have someone sitting him down and telling him "no."
Let’s be honest the idea of a female badass is a stupid ass trope and she would’ve been killed by any competent male fighter. But it goes back to QT being a thief and he just steals other people’s work.
Bet you didn’t know that Orwell reviewed this film (kind of):
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
I promised myself I wouldn’t watch it, and ended up seeing it last night anyway. Family, donchaknow.
It just left me scratching my head.
Why does the Aegean and Mediterranean look like London in the 1890s? How did the end of The Lord of the Rings get added to The Odyssey? Why are the motivations of almost none of the characters we meet ever made clear? How are we supposed to know the Cyclops is Poseidon’s son? How do you strip Odysseus of the very flaw that defines him? How can the plot feel both too short and too long? How is it that I nodded off twice in the first hour? Why does Odysseus feel like a Vietnam veteran from a late-‘70s movie? How do you take a man killing a room full of bad guys and make it boring? That should certainly have been a Wickian moment. Why are none of the temptresses actually tempting? How do you spend $250 million making a movie that makes me miss CGI? Why do the ancient Greeks use very modern slang? Why do buildings that are supposed to be contemporary with the story already look a thousand years old? Why do the Greeks look like the UN? Why cast a five-foot-tall, ninety-pound actor as one of your heroes when you’re constantly resorting to awkward camera angles to disguise his size? Why does Troy look like the set of a 1960s Italian sword-and-sandal movie? Why won’t Hollywood let us have any proper heroes?
I agree. I find it refreshing that we can now accurately label someone as a satan worshiper or communist and it’s culturally acceptable. Or the satan worshiper or communist just admits it. Progress.
At first I thought does he mean Chris Noth, the guy who was in Law & Order and The Good Wife? But no, apparently it's a chucklehead who makes terrible movies lol.
I'm just happy to find a fellow "The Illiad is better" traveller here. The Aeneid is better, too, mainly for its depictions of the war from the Trojan perspective.
Appreciate spending the $12 so I don't have to, which I wouldn't have anyways because movies are too long. If I can't turn a movie on between 9-10, when the kids are actually sleeping, and get to bed by midnight myself it's basically unwatchable.
I’ve been meaning to watch The Hawk which as far as I can tell is just Happy Gilmore with Will Ferrell but keep accidentally boning my wife when we climb into bed instead.
Yeah three hours- hard pass.
It didn't seem like three hours, I was surprised at that .
-Nate
To expand on this subject ;
Many find the reek classics boring, mostly me too but I read The Iliad in....?1963? and found it a good book, the teacher suggested I might like the Odyssey as a follow up book and I did, bigly .
Those who don't ever want to chance a 3 hour (2hr, 54 minute) movie are showing their minds are closed to new ideas and even general learning .
The bullshit about the brief inclusion of a black woman is simply the same old racist bullshit, no one said a peep about well known hispanic actor John Leguizamo playing the part of an aging greek man .
If you're afraid of other cultures that's fine, you're allowed to be so here in the U.S.A. but you're also expected to man up and admit it, not hide behind bullshit dog whistles .
I'm sure if one took the time they'd discover many non greek persons in the flick, that's Hollywood for you, nothing wrong with using good actors not matter how badly they might scare you .
-Nate
$12? After babysitting coverage seeing a movie is cliser to $120!
I might have to have Jack lock this thread so my wife doesn't see but I will occasionally leave work early and just watch a movie I want to watch without spending $150. Although, considering there is hardly anything I ever want to see anymore, this doesn't happen that often.
Get there on a half-price Tuesday afternoon and have yourself a good time. The theater I go to also has a bar. This is both very very good and very very bad for me, personally.
If i'm going to go do something for 3 hours, it's gonna be shooting shotguns and that costs a lot more than $12
Sir on half price Tuesdays it is but $7! With happy hour deals at the bar!
I'd drink like 8 beers.
saw it last night. Didn't want to know anything about in advance and wanted to just see it since I like Nolan's movies. Overall it's ok, not a rewatch. I will add that I had some technical issues with it. The depth of field in close-up dialogue was so shallow the tiniest head movement would throw eyes out of focus. That was very distracting.
