The Odyssey

0:00Blank Jack with Griffin and David. Blank Jack with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Jack. Excuse me. I am but a simple beggar. Is this the kingdom of the Czech Republic? I've heard that your co-host has been journeying on an odyssey across Europe, and there is an opening to co-host the podcast.

0:43And once again, I'm just a simple beggar and nothing more. Unsheath. Bling. I draw a bit into my bit bow. The bit bow. And then here's my bit bow. Your joke arrow.

1:00Defy the pods. Oh, that was defy the pods. That's funny. Defy the pods cast. Wow. That was so great. That was really good. Yay. And you have authentic facial hair, much like Matt Damon. I do. I have. How would I describe this? I'm describing it as you look like Seth Bullock in Deadwood. Yes. I do. I've been saying conquistador, but you're right. I feel a little Don Quixote. It's a little, maybe that's because I've been in Spain. Well, so we should explain for the listeners. Basically, Griffin, he's always been rocking a mustache, but now he's got a pretty full soul patch.

1:38He's got the patch. I'll say this. So the mustache has become more and more of an emphasis in how I conduct my face. I'm a fellow stash man. I get it. I love it. We look great. We're secret stashers. Thank you. I'm filming a TV show. I'm working on a TV show, which I'm going to say sometimes I think people should make. And I'm going to say, Griffin, humblebrag. Thank you. This TV show is very well run, but I am coming in late into a season and there's a big wall in the hair and makeup trailer of like the 70 speaking roles in this season.

2:11Yes. And I'm introduced like 60 out of 70. There you go. And they're like, you need to have a facial hair design that is different than what anyone else has. So it's like so many of the things have been claimed and variations. And I came in just sort of unshaved. I hadn't shaved anything in like a month or two going into this. And they were like, we're keeping the mustache and we're emphasizing the flavor saver.

2:37So even right now, you're seeing me. I'm a couple of days off from filming. The rest of my face has been squeaky clean. I got a little stubble back now, but I've been squeaky clean outside of mustache and flavor saver. He's squeaky. And you're right. I look exactly like Matt Damon in the Odyssey. Well, I was going to ask you, like, how long of a beard can you grow? Oh, like if allowed. Matt Damon's beard, the length of it is really impressive. I mean, if you can grow facial hair, you can grow a long beard.

3:08You can. It's about commitment. It's about time. My problem is if I have too much beard, I start like picking at it as like a nervous tip. Exactly. Right. And then I start like pulling out and futzing with it. So then I usually don't let it get past a certain point. I heard that Matt Damon grew for a year. He said a year. He said he had a beard for a year, I guess is how he put it. It's a full looking beard. Yes. Because in Greek antiquity, they didn't have fake beards, I guess. So no one was like, no fake beards. Well, and we know that this is a movie that is 100% historically accurate.

3:40And that's why no one is angry about it. Exactly. Wait, people are already angry about it? Oh, don't worry about them, Ben. Don't worry about those guys. Because we're here to celebrate. It's guys? You're saying it's angry guys? What if it was all girls? Ben, if I told you that one multi, multi, multi billionaire was angry about this movie, who would you guess it was? One very online. Well, let me think. Are they normal, though? The most normal. Okay, then Elon Musk. Perfect sense of humor. Yes, exactly.

4:12Yeah, okay. Okay. What's this podcast called? This is called The Podacy. It's called Blink Check with Griffin and David. But today we're going on a podacy. We are going on a podacy to Ithaca and I guess Troy and... A bunch of other unnamed islands with scary stuff on them. Upstate New York City. Yeah. Yeah, a bunch of other... Right. That's so true. Sogerties. Have you guys been to Ithaca? Of course. My mother is a Cornell alum. The thing that's really scary about Ithaca as far as walking around is the gorges and

4:46you have to go over these bridges and you just look down and it's just... It's quite hefty. It's just... It's quite a drop. I visited Cornell and Ithaca on like a little college tour and the one thing that everyone talked about was like, oh yeah, lots of people just like fling themselves off into the gorges. My cousin went to Ithaca College and just casually mentioned like, yeah, people just will commit suicide. Because it's too gorgeous? It's very small and look at the island. Like, God, everyone's fighting over this. That big. Yeah, but like, you know, it's home.

5:17It looks like it has some nice beaches. It's home. I know. It's home. It's home. But, you know, Pattinson's coming all the way out just to try and get this little like, why not this island? Look at this island. This island's huge. Cephalonia right next door. I don't know. Maybe there are fucking monsters on it. The thing about Ithaca is... God, all these islands. There are no monsters on there. They're just, they're just like... Well, there's, yeah, there's men. There's petty men. Men are the monsters. They're the real monsters. But you don't have like giant Bill Irwin like butt naked with one eye eating you. See, my read on it was just the smaller island is maybe more strategic.

5:51It may be, yeah. It's just maybe safer. I think easier to govern too. It's just kind of like, hey, you know, got some sheep. I want to front load this.

6:00The Cyclops sequence in the movie is the highlight of the film. That's true for me. Interesting. I would not say that's true for me, but it makes sense that it is for you because it have big monster, which you do love a big monster. I love big monster. Right. I also love Bill Irwin. We love Bill Irwin. It genuinely was one of the first times in a long time that I watched a sequence in a movie and went, I have no idea how the fuck they did. I had the same. I certainly obviously I was trying to give myself over to the movie, but I was constantly kind of like, I guess there's some forced perspective stuff, but I'm not totally sure

6:32how they pulled this off. But then it's that great movie magic thing where you watch one shot and you go, OK, I think I figured out the next shot completely breaks whatever your sense was. And part of it is that he's he's pulling things back to basics so much that any overcomplicated process that you would just assume or hand wave away, you're ruling out. Yeah, I don't know. It's it was very cool when he pick up guy and eat him. Yeah, that was scary. I got scared.

7:04Step on him with foot and step on him. Squeeze him. I know. You know, what's so cool about the Odyssey is I wouldn't be surprised if all of us had a different favorite section of the movie. OK, let's go around. Let's do this. Let's go around the horn. I think I think Marie and I have the same favorite section, though. Well, I have two favorites. Oh, I know. My favorite section is certainly Cersei and the pigs. Yeah. Cersei was a big standout for me. But I also was really, really moved by the flashback to Odysseus's experience of carnage

7:44in Troy. That was that was very. Yes, I was very impressed by the narrative thing he was doing in the third act. Certainly. Yes, that is fair. Ben. OK, I'm going to attempt to say the name of these people. And I'm sure I'm going to butcher it. The last Dragonians. The big guys. The big fucking crazy knights. You like a big guy. Oh, my God. It was so sick. Yeah. Yes. And that was crazy when it was like, who's that man?

8:15And then it turns around. It's a giant kid. Sure. And he's laughing. Well, that was great. It's weird that Ben liked the sequence with the taunting child and the giant brute army. And I like the sequence with the emotionally wounded monster just in a fetal position in a cave played by one of America's finest clowns. I didn't know it was Bill Irwin until after the fact. Yeah, I had to tell you. It's such a good performance. Very cool. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their

8:48careers, such as making a Bartman movie, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Those checks have not run out for one Christopher Nolan. They keep getting bigger. He has been on an uninterrupted run of checks being handed to him for now 21 years. Yeah? Yes. Yeah. What are we counting as the... Batman Begins, right? That was 21 years ago? Yeah, it was. 2005. That's what's crazy. Oh my God. I was but 19, maybe 20 years old, yeah.

9:21You could say that Batman Begins was the guarantor, but I think the circumstances around Batman were so weird at that point in time that they basically gave him a blank check because they were like, we got no better ideas. But we already said this with him. He constantly has guarantors. He said about this movie, like, this is my biggest budget movie ever, and it's because Oppenheimer did so well. Right. Like, it's like, it keeps everything... But you don't get to make a movie like Oppenheimer at Oppenheimer's budget without that being a bit of a blank check as well. Of course. Correct. So it's like... Correct. I have no idea what he does from here.

9:52He can do whatever he wants. Either. I think he has to go smaller, and I think he's even sort of talking about that now. But we covered him many years ago. His success has only grown since we covered him. At the time, he already was arguably the filmmaker of his generation, and with every success of film, he's only become more and more important. And now he's making what feels like the biggest movie you could possibly imagine. Yeah, sure. I mean, we had this conversation after Oppenheimer, all of us, where we were just like, the fuck

10:23does he do next? When Oppenheimer, which on paper was a one for me, makes nearly a billion dollars and wins every Oscar and performs as high as most of his films have ever achieved, then what is there even left for this guy to cash in? And there were all the rumors that he was doing Blue Thunder. Oh, that's made up. Is that the helicopter cop movie? Those are cold word things. Oh, is he doing a horror movie? Is he doing a this? He has said he wants to figure out a horror movie, which is interesting.

10:57But do you remember we were all in the office together? I can't remember what episode we had just recorded or were about to record. And I went, holy shit. And I showed you there was a tweet. And it was Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey filmed entirely in IMAX coming summer 2026. Right. It was just all at once. Suddenly, the announcement was out there. We had known the cast. The cast had been started, been growing, had been pinned to the board. But we didn't know what it was. And then we just went, holy shit, of course he had to do this.

11:28It was either The Odyssey or The Bible. It was the only move for him to do next. As he's pointed out, there's no Hollywood version of The Odyssey ever. That's what's wild. He's like, it's like a weird gap. And that's why it had to be this. No one had ever tried this. Obviously, there were a couple sort of Italian, you know, versions. Well, there was the Armando Sante. That's a TV movie. I tried watching that on YouTube last night. I turned it off after 30 seconds. Do you want to see what the Cyclops looks like in it? Yes. Someone posted it to my work Slack. Oh.

11:58You know, he looks kind of good. He looks like a big baby. Let me see this guy. I like this. I like this guy a lot. He looks pretty good. That's some Griffin shit right there. It's a little bit Dinosaurs vibe, you know? Yeah. A little early Holland there. Did the Jim Henson Creature Shop work on this at all? I mean, one assumes, right? I mean, let's find out. They did a lot of those TV movies. I was going to say, that was how they kept the lights on. Right? Exactly. There's like the Ted Danson Gulliver's Travels around that time. Oh, that was huge. Remember the Ted Danson Gulliver's Travels? Well, he was huge. Remember how big he was?

12:30He was big. He was. And you know what, Griffin? And the Lilliputians were small. I can confirm for you that the creature effects for this miniseries were provided by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. They had a talking animatronic pig roasting on a spit. That's cool. Love that. They had a rod puppet sea slug sea monster. And they had, you know, a cyclops. Well, maybe I'll try. I'll give it another shot. But I'll just fast forward to all the cool. To the puppet stuff. Puppet stuff. Last night for research, I was like, I want to watch some stuff to like get me in the Odyssey

13:01mood again. Because we saw the movie, what, like three days ago? So I watched the episode of Arthur where D.W. retells the Odyssey. Yes. And I watched the episode of Wishbone. I was going to say, Wishbone must have spun that tale. But it's very interesting because, okay, in the Arthur version with D.W., there's none of the like what's happening back at Ithaca stuff. It's just D.W. on a boat encountering monsters.

13:31Sure. And then in the Wishbone version, barely any of the monsters. It's all back at Ithaca. Well, I really hope Christopher Nolan's listening right now as we talk about this. I just think it's crazy that children's media used to do this shit. Well, yeah, well, they still do it. I'm sure Gabby's Dollhouse has done an Odyssey episode. Because Gabby's Dollhouse has done an Odyssey episode. She found a new room in her dollhouse. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if she's gotten there yet. I just have to read this review for the 1997 miniseries that's cited on Wikipedia because

14:01it's such a good burn by Richard Nilsson of the Arizona Republic. Even though the made-for-TV movie is only four hours long, I wasted a fifth hour stewing over how god-awful it was. That's pretty good. He's saying this shit was so bad, it ate into further time in my life. It ruined an additional hour of my life. That miniseries had its own controversy at the time because they cast Baby Sinclair to play Helen of Troy. Because they had him kicking around the creature shop and people got really upset.

14:33And that's a Muppets reference? Or is that- Not the mama. That's a dinosaur. I'm not the mama. I didn't know his name was Baby Sinclair. You didn't know his name was Baby Sinclair? I think he's handsome. But people thought he didn't have a face that would launch a thousand trips. That was the argument. I think he's handsome. He's iconic. I mean, I don't know if I would call him handsome, but like- He's the moment. Everyone knows the baby. He is literally the moment. You think he's currently the moment right now? I think Baby Sinclair has never been more relevant as proven by how quickly all three of you understood the joke I was making.

15:05I didn't like the joke, but- I just forgot that they're called the Sinc- Why are they called the Sinclairs? Because they're just a normal family. But they should have had like a pun name. I agree. You know? Wait, isn't there like a Sinclair oil or like a gas station called Sinclair with a dinosaur on it? Oh, I think you're right. That sounds a little, that sounds like a stretch though. No, see, look, Sinclair Oil Corporation. Fossil fuel. Yeah, the name is a reference to Sinclair. Okay. This is funny. This is really good. It's a really good show. I am so smart. That's too sophisticated. Okay. Let's talk about-

15:36The Odyssey. The Odyssey and our screening experiences. Okay, great. We have three different screening experiences. Three different experiences. Three different experiences. Three different experiences. Cities. Three different major cities. Three cities. Wow. Much like the Odyssey, the movie, this is an episode that spans multiple countries, multiple cities. Multiple formats. Multiple formats. Because, yes. Okay. So, all right. Well, Marie and I saw it at the AMC IMAX Lincoln Square. 70 millimeter IMAX. 70 millimeter IMAX, where I guess you can't get like a seat at like the 3 a.m. screenings

16:11in August right now. Yes. Like it's like sold out for the rest of time. We are checking our privilege. Which, it was, I feel enormously blessed to have had the opportunity to not only see this film in the, you know, the director preferred format. Big old theater. But also in the best seat in the house. Of course. We had my favorite seats in the back of the house near the secret bathroom. Yes. Which I really took advantage of. Okay. This is on the IMAX screen. Yes. On the IMAX screen. Oh, yeah. Okay. But it was 70 and, you know, the picture, there were little spots and pops and little

16:46guy. Oh, yeah. It was very cool. I like the texture. Exactly. I like the imperfections. Now, Ben, Ben, where did you see this film? I was in Chicago. The Windy City! Visiting. And I went to an AMC theater in downtown Chicago and saw this film in 70 millimeter. And at that theater, there's no ketchup and it's all, it's like a giardiniera, right? And a big pickle in your popcorn. He's talking about hot dogs. I'm doing a Chicago bit.

17:17Yeah. And there was celery salt. You saw Inside the Bean, right? I did. And the perspective was a little weird. Right, right. It was a little, the picture was a little warm. What's the deep dish version of a movie theater? Is it that the chairs are behind the screen? It's like the whole theater is kind of like a conversation pit. Yeah. But it just goes way down. It's pretty funny. Or it's maybe, maybe it's like Ben's original pitch of like the underwater upside down movie theater. Right, right. That would be good. Especially for that. Anyway, okay. So yeah, you were in Chicago.

17:48Chicago. And so you went to a press screening there. Yes. Yeah. And unfortunately, IMAX not available. They don't have an IMAX in Chicago. I just learned this today. I am shocked. That's pretty wild. Yeah. For such a major market. Or I guess if they do have one, they don't do press screenings there. I don't really know. Do you know what format you saw, Ben? Was it 35? 70. Was it a digital? You saw it in 70? Okay. So you saw it in a gentleman's 70. A gentleman's 70. Obviously, most people around this country will not be able to see the film in like fancy,

18:18fancy IMAX. Obviously, there's, you know, digital IMAX out there and there's 70 out there. There's a lot of formats. I'm going to see it on 35 on Saturday. Where? Nighthawk. Wow. Crazy. I saw, I think the number is there's somewhere between 40 and 50 screens on the planet that show it in the kind of complete preferred Nolan format. Now, I have been in Spain filming. Griffin's in Spain! In the entire country of Spain, there are only two IMAX screens, both of which are digital.

18:49Wow. I had purchased tickets for one of them at midnight. So I was going to see this movie at midnight on Thursday, record with you guys the next day. And then my buddy, let's say friend of the podcast, he came through in a major way here, Sam Clements, who works for the Picturehouse chain in the UK, the great movie theater chain. I was texting with him and he said, I might be able to get you into the press event, which was at the BFI South Bank IMAX. The big, big fancy theater in Waterloo. Very, very large. One of the biggest IMAX screens.

19:19Yeah. And he pulled off a miracle. His buddy, David, at Organic Publicity got me in. I had a handful of days off from filming. I, in fact, have more than a handful of days off from filming. Yeah, it seems like you're barely showing. Are you doing any work? A little bit, a little bit. I've been doing a lot of siesta-ing, but a little bit of work, a little touch of work on the side, a kind of pinchos amount of work, just small tapas work. How many other phrases can I appropriate here? But I got to see it at the South Bank in 70 IMAX, which was quite a treat.

