'The Odyssey' Mailbag and Nolan Movie Rankings

>> Hello. Welcome to House of R. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today is the beautiful voluminous Mallory Ruben. Hello, Mallory. How you doing? >> Hello, my darling. I am delighted to be back on the open waters, talking Nolan, talking Odyssey. I was told that the entire pod would be about Argos and it seems that's not the case. And so I'll process that on my own. >> Honestly, you could make about Argos if you want to. I think you can do whatever you want to do. We are here to do Odyssey, mail-back questions and our complete Nolan ranking right after this. >> Okay, rapid fire program reminders. We are wrapping up our House of the Dragon coverage on wilds. By the time you listen to this, this is the last episode we're going to do before our Talk of Thrones finale that will come right after the finale. We have hopefully a special episode that will sort of be nestled in between there. We don't like to announce it until it is done. And then the deep dive. >> That's right. >> The last House of the Dragon deep dive said it is very sad. If you are in Los Angeles or in the surrounding area, we are doing a screening of Labyrinth as part of American Cinnamon Tech's friend of the Fest. That is Monday the 24th, I believe, is that correct? >> That's right. 10 p.m. At the Los Feliz 3, those tickets are still available, snatch them up. And then we'll also be in Baltimore for the live show. Those tickets are not available. But if you have them already, we will see you there. >> You should have instructions in your email. If you purchased the tickets, you should have now time, survival instructions, all of that, so check your inboxes. >> Yeah, okay. Like, subscribe, email. [email protected]. Follow us at House of Our Pod on socials. Subscribe to the pod. We like all of those things from you all. And then spoiler today is for the Odyssey. All of Greek mythology. Any Nolan movie ever? >> Yeah. >> That's the vibe. But we're just going to answer some of the questions that you all send in to [email protected]. And then in a very timely faction, do our Nolan rankings. That is the plan today. >> That's right. >> We're going to start with the subject matter that we got the most emails about, understandably, so. And this is about Emily Wilson, who is one of the translators of the Odyssey, whose translation we referenced a lot in our episode, who wrote an article in the London review of books, critiquing the film, in some senses quite sensibly, and in other senses a little scathingly, and it has become a bit of sort of an online uproar. So I'm just going to hit you with a coupled choice quotations, but there are other quotations to visit, I think, from her piece. >> No, gosh. >> But she says, unlike some of Nolan's other films, the Odyssey is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely. And she says, it lacks psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivations for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, which we talked about. And we agree, honestly. I agree, anyway. And all the food looks horrible. That's not something I had noticed, but something to think about next time I watch it. Molly Rubin, what are your initial reactions to this, what do you want to say about this? >> Boy, this is so weird to me. >> Is it? >> Yeah. I think, like, I find the robust discussion and debate about the rendering of the text on screen interesting, and I think what better time than when everybody is talking about this film and this adaptation to talk about the soul and heft of the text and how to render it. That part makes sense