The mention of Hong Kong is funny because I wish the revenge scene had borrowed some of it. It was blurry shaky cam making the fight sequence very difficult to follow.
I have to say that the abscence of gratuitous opening credits was welcome.
You didn't even mention the part where Odysseus says "our age of bronze is collapsing" which was one of the worst crimes of cinematic dialogue I've ever witnessed .
He got some inside info that the Iron Age was ascendant.
Probably from the same person that told Telemachus to call him "dad"
Was toying w the idea of going, def not gonna go now. Thanks for the review.
Your description of the women makes me appreciate the casting in Troy and 300 all the more.
I had to read Odyssey in high school and found the prose unbearably tedious back then. I certainly won’t go see a version staring an ugly black chick now because all the lefties hate Sydney Sweeney because she’s unapologetically hot.
Thanks for spending the money so loyal AFCers would not have to.
I imagine the popcorn cost as much as the ticket (think of the ticket as the new car your sales man sold you at below MSRP, the popcorn is the multiple extended warranties and paint protection that the finance guy adds to the sales contract in the finance office).
The last movie I saw in the theater was “Top Gun: Maverick.” Before that, it’d been fifteen years since I’d seen a first-run movie in the theater.
Take that how you will.
Shockingly, I largely agree with you.
I could not care less about the "controversial" casting choices though.
The most controversial ones were on screen for like 3 minutes each and had very few lines of dialouge so, honestly, who could really give a shit? The only complaint I have is that Elliot Page is a bad actor, regardless of gender, so what precious little they had Sinon do anyway was wasted on him. Nyongo was fine, and I honestly can't remember Zendaya speaking more than a handful of words. Their casting doesnt matter because ultimately their roles didn't matter.
Which brings me to: Nolan's screenplay was the real crime of this movie imo. It was shot well. The set design and cinematography were very well done. The story sucked ass, though, and none of the actors really had much to work with.
More than anything, I'd also say that Nolan just desperately needs an editor that can stand up to him. You could easily cut 20 minutes of this movie and lose absolutely nothing.
Robert Patinson was basically made for his role as a slimey Antinous, and he did he best with what he was given. However a clear example of Nolan needing to be told "no" was the scene with the suitors at the end where they just keep cutting to him cowering behind a pillar shouting out "Spears! Get the spears!" followed by "Shields! Grab the shields!" and so on. It was comically bad writing. I cannot believe that was filmed intentionally and left in.
Anne Hathaway's performance was fine, but going on with Nolan issues, wtf was up with her screeching at Tom Holland about how she should sit the throne? Just to include something about girl power or whatever, and then ignore it anyway? It just didn't make any sense within the context of the movie, as it was never mentioned before or after and had zero effect on anyone or anything.
Also worth noting that Nolan has a huge issue with his audio mixing of late. The score just blows out everything else. It's can be an unpleasant theatre watch because of it.
In all, it's an entertaining visual spectacle but no more than that. Don't go in expecting anything greater than an "eh" summer blockbuster and you won't be terribly disappointed. Someone on psilocybin would love it.
I should also add that I watched "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" recently.
Perfect 10/10 movie. Peak Clooney, Fat John Goodman, and having Stephen Root do anything at all are already enough for me. Add in the music and baby we are cooking with gas!
Cohen Bros are giants.
I can’t believe it’s 26 years old now. They re-released the soundtrack on vinyl recently.
https://youtu.be/0jKA7qoyHNI?is=FTrJxglOVi6XqBwl
I‘ve never seen "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", but after all the recommendations here I think I should…
You will not regret it!
"However a clear example of Nolan needing to be told "no" was the scene with the suitors at the end where they just keep cutting to him cowering behind a pillar shouting out "Spears! Get the spears!" followed by "Shields! Grab the shields!" and so on. It was comically bad writing. "
They assume the viewers are idiots. Either that or those are chatgpt prompts they forgot to put through chatgpt, like the earlier phrase in the film "They are taking the known provision route". The fuckin what now?