19:53It is, it's a, it's a fucking big ass movie. It really is. And this is, Nolan's been working on this project for a decade of how much more, more than a decade, almost 20 years now, because I guess it starts with Dark Knight 18 years ago, of how much IMAX can I get into a commercial release film. And this is the first movie where he's gotten it up to 100%, right? Every single shot in this movie. I got to say, this movie's epic. It is quite epic. Pretty epic. I think, regardless of what format you see it in, the actual fidelity of the image that

20:28has been captured is pretty fucking astonishing. Yeah. David Ehrlich, run of the pod, a friend of my life, was at the same screening as us, seeing the movie for the second time. He saw it in IMAX for the first time, and then for the second screening, he saw it in 70. Mm-hmm. Um, and he said he preferred it in 70, which we were like, hmm, interesting. Uh, we think you're just making stuff up. You know, the first screening of a movie like this, where it's all hyped, you're all, you're so, like, you know, buzzed up watching it, and it's hard to concentrate even.

21:00You know, the second screening, you can focus more at what he's doing. Maybe that was part of it. And if he's listening right now, he should throw a wallet at himself. Yeah, he should, actually. Yeah, that's right. I'll say this. We've, we've all seen it one time. Yeah. We've been fortunate enough to see it one time before release in order to get this episode out quickly. I don't think I had any, like, adjustment to how high my expectations were or the hype. I felt pretty settled into meeting the movie where it was at. It does feel like a lot of movie to absorb on one viewing. Yes.

21:30Like, I feel like I'm struggling even two days later to get my head around some of it. I think the movie's excellent. Not me, I'm strong as hell. Strong. You're strong as hell. Yeah. You feel like you got a complete take. He was saying before we started taping, like, he's got the names locked down. Yeah. He's got the names? I was saying, like, I'm not going to remember all of the names. Okay. And he was like, don't worry about it. We're just going to say the actor's names. And I was like, okay. John Leguizamo. Can I say he's my MVP in this movie? Well, of course he is, Griffin.

22:01Of course he's your MVP. He is the Krumholz of this film. He's the Krumholz of the movie. I personally, and I don't know, maybe David, you will agree with me on this. I think Samantha Morton is the, like, standout performance. I mean, I really think that everyone in this movie is very well cast and used. But it was so nice to see people like Morton and Leguizamo, who Nolan's never worked with before, where Nolan clearly immediately was like, that is the person. I don't need to identify, like, whatever, a bigger star here or, you know, like a glitzy

22:35or, like, he matched the actor so perfectly. Leguizamo in The Odyssey, you're like, that, what? Like, that doesn't automatically. And then you see it and you're like, I understand this completely. Morton makes total sense. I think they're the two MVPs. Morton, you know, we've talked about Morton a lot this year. And on the Morvyn Caller episode, we were talking about how much in the late 90s and the early 2000s she was seen as, like, one of definitively the great actresses of her generation. And she's receded a little bit. And this just feels like Nolan wanting to remind everyone how good she is and how powerful she is.

23:10Leguizamo, I don't feel like I've ever seen him used like this before. I was trying to think about this. Unlocking new chambers for me. Because he's, like, kind of the heart of the movie. He's, like, in a way the emotional spine of the thing who all the other characters are filtered through. I, for some reason, kept thinking about John Wick because Odyssey does have a John Wick vibe of, like, he's coming back and he's mad. Which I feel like maybe John Wick has an Odyssey vibe. Odyssey is calling him and being, like, do you still have my car?

23:42Yeah, right. I mean, it was a little bit that where it's, like, Leguizamo's just playing the guy where it's, like, everyone agrees that this guy is reliable and wise. Yes, as hell. Like, that is what we turned. Because I'm looking at Leguizamo's, I mean, he works. Like, Leguizamo's always working. But, like, what's the last time he was in, it might be John Wick. Like, that he was in something where I was, like, oh, it's so, what a great use of him. Like. I didn't see Bob Trevino likes it. I didn't either. Which everyone said he was really excellent in.

24:13I should see that, I guess. He's the lead of that, right? He's Bob Trevino. It's him and Barbie Ferreira, yeah. And Barbie Ferreira, by the way. She's having a hell of a year. She is. I'm loving Barbie Ferreira. No? Everyone? No? Mylon Tick is great. Our buddy Chandler Levick's great film. Yeah, that movie is so good. Chandler. It's so good. Yes. Are you listening? Chandler. I liked your movie. The Canadian film explosion of 2026 is, to me, the big story. That's so true. Yes. Canada's everywhere right now. Oh, let's see. He's in the new Exorcist, Leguizamo.

24:44Okay. I bet you he plays, like, a priest who's like, I don't like the looks of this. We gotta get this theme now. I bet you're right. That sounds very good. I can see it. I bet he talks out of the center of his mouth exclusively. Right down the center of his mouth. Those front teeth getting a lot of exposure. Is he, like, you know, has he done, like, should we throw him, like, a glitzy miniseries so he can grab an Emmy or something? He was in an Apple TV series called Smoke, which wasn't very good.

25:15But he was in it. He was in it. It feels like he's primed, though. That's a good point, David. I feel like we got Leguizamo in, like, third position on an FX series. He's, like, winning every award. Yeah, like, who doesn't? Who's not happy to see Legs? Johnny Legs. Well, King Koopa. Well, that's true. Although, actually, I don't really know that King Koopa registered Luigi as a threat, did he? I mean, I can't really remember. You know, I haven't watched that film in a little while. Did he do battle, even?

25:45Like, I don't really. If King Koopa doesn't register Luigi as a threat, I would say that's a narrative shortcoming. I would say if King Koopa does not recognize one of the two Mario Brothers as a threat at any point, that movie might have some script issues. I do think I've seen the Super Mario Brothers movie several times in my life. I think one could accuse it of having script issues. I think that's fair. I think everyone would bear that accusation with grace and respect. This is the first time hearing this. Oh, my God. What do I say here? I put my finger up behind my ear.

26:16So, here we are. We saw The Odyssey. So, Griff, you saw it at the BFI. Was that nice? That's a lovely theater. I haven't been there in a long time, but it's very cool. It's a big old circle. It's in a circle. You got to go a little bit underground in a tunnel. Cool. Yeah, because it's in, like, in the middle of a giant roundabout. Correct. It's like there's cars going around. It's in the middle of, like, a traffic circle. Yeah. Yes. And so you got to take an underpass to go into the secret chamber. Cool. That's great. See any pals there? Any of our Brit pals? Honey Ross, friend of the podcast.

26:46Okay. And Sam Clements was there with me. I don't think I saw anyone else. Fair enough. But I was immediately taken aback by, and I think I wasn't reading early responses. You guys had gone with Marika Brownlee. Ben was seeing it the same time that I was, vaguely. I had gotten general thumbs up from people I knew, but I wasn't reading anyone's deeper thoughts. And I was taken aback immediately, because I was, Sam helped me get into the screen, but he had already seen the movie.

27:18And there was a whole kerfuffle with me being his plus one, where they wouldn't let me in without him. So he said, I'll come, and I'll sit through the first, like, 30 minutes again, and then I'll leave. And I said, is, like, the opening particularly good? I was wondering, like, does it have one of these classic Nolan, sort of James Bond-style Dark Knight, Tenet, you open with something kind of just so fucking insane? Right. And he was like, the opening's great, but it's not like that. And the movie starts, and immediately it was just like, this is not where I thought this film would start.

27:49This is not how the first hour, I imagined, would progress. And the structure of this movie, for a guy who likes to play around with structure, is so different than I was expecting, because he doesn't diagram it. Because usually when he does funny structure tricks, it's, like, really set up and explained. And this movie almost immediately reminded me so much of Thin Red Line. Okay. Yeah. In that it feels like it's editing based on emotions.

28:17That's interesting, Greg. So, you know, I will say, The Odyssey, I'm gonna, am I the only reader of The Odyssey in the room right now? Not to Odyssey-mog anyone. I mean, I studied it in school. Sure, okay. So, you read it. I have no memory of it, really. But I have brushed up a little bit in just watching some YouTube guides. I bought a graphic novel version of it with pictures. Who did this graphic novel? It would be a disaster if the graphic novel did not have pictures.

28:48That would be a huge misstep. It would be a big bummer. Garrett Hines. I've seen this. I think my wife has used this as a teaching aid, because she teaches The Odyssey. Yes. Your wife teaches The Odyssey. She does. She does. But, like, you know, the first four books of The Odyssey are from Telemachus' perspective. They do have this kind of prologue-y kind of, like, where's Odysseus? You know, like... Son of Odysseus, we should say. Telemachus is the son of Odysseus, and he is played by Tom Holland in the film. You guys notice that?

29:18Yes. Peter Parker. Peter Parker himself. Uh, Nathan Drake himself. Uh, did you guys see the video of Tom Holland and Matt Damon doing a, like, junket thing where they had to guess... Make a pizza? I did not see the one where they had to make pizza. What did they have to guess? They have to guess which of their films by just the colors of the frames. You ever see the movie Lutz thing or whatever? Yeah. Yeah, that's a fun game. It's tough to put those two filmographies next to each other. Well, that was what was really fucking funny.

29:50Right, Damon has, like, eight masterpieces. So it's like, okay, so is this movie The Departed, Interstellar, or Good Will Hunting? One of the 14 Soderbergh movies I made, and Tom Holland's like, is this Chaos Walking? No, for Tom Holland, they gave him three Spider-Man movies, and he had to guess. Oh, that's so lame. And I'm like, they all fucking look the same. I wouldn't be, like, it was so sad. I felt so bad for him. Is this the best? I mean, I think The Lost City of Z is my favorite movie that he's ever been. You love that film. Yeah. But then, I think this is a huge challenger.

30:25I don't see anything else in his filmography that would really vault up the list here. It is wild that, I mean, obviously, No Way Home was so fucking humongous, and was, you know, one of the first in a series of movies that saved Hollywood after the pandemic. Right. And it got a little erased by Top Gun and Maverick, and Top Gun Maverick, and Barbie, and Oppenheimer, and some of the movies that came out. It was a phenomenon, yeah. Humongous. It's one of the 10 highest grossing films of all time. And he's been a little silent, and I think there's been a couple years for all of us to

30:57stroke our chins and be like, is he juiceless? Like, where the fuck does his career go at this point? Especially because everything he tried to do outside of Spider-Man really didn't work. And yet, he's about to be the undisputed king of the summer box office. It's true. He's about to have a humongous fucking summer. He's going to have a huge, it's just July. He's the king of July. Sully could have only dreamed of the kind of July he's having. That's so true. I think he was very well cast in this movie. Yeah, I thought he was well deployed in this movie.

31:28I think he's, you know what, I'm going to give him his flowers. I think he's good in the film. I know some people are like, ah, no, I just sort of felt like Tom Holland-y to me. But no, I think he's good. I think he's good at playing someone who needs to learn and mature and grow. And I'm not saying that as a neg on him. No, the problem with him is going to be the, can he ever age into anything else? I'm not sure. I saw him saying in an interview, I think this will be the last time I'm kind of playing a kid. And I was like, maybe.

31:59Like, I know, I know that he is 30. He is 30. I cannot believe that he is 30. He do have a baby face. But it reminded me a lot of his Lost City of Z performance. Like, it did, you know. There's that John Mulaney joke of, I'm sober, which I know is surprising to people because I look like someone who hasn't done anything before. Right, that he's just been sitting in a room eating crackers. Like, I've just been sitting in a room eating crackers, yes. Right, a lot of this Odyssey Spider-Man promo tour has been Tom Holland pushing Bureau, his non-alcoholic beer alternative. Yeah. And that's another thing where you're like, I can't believe you're old enough to be sober now.

32:34I'm happy for him that he's got whatever equilibrium he desires or whatever. But yes, it is interesting. But he reads as perpetually 16. Yeah. He does. He does. Which is why he's in this role in which literally the point is that he is not of age yet. Yes. The point of the Odyssey is like, you are Odysseus' son. You're a strong young man. Right. But you cannot inherit his throne yet. So I got to keep weaving this fucking thing until he comes back. Can I say, Hollywood, thank you for your service.

33:06How about you sit here in the corner and you do your thing and we're just going to wait on Matt Damon to come back.

33:22David. Yes. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Mutant. They are purveyors of all things physical media. Mutant creates records, posters, home video, and more in close collaboration with artists, composers, filmmakers, and studios around the globe. Yeah. They've produced some of the only physical releases of some of the biggest film soundtracks of the last five years, including Sinners, Dune Part 2, and The Odyssey. They've got that score on vinyl, the Ludwig score. It's a beautiful, it's like a bronze colorway.

33:54It looks ancient. I love it. Like an ancient disc. But this album has a 24-page booklet with liner notes by Christopher Nolan, along with Ludwig. The director of the picture. Yes. Obviously, Mutant's made a lot of beautiful packages like this in the past about, you know, we've got some other blank check films that we've covered, like Furiosa, all of the Christopher McQuarrie Mission Impossible films, Andrew Stanton's In the Blink of an Eye. I didn't know that they did that soundtrack. That's cool. But Mutant also makes physical media for video games and hit streaming shows such as Pluribus,

34:26The Boys, Severance, and coming soon, Widows Bay. You can visit madebymutant.com and use promo code blankcheck for 10% off all in-stock products on their site, including Ludwig Garansson's all-new soundtrack to The Odyssey. That's M-A-D-E-B-Y-M-U-T-A-N-T.com and use promo code blankcheck for 10% off all in-stock products. So, The Odyssey.

34:57It is a film directed by Christopher Nolan and it does begin with Travis Scott, the great Travis Scott, a friend of Christopher Nolan's, right? They're best buds, right? Yes. Don't they, like, send each other gifts and shit? Like, they're, like... They are friendly. Yes. Because Travis Scott had a song in Tenet, I feel like. Right. That was their, um, that was their initial... And he's got the end credit song in this. And, and, you know, it begins with him trying, you know, he's going to sing the song of Odysseus. He's... Right. And it's clearly Nolan, like, taking you by the shoulders and being like, you have to understand that this storytelling form exists now and has just evolved.

35:32Like, it has just changed. And, like, but he's, like, it's a real mission statement moment for him where he's just, like, this is still what we do. We tell, like, stories through verse to each other. It's so good. I was so startled by it. The first five minutes of the movie played in front of another movie. Is that true? No, no, no, no, no. The prologue, which I saw, is the Trojan sequence, which is much later in the movie. Okay. Because... The horse. I really tried not to see a ton of marketing for this movie.

36:02Like, I saw the teaser trailer. Whatever it was where Tom Holland was like, my dad's coming home, or whatever. And I saw that, and I was like, this doesn't look good to me, but I'm... So I'm not going to watch anything else, because I trust Christopher Nolan, and... You want to see it in context. I want to see it in context. But then I know that... I don't know what movie they put it in front of in IMAX, but some people did get to see the prologue. You could see it if you bought a ticket to an IMAX. So I saw... I bought a ticket to the Sinners re-release just to watch it. Okay. It was also in front of one battle, I think.

36:34You know, or whatever. I can't remember. Like, it was the fall of... It was like a little sizzle reel, basically. Okay. So... But it was not like the first fight. It wasn't like Dark Knight Rises, where it was truly just like, let's watch the opening of the movie. Because I, too, was genuinely shocked that the movie, the first shot of the movie is Travis Scott. Yes. Saying, sing, oh muse. And so I was like, oh, did people know this was coming if they saw the preview? Oh, no. I'll also say, Sam Clements of Picturehouse, aforementioned, goes to like the European equivalents of CinemaCon. And he said that a month or two ago, they showed what they said was the opening of the

37:07movie, and it was very different than this. It was constructed differently. So it feels like they've been... The editing of this movie feels very free-flowing. I could see this being a thing that he kept iterating on until the last second. But to your point of the Travis Scott thing and the stupid controversies that existed around this movie, which Nolan very wisely didn't really weigh in on until recently he had to do the press tour. And then I thought he put it perfectly, which is, you know, a lot of people were complaining that there were things in the trailers and the posters and fucking whatever that seemed

37:41too modern or too casual or didn't seem historically accurate. And this is partially a trap of Nolan's own making in that his fans have come to build this sort of mythology around him of being like the guy who takes everything the most seriously, whereas that has never been his thing. There's always been silliness in his movies. There's always been flights of fancy and stylization in his movies. He is a literal-minded guy in a certain kind of way, but it doesn't mean that he's a guy who just is like nothing but the facts, ma'am.