Too bad Monty Python didn’t film The Odyssey after Life of Brian. Would have been epic if they had.
I would have gone with Graham Chapman as a reluctant Odysseus where things just keep happening to him and made sure the Piranha Brothers dressed as Greeks made an appearance.
That’s funny
This would be brilliant.
This is comedy.
And you just know that the Pythons would have had a few serious but comedic interludes to explain The Odyssey, similar to some of the Life of Brian scenes. They could have done in a few scenes what Nolan couldn’t do in 3 hours.
Maybe someone can use AI to turn the Life of Brian into The Odyssey. I normally wouldn’t be a fan of such appropriation, but a Monty Python Odyssey must be made, and AI is all we have at this point.
Would love to see them also play the characters from Life of Brian making a cameo as if they crossed paths during their journey.
They could have made such a better movie.
Could not argue with any of the casting decisions.
Funny that we both think that a comedic version of The Odyssey could have explained and done more justice to Homer than Nolan’s “serious” attempt.
What a culture we inhabit.
perfect, “Monty Python and the Greek Odyssey”
I wonder how much of it was done with Second Screen viewing in mind?
I would assume none because Nolan is such a capital-A Artist (autist?) that he famously does not own a cell phone.
Perhaps he should try one out some day. Might make for a better movie. I was reading the wikipedia summary of The Odyssey on my iPhone in the theater and couldn't help but tell my wife about all of the parts left on the table that would've made this better.
I never believe stuff like a humblebrag “I don’t even own a cellphone!” Sure.
I’m betting he has 6 assistants each with 2 cell phones and 1 of them is always close by. That’s probably closer to the truth.
Years ago I read an NYT article about this woman who had this phenomenal minimalist co-op with basically nothing in it. I’m reading the article wondering how this place is even possible to live in, as she prattled on and on about her minimalist lifestyle.
But then towards the end of the article it’s revealed that she had *another* co-op in the same building where she really lived! And I’m assuming it was messy with socks and magazines on the floor and unwashed dishes in the sink.
I don't really keep my cell phone on me at work and it bites me in the ass with 2 factor authentication.
Cell phones were essential when I worked in the gulag because you needed to text coworkers.
I would regularly text the wonderful woman I sat next to my last 10 years at work, and we sat so close I could have literally reached out and touched her. We only had trader stations that were 3 screens wide on an open floor plan with 100 people.
Texting was the only safe communication without Big Brother eavesdropping.
I doubt it is as safe today.
Considering how easily SMS can be spoofed and/or intercepted, using a cell phone isn't 2-factor authentication.... more like 1-1/2 factor authentication.
Authenticators (I prefer Duo) are much better and I wish more financial institutions would switch over.
The authentication app is still on my phone
There was a period in my life last year where I had to use MS Authenticator for 4 different reasons and Samsung for another and at that point I would have handed the entire world over to Christine Fang and the Chinese hackers to go back to SMS.
Arrrrgh! DUO!!!
The damn app I have to use to prove I’m really me to sign into servers! (I can understand why the VPN uses it, of course; we apparently get a 💩-ton of cracking attempts.)
Haven’t needed it to authenticate to our desktops. Yet!
I just hate that if you happen to walk out of the house without your cell phone, woe be it to you! Might as well go back home and work remote at that point!
This movie would've been more enthralling to me if it didn't have such a stacked cast. I'm mostly ignorant when it comes to celebs and actors, but Damon (Caroll Shelby in my head), Holland (Spider-Man), Pattinson (sparkly vampire... Actually makes sense cause his character was a total bitch), Zendaya (bore, but also Challengers), Bernthal (The Bear, duh! I did like him in this too, though, but mainly during the bird hunting scene) all really took me out of the story when they were introduced. Anne Hathaway didn't bother me as I haven't really seen any of her previous movies. I also enjoyed the other side characters more because I just didn't know who the fuck they were, so to me, they were just the characters they were playing and it made sense. Plus I only have a vague recollection of the Odyssey from highschool. I could tell there were many liberties taken with the story and timelines, but I wasn't absolutely sure where and how so I didn't care too much. The one thing I was annoyed at was how they never even TRIED to talk to the cyclops and the cyclops never tried to speak to the Greeks. One thing I DO remember from highschool was a conversation there! As for Helen and her sister, anyone who knows what my wife looks like knows neither of my "heads" are racist... But they do have preferences, and I don't understand how those women would be so desirable without no tiddies or any sort of shape to their bodies to suggest they could bear strong children. I would've said the same of Ellen Paige before the times of Elliot as well, and so many y2k "super" models. I would've cast Javicia Leslie for that role if the goal was to have it played by an attractive black woman.
TLDR, many of the casting decisions were made because of who is Big Right Now -to the point my ignorant ass knows who the main characters are- not because it makes sense, and the movie is worse off for it.
I share the same problem with major stars getting in the way of making a movie believable. It’s really annoying today compared to decades ago because I don’t think most actors today are very good at acting compared to the actors from decades ago.
Modern actors seem to be famous for being famous, and for the thinnest of reasons at that.
Of course I had to look up Javicia Leslie based on your recommendation, and she has an unintentionally funny line in her Wikipedia bio.
“Leslie is bisexual, Christian, and trained in Muay Thai.”
I only know who she is because my wife and I watch High Potential where she plays one of the secondary detectives... And usually appears in that show juuuuust a lil bit heavier than most image search results seem to look. Which, in my opinion, is actually kinda disappointing.
I don’t know who anyone is anymore LOL!
I get all my cultural updates from ACF.
Nolan recycles actors worse than John Waters did. Loyalty to actors is one thing, miscasting is another.
"You are under no obligation to pay money for any product that is obviously designed to upset and/or annoy you"
i pirate everything regardless
"Lupita Nyong’o is a talented person with her own sort of beauty"
felon of troy with a face that launched a thousand small boats
"Diane Kruger was German"
she gets a pass for being hot
"both of her characters are cousins to Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway. It’s just senseless"
because race doesnt exist or something
"Two hundred years from now, maybe our descendants won’t blink at a remake of “Boyz n The Hood” with a white Tre and a Doughboy played by a six-armed alien from Acturus"
the irl moana movie was careful to only use polynesians. the put that effort in but not in odysseus becuase they dont care about whites at all
"The goddess Athena is played by Zendaya, which is just silly"
understatement. it feels like some kind of joke that im not in on
"the sort of detail on which nothing more serious than a Hong Kong action flick should hang"
when can we get a review of hard boiled or project a or police story?
"It’s called “Inception”. Watch it again, and thank me later."
which may have been highly influenced by the animated film paprika of all things
I sometimes buy tickets for movies I enjoy or want to support, but I very seldom actually show up because “Arrrrgh, Matey”
The local theatre does cheap Saturday morning movie rereleases and we go as a family sometimes. Watching goonies on the big screen with the kids and a giant popcorn for under 30 bucks feels like winning.
This is the problem: accuracy might mean a lack of diversity so it's a. o. k to use the wrong race. But use a Caucasian in a live action adaptation of an Anime? White washing!
Even though in most Anime, like Ghost in the Shell, the Japanese almost always have many characters appear Caucasian or very light skinned with round eyes.
exactly
then you have obvious standouts like naruto who is literally a blue eyed blonde kid
what i do find odd is how some anime have people that look white and people that look japanese despite both being japanese characters
“It feels like some kind of joke I’m not in on.” Amen, brother. I need that on a t-shirt.
A face that couldn’t launch two bathtub toddler toy tugboats!
I won’t go see this mostly because I think Nolan is a dog shit filmmaker and his only good film is the dark night which was saved by heath ledger. I have never liked one Nolan film and he’s the intellectual equivalent to anyone that likes Hamilton; just npc liberals who like things they’re told to like. Tarantino is right up there as crap with Nolan, but his sin is theft and adherence to non-linear story telling.
reservoir dogs was weird to watch
It was. To my mind, the man made two undeniably good movies--Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown--and the rest of his stuff I can do without.