38:11And he said, you know, so much of what people consider to be accurate in these types of movies is based on iteration of theatrical traditions of how we tell these stories. These things like that we like to think of, of people speaking in Shakespearean accents in a certain language, is like a theatrical form that we use to connote seriousness that is put on epics like this. And as you said, this movie is starting out in being like, this is the tradition that this is in, and we're going to translate this into something that feels urgent to you right

38:44now, a modern audience, rather than trying to gloss it up in some sort of sense of seriousness. Right. And then you almost immediately go to the beaches with the horse, right? Well, you sort of do. It's basically like he's starting to tell the story, and you see Elliot Page getting pinned to the horse. But then, what, isn't it Penelope? Anne Hathaway is like, no, I don't want to hear the fucking story. Because the point is, it's like- I hate that story. Enough of this. We've been singing the song of Odysseus for so long, but where is he?

39:15If we heard he did this, then why hasn't he come back? If they won. Other guys came back. Where's my husband? Right. The other guys came back. And meanwhile, Odysseus is on a beach with Charlize Theron, and, you know, send help vibes, obviously. Nice work if you can get it, vibes. I love when she wears that little, like, fishnet thing. Yeah. And I was like, ooh, that's so couture. She's the catch of the day, you know what I'm saying? She really is. David, she's the catch of the day. I understand what you're saying.

39:47I would say Odysseus actually is the catch of the day. She caught him. And she's like, I like what I caught him. She's been feeding his ass lotus. I know. He really likes that lotus flower. It doesn't look- It's very pretty. It didn't look appetizing to me. It doesn't look filling to me. It's not about how it looks. It's about how it feels. Yeah, I understand. I could use some lotus sometimes. Same. Definitely lately. Well, I mean- Once in a while, you got a lotus night. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'll tell you- You need to pull a pedal. Yep. Or two. Mike White, he could use the lotus.

40:18He could use it? I think he's got more than enough of it. He should share the lotus. You're right. He should share the lotus. I don't know. I was trying to figure out a white lotus joke. Can Mike White share the lotus, please? Just share the lotus, Mike White. Just share the lotus, Mike White. Did I just- I just saw something that he wrote. What was it? Oh, yeah. Despicable Me 4. Despicable Me 4. Yeah. Oh, okay. He has a writing credit on that one. And on three, maybe? He's got them on two of them. Am I wrong? Let's find out. He also wrote Migration. He's quite- He wrote Migration. He has no other Minion credits, but of course he wrote the Emoji movie.

40:53That's- Okay, there we go. Which is not Illumination, but I lump in my mind. And he did write Pitch Perfect 3 and no others. Yes. Weird. Interesting. We both were watching through all the Despicable Me and Minions movies in anticipation of Minions and monsters simultaneously. Yes. And it was very funny for you and I to check in with each other and be like, yep, still don't like these very much. Not too much. I like the Minions. More to watch. Right, yeah. No, but they never really got me those earlier ones.

41:25See, you were like way out on Gru and really in on the Minions and I'm a little bit in on Gru and I'm not that in on the Minions and both of us were just like, not my cup of tea. Some stuff I like. Anyway- I don't like Gru. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to Gru. I kind of like her. And you know who I really like? Gru's mom? No, Gru's wife, Lucy, who is her own person who has a lipstick taser. And I think it's quite fetching.

41:52Yeah, she's okay. Played by Kristen Wiig. I'm glad she's cashing the checks. I'm glad everyone's cashing their checks, you know? That's funny. Direct deposit on that one, right? Yeah. No one's taking the time to run those to the bank. No. They're doing mobile deposit or at worst, they're taking the photo on their phone. Do you think that the Cyclops in Christopher Nolan's version of the Odyssey would have been harmed by stepping on a Lego in the way that the Cyclops in the Minions version of the Odyssey was?

42:23I mean, that whole sequence would be over in two minutes if Odysseus had thought to carve a Lego block. That's all he needed to do. The Minions had the answer, Henry and James. I wanted to bring up that we see Elliot Page, whose character is Sinon and the horse so early, because this movie feels very haunted by the horse. The horse is very forward in the marketing. It's on the poster. They've been putting the horse up outside of theaters. There's a horse popcorn bucket.

42:54And I assumed, oh, there's probably a big horse set piece. But that's not the main story that Nolan wants to tell, is just the Haydn and the horse. But this movie keeps cutting back to the horse as this thing that fucking haunts Odysseus. Yes. That the thing that he's most known for, what is seen as his greatest triumph, he can kind of never get over what feels like the dishonesty of it. Yes. So this is, I would say, the brilliant conceit of this movie. And it's clear that Nolan, you know, is like, okay, I'll do the Odyssey.

43:29He's sitting in his chair, drinking a cup of tea, not having a smartphone. And he's like, perhaps the Odyssey. But like, the Odyssey is the original great tale of Western storytelling or whatever. But like, it is not something that you can locate emotion in easily. Uh, and, but it is, if you read the Odyssey, it is obsessed with hospitality. Like, that's a huge part of the poem. The idea, the ancient Greek notion of hospitality.

44:00And, you know, they call it Zeus's law here. You know, the sort of like, be kind to, you know, welcome a stranger to your home. And like, you know. And any simple beggar might actually be your co-host in disguise over Zeus. Exactly, and might have wonderful, Seth Bullock has facial hair and all that. And it's a simple idea. Because like, both the Iliad, which is also by Homer, quote unquote, you know, we don't really, you know. And the Odyssey. Those things are not like, and we really fucked Troy over.

44:31Like, those things are like, it rocked when we smashed Troy to pieces. And you're like, great, you know, you're so. But like, it's very simple for Nolan, but it's very clever for him to be like, it's kind of fucked up. You know, we, you know, kind of lied our way in there. And then we sacked the city and. Oh, you think it was a Lied up with a bunch of soldiers and a horse? And to make this, this sort of like notion of like Odysseus, right. Is weighted with the guilt of like, we did kind of defy the gods by doing that. Yeah. And like, we are the ones who maybe have contributed to the feeling that society is ending around us.

45:08And makes the film feel contemporary without it feeling didactic to me. Like, I was just kind of like. They broke the social contract. I kind of can't believe he pulled that off. Yes. In this movie. Much like Oppenheimer's the same way, right. Where it's very haunted by like the world we live in now. Oppenheimer made the terrible world we live in now. He didn't mean to. He was just smashing bits together in his, his particle accelerator or whatever. Right. You know, and fucking everyone's wives. Nolan movies, because he has become the guy at the top of the mountain,

45:39he has become the person who represents filmmaking globally, sort of as an idea. And certainly as an industry. And now is literally also the president of the DGA. A guy at his level of career rarely takes on an elected position like that. Except it feels like he's like, there's too much at stake. And my people need me and I have to fight for them. All of his movies have increasingly become about two things. One, I am the only one who can do this. The burden is heavy on me, but I must do this for everyone else.

46:10Two, what have I done? Oh, sweet Jesus. What have I done? And this is a movie about a guy who's like, I need to do this for everybody else. And the final shot of the movie is literally the shadow of the Trojan horse. It's like he cannot get out from under that shadow. It's one of the first things we see in the shadow, the silhouette is the last thing we see. You know, it's beautiful stuff. Do you guys know about the Sea People theory of Bronze Age collapse?

46:41Can I very briefly? That's like what they were talking about in the movie. The Sea People that were ruining everything. You know, so sort of during the late Bronze Age, all of the major civilizations in the Mediterranean basically collapsed. And no one knows why, because it was so freaking long ago. So we can't really. We're talking like the 12th century BC or whatever. And it led to the first Dark Age. Right. Not the lovely Dark Age we like to think about, which is like, you know, whatever, like the 8th century and people rattling, you know, I don't know, carts and stuff.

47:18What do people do in that Dark Age? Yeah, rattle carts. Yeah. Coughing blood into a tissue. Rats everywhere. But like the old, old Dark Age. And one of these notions is like the Sea People, like it's like an academic theory that like these kingdoms were done in by invaders and no one knows who or even why or except for it. But like, and I just love Nolan picking up on that and having that be this like looming threat in the movie. And then, of course, at the end, it's like, well, no, but we are.

47:50We're the, you know, we're the ones who ruin civilization. Like going to do a stupid war that sucked for no good reason and then returning home to like, you know, like places, you know, our homes were in turmoil and like with civility gone and everyone at each other's throats and getting stabbed. Right. I also think, yes. And within that framework, you realize that the big set pieces of the Odyssey as a story are mostly about them being bad guests.

48:21It's like, we just got to get home and they land in a different place and come across a different creature and just kind of our shitty house guests over and over and over again. There's that early moment where they show up on some beach and the guys have like burned their houses and are in a bad mood. And Pimish Fratel is like, we're Greeks, like we're not threatening. Like, you know, even though he's like in armor and has a sword. Why are you scared of us? And the guy's like, oh, fuck you.

48:51See people leave me alone. Let's clarify. They pull up their whole town is on fire. He's like, why? He's like, we saw people coming. We thought we'd just get this over with. Like rather than let you burn us to the ground, we'll burn ourselves down. Like that's the level of paranoia and exhaustion everyone's at. Uh, yes. Um, but okay. So let me, let me try and unpack the, uh, the flow of the story here. So yes, the first bit obviously is just, we're in Ithaca. We're with Telemachus.

49:21Penelope is in a bad mood. I was, she's many a suitor. I was really impressed by how cunty Anne Hathaway was in this role. She's great in this movie. She's great. David, what did you text about Anne Hathaway the other day? Because we, you know. I thought you worked with this very well. Uh, someone, someone was noting what a busy year she's having. Six movies. Is it six? I'm going to look it up. Mother Mary, Devil Wears Prada 2. Yep. The Odyssey. Oak Street. Verity. Oak Street.

49:52Oak Street. And I believe there's one more that I'm forgetting. No, it's just five. Just five. It's just five? There's a movie called Alone at Dawn that's a Ron Howard movie. Yes. With Adam Driver. But I'm not sure if we know when that's coming out. It'll, it'll, it'll come out eventually. Well, now that I know it's only five, she seems like a slacker. I said Anne Hathaway is a gift to Hollywood that we should always be thankful for. And I certainly believe that. The range of just even the three movies she's had out so far is pretty astonishing.

50:24Well, it's also interesting because like, it's not like Anne Hathaway had had, she's been working, like it's like, she, she didn't like go dark, but it was sort of like, the size of the movies had shrunk a little bit. Yeah. And like, after Ocean's 8, which she's great in, but even that's a supporting role or whatever, you know, she's got that weird Serenity, the Hustle, Dark Waters year where like, we love Serenity, but it's, it's a weird one. The Hustle was filmed like seven years prior. Dark Waters is a wonderful movie, but she's kind of just showing up to help it along the

50:57lines. And right. Yes. As you said, that was a tax deductible. Last thing he wanted, disaster. Right. Last thing he wanted is one of those movies where you're like, did they forget to finish it? Like, sorry to that movie. The Witches. The Witches obviously was five stars, A plus. We love that one on Blank Check. Like all these movies are in one of two categories. She tried something smaller and more interesting and it worked or it didn't, or a real failed attempt at a major movie. So the stuff she's doing that's good is not really at the center of the culture.

51:28And the stuff that's attempting to be at the center of the culture is not working. But then like, you know, locked down, we're going to give everyone a pass on that one. The pandemic made everyone. Right. Armageddon Time. Again, she's great, but it does it a little bit, again, kind of like, I'm here to help this movie along. I'm not. And then Eileen I did like, but it didn't really go anywhere. So good. She's excellent in that. She's great in Eileen. I did not see the Rebecca Miller film She Came to Me. Me neither. No, which is her and Dinklage and who's the other guy? Tomei?

51:58Oh, Marissa Tomei.

52:01And then there was The Mother's Curse or whatever that movie's called. Right. Her very kind of like trashy 2024 of Mother's Instinct and The Idea of You. The Idea of You is good. No, it's not. Yes, it is. It is good. She's good in it. I respect her. That movie is not good. That movie is good. Sure. The boy band in it. Good. It was a streaming hit. It was a big streaming hit. I don't think Michael Showalter is capable of telling a story like that with sincerity. You don't think he knows how to put on a show, Walter?

52:33You know what? I found it. Sometimes he does. I found it very sincere. I liked when they were in their hotel room kind of like kissing and dancing to dance all days. Yeah. There you go. But you were saying basically last year she was quiet because a lot of her 25 movies got pushed back to 26. Right. Mother Mary got pushed to early. And Oak Street got pushed. Yeah. Can't wait for whatever the heck that is. I know this is kind of her big center stage year and I love that it's such an array of

53:03even different sized roles and different styles of performance. She's so kind of stripped down in this. Yes. Like she's really just sort of laser focused. Yeah. And she's not doing any of the theater kid stuff that people sometimes bristle at. And I think it's why she's so good and why, as you put it, she's a gift to Hollywood because it's like, she's like an old school movie star who can do any type of thing. She really is. And, you know, like the scenes she has, the flashbacks with Damon before he goes to war

53:38are really like simple and beautifully done and get all the emotion across very fast. Also fucking sexy. Yeah. A little sexy. But like you have very little time to establish a sense of genuine chemistry between those two characters and you're doing it late into the film and immediately you're like, there's heat here. There's a reason why she's not remarrying. Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. I mean, look, Robert Pattinson is a handsome fellow. Okay. I wouldn't fucking marry this asshole. Right. Would you?

54:08This guy, this guy's an asshole. Are we, are we, can we say he's an asshole? He's an asshole. He is so good. I just love that he is always game, like, you know, that he's not like, whatever, like looking for the sympathetic role or looking for the, you know, like he just wants to play little slimy freaks and he's so good at it. They just announced that Batman is being pushed back another six months and people are wringing their hands over it. And I'm like, there is no better outcome than Robert Pattinson having six years in between Batman movies to do whatever weird shit he wants to do.

54:41So Batman's the ultimate hammock in between. He's just given latitude to do whatever because they go like, as long as you promise you're going to put that cowl back on, we'll let you play your worms. He's got, and he's got five movies in this year too. He's got, he's having a crazy year. Okay, wait. So it's this. Yeah. It's prime time. Yeah. Which I hear is great. It's the drama. Yeah. And then the other two are, have, neither of them have yet to come out.

55:12Correct. One we just got a trailer for. Yeah. Dune part three. He's the villain. And then what's the fifth movie? It's the Fernander Merrill film, Here Comes the Flood with him and Denzel Washington. Oh, which sounds awesome. It's a Netflix thriller, but does sound very cool. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So he's all over the place and he's doing different voices and he's having fun, being a little sicko. And he is, yeah, he's the lead suitor here. He likened the character to James Woods character, Lester Diamond from the 1995 film Casino.

55:42Which we will be talking about soon. Just a classic Robert Pattinson poll to like read the Odyssey and go like, you know what this character's like? James Woods and Casino. You've also got the great Corey Hawkins. I love Corey Hawkins. Those are the main two suitor jerks, I feel like, right? He's sort of the right hand man. Yeah. I think he's just a total fucking gem. He's always good. Love to see Corey Hawkins. Yes. Yeah. He's not working enough. No. Yeah. And then Logan Marshall Green and Mia Goth are the two kind of grandma worm tongues of

56:17the palace. Right. She is like this. She is a servant to Penelope. Yes. I think it's unspoken in the movie, but they are twins. They're siblings. Logan Marshall Green and Mia Goth in the myth of the Odyssey. Yes. They're working together. They're the bad servants. They're not being, they're not, you know, tending to Odysseus's flock. Now, who is? Leguizamo. Leguizamo. Holding a stick. Being blind. But he can see more clearly than everyone.

56:47There's, there is a bit of a, you know, there's an irony there. It's true. It's a real irony. So a little rude for him to throw a dog off a cliff. Yeah. Right at the top of the movie. David and I were concerned. One of the first things we said after we got out of the movie was we were worried how Ben was going to take the, the dog violence in this film. Yeah. It's the kind of thing that does turn Ben off completely. Yes. Sometimes. But I think because he did it like so early in the film, it felt like just pulling the bandaid off. Okay. And then of course they treat the other dog, Odysseus' dog, really well.

57:21Even though he's like old and sad. Yes. And waiting for Odysseus to return home. I think they also, the, the inhumanity of how the animals are treated is used as a dramatic storytelling tool for the rot of society. Yes. It is, it is not something that is done callously. It's not using it just to shock you. No, no, not at all. No, it's, it's your, I think all the stakes of the, they are like, because yes, there's the argument for like, shouldn't we shoot this movie out of a cannon?

57:51Shouldn't we start with something really exciting? And it's like, now you just sort of, it's not just that he wants to go home. You're like, his home is like ruined without him. Like, it's like, he's. You're starting with the feeling of his absence. There's a vacuum and he's missing and it's just like, yeah, it's, it's ruining everything. Which is what the story is really about. Right. It's the fact that this guy's fucking gone. There are like two main sort of narrative or storytelling devices, I guess. The first is Tom Holland hearing stories about his father. Sure.

58:21As he, he's on his, he's never, he was a baby when he left. When he left. So he is traveling and hearing stories from other people, most notably John Bernthal. Yeah, Bernthal. Let me tell you something. You're done. He's a pretty cool guy. The fifth season of Serial and pull enough stories together from his dad to get a good narrative going. And then the other, on the other end, we have Matt Damon with Calypso played by Charlize Theron. And she is kind of goading him to remember how he ended up.

58:57How did I get here? What happened to my men? But also being like, do you really want to remember? Yeah. Doesn't remembering suck? Are you ready yet? Doesn't it suck here? Have some more Lotus, baby. Yeah. Take some Lotus. We're right. We're, we're sort of like trying to put the pieces together of like, okay, what happened? Where are his men? What happened? Why did he, why hasn't he come home? And then I feel like the first, then we, we do find, you know, okay, what do you remember? We do finally get to them, like getting on the boat. And I guess is the first place they go to the, to, you know, the, the Cyclops, right?

59:32Like that's the first sort of major sequence. The first major set piece in Odysseus' journey that we see. But we also establish what life was like back on Ithaca before Odysseus left. We meet young Robert Pattinson and young Elliot Page. That's true. I was going to say, yes. Which sets up a, you know, a very upsetting dynamic of. What is Pattinson's character's name again? It's like Antonius or whatever, Antonius.

1:00:02He's, yeah. Yes. But the, the volunteering Murray. Right. Antonius, Antinius maybe. Antonius. I don't know. I don't know. What do I know? Every time, every time I watch something where it's like little boys going off to war. This also happens in Horatio Hornblower and in Master and Commander. I just get very upset. I think it shouldn't happen. But they're drawing sticks. And they're drawing lots. Yeah. Like a short stick gets you on the boat.

1:00:34And Odysseus' cousin, Sinon, draws. Elliot Page. Elliot Page draws whatever the stick that means that he has to go to war. Right. They say there's a lottery draft going on. They need to build an army. It's a lottery draft. And Sinon gets picked, who is a very small child. Yes. Right. And the Pattinson character sort of volunteers to go in its stead, not just out of some generosity, but also because of, I think, an ego of wanting to be a big, tough boy. He's a little older. He's a teenager. And Odysseus puts his foot down and goes like, it's got to be who's chosen.

1:01:07And also says to the Pattinson character. No, no, no. No, no. Antonia, you know, it's Pattinson draws the short stick. Sinon is put in his place. Right. Oh, okay. The whole point is that Antonia's ducked the draft. Correct. That's why him giving the lot back to him is like, this is your shame. I misread that. See, I also didn't get that. Right. It's like Antonius is the, I think, you know, the richer. Because he is like one of the big wigs or his family right on Ithaca, I want to assume. That's why he's a cheap suitor. So he pays the littler guy to take his point.

1:01:41And they're saying that Odysseus basically kind of knew what was happening and overlooked it. Or, like, didn't put his foot down because, like, he knows, like, he doesn't want to wound the pride of the parents, like they say. And this will all be helpful on rewatch, I will say. Because, like, this information, it's the classic Nolan thing of this information is being, like, hydraulically delivered to you in voiceover and flashback. And you're like, okay, okay, okay, okay. And you can tell, like, it's the Nolan thing where he's like, this will matter later. Like, you need to know all the context. I mean, that happens in, like, the first 10 minutes.

1:02:13Very early on. You barely met the characters. We have not met the characters. And I did not even totally track that, you know, that Sinan had become, you know, Elliot Page had grown up to be. Because, like, it almost says something to the effect of, you know, he needed to do things to help the ego. And basically, Odysseus says this thing of, no, it's actually good if you stay because you need to watch after your family and watch after my family as well. Which kind of poisons him with the idea of, oh, I have a responsibility to watch your family. I should probably fuck your wife if you disappear.

1:02:47That's kind of the implication, is it not? I mean, you know. He goes, message received. I got it. So if you're gone for, like, five years, I should start trying to fuck your wife? Maybe Greek law should have some rules on this, okay? Maybe there should be time limits. Yes. But, okay. So, but no, no. We're with Odysseus. And it's post-Troy. We still haven't really seen the sack of Troy. But we've seen little glimpses of the horse and all that.

1:03:12And... God, the horse looks so good. The horse looks really good. It do look pretty cool. Really awesome. It's awesome. And he sees, you know, Agamemnon, played by Benny Safdie, in this crazy imposing armor. Nolan wanted him to have... He has what's it called? It's called black bronze and sulfur in his armor, which Nolan was like, these were, like, the most expensive sort of materials back then. So we wanted him to have this. Oh, fuck, there's got a gold spine on the back of this. What the hell do you do? It is so funny that it's Benny Safdie. Not that he's not good. He is good.

1:03:42We never see his face in the movie. Not really. We see his beautiful hair. Yes. I mean, we see his face through a slit. We see the, yeah, the... It is interesting, though, that that was the main, like, one of the main posters for the film. Right, was the back of his... Was the back of Agamemnon's head, like the helmet. I wonder how much he kind of just likes that imagery and how much it is that, like, much like the shadow of the horse, the sort of, like, image of Agamemnon's armor without ever seeing the guy inside represents this force that's pushing everything along.

1:04:16Right. I mean, and, you know, I interviewed Benny Safdie last year. I told you this, Marie. Yes. And he had just finished The Odyssey. And I was like, who are you playing? And I just assumed he was going to be playing some weirdo. Like, I was like, of course Safdie's going to play, like, I don't know. Oh, yeah. Like a weird little trickster or, you know, right? Like a mean suitor. And he was like, I can't tell you, but we were just in Iceland, like, shooting on this, like, black beach is what you get to.

1:04:46And then obviously that's the, like, afterlife sequence. That was another favorite sequence in the movie. This is really great. But you basically never see his face. It's like the idea of him looms so large. And most directors, I think, would go, oh, so then what you should cast in this role is either a stunt performer, because this is mostly going to be physical. It's going to be who fills the suit. Or cast a guy with a voice like Clancy Brown, because it's mostly going to be booming voice if you're not going to see their face. And as you say, it's so funny that he cast Benny Safdie, who's such, like, a presence

1:05:19energy guy. Yeah. And is also, like, a sensitivity guy. But Safdie is, I will say, he's very tall. He's, like, 6'1", and he has this great hair. And maybe Nolan just kind of liked the physicality. I appreciate it. I think, you know, you guys bring this up. You brought this up a lot in the Peter Weir series, the casting for the final color thing. Oh, yeah. And I do think that when we get the backstory of what happened to him, and when he is in Hades and he is speaking from the dead,

1:05:55there is, like, a pathos to it that it really got to me. You need to be able to unravel this guy. You need to be able to strip away the sort of imagery and the mythology of him to get to a sort of broken person inside eventually. So, I'm not really a big ancient Greece person, and I was asking David Sims on the subway home from the movie, I was like, I want to keep living in this world. So, like, what movies should I watch next?

1:06:28Oh, I wasn't even thinking movies. I was going to suggest a time machine. That seems a little expensive. But, you know, I did pay $4.99 to rent Troy on Amazon Prime. I want to talk about this briefly. I'm very confused by this recent holding up of Troy as the gold standard. Griffin, we got to get into it. That movie is fucking dog shit. I hadn't seen it until, like, this week when I watched it after The Odyssey, which is a masterpiece, and there is, you know, it's a, the Iliad is part one,

1:07:03The Odyssey part two, you know, so it's like a prequel. A lot of the same characters are in there. What the fuck? What's going on there? It's a very hollow movie in my memory. Right. I hated it when it came out. I thought it was a bomb. People didn't like it when it came out. It got bad reviews. It made money. It made a lot of money. It was a hit. But it was not taken seriously. Yeah, it got no Oscar attention. And after, like, you know, in the warm-up, because of movies like Gladiator, people were like, maybe this will be epic, you know? And I pointed out to you, it is the same year as Alexander.

1:07:34There were two, like, giant budget swings that, like, great. Well, if Gladiator wins Best Picture, what other, like, epics can we do? And they did the most obvious. They did the Iliad, and they did Alexander the Great. Like, they did the most obvious ones possible. Both of those movies are flawed. Troy made a lot of money, but sucks. Alexander didn't make enough money, but is very interesting. In my opinion. And then they both have the director's cut, DVD, re-edit, legacy. Where they're like, I fixed it. And you're like, no. Did you? Yeah. I'm not sure that you did.

1:08:05I mean, the big problem with Troy, it's the ultimate pit thing of, like, he sucks at this. Yeah. He's so good at playing squirrely weirdo. He's actually not good at playing. The hero. The alpha. Like, that's not what he likes. It's also, that's his cat in the hat. That's, he has to make that movie because he pulled out of the fountain. Warner Brothers were like, you fucking owe us a movie. And he was like, ugh, do I have to do some movie star shit? He's really blonde in it. I remember him looking great. I wasn't into it.

1:08:36Yeah. But the thing that was really sending me, like, watching it immediately after the Odyssey, was that Brian Cox is playing Agamemnon. He is Agamemnon. Yes. Very similar to Benny Safty. And I'm just like, wow, these are two very, very different interpretations of this character. Brendan Gleeson plays Menelaus. Yeah. And who plays Odysseus? Sean Bean. Sean Bean. He's the best part of the movie. Okay. Yeah. Sean Bean's fine. See, I don't even remember it that well. But I just remember it being like, it's all surface level.

1:09:08It feels like an impression of a type of movie, a type of epic that actually has ideas within it. And it's only absorbed the aesthetics. The ideas that are in Troy are not ideas about, like, man and psychology. They're more like mapping, like, political and historical ideas of war onto. To a myth. Which is not that interesting to me.

1:09:39I agree with you. I don't find that interesting. I'm more interested in the interiority, which is what the Odyssey is. It's like, it's such a psychological story while also being really epic visually. It's why I related this to Thin Red Line is, A, your perspective character is changing a lot throughout the movie. And B, it feels like you're often kind of editing laterally through the character's memories and thoughts and feelings.

1:10:09It is so much trying to find a way to put you in the inner life of these people rather than zooming out and turning it into mythology. Right. So, David, I got to ask, since we're talking about the Iliad and how that story then relates to the Odyssey, how do you feel about them not really including a lot of the gods in this story, in this film? So, we really only get mention of Zeus and his law.

1:10:43They talk about the gods on Poseidon. And Poseidon. Mention Poseidon. But I'm saying we only really see Athena. So, the thing in the Odyssey, the story is, for example, one of the important moments in the Odyssey is that Odysseus is stuck on the island with Calypso. In this movie, he has this emotional realization of like, right, I'm ready to go home. I'm accepting the loss of my men. Right. You know, it's this big. In the Odyssey, Hermes, the messenger god, shows up and is like, hey, time to go.

1:11:16And Odysseus is like, oh, fuck. Okay. He's like, come on. Boat's this way. That happens a lot in the poem. The gods show up and they're like, wow. Totally. I mean, even the reason that Helen ends up in Troy is because of intervention from the gods. Right. And so, obviously, that's a little dramatically not going to, you know, that won't work. I think it totally makes sense that he made that choice. It's just when you go back to the source material, I mean, especially in the Iliad, it's like the children of the gods are all kind of connected.

1:11:49And Zeus sees a lady and is like, oh, kid. He's a freaking swan. He's like, I'm going to turn into a swan fucker. And then she has eggs. And one of the children that come out of the eggs is Helen. Can I do a tiny little merch spotlight? Look at what they were giving out at the screening. Oh, you got the pin. Oh, you got the Athena pin. I got the Athena pin. Oh, we didn't get pins. What did you get, Ben? I got the Athena. You got the Athena. They had the Athena and the horse, but you could only take one. I tried to take two and I got yelled at very loudly. Well, the Athena pin feels like that would be my pick because the pin itself is such an important part of the movie.

1:12:25It was before the movie, but I had a feeling this is closer to the movie object, which I always like in my merch. So Penelope gives this pin to Odysseus as a way of remembering her, but also as a symbol to prove that it is him. Yes. I saw Interstellar again last week, David, because it was just playing in 70 millimeter in Spain. They're just rolling out the classics, right? Yes. And you said that's a smart rewatch.

1:12:57I have a feeling these two movies are going to be really paired together. A voyage home. I mean, Nolan loves his I feel so bad for leaving. How do I get back home kind of movie? Yeah.

1:13:10I need to get back to my family. I need to get back to my wife. I need to get back to my daughter. He's so tormented by it. But he works with his wife. I know, but I just feel like it's like clearly this thing that, you know, because like so many of his movies have that. Well, yeah, I think it's less about the way that he runs his life as an adult, a husband and a father, but more of what he experienced as a child when his family was split up. I think it's 50 percent that. And I think informed by that it is his worst nightmare. It's the reason he works with his wife and he makes everything a family production is because he can imagine no worse fate than being stuck on a shoot for six months away from his family.

1:13:47Like he is just such an ultimate wife and family guy that he needs that unit around himself. And so if he's writing an emotional story of a challenge, it's the biggest challenge he can imagine in so many ways, which is why, you know, people go, why is he so obsessed with the dead wife thing? I like that he has moved away from dead wives and has found a way to tell stories about men longing for their wives that do not require them to be dead. But that scene is so fascinating because the dialogue, even though it's a very different scene where she hands him the pen, feels so similar, having watched it recently, to the final child Murph scene of like, I'm coming back.

1:14:25I'm coming back. When are you coming back? I can't tell you, but I'm coming back. I just promise you that I'm coming back. Yeah, I mean, I think Christopher Nolan is by and large a charmed man who leads a wonderful life and he knows that, like he's got a great thing going on. But that's clearly the fear that drives him a little bit or whatever, keeps him up at night, I guess. I mean, he's just, he's very similar to Shyamalan, in my opinion, in this regard. He's just so concerned with like the world we're leaving our children with like what the future is going to look like for his family.

1:14:59And he can blow it out, you know, to big epic scale. But it's, you know, it's what, what makes these movies tick. The key difference between him and Shyamalan is obviously that Nolan is not very concerned with what if the devil was in an elevator. Other than that, I do think they're very, not yet. No, per se, he wants to do a horror movie. What if he's like, I'm remaking Devil? Yes. M. Night Shyamalan produced thriller. That would be the greatest move in the history of movies. I saw Logan Marshall Green on the set of The Odyssey and we started talking about Devil and I said, who has the rights to Devil?

1:15:31And he said, I have them, they cost $1.

1:15:34You can have them right now for one whole dollar. Who directed Devil? Because it wasn't Shyamalan. It wasn't Shyamalan. John Eric Dowdle. What else has he done? He did the remake of the Spanish film Wreck Quarantine. Oh, sure. He did the Poughkeepsie tapes, which is one of those fucked up, tiny budget horror movies that everyone talks about. Yeah, they kind of never got a proper release. Right, and then he did As Above, So Below. Oh, sure. That's the Catacombs movie? Yeah, and then something called No Escape that I've never heard of.

1:16:05Oh, yeah, that is like Owen Wilson is stuck in a country that is having some sort of political uprising. Yeah. It's Owen Wilson trying to do Behind Enemy Lines again. It's like straight survival action movie. Except he's a family man. The Athena pin is handed to Odysseus as a, if I can't stop you from leaving, then let Athena watch after you. Which does feel like, talking about Nolan imagining his worst nightmares, it's like handing him a smartphone. It's saying, if you're going to leave and be away for a really long time, at least take this pin so Athena can pop in and talk to you all the time.

1:16:40It is such an incredible display of Christopher Nolan's clout that you're like, what does Zendaya play in this movie? Zendaya plays Athena. Athena, the god watching over Odysseus. She shows up at certain times over his shoulder and gives him a look and says like one line. Zendaya, as an actor, is really, really good at doing like disappointed face. She's unbelievable at it. Yes. When she makes that face, I'm like, oof, I feel bad. You don't want her silent judgment. But this is the kind of role where you go, oh, it's pretty small.

1:17:13You can't shoot her out three days because she has to be in 20 different countries. Yeah. She has to keep showing up on different ships. Yeah, I mean, she's obviously like in the movie probably for five minutes total. She makes an impression. She makes a huge impression and she must have been, yeah. I mean, every small part in this movie is played by someone that has a Wikipedia page. Yes. Like our mutual acquaintance, Griffin Shiloh Fernandez, is in this movie.

1:17:46Yes. Somewhat briefly? He plays one of the Trojan soldiers who I think approaches Elliot Page in the beginning of the movie. He never takes his mask off. But it is crazy that like even those guys are played by guys. Totally. Right. I mean, who wouldn't want to be on these sets, right? The beggar in the beginning is James Remar. Yeah, I asked David and I didn't know who it was. I believe it's James Remar.

1:18:16No, no, no. No, no. James Remar is the prophet. Is he Hades? Oh, okay. Yeah, like Taurus, yes, or whatever his name is. But yeah, he's the guy buried in the sand. Yeah, I recognize the bottom of his stuff. Yes, while I was trying to pay attention to that scene, Marie kept being like, is that Richard from Sex and the City? And I was like, hey, I think so, Marie, be quiet. I knew James Remar was... I was just really excited that it was him. One of the two cloaked guys. I don't know who the guy was at the beginning, but he seems so familiar. Yeah.