Pulp Fiction is essentially 2 scenes, otherwise the movie is somewhat dumb.
I love Death Proof.
He didn't direct but True Romance is a Tarantino and Tony Scott joint, and amazing.
I still like Inglorious Basterds.
Ah yes, the movie that makes you feel bad for nazis.
"grok please turn jewish fanfiction into a blockbuster movie script"
I’ve never seen a Nolan film and looks like my streak will remain unbroken.
Eh. They are usually really neat as visual experience. He's great at making a film look good. He's... less good at making a film Actually Good.
Interstellar is about 3/4 of a great movie (the last act is a bit too silly), and it's been some time since I've seen it but Dunkirk was a solid war movie.
Apparently I have not seen a nolan film since the dark night rises.
I assume anything popular in the culture is not good. I know that’s not true but it’s served me well.
I also think special effects are not that special. They do nothing for me. I would prefer a good script and famous actors not playing themselves no matter the role.
Back in the Blockbuster days, I used to enjoy grabbing any movie from the foreign films section, because I usually didn’t know any of the actors, and the films were much better written.
I can respect that.
I'm also a fan of the occasional absoutely brain dead slop media that looks pretty and doesn't make me think about things. I like stupid action movies and stoner comedies. None of that makes me a better person, but a) my wife already thinks I'm perfect and b) I do and read enough otherwise to balance it out. Or at least pretend that I do.
Oh, I’m with you totally. I like the dumb stuff, too. My comment came off as much too serious.
But they don’t make high quality dumb stuff like they used to!
That is true! What was the last great stoner movie anyway? Pineapple Express?
I can't keep up with anything more intellectually stimulating than blippy at this point. By the end of the day, I'm too flippin tired. My wife andI have this list of TV shows we haven't got past episode one because it's impossible to follow when a toddler or a puppy interrupts you every five minutes. So action movies and comedy shows.
try watching war machine. its dumb and it has the guy from reacher in it doing action movie shit in it. but stuff blows up and that part is cool
I mean Reacher itself is a perfect example of it.
I’ve watched the first two (or three? Who could say!) seasons and I genuinely have no idea what happens except Little Guys keep antagonizing The Big Guy and get smacked around for it.
It’s a great show. Just please don’t ask me to name any other characters but Reacher.
I was pleasantly surprised by war machine.
Dunkirk was atrocious.
There’s three Nolan stories (if we count The Dark Knight as one) I really like: the aforementioned The Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar (there‘s a great book by physicist Kip Thorne on the accuracy of it!) and Inception. I admit I also liked the brainf*** that‘s Tenet. Still don‘t fully get it, but I liked it nonetheless.
As a diehard Kurosawa fan and self-proclaimed early Spielberg lover (SPR was it for him), dude doesn't hold a candle to those guys. Even Batman was kind of a pussy in his movies.
Early QT is really good stuff imo. Jackie Brown being his best -- and most forgotten -- work.
Also Kill Bill Vol. 1 is a *brilliant* action movie. Everything from the staging, to the music/score, to the fight choreography is truly fantastic.
Tarantino's biggest issue was his editor, Sally Menke, dying before Basterds. Since then, he's able to give into his worst impulses and excesses. He's a weird, creepy little guy and that comes out too much when he doesn't have someone sitting him down and telling him "no."
Let’s be honest the idea of a female badass is a stupid ass trope and she would’ve been killed by any competent male fighter. But it goes back to QT being a thief and he just steals other people’s work.
I quite enjoyed Inception and Interstellar. Haven't seen Openheimer yet.
'Fat Man and Little Boy' told that story much, much better.
it was 3 hours of "tf does this have to do with nuking japan"
not that interesting tbh
And he was a communist. Dumb.