1:18:47By the time this episode comes out, we're going to point out. Marie and I were trying to figure out who that was. We couldn't figure it out, but I'm sure we will know in a bit. It speaks to the Nolan mystery box kind of thing. There's still so many actors for this movie with unlisted characters on IMDb. Like the cast has been announced, but it was not really told who was playing what other than the top 10 people. Right, right.

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1:21:21Let's just talk, because the movie is a bit of like an episodic structure. Let's just talk about the scene. Okay, so, all right, Cyclops. Cyclops is the first big thing. They go to island. They follow some sheep, as you do. Yep. Into a cave. There was that nasty moment where Odysseus just sees like giant bags of cheese hanging on the walls of the cave and just eats some. They're hungry. They're tired. I guess. I don't know if I would eat cave cheese. I don't know that I would eat random cheese hanging in a cave in a sack.

1:21:53Sort of where cheese comes from. It is, in fact. But usually it's been, for me, inspected by a government, one assumes, or at least by somebody, like a merchant. Fair enough. A trader. If there was a stamp on the bag of Agamemnon giving the thumbs up, would you feel okay if that was the inspection? Of course. Or if it was like, you know, Cyclops, you know, Polyphemus' beloved homespun cheese cave, you know, he had a little sign. Some sort of branding, you know?

1:22:23I will admit this because it was a special screening. The BFI South Bank, the concessions was not open. Oh, that's so bad. And I really wanted a popcorn and a soda the whole movie, especially because it's a long film. So when he goes over to the bags of cheese, I went like, that's disgusting. Is he really going to eat this? And then the more he started eating it, I started getting jealous of him. They're like, kind of go for a bag of cheese right now. Yeah. Do they sell cheese bags? I had to. Handful of cheese. They had popcorn going at the IMAX, but they had shut down all the other things. So I had to go downstairs, talk to the ticket taker and be like, hey, I need to go buy some

1:22:59food because I'm going to like faint if I don't eat something during this three-hour movie. And she was like, yeah, whatever. So you got chicken nuggets, nachos, and popcorn? That's right. Is that a problem? Is there a three-question? Well, I also got orange soda and the freestyle machine kind of spat some like orange, you know, like the sort of concentrated stuff on me. And it looked like I had robbed a bank and like a dye packet exploded on my hand. It was a very good time.

1:23:26I did feel borderline faint towards the end of this movie. I was talking to you guys before a quarter of just how fucking hot it has been in Europe. Yes. And halfway through every day, I get exhausted just from taking steps. And I think Europe has like one air conditioner per country, right? They kind of just like pass it around. Right. So this week, I think Spain has it. And sadly, I'm in London. Right. Um, I do, you know, it was bad timing to take a Euro trip, uh, you know, for some amount of work, right when a heat wave is hitting the entire continent.

1:23:58On the other hand, I feel great that I left the United States and New York in particular at the time that the diarrhea wave is hitting. There is. One of my friends has it. Yeah. There is some, there is some diarrhea out here. Didn't your sister have it? Everyone has the diarrhea. Yeah, your sister had it? I don't know if we want to announce that on the podcast. Well, she posted a sub stack about it. Oh, she stacked it? Yeah. She stacked it and she grammed it. She grammed the Rhea? Yeah. No, it is fun. No, Griff, I think you're wrong. You would be thriving right now because basically the government is like, you can only eat the

1:24:31most processed foods imaginable. Do not touch a vegetable. Leaves are not for you. Look, everyone, everyone's complaining about how bad it is. I go, yeah, welcome to my world. Now you know what it feels like for a minute. But Griffin, you're also missing the wildfires. It's causing a lot of residual smoke down here. So you also can't really, or you're not supposed to go outside, which is perfect for Griffin Newman. There's also like the Legionnaires outbreak on the Upper East Side. So you wouldn't be able to visit your grandma.

1:25:01That's a good point. My grandmother does live on the Upper East Side to dox her. I also say, I mean, Ben, if the wildfires from Canada are brushing over into New York City, I imagine it wouldn't be a good time to barbecue. Any smoking I would try to do would get intercepted by the smokes that were not in my control. Yeah. I'm very particular. You know, I'm fruit woods only. Have you been trying any of the barbecue in Europe? It's not really a barbecue hub. I've been trying to make my own. Of course. Yeah.

1:25:31You lugged a Weber green egg or whatever all the way on the plane. Smoking some jamon. Some jamon. Some smoked jamon. Yeah, I'm smoking some jamon. Right. I mean, they smoke meat well there. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. Yeah, I am smoking meat well here.

1:25:46So why do you like the Cyclops? Because he big boy. We did talk about this a little bit. All right. It's quite scary. I think the sequence is a marvel. I think it is something so uncanny to just make him a guy. I think it gets to, what's the opening title at the beginning of this film? It's something like. It is a time of magic. Something like that. I can't remember. Yes. Fucked up. And this is obviously a fantastical story that asks you to believe that centuries and centuries and centuries ago, magical things happened.

1:26:18And at some point they just disappeared from the world. Right? It's true. It's all true, actually. Okay. It's all true. Sorry, the opening title is, it is a lawless time, uh, crime syndicates compete for resources, food, medicine, and hyperfuel on the shipbuilding planet of Corellia. The foul lady Proxima forces runaways into a life of crime in exchange for shelter and protection. And coaxium, you can, you can smoke that, right? You can keep it hot? Coaxium needs to be cool as hell. So we got to keep it away from Madrid right now. Oh, absolutely. It needs to be so cold.

1:26:48Yeah. And Paris, they got no AC. Right. Yeah, it is funny. The Paris, they're just like, no, no, no. The cigarettes have no filters. The apartments have no air conditioners. Yes, no air conditioners, but we're going to smoke all the time. Yeah, right. And they take some damn naps. They do. They do. Have you been taking siestas? Napping. Oh, yeah. You're kidding me. You siesta maxing out there? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I know we were making jokes, but I did look up the actual opening prologue line.

1:27:21Please. It is a time of apparent magic. Oh, that's cool. There we go. Love that. Yeah. This is a thing I like about the realization of the Cyclops tied to that is it feels like you're witnessing something that could... They make him a scale that clearly becomes magical, right? Right, right. But other than that, you're like, am I just looking at a person with facial differences? Am I looking at something that could have been misinterpreted and through the oral tradition

1:27:52of the story being told and retold and reprocessed got more and more extreme? Right. They don't... I mean, you know, in the story, he talks to the Cyclops more because the whole thing is that he tricks him into thinking his name is nobody. He also gets him drunk. He does get him drunk. And that's how he ends up falling asleep. Right. And, you know, that's when the Cyclops is asked, like, who did this to you? He's like, nobody did this to me. You know, like, it's the trick. You know, it's a classic Odysseus, the cunning guy, right?

1:28:23And Nolan has said, like, I just couldn't figure out how to make that work. Right. Like, it's just a different movie, I guess, if it's just like he's talking. You know, like, he wanted it, I guess, to feel more primal, which it does. He does talk. Like, he makes noise and he says Poseidon. And it made me so sad. It's very... It's quite effective. This is the other thing. It's that it makes the character more sad because you're sort of like, is he almost being bullied by these guys? Right. They treat him like he's not, you know, intelligent at first. They're dealing with him like he's a wild animal.

1:28:55And then the realization that he has the ability of speech, which implies, obviously, like, deeper internal thoughts, has come after they've already fucked with him a bunch. He also crunched a bunch of them. He did. That's true. He'd do be crunching. There's some self-defense of crunching. I liked that the aesthetics of... They went in his cave and ate his cheese. They ate his cheese. But I guess Zeus's law says you should offer your cave cheese to anyone who shows up. They made a nice fire for him. Yeah, that's true. I thought the aesthetics of the Cyclops design really reminded me of 90s, like...

1:29:30I could have seen him in, like, the Madonna Bedtime Stories music video. That's a Marie thought right there. Isn't it? I like that his eye is sideways. Yeah. It's kind of vaginal. A little bit. And that's another Marie thought right there. A little bit. Well... Anyway, he burns his friggin' eye. He does. He does. Gives him a little poke. He lights a sword on fire, and they poke him to wake him up and then stab him in the eye. Yeah, and then they, you know, they have the hay, and they... Pretend to be sheep. They're pretending to be the sheep, which is, you know, that is classic.

1:30:01In the Arthur version of the Odyssey, because they don't want to really show violence, the Cyclops is embodied by Buster, the rabbit. Oh, perfect. And D.W. just ties his ears around his eyes. His eye. Is the... Is the Odyssey episode of Arthur from the Stephen Crowder era, or was he not voicing Brain at that time? Um, I have to admit that I am not super familiar with the cast and crew behind the show, Arthur.

1:30:34He only voiced the Brain for two seasons, Griffin, out of 25, so it's hard to, you know, narrow it down here. I think he did do Jekyll, Jekyll, Hyde, Jekyll, Hyde, Hyde, Jekyll, Jekyll, Jekyll, though, if I'm not mistaken. Someone will check that. I'm a little lost here, but that's... I'm assuming that's an Arthur episode. There's so many goddamn... Well, it's a musical number. Yeah. ...means about children's entertainment, and it's hard to keep up. Um... So they escape. Yes. They do escape, but... Odysseus... Odysseus does fire a little parting shot. Yes. Out of an anger.

1:31:05Shouldn't have done that. Should have done that. In the story, in the poem, it's... He just says his name triumphantly. And that's what gets them in trouble. But it's the same basic idea of, like, now they've invoked the gods. Now, I think that Nolan keeping the gods at a distance is good because it keeps the men's sort of opinions, like, kind of up in the air, too. You know, where they're like, no, no, the gods have cursed us. Right. But I like the idea that it's like, or maybe you cursed yourselves just by, you know, the way you've behaved over the years. Like, without it not having magic.

1:31:38Because Odysseus has hubris kind of throughout the story. Let's call out another thing here. One of our... I think it's maybe our true introduction to Odysseus in the movie, but in that first 30 minutes where we're getting so much information in different times thrown at us, we're watching Tom Holland train with Mentor, who, of course, is Ryan Hurst, our friend from the Lady Killers, who played Lump. He's got a real... He looks like he just walked off, like, the set of Sons of Anarchy or Vikings or whatever. Like, he's looking great.

1:32:08David, would you be surprised to hear that, in fact, he was on Sons of Anarchy? Yes. Yeah. And, of course, next is playing Kratos in the God of War series that everyone think looks perfect. Oh, everyone's grumpy about that one, which is the first time that video game fans have had some objection to an adaptation of their material. What I was going to say is we're introduced... Tom Holland is training with Mentor, and they're sort of explaining the way that his father used to fight and his rules and everything. And then there's, like, a flashback within a flashback. And Odysseus is explaining his whole method of stringing his bow, which is sort of his,

1:32:41like, Mjolnir test of no one can take the throne unless they can string his bow, a thing that only he can do. But also that he loves to pluck the bow to sort of play the musical note. Before, because he thinks it's the honorable thing to do to alert whatever he is about to shoot at, that he's engaging them in battle. Whether prey or upon us. That hunting is the same. Yes. You know what? He doesn't... The Trojan horse is the complete denial of the warning.

1:33:13Yeah. Yes. But even here with the Cyclops, you know? He, like, tricks him, and then he turns around and yells, like, another one. Yeah. And just fucking, like, spiked. He does briefly slip into Khaled mode, and he regrets it the rest of his life. And he brings out, like, 20 guest acts. Yeah. Right. While we're... Himesh Patel! That guy you've seen in a lot of movies playing heavies! What's his name again? Can we shout out Himesh Patel for a second, who we were introduced to, obviously. Shout out to Himesh Patel.

1:33:44Andrew Howard is who I'm mentioning there. Okay. Yeah. And Will Yun-Li. But yeah, no, Himesh Patel, who's in Tenet. Yes. And is wonderful in Tenet. Plays kind of an Adam Goldberg gum-chewing, annoyed asshole in that. Yeah, he's in the one set piece, basically. I guess he's in two. But, you know, he's like a helper guy. You want me to do what? Like, he's that kind of guy. Crash a plane into a freeport? Right. And then yesterday, he's obviously, like, doing a Hugh Grant thing, I think, incredibly well. And then in this, he's just playing, like, ultimate straight arrow right-hand man who's increasingly questioning, what is this mission we're on?

1:34:23Like, can I trust this guy? Yeah, I got a bone to pick with Wikipedia for the Odyssey, in parentheses, 2026 film. They list Himesh Patel as Odysseus' second-in-command and incompetent brother-in-law. Perhaps in the, again, I have not read the poem, The Odyssey. Yeah, in the poem, he is cowardly. He's a fool. He's sort of, like, the emblematic thing of, like, the men just not listening, not, like, heeding the signs and going into it. Isn't he one of the characters in the original poem that he's, you know, gifted that bag that controls wind?

1:35:00And then, like, he and some of the other crew members think there's gold hidden in it? Yeah, because they're, like, petty, you know, silly men. Yeah, yeah. I think in this, he is hyper-competent. I think he is portrayed as hyper-competent in order to cast more doubt on Odysseus, right? In order for Odysseus to doubt himself more. I also think him being such a, like, earthy, reliable character makes the ultimate loss of him.

1:35:33Right. He's the one you're really attached to among the men. Really, really, really sting. You need one of those guys to really be kind of delineated and fleshed out in that sort of way. Yes. Well, sorry, just to rewind a bit, we're talking about the Matt Damon bow trick. Not the plucking of the bow, but the stringing of the bow. Yeah. I'm just going to come out and say this. I've never really been a Matt Damon is hot, girly.

1:36:04Sure. Matt Damon's reliable. He's good. He's handsome. He's a cutie pie. He's a cutie pie. But, like, I've never been, like, ooh, Matt Damon. Takes the roles in things like Ford versus Ferrari or Air or whatever. It's like, well, he's the kind of doughy, you know, middle of the road guy. Like, he's not the sexier guy. He's become a little America's dad. We were talking about this in our True Grit episode with Stavi that, like, it's funny that Matt Damon had this big action star run with Jason Bourne.

1:36:35And it feels like he's firmly settled into his I am dad mode. And then we remembered, oh, right. His next movie is The Odyssey. Like, he's doing his one last seemingly I'm going to get fucking swole as hell. He's ripped, yeah. But he's ripped in a really attractive. He's sinewy. Realistic. Realistic way. Earthy. Where I was just like, ugh. I think they should have put the bodysuit from live action Moana on him. I think that would have worked better. Don't you think?

1:37:06Yeah. My problem with Odysseus in this movie is that he had nipples. And I wish we could just take those off and just have smooth rubbery pecs. Have you seen it yet, David? Are you seeing it? No, I won't be seeing it. None of us are seeing it. No, no, no. Unfortunately, Ben had to see it. Unfortunately, of course. Did see it. Why? Because these are Critical Darlings. Critical Darlings. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Right. So you had to help out there. Yes. But no, no, my daughter. Oh, I should mention, it sucks so hard. Not good? It sucks on ice.

1:37:37When I saw it, the theater smelt like vomit, which felt really right. Which theater? Which theater was it? Oh, Alamo. I've been walking around vomiting in theaters recently just to kind of like, you know, mark my territory. No, my daughter has seen the trailer for it multiple times and is always just kind of like, that's grown up Moana. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, hmm. You know, she's not like, I can't wait to see that. And so I haven't even suggested that. We were opening Weekend Minions and Monsters. We were right there. And she was crying. It was like fucking Bernie Mac at Def Comedy Day for her.

1:38:07She was just like pointing at the screen and screaming at like everything the Minions did. Good. I mean, as were many other children in the audience, obviously. And adults like Marie Barney Salinas. I was not. I was just like very touched by that movie. I was just watching it kind of with like my hand to my chest going like, this is so sweet. They love the movies. You got verklempt. I love James. Is that his name? I love James. James is an artist. I've quoted before Robert Downey Jr. saying that his performance in Jodie Foster's Home

1:38:38for the Holidays is the most relaxed performance in the history of cinema because of how much heroin he was on. I think The Rock's performance in live action Moana would make him jealous. Yes. I want to know what he's taking so I can use it to fall asleep at night. Griffin, do you think, how about this theory though? I'm going to throw this at you. Dwayne Johnson, as we all know, actually loves independent cinema. He made The Smashing Machine. You know, he's out here supporting artists. He's saying he's making another movie with Benny Safdie, an adaptation of a Daniel Pinkwater

1:39:08book. We'll see if that happens. It'd be cool if it did. I mean, I think the issue there might be no one will give them the money, but we'll see. Possibly. But he brought down the Snyderverse. Okay. He did it himself. The hierarchy of power did change. Exactly. He has now brought down possibly Disney live action remakes. Is he a man on the inside? Is he actually doing God's work? Yes. Yes. You know what I mean? I love this conspiracy. I've been viewing him as the enemy for a while and yet I loved his performance in Smashing Machine. You and I both like that movie.

1:39:40I do. I like it a lot. And he has been successfully killing the things I hate the most in modern American cinema. I think he might be just like here to help. This is all I'm saying. Like, I just think now is this perhaps, you know, challenged by things like he's in Jumanji 3 this year, which is hard to get excited about. But I'm trying to remember. Did Bella Tarr direct Jumanji 3? Yeah. He directed that and it killed him. Yes. It's his final film. It's his eyes wide shut.

1:40:11Yeah. And, you know, I did get served up that interview recently. Did you see this griff that was going around from the Black Adam time where the guy is like, so which Joker would be in Black Adam? Like Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix or Barry Keegan? And he's like, Barry Keegan. And they talk about it seriously for two minutes where he's like, what he's doing is. And I'm just like, what are you guys talking? Like there are it's like it's the ultimate just like how everyone just went insane about multiverses and didn't know what they were talking about anymore.

1:40:42And he was acting like Black Adam could just like bring all the worlds together. I know. I know we've already made this joke within this conversational circle, but I just need to underline it. There is nothing funnier in the world than a year long marketing campaign that was all framed around the hierarchy of power in the DC universe will change. And he conclusively did do that. Yes. It's not in the way he intended. He lived up. Maybe he didn't intend it. Maybe he's a force of good.

1:41:13Anyway. Moana's dog piss. Yeah, I believe you. I won't be seeing it ever. So. Okay. We talked about Cyclops. Cyclops. Okay. So then. So Poseidon frigging pissed. Poseidon mad. Because they fucked with his son. Yeah. So they get driven to another island. Cyclops is dead. Which is where they meet the large men, Ben, that you were. Oh, sure. Big guys. You approved of so much. Yeah. And I do. The nightmare of the kid who's like laughing.

1:41:44Yeah. Yeah. A little stinker. He's got kind of wilder energy. Yeah. What's that? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Your arch nemesis. Right. Right. Right. The 10 year old that I'm feuding with. And so they're driven. The 10 year old who has your number. Nolan is so good at this like stark nightmare stuff. Yeah. Yes. But when they go to the other side of the island and they're just seeing the animals, you know, like the tiger in the line, you know, like the weird. Oh, that's on Cersei's island. That's the same island. Oh, it's the same island. Yeah. Same island.

1:42:15Yeah. Yeah. And they, right. And they encounter Cersei. And this is, I mean, it was just like, I know. So I know that Cersei will turn them into pigs, right? And I know that Christopher Nolan really tries not to use CGI, obviously. I mean, I'm sure he used it a little bit in this, Griff, because he's, you know, he's making the guys big. There's the big whirlpool. Like, there's stuff. There's the creature when they have to make the bargain, the rock creature with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one thing that felt conclusively CGI.

1:42:46Right. Where it's like, what are you going to do? I mean. Right. Some of this has to be, I know so much of it for him is he doesn't want these stages in the process that will degrade the film. That when you run these things through optical printing and then you have to, right. Or rather, unless you do optical printing, if you're running them through a computer and then you're sort of outputting it again onto film, you're losing fidelity. And so I know he tries to keep those things to an absolute minimum, but it is just sort of striking to just see guys who are big and not 80 feet tall big.

1:43:19Yeah. Right. But just big enough to be unsettling. Just a little too big. Yes. But the way they so simply have her just, like, stretching the faces to turn into pig. Oh, my God. And just the grossness of the, like, entrail soup. Oh, my God. So gross. Because it starts forming this, like, waxy kind of, like, weird icicle coming out of their throats. I, like, wanted to throw up. Did it not remind you all of Spirited Away? Of course. Well, Spirited Away is referencing that. I mean, sure.

1:43:50Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, that's, this is, this is the first time anyone told these tales. So, the TV version of The Odyssey that we were talking about that was being really bad. Do you know who plays Cersei in that, Griffin? Tell me. Or tell Griffin. Fran Sinclair from the TV show Dinosaurs? Close. Bernadette Peters. Oh. Which does sound cool. Yes. As soon as I found that out, I was like, oh, I could see her just, like, feed and slop to pigs. Like, you know, just be like, all right, eat, you know. Eat my slop.

1:44:21Eat my slop. Eat my slop. She looks pretty hot. Yeah. Oh, God. Bernadette Peters. We love her. We do love her. I, I, but yeah, Cersei's sequence, incredible. But again, like, so, okay, so in the poem, Odysseus does fuck Cersei and have a couple of kids with her and lives there for like a year. They got all that out. Good. But I just love that, again, this sort of simplicity of how he solves this problem of,

1:44:53like, understanding that there's something, like, wounded and dark about her, grabbing the bird, like, realizing it's important to her, and then the way Nolan solves that puzzle so simply of, like, she's just like, I like her better as a bird. Well, it's, it's her sister. And it's, but it's also that he breaks off from his crew. He does. To go hunting. Well, also because they don't like him. Yes. They're already kind of doubting him and thinking that the gods have smited him. And they, they have. The gods have smited him. They're questioning his leadership.

1:45:23You know, and, but, but he might be the first to defy the gods and successfully and maybe prove the gods wrong. Uh, what's that tweet? I'll look up the tweet. But yeah, he shoots a deer and it turns into a very, very handsome naked man. Yes. I saw some tight little tushy. Yeah. This is, this is the famous tweet. RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris, but I'm different and better, maybe even better than the gods. I'll send it along to you guys. That's a good tweet. And that's from Senator Ted Cruz. Who tweeted that? Uh, while we're, while we're talking about Samantha Morton, um, do we think that she

1:45:58is in the supporting actress Oscar conversation? Sure. I think this isn't everything Oscar conversation right now. Yeah. Yeah. Right? I, I think, I think this is such a kind of reemergence for her and such a scene stealing role. And even in the way that Nolan's been talking about her performance in the movie, he's been really spotlighting her in interviews, even though she's not part of the core, like press team that they're pushing out there. Right. And she's, he said like, there are two times. He compared her to Heath Ledger's. Oh, sorry. I'm stepping on your thing. Yeah. No, he said there are two times in my filmmaking career where an actor has done something

1:46:31that when I called cut, the crew broke into applause. Wow. And it was Heath Ledger, I think during the pencil trick scene. Right. And, and this. And when John David Washington said, I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago. That was the third. Well, but to be fair, they applauded the hot sauce. That's actually what they were applauding. And when Elizabeth Debicki opened a car door with her foot, even though she was on the other side of the car. Remember that. Yeah. When she height maxes. When she leg maxes. I gotta watch Tenet again. You gotta watch Tenet every single day of your life.

1:47:02Yeah. You should watch it yesterday. I don't have that much time. Uh, I don't know if you noticed, but there was applause in our audience when her name came up in the credits. Oh, that's nice. I did not notice that. Yeah. Um, my, my crowd had one guy like the not another teen movie guy who was trying so hard to get applause breaks happening throughout the movie. And the movie's a little too contemplative and moody. Yeah. Our only applause breaks were for the, the, the moment where Corey, uh, gets the arrow

1:47:35to the throat upon saying, you're Odysseus, which rocks. Correct. That is the only time it successfully happened in my theater. This guy truly tried ten times. Right. There were ten times where you would hear, maybe he was trying to turn on a light and he had a car. He was clapping. You think it could have been that? He was clapping on. Clap on. Um, I want to say about the Cersei sequence, uh, that, uh, much like the, the village that

1:48:05burns themselves down preemptively. Her whole rationale is I know men, they were going to do something right. That Odysseus is like, why did you do this to them? They didn't do anything to you. And she's like, I know where it's going. Yeah. That there was a time of such incredible distrust happening that, that people have started defying the gods, that they've started defying each other, that they're defying the laws of like behavior, uh, and that everyone is just on the defense all the time. Um, yes. Like she can't trust anything anymore.

1:48:37As we have said already, you know, everyone's speaking of these invaders from the sea who don't follow Zeus's law. And yeah, I mean, could she have maybe asked five to 10 questions before she served them pig soup? Maybe. I don't know. She's gone a little mad up there on her by herself. She's also just got pig soup on the back burner all the time. They are like, oh, you have food? And she's like, yep. Slop it up, sloppies.

1:49:02It's so gross looking. It was so disgusting. So she is the one who says, you're going to have to go to hell, Hades. Sorry. You know, and he's like, nobody ever does that. And she's like, I don't know what to tell you, man. You're going to be the first. You're going to pull it off. And so they go to the underworld. Pretty rad. Oh my God. It's so sick. With the black beach. The black beach. The black Icelandic beach. Yeah. Oh, I need to go to Iceland. It's beautiful. And it's a four hour flight. I know. You got to do it. I'm going to do it.

1:49:33I've been. I want to do it. It's been on my list. Sit right over there. They have hot dogs. Oh, good. Okay. That was the only thing holding me back. I'm glad you know they have hot dogs. Pop over there for an Icelandic hot dog. Okay, perfect. That's great news. And yes, and this is James Remar. First, he inquires as to like, did Samantha ever show up and is just like that and just like that. And Damon's like, yeah, but it was weird. They clearly just kind of shot it separately. And she just kind of like has a one-sided phone call. And it wasn't really satisfying for anyone.

1:50:04He tells Odysseus to meet him at the top where the air is crisp. That's a girl next door reference. Cannot. Wow. Remar cooks in that movie. He's always cooking. I mean, the guy cooks. Apart from Mortal Kombat Annihilation, where the stove was broken, I guess.

1:50:20The gas was cut. Marie did remind me on the subway ride home of the other next door movie. What's the Jennifer Lopez movie? The Boy Next Door. The Boy Next Door. Oh, sure. Where someone, either she gifts the boy next door or the boy next door gifts her a first edition of the Odyssey. Yes, a first edition of the Odyssey. Yes. Iconic. Could we do a Next Door Patreon series? Well, okay. Are we doing movies with the title Next Door in them?

1:50:52There's also kind of a lot of like fucked up neighbor movies. You know what I mean? Pacific Heights. Next Door, Girl Next Door. Okay. He's on Next Door. Next Door. Okay. We've also got... Girl Next Door, Boy Next Door. We've got a 2020... Oh, no. That's a TV miniseries. I'm out on that. Um... Are there any other good ones? The Girl Next... There's two Girl Next Doors. Sometimes we are... The Spy Next Door. Okay. Jackie Chan, The Spy Next Door. Uh-huh.

1:51:22I'm not seeing a lot of good stuff here. I think you would have to more do a Neighbor series, right? Like Rear Window. Well, that, but you know... Kind of thing, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, what's the one where Samuel L. Jackson's the cop who doesn't like things? I like that. Because they're white. Lakeview Terrace. Lakeview Terrace. You know? That's an insane... The Bad Neighbor Pacific Heights, which is really fun. Pacific Heights, I love. Any movie where people are, like, kind of peeking through blinds, you know? Blinders, yeah. And then, like, ah! Like, something happens that makes them go, ah! Wasn't there, like, a racist Dennis Quaid Bad Neighbor movie recently?

1:51:55Yes! Where, again, it's like... The Intruder? All right. The... Dennis Quaid plays the racist? Yeah. Yeah, because it's Michael, Ely, and Megan Good move next door. He's like, hi, I'm your neighbor. In a transformative performance, Dennis Quaid plays, like, a somewhat unhinged reactionary. Well, this is the Dennis... The Dennis Quaid thing is so funny. It was this thing in The Substance, too, where I'm like, you're in this movie playing a character that is, like, satirizing the kind of guy that you associate yourself with politically.

1:52:26Yes. So, like... It's fascinating. It's got some self-awareness. Are you self-aware? Arlington Road? What if your neighbor was possibly a terrorist? Another fun one. I've never seen that one. Yeah. You've never seen Arlington Road? I've got to see Arlington Road. I do think Rear Window is the king and origin of it, Ben. Like, I think you're right. Like, that's... Rear Window, I would say, is the best one. I don't know. Have you seen... Have you seen The Intruder? Disturbia? Disturbia, which is just Rear Window. Which is Rear Window. It's child of us. Which is just Rear Window. That Simpsons episode, Bard of Darkness. Is that what it is?

1:52:57That's a great episode. Love that episode. Um, that's the one where Milhouse tries to write Milhouse, but he wants to go to the pool, so he writes Milpool.

1:53:07Milhouse rules. David just smacking the table laughing. Milhouse is so funny shit. It's so good. Everything's coming up Milhouse, I think, about once a day. Of course. Yes. Uh, the Simpsons did an odyssey. They did. Did they? Yes, Homer told the odyssey. What season's that? It's one of those anthology episodes where it's three stories in one, right? Oh, yeah. Sure. I sent this gif to one of our group techs the other day, David. I think it was Blank Doe. But of the lineup of the suitors who are coming for Marge in their version of the odyssey.

1:53:40Because I remember that being the best section is just like disco stew and Moe and everyone courting Marge. Oh, I see. Yes. It was called Tales from the Public Domain. Which is really funny. The odyssey is the first. And then they have a- Lisa Simpson as Joan of Arc. Lisa is Joan of Arc. And then a Hamlet episode called Do the Bard Man. Really funny. And I believe the final joke in that episode is he finishes telling the story of Hamlet. And he goes, and of course, it was adapted into a movie called Ghostbusters.

1:54:11And then they play the Ghostbusters theme and Homer dances to the Ghostbusters theme for one straight minute over the end credits. That sounds really funny. Marie is laughing. I'm laughing. The title of the odyssey section is Though, Brother, Where Art Thou? Yeah, which is, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. But still, it's like a season 14 episode. I'm skeptical that this was very funny. It's so funny that I have to keep bringing this back to the friggin' homework-ass nature of this. Ben, you're doing great.

1:54:42Thank you. People have been saying lately on the Reddit or whatever, like, wow, Ben's really like, he's become kind of the taskmaster. No, Ben is doing his job. Ben's doing his job. And that mood will persist on this. He is the producer of this show. And he is keeping us somewhat on track. They're just trying to help out. Come up to Ben, tears in their eyes. And they say, thank you for producing. David! Yes. Everyone hates bank fees, right?

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1:56:11David! Yes. Red alert. Uh-oh. There's been an outbreak. Biohazard! Of a new Patreon series. Yeah. It's contagious. Oh, that's so true. It's been cooked up in the lab for your pleasure. From the fine folks at the Umbrella Corporation, we are covering Resident Evil. The film franchise. Yes. We've got the first franchise. Six movies. Yes. That beautiful second franchise.

1:56:41How many? Six? Seven? It's got the one movie. Oh, it's got the one. We'll be covering all of them on Patreon, doing commentaries on, yes, the Resident Evil, Apocalypse, Extinction, Afterlife, Retribution, the final chapter. Welcome to Reconciting. This is an exciting time. Zach Kregor, a friend of the podcast, has a new Resident Evil coming out. And we thought this was a good opportunity to revisit the history of Resident Evil movies. Why not? Why not? Why can't we? Why can't we? We can. Check in for that August 1st.

1:57:12And it's going to be running all the way through November 1st. Followed by your March Madness winner. Dracula. Dr. Acula himself. That's so fun. So that's great. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

1:57:30So, yes, the sequence on the beach, speaking to the blind prophet. Beautifully done. Tyrese. Yes. Speaking to Elliot Page. Right. So, like, Elliot Page kind of emerging as, like, the heart of the movie as the sort of avatar of the men Odysseus sacrificed for what exactly? And the betrayal. The betrayal, because basically what happened with Sinon is that...

1:58:01They convinced Sinon they actually did leave. Correct. Like, Sinon did not know about the Trojan horse. In order for the trick to work, Sinon needed to be tricked as well, so they believed it. And Odysseus defends himself of, like, look, I needed you to believe it. I needed it to be real. Well, yes, you died, and I heard you die, and I was sad about it, but it meant others didn't have to die. But you can tell he knows, like, this is a bit of a... Because it's like, for what? So that we could pillage a city?

1:58:31And what, the whole reason of the Trojan War is, like, literally the dumbest thing? It's trade routes or whatever. You know, come on. Bring up Jar Jar Binks. It was the... It's some guy's wife. Well, okay. The stated reason, obviously, yes, is that Paris of Troy stole Helen from Menelaus. Yeah. Her face too pretty. Right. And brought her... But they say in this, it's like, Agamemnon would, like, even if we got Helen back, like, Agamemnon wants to disrupt Troy's, like, control over the trade.

1:59:03It's what the fucking Republicans do. They blame it on some other thing. Wait, the Republicans? I thought that was, like, a stand-up party founded by Abraham Lincoln that's never done anything wrong, Griffin. Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. They were actually the good ones all along. We see Agamemnon. He has been murdered. Yes, this is right. So then we're right. We're moving over to Telemachus, who goes to see Menelaus, played by John Bernthal. Brother of Agamemnon. Right. Very good Bernthal. Oh, yeah. When is he bad? Only when he hosts a podcast. I would say sometimes Bernthal can...