Bet you didn’t know that Orwell reviewed this film (kind of):
“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
The most hilarious part of that quote in the modern era is how often it is used by the left.
Projection.
Any ahistorical use of the past is easily solved by the best interview question of all time. From Joe Rogan, of all people.
The simple but oh so dangerous: “What do you mean by that?”
(second best is “compared to what?)
It’s absolute kryptonite for most modern “elites” on both sides and why Kamala Harris never appeared on his show.
Most people are stupid so they just repeat everything everyone else is repeating.
"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Ah, sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss."
What would Marlowe say? I'd tell you what he would say but ACF reply rules would zap me!!
I promised myself I wouldn’t watch it, and ended up seeing it last night anyway. Family, donchaknow.
It just left me scratching my head.
Why does the Aegean and Mediterranean look like London in the 1890s? How did the end of The Lord of the Rings get added to The Odyssey? Why are the motivations of almost none of the characters we meet ever made clear? How are we supposed to know the Cyclops is Poseidon’s son? How do you strip Odysseus of the very flaw that defines him? How can the plot feel both too short and too long? How is it that I nodded off twice in the first hour? Why does Odysseus feel like a Vietnam veteran from a late-‘70s movie? How do you take a man killing a room full of bad guys and make it boring? That should certainly have been a Wickian moment. Why are none of the temptresses actually tempting? How do you spend $250 million making a movie that makes me miss CGI? Why do the ancient Greeks use very modern slang? Why do buildings that are supposed to be contemporary with the story already look a thousand years old? Why do the Greeks look like the UN? Why cast a five-foot-tall, ninety-pound actor as one of your heroes when you’re constantly resorting to awkward camera angles to disguise his size? Why does Troy look like the set of a 1960s Italian sword-and-sandal movie? Why won’t Hollywood let us have any proper heroes?
"Why cast a five-foot-tall, ninety-pound actor as one of your heroes"
Perhaps Nolan did this as his one nod to historical realism, given the average Greek soldier four thousand years ago would have been about this size!
Nahhhhhhh.
This is autistic of me to respond like this, but skeletal studies show the average Greek man of that era was five-eight. Ellen Page is five-one.
Huh
Well, today I learned. Did not realize that civilized people have just more or less always been the same size?
I’m 6’4. What does that say about me.
your back hurts
'Why won’t Hollywood let us have any proper heroes?'
To demoralize you such that you are less likely to tar and feather every last one of them.
Their actual hero: $$$$$$$$$$
They lose money hand over fist with some of these woke choices. They worship lucifer.
I agree. I find it refreshing that we can now accurately label someone as a satan worshiper or communist and it’s culturally acceptable. Or the satan worshiper or communist just admits it. Progress.
Fantastic!: “Why are none of the temptresses actually tempting?”
Ever since I bought the Roxy Music ‘Siren’ album, that’s what I thought a real siren should look like. That’s Jerry Hall on the album cover. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siren_(Roxy_Music_album)
Apropos of nothing, it seems like over the last month I keep seeing "Chris Nolan Chris Nolan Chris Nolan Chris Nolan Chris Nolan" FREAKING EVERYWHERE.
No idea who he is.
And don't care. You don't need to tell me lol.
I was reasonably into the zeitgeist, or could at least mouth who was maybe who, fifteen years ago.
Now? IDGAF, or I’m concerned that I need to get caught up, if only a little!
I got more into politics, but even there, I’ve wavered a little!
At first I thought does he mean Chris Noth, the guy who was in Law & Order and The Good Wife? But no, apparently it's a chucklehead who makes terrible movies lol.
I'm just happy to find a fellow "The Illiad is better" traveller here. The Aeneid is better, too, mainly for its depictions of the war from the Trojan perspective.
Also agreed there.
This review should be in the Louvre
Some angsty European throwing paint on jacks odyssey review.
They liked the Sienna better, or whatever passes for a Renault Espace nowadays!
As God as my witness, I thought that the lead photo today was the loudmouth actress from the failed female Ghostbusters movie.
Whoopi on fentanyl!
That works.