1:59:36Did any of you guys see... Hit the gas a little too heavy. Did any of you guys see Dog Day Afternoon? No, I did not, because I heard it was quite poor. This is what I heard as well. I heard some very loud rumors that it was not good. Someone told me that it opened and people were laughing, and they had not anticipated that, and so then they leaned into it. That doesn't sound good to me.

1:59:59Bernthal's excellent in this. He's excellent, and it's like, Telemachus is seeing in Bernthal. Bernthal's like, yay, I won. Now I'm here. Shit's mad. Helen doesn't like me. You know, her face is all scarred. Yeah, my hot wife isn't even hot anymore. Right. And then... She's only going to launch 500 ships now. Right. And Helen's like, and don't forget what happened to Agamemnon. I was like, I don't want to talk about that. We're not even going to talk about that. But it's another thing that we had been seeded, it's seeded very early in the story where

2:00:31Odysseus tells Penelope, like, Agamemnon, like, sacrificed his daughter for favorable wins or whatever. And Penelope's like, what? And, like, Odysseus is like, I don't know, you know, it's a spoilery, you know, it's war. What are you going to do? And, like, the minute Agamemnon comes home a champion, like, his wife is still mad about that and murders him. And both roles, of course, played by Lupita Nyong'o. The Great. Yeah. Um, we also get, at some point around here, the fuller sequence of the Trojan horse attack.

2:01:02Yeah. We see that before they go to the underworld, right? Because we've seen sort of, like, Sinon's sacrifice more in full. Oh, sure. We also see, I like that this movie answers some of the practical questions I have had about the Trojan horse since being a child. It was stinky in there. They were just shitting, pissing, puking. It really reminded me of Dunkirk. Yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I also love that they show that anytime the horse is, like, turned over, that all the guys inside need to, like, re-brace themselves. Have to, like, re-configure their bodies.

2:01:33Yeah. Yeah. At one point, the Trojan soldiers are stabbing the horse, and one guy gets stabbed, and they all, like, cover up his mouth. Yeah. The guy's just drowning at the bottom of it. Oh, yeah. You don't want to be at the bottom. A bunch of guys dying at the bottom of the horse. You don't want to be near, like, the head. Yeah. Yeah. Get me near the head of the horse, please. Very jackass. Not the ass. Very jackass of them. Very jackass. Great jackass. Yes. Yes. I'm Odysseus, and this is jackass. Yes. Then it's just, like, the horse. It's, like, piling into the horse.

2:02:05Oh, man. And there would be one point where, like, Preston Lacey would fall on top of Wee Man inside the horse. Sure. That would be really funny. What I was going to say is that Jon Bernthal, another thing that was, like, very much out of context in the teaser for this movie of him just being like, hey, you want to hear about my brother? Like, just talking like Jon Bernthal or whatever. And that was another thing in the trailer where I was like, all right, you got Tom Holland whining about, like, my dad's coming home.

2:02:36And then Jon Bernthal just talking like Jon Bernthal. And I was like, but it's all, it's removing the distance from these things. And I was also talking to a friend who was saying that, like, you know, there are a million different translations of these things. And some of them are like, no, the wording is something more casual than father. It totally works for me in the context of the movie. The characterization of these, like, the way that these characters are portrayed makes absolute sense and ultimately makes the story really relatable for, you know, contemporary

2:03:08audiences, but not in a way that feels forced. Yeah. Um, but, you know, I was... They're not saying hello, fellow kids. Right. I just, I just rewatched, uh, Amadeus last week, which, you know, perfect movie. But again, that to me is like the classic version of we're going to apply sort of like modern sensibilities to it. Yeah. Um, to, uh, you know, historical story, but it just, it just works. Um, to, to, to wrap the, uh, yes, the, the, the, the black sand beach, like the scale.

2:03:43That's how they come out of the sand. Right. When they all come out of the sand and start charging or it's like all the shades want is like news of people who are alive. Right. Like, uh, this is where it's sort of seeded for Odysseus of like, you're going to need to pay tribute to the men you lost. Like you, you know, you haven't been honoring their deaths enough. And then Telemachus, I feel like from Menelaus is getting the sort of the information of like, you can't just walk back to your house and think everyone's going to be happy to see you. Odysseus will need to survey the landscape when he arrives, you know?

2:04:16Yes. Yeah. And you've got, you know, you've got the intrigue of like Pattinson and Corey and all these guys are like, maybe we should kill Telemachus, you know, whatever. That's all a little bit of kind of like, that's, that's screenplay chaff or, you know, like, but, but Pattinson's big seduction scene is pretty excellent. Yeah. Yes. He does a good job of towing the line between being actually really convincing, but also winking at the audience. He plays the character as a fairly good actor. Yes. Which is hard to do to show that he's almost pulling it off.

2:04:48Uh, and then what happens next? Well, so he gets the prophecy and he knows Odysseus knows what's to come. Yeah. But he does not tell his men. Which is that they will come across a whirlpool as well as this, I don't even know how to describe the monster. It's like a spider. It's a bunch of different arms. It's a octopus. Spider. It's called Scylla, you know, and it's a man-eating monster of, you know, it's, sometimes it's depicted as like a maiden with like dog heads coming out of her body, which is kind of a Ben notion, I would say.

2:05:21Punch that turns into a bite. Yes. He cools out. Um, but it's, you know, Odysseus keeps being told by people like Circe and, uh, the, the, the, what, Tiresias? Tiresias. Tiresias. Like, your men are going to die. Yeah. And Odysseus is like, no, you know, they don't, you're telling me how we can avoid that. And they're like, that's true. And you will live, but they're not going to, it's not going to work. Yeah. And like their ultimate fallibility is like, they make it to this island where they're

2:05:52like, don't eat those juicy, juicy cows. And those cows look good. Those cows look good. They belong to the sun god Apollo. So you can't fucking eat them. You can't fucking eat the cows. It's just like a marshmallow test of like, but the minute you're here, you can't leave. The winds die down and you're just going to get hungrier and hungrier until you're like, well, maybe we have to eat the cows. And then, you know, they all get struck down in the, in the, in a store. They go in their little barbecue hole, Griff. They do go in a secret barbecue hole. They smoke those cows.

2:06:22Yeah, that is true. Um, we also see the sirens. We do. We do. Uh, and again, you know, Nolan connects this to like Odysseus is like longing for what is lost. Like versus just like, he's so horny for these hot ass singers, which is sort of the classic sirens thing of him being like, let me out of, I want to get there. You know, instead he's just wailing and crying. Like a great performance moment from Damon there. Yeah. Oh, incredible shit. When he says the thing of like, it's like the tastiest itch.

2:06:55And when you go to scratch it, you realize it's under the skin. It's so evocative. It's good shit. I, this is some good shit. I think he pulled off some good shit here, Nolan. I'm going to tell him that in a typed note. Ben, I assume that you believe if you listen to the sirens, everything would turn out. Okay. And you marry all of them. They would just be like, you're so chill. You rock. Now you can go. Here's a bunch of money. Thank you for your time.

2:07:27They give you money. Yeah. Of course. Why don't you go, baby? Here are our wallets. Um, and so, yes, uh, what, you know, uh, what else? Oh, I wanted to ask about the boat stuff. What do you think of the boat stuff? Because they shot on a frigging real ass boat, man. I think like the oldest available boat is what they used. It's like a Viking boat. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a modern built

2:08:01boat. Yeah. Because obviously you're not, I guess you're not allowed to take like, uh, items of antiquity out to the open ocean or whatever. They just go by some like London museum and they're like, can I have that? But it's a, it's imitating obviously like a, an ancient Viking long ship or whatever. And, uh, I would have thrown up. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people did. I read some story about Nolan being like, do you mind if I shoot you throwing up? Yeah. I read that too. Cool. Which is cool. Uh, yeah.

2:08:31I mean, rowing seems relaxing. I don't know. It does not seem relaxing. I could get into the groove of it. I'm telling you. Oh, sure. Like just to kind of like repetitive thing, you know, put on some ambient music and the, and the airpods. Toss some Aphex Twin on and let's go. He doesn't need ambient music. He just listens to the sirens. That's true. Yeah. Right. Good rowing music. Yeah. I would, I think I would have died at Troy. No, I would have died before we even got to Troy. Like I wouldn't have made it that far. Right. I wouldn't have made it that far. Right. Exactly. They would have eaten me.

2:09:02Let's be honest. In this time I would have died in the cradle. Yeah, exactly. Die right away. I would have died of like air allergy or some shit. Maybe, maybe I would have been sacrificed because I am like a firstborn child, you know. They would have tried to sacrifice me and the gods would have rejected me. They'd be like, no, thank you. What are we supposed to do with that shit?

2:09:26Okay. Also, throughout this whole time we keep flash, we keep, you know, cutting into Odysseus with Calypso. She keeps being like, remember more. What happened to your men? What happened to your men? And finally, he breaks down. Yes. Finally, Calypso. Right. And he is mad at Calypso, but she's kind of like, look, man, you needed to. Again, like, I feel like traditionally Calypso is just a trickster. Like Calypso literally means like steel, drum. Right. Yeah.

2:09:56She who conceals. You know, like that she's like a liar. Right. You know, but like she's just kind of like, if you wanted to go, you would have remembered. Like you're only remembering now because you're finally ready to sort of accept the emotional truth. Now, like, would Penelope be thrilled to hear this? No. No. But, um, and so yes, he goes home. In disguise as a beggar. God bless Nolan. Like he is very true to the tale of the Odyssey, which is like the last part of it is Odysseus disguised as a beggar hanging out in his house being like, hmm, you know.

2:10:28Yeah. I loved all the beggar stuff. I also love that Leguizamo gets to shine so much in this section. So much more legs. Because he becomes the one ally he has. Right. Well, there's that nice old lady. Yeah. Who notices his leg scar. Also the dog. The dog. And the dog. The dog. The dog. The dog. What's the dog's name? Argos? Argos. Oh, I'm so sad. Poor boy. Apparently it's very controversial that in this film he touches the dog. It's controversial that he touches the dog?

2:11:00It doesn't sound that controversial to me. I don't know. People are like, he's not supposed to touch the dog. I did find it so funny in that interview that they were asking Nolan, like, are you worried about this backlash at all? And he was like, one, I don't consider backlash from people who have not seen the film yet. Two, everyone forgets that I worked on Batman movies for a decade. I don't think people forget that, but he's right. No, but he was just like, I dealt with fucking nerds for a decade. I don't give a shit. But, so, by touching the dog, Tom Holland recognizes, this is my dad.

2:11:32Yes, that is when Telemachus puts it together. Thank God, because Telemachus would seem really dumb otherwise, I think, at a certain point. Sure. Where this guy's like, no, I'm not Odysseus, but I know him, and he's coming this way soon. Okay, sorry. So, the thing with the dog is, the dog is what potentially gives him away, his identity. So, the question is, does Odysseus kill the dog, or does the dog die?

2:12:03Dog dies. The dog does die in the movie, but some people are like, actually, it should have been Odysseus killing the dog. Is there an important or learned person who has said that? You cannot simply cite randos on Twitter. Is there a real person who has talked about this? Probably not. No. Probably not. It is a bunch of comments from, and I will say this confidently, fools. So, Penelope has set up this test for all of the suitors, which is the trick we see Odysseus

2:12:36do way earlier in the film, where they line up a bunch of axes. It's basically like this incredible target trick. It's a party trick he would do, yes. He would string his bow, and then he would fire the arrow along the axes, and it would be really cool, and everyone would say, Odysseus, you're the best. Never leave. Yep. Fucking rules. And so now all these suitors are lining up. They can't even get this bow strung. It's so good. Yeah, they're fools. Well, we gotta go back a bit. No, we don't. Yes, we do, because we have the whole scene when he talks to Penelope through the screen,

2:13:07and that's important. Yeah, sure. Because that's before... This is all happening in this final act. It's before the trial, but that sequence, when it's finally revealed what actually he witnessed at Troy, and that... Right. That is the... Right. And we've talked about it a little bit already, but right, that's the emotional thing Nolan's getting at. This is what he can't get over. And he's not revealing himself to her. No. He's using a fake name. Yeah, again, he's going kind of like, yeah, what if a guy who knew Odysseus knew that he felt really shitty about the sack of Troy?

2:13:39Yeah. How would you feel about that? Because it had been kind of gnarly and bad. I had tears in my eyes during that sequence. Oh, no, it's so good. The revelation of Zendaya, like, that really just crushed me. That worked for me so well. Yeah. Like, the use of her in the sack of Troy, you know, like, and then him looking at Athena, quote unquote, you know, yeah. Because Zendaya basically was just some peasant woman who gets struck down, but then kind of embodies Athena then throughout the rest of the film.

2:14:11Like, his guilt, his story. And the sequence is exciting. Like, it's also genuinely thrilling to watch. Yeah. I mean, I think with these stories get passed down, and by virtue of them being passed down, you lose some of maybe the more unsavory elements. Like, the fact that there is an adaptation of the Odyssey on the show, Arthur, that, you know, does. I think that is, of course, the peak of- Of the telling of the story. And Homer was happy about it.

2:14:42Right. But there- The cruelty of tying Buster's ears together is something that Noel and Darent depict. Right. But there is so much emphasis on the heroic moments and the moments of valor that, like, maybe some of the other aspects of what happened don't get passed out. Yes, but it's also a movie that's so explicitly about guilt that I think it's not like it's whitewashing the character, you know?

2:15:13No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying it's whitewashing the character. They're- I'm saying that, like, when there's- I think of, like, I'm tired of hearing these stories about Odysseus or other people that are, like, really, really great when it doesn't really, like, mirror the feeling of the loss and the guilt and the tragedy. And finally, we get to see that part of the story and it breaks you. Yes. Yes. Like, it's be good. It's really good. Look, Iliad and the Odyssey, the poems are about triumphant victories over barbarians.

2:15:47Like, he is putting this in a completely modern context. This is not something that, you know, he is, like, borrowing from Homer. He's- but he's putting it in very well, I think. We should shout out that a big influence for him was a somewhat recent adaptation- Emily Wilson. By Emily Wilson, which is a kind of- it's an important distinction to just mention. It's the first time that this poem was ever translated by a woman. Right, which I don't approve of, to be clear. Oh, okay. I think she should be translating raw food into cooked food in the kitchen.

2:16:18Sorry, that's a joke. Actually, the lead of my review was, which I think is very- for one, I couldn't think of a fucking lead, so I used this instead. But, like, Emily Wilson, you know, famously, the Odyssey usually kind of begins, like, tell me of Odysseus, like, the man of twists and turns, right? Like, that's the sort of Greek translation of- and she renders it much more simply as, like, the complicated man. And, like, I think that's what Nolan is responding to. Like, this is not just a person who had twists and turns that he navigated.

2:16:48Like, this is- you know, there is something introspective we can find in this man. Yeah, no, there is. Yeah. The other thing this movie reminded me of a lot, and I don't know if I just- I haven't been reading or watching a ton of interviews with Nolan, so I don't know if he's already called this out a bunch. Reminded me a lot of Excalibur in sort of the vibe of it being this kind of, like, earthy dreaminess. It's even just the way he uses fog and smoke throughout the movie, and sort of finding this way to make a tactile version of magical ideas.

2:17:20To me, he cited Last Temptation of Christ, and that, to me, is also what you're talking about a little bit. That moment where he stands up and he's got, like, bits of the beach on him, on his back, that felt very- what are some other things- I feel like he's been talking about some other movies. Andre Rublev. Sure. Hey, good-looking movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ron. Right, right. That feels like, you know, any time we're zooming out to a bunch of guys running on the beach, that felt very- like Lake Kurosawa to me. Girl Next Door, I've seen him call that out a couple times.

2:17:51Well, because of, like, the fact that she's next door, and James Remar- And also, is the juice worth the squeeze is kind of a common refrain in this movie. That's the Elisha Cuthbert movie? Yes. Correct. And Timothy Olyphant is there? I would put him on the supporting actor ballot for that. He's the kind of, like, the Joey Pants who shows up late, and he's like- All I remember is that Paul Dano and Emile Hersher in that movie. They're in it. Right. Yes. He's like the Ray Liotta in Something Wild. Right, right. He's the spark plug at the third act. Right. He's really good. Yeah.

2:18:21Okay. He makes the five.

2:18:24So, yeah. So, he does the trial reveal himself. None of those other men can string that fucking bow. He can string the bow. Pattinson is like, I won't even play the game. Like, he's trying to take the kind of, he's like, I won't fall for your trick. I know what you're trying to say here, but he ain't coming back. So, you just got to pick one of us anyway. And that is, I feel like, around when Odysseus do shoot Corey Hawkins- Yeah. He do. In the throat. And his last words are, you're Odysseus. It just- It was really cool. It just made me very happy.

2:18:54And it was really fun to see Matt Damon go apeshit. Yeah. Dude, that fight sequence is incredible. Yeah. Quiet apeshit. It does feel like this is the last time he's going to go action star mode. Right? I mean, probably, except for maybe Odyssey 2? To Odyssey 2 Furious? I just feel like Damon is not a guy who's, like, desperately holding on to his ego of being a certain type of leading man. No. I mean, when's the last time he made an action movie? Exactly.

2:19:25Born, the last Born, right? Well, actually, The Rip, which I guess was this year. Yeah, but that's a different kind of thing. That's more of, like, a thriller, that movie, but it has some action in it. Yeah. Gun action is different from this action. Yeah. Right. And I guess The Instigators, which everyone remembers so well. Jesus Christ. It took me a second to even pull what you were talking about. That was kind of capery. Like, there's, like, cars. It's capery. He spends a lot of them. Like, his character is, they take his, like, therapist, played by Hong Chao, hostage with

2:19:55them. Yeah. So it's a lot of, like, him talking to his therapist while other people do stuff. I do think gun heist stuff is different. It's different. It is. I mean, like, and then obviously, even, like, the last duel or whatever, like. A movie that I love. A great movie. Incredible. And it does have, you know, action in it, but it's brutal and kind of, you know, and he's, I mean, he's playing a guy who has to go to court to argue he gave his wife an orgasm. What? I'm sure he will do action sequences again, but I'm saying I think this feels like.

2:20:27Yeah. His, his final, like, big action hero movie. Although, I don't know anything about this Daniels movie. Yeah, no one does. That is his next project. Like, what is that? The rumors I have heard do not make it sound like that's what it is. And in fact, I think a lot of why there was such a musical chairs of which A-list star was going to play that role is that that role is a little secondary to the narrative. That he's in a lot of the movie, but he doesn't get to, like, have the big wins.

2:20:58I feel like that's something Damon is happy to do. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I think he's happy to, like, surrender that and go, like, I'll let the younger cast sort of drive the story and I'll just service the plot. Wait, I'm so sorry. I just clicked on the Reddit. Did you fucking see this? Yeah. I was talking about the highway sign. Yes. Do you know there's a highway exit in Georgia that just says Griffin Newman. No, no, no, but it's... What? It's... Noonan.

2:21:28Noonan. Griffin Newman. Oh, okay. But from far away, it literally just says Griffin Newman. Why is this happening? Is that the name of the town or something? Who knows? It's very... It's really upsetting. I feel like I'm witnessing some sort of glitch in the fact that it's reality. It's a little backroomsy. I'll say. Like, what the fuck? Okay. And you know the best thing about it, about that sign? You can eat it, too. Yes. Here, I will tell you the answer. It appears to be that there are two separate places, Griffin, Georgia, and Noonan, Georgia.

2:22:00And I guess you can access them both from this exit? That is wild. All right. I should move to that intersection. I think you need to move there. We gotta go there maybe when we drive eventually to Disney World. Live show in Griffin Noonan. Live show on the right by the side. Let me get in touch with the bookers down here. The Griffin Noonan sign. Okay, sorry. Back to the Odyssey. Yeah, he'd kill everyone. He'd kill everyone. And, you know, there's some... It's just like a fun sequence where you got Tom Holland and...

2:22:31What's his fucking... What's his name? The guy who used to... Logan Marshall Green. Logan Marshall Green. Oh, sure. Three-name guy who used to look like Tom Hardy. Right. I was gonna say, when Tom Hardy and Christopher Nolan have not worked together in a while, you can at least get Logan Marshall Green. I think that role was supposed to be Cosmo Jarvis, and Cosmo Jarvis probably had to go film Shogun. Go to Japan, right. But, you know, they're upstairs, and there's a hole in the floor slash ceiling. He had removed all the weapons before the suitors showed up, so now...

2:23:03Right, but then he goes and he tries to put him through the hole, right? So, yeah. There's that moment where Pattinson just goes, Spears! Spears! He's not even doing anything. Pattinson in that scene is so funny. He's so funny. He's so good at playing this kind of, like, desperation and this, like, faffishness, you know? I cannot wait to see him play Chris Hansen. I just think it's, like, such genius casting, and I'm really excited for it. He's really cool. I want to see it. Um, but, uh, yeah, and Odysseus, it's, like, him versus, like, 60 guys, and when he finally

2:23:40is victorious at the end of the battle, he's just got Spears poking out of his body. Yeah, he does get a couple, yeah, a couple pokes there. He doesn't make it through Scott Fury. No. He takes some L's. No one has a little bit of fun making you think, like, maybe he's gonna die. Yeah. Yeah. Right, but he's not a superhero. No, no. We're gonna do Dark Knight Rises. It's like what we talked about. We're gonna fucking retire. We'll go off. He's gonna, he and Anne Hathaway are going to go off into the sunset together. We'll make Telemachus king. He's proved himself.

2:24:11He's done great. And then when he gets on the boat is when he might finally reveal, like, by the way, I did spend eight years on the island with Charlize Theron. Anyway, let's go. And we might have hooked up a little bit. Yeah. Just over the clothes stuff. Yeah, no, totally. She always had her fishnet thing hat on. Like, and it was, it was the Lotus. Look, what can I tell you? It was all Lotus. I feel like back in ancient Greek times, there was, like, an understanding that, like, sex is different. I think you're right. Over the jeans doesn't really count.

2:24:42I mean, they had so many jeans then. It was such a denim-y society. This is such a dungaree movie. It is funny. It's the last thing I expected for it to be so heavy on the Levi's product placement. Although, the costuming is awesome. It is. And I love that it's not, like, corny. Like, sandal and sword, like, over the top. No, it's very, like, simple and kind of rough-hued. Like, Damon literally wears, like, a cut-off t-shirt at one point. But it's just, like, you don't need the over-the-top robes and all the nonsense.

2:25:13You know what movie's costuming is dog-ass? Oh, Troy. Dog-ass. Troy. Nominated for an Oscar. They made all of the costumes out of dogs' asses. That's why. That was the issue. That's why it was impressive. They got Brad Pitt wearing crop tops, like, cerulean blue crop tops and sarongs. It was Devil Wears Prada era. Where does this come from in history? What do you mean? It's actually before. They beat them to the cerulean punch. I was researching ancient Greece crop tops.

2:25:45I could find nothing. Oh, yeah? You couldn't find anything when you Googled that? I could find nothing. Although it is funny how in Bushwick right now, Caesar haircuts and crop tops on the internet are so popular. Yes. Yes. Hot Odyssey summer. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I remember Troy being a very naval forward movie. Yeah, a lot of boat. A lot of boat. No, I meant, like, belly buttons. Oh, yes. You're right. You're right. It does have... It's both navel with an A and navel with an E. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. I'm not sure if you see Eric Bana's cute little innie or outie.

2:26:17I'm not sure what. I wish. I'd love to tickle that. I'm a little worried about Googling Eric Bana belly button. I don't know what that'll do to my algorithm. Looks like an innie. It looks like an innie. A classic innie. Okay. A classic innie. That was just one of those movies where everyone, I think, was just like, I need biggest arms on this set. You know, like, everyone's just, like, hitting the gym constantly. No, they're not that bulky. All right. Fair enough. It's not that bulky. Like, you see, uh, what's his, Orlando Bloom, like, naked a lot, and it is peak twink.

2:26:48Look at this. Look at this. They're very male model. Yeah. Bana looks good. Bana looks good. Bana looks good. He's the heftiest. Bana looks good. Um, I... Final thoughts on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Very good. Really fucking good. Yeah, very good movie. Um, I can't wait to see it again. Same. I just, I'm like, there's so much more to just unpack and notice. I think it'll be a very rewarding second viewing. Yes. Yeah. Um, I, you know, I think it kind of had a little bit of everything.

2:27:18Sure. You know? A little bit of this. A little bit of that. Really firing on all cylinders. I thought it was well-paced. I was never bored. No. Same with Oppenheimer. It just kind of moves like crazy. Same. Tight 250. Yeah. Uh, David, your wife wants the bucket. She does. How do I get that fucking bucket? God. The horse one. I'm keeping my eyes on the orders. If it goes back in stock anywhere, I'll send it to you. I am so, I am really looking forward to your wife's review of the film. I'm really excited for her to see it because she's been somewhat skeptical. She's not like a diehard Nolan fan anyway, but I, we're going to go see it.

2:27:52Yeah. And her review will be on a Patreon tier that doesn't exist and will never exist. Right. We haven't, we haven't come up with a tier that high. Yes. Yeah. Maybe. The bucket is huge. The bucket's really big. It's really big. It's really big. And then there's also the IMAX camera bucket. Yeah. Which is cool. Well, I think, so I think that one, one of them is Regal and one of them is AMC. I can't remember which is which. I want both of them. Can we say quickly, they had to, I mean, Nolan basically threw the challenge down to IMAX. They've been refining the technology to help him make these movies, not just in terms

2:28:22of the filming, but even in terms of the projection, because there was a time limit on how long an IMAX movie could be for a while. Right. There's sort of a three hour cap. Right. Yeah. Right. But he helped them work up to three. I think it used to be two something. Right. But they finally made the smallest version of an IMAX camera possible for this movie. Yeah. And they also developed what they call the blimp, which is a case that goes around the camera that suffocates the sound. Yes. Because everyone says it's so goddamn loud, you can't hear yourself think.

2:28:53The dialogue scenes. That's why usually he only shoots the more visual scenes in IMAX and the dialogue scenes aren't. And this because he was going to do the whole thing. They had to blimp it up. It was all IMAX. That aspect ratio never changed. I'm very curious because I am seeing it in 35 millimeter. Like, it really did feel like he was using the entire IMAX frame. I'm curious. I mean, there have been the infographics that have been going around at the different formats and some people complaining that if you don't see it in a perfect square, is the framing

2:29:24all going to look weird? No. To me, that only looks bad if you're watching them next to each other. It only looks bad if you know what you're missing. But if you don't know what you're missing, you don't know what you're missing. I'm sure it works. So I'm sure it'll look great. It would be funny if it's like you don't see Damon's eyes. Like, it's horrible. Like, they did no work thinking about it. His head is out of frame. It's just like jaws talking to each other. No, it's very good. I'm very happy. I think it's going to make a ton of money. I think it'll do very well. And my father-in-law has texted me, you know, being like, you heard of this?

2:29:57And I'm like, oh, I've seen it, Manny. I've seen the movie and it is phenomenal. You should go. And now, Griff, do you have box office predictions? I mean, we assume Moana will jump 100%, so it'll be number one and then Odyssey number two? Yes, with 80. No, I think people are assuming that this is going to open over 100, right? I mean, Oppenheimer opened to 80 against Barbie. Yes. Because we should mention we're recording this Thursday afternoon. The day before. We're recording this, yes. The night it's coming out, basically. Right, right. But I think it's probably going to open to like 100, 110.

2:30:30The thing with these format-forward movies is the opening weekend cannot be totally humongous because a lot of people wait until they can get the ticket they want. Yeah, yeah. So you have a lot of people who are going to wait two or three weekends, which means this thing is going to hold incredibly well. But I think it's probably going to open to like 100 or 110 would be my guess. 200 worldwide? I think I end up at like, yeah, yeah. I'm guessing it ends up around 350 domestic. I don't know. I bet this plays well in Greece. A billion worldwide?

2:31:00Yeah, it'll play well in Greece. Yeah, I think that's true. We should demerit, you know, offer some demerits for this film casting either. No Stavi. No Manzoukas. No Manzoukas, right. No Stamos. The big three. No Stamos. Who does Stamos could have been? He could have been one of the suitors. Yeah, exactly. He could have been the horse. He's in there. And, you know, who are the other guys from Full House? Oh, well, Bob Saget isn't with us anymore. Who's the third? Joey. Dave Coulier. Coulier. He could be there. He could have had a puppet.

2:31:32Lori Loughlin, a convicted felon. Yeah, geez, wait. What's going on with Full House, actually? It's bad. It's bad over there. Uh, house too full. I mean, and Penelope does have a full house. It's a good, right? That's a point. Yeah. David. That house has too many people in it. Sometimes you remind us that you're the film critic, that you're the one real professional in this field. That is a great point. I'm like writing Penelope does have, as I'm being like taken out of my office by security with a, like, you have been fired. I'm like, no, no, no, let me, let me. My friend, I think you finally found your lead.

2:32:03I think it'll be Odyssey, Moana, Minions. I don't know what else is out there. Evil Dead. I would not be surprised if there is a Moana drop that is so significant that Minions or Toy Story are actually ahead of Second Weekend Moana. Yeah. Yes. Uh, the invite has been growing quite nicely. I think that might, that might continue to do well. Have you seen that one yet, Griffin? I, no, it is not playing in Spain. I think it maybe doesn't come out for another month or two. I'm trying to see it while I'm here in London. So I may go see it after this record or I may go see it tomorrow. I really, I really enjoyed it.

2:32:34You should just watch The People Upstairs, the Spanish film that it's based on in Spain. This is true. But I mean, which should I watch first? Hmm? I don't know which one I should watch first. I don't think it matters. I think you're fine no matter what. Well, well, well. Well, well, well. Uh, yeah, let's wrap it up. I mean, you know, you can't be cooking in there forever in that London studio. Well, this is one of the most relevant films of 2026. It's one of the biggest films of 2026. It will certainly go down in history as one of the films that represents this year, which of course means that next week we're talking about In the Blink of an Eye.

2:33:08No. Yes, yes, yes. That's true. That is true. But hey, my brother's on that episode. I remember us having a lot of fun. Your brother Joey Sims is cooking. Yeah. We have a good time on that ep. Maybe not talking about In the Blink of an Eye that much. A 2026 Hulu release that you might be hearing about for the first time right now. I'm excited to watch it. Are you? No. Okay. Yeah, Marie, I like one of the three sections in that movie a lot. And I'm curious when you watch it. Don't tell me which one. I'm not going to tell you.

2:33:38But I'm curious when you watch it if you have the same response. I think you will. And yeah, so we've got two more Stanton films, right, to fill out that little mini. So we've got In the Blink of an Eye and Toy Story 5, two films he directed in 2026. And then over on. Let's also. No, I was just going to call out. You say the Patreon, David. Yeah. On Patreon, we've got the final RoboCop entry, which is RoboCop 2014. Five stars. A triumph. From what I remember. Yeah. Illegal. It should be. Yeah. Right. No suicide is contemplated on that episode or anything.

2:34:10I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I was just going to call out. We have announced our John Carter screening, which sold out really fast, in which Andrew Stanton is going to be doing a Q&A with us. What a fool he is. We are not sure if we will be able to record and or release that, but we are going to be doing a sit down with him in studio. That's the point. So that will be coming later and we will figure out the deal with the Q&A.

2:34:40But for a number of factors that we can talk about later, we're not totally sure what form that will have down the line. But look forward to a release on the main feed as just a bonus episode. Yes. It'll be a kind of old school Thursday bonus, I think, is the plan. And on that note, Griffin. Wait, wait. Oh, sorry. Please. Wait. No, there was one thing. Griffin, before we started recording, you said you had a big joke you wanted to make. Did you make that joke? Oh, it was the joke about how funny is it that I left New York and everyone has diarrhea now. I made the joke. Very good joke. Oh, that was the joke.

2:35:10OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank God we got that in there because you did put a pin in that. And so often we put pins and things that never get unpinned. I want to start a new segment called the cork board in which anytime we we say we're going to put a pin in something, Ben, you write it down. And at the end, we check the cork board. What do you think? That's a good idea. That's a good idea. I also see that working as a fun like social media. I'll write down cork board for the cork board idea. Yeah. Cork board for the cork board. So we're announcing the cork board. Unfortunately, the next two months of episodes have largely been recorded.

2:35:40Get ready for a bunch of episodes that don't have the cork board. No. And probably have a lot of unfinished tangents. Let's be honest. There are a bunch of Marks for Sezzi episodes. Well, tell us what to add. Anything we miss in the upcoming episode. Throw it on the cork board and be polite. And for all the Arthur talk in this episode, I must say, and as always, Jekyll, Jekyll, Hyde, Hyde, Hyde, Jekyll, Jekyll, Jekyll, Jekyll, Hyde, Jekyll, Hyde. What is that? Three people will be so happy. I'm going to get a seltzer.

2:36:13One sec. Yeah. David, can you get me a seltzer too? David, can you grab Griffin a seltzer?

2:36:20He almost did. He did a double take. Okay, good. Now, can I do a little... There's a minute pour towards the camera. Yeah. If you pour it into the soundboard, it will come through my headphones.

2:36:33Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick.

2:37:03Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Production. Thank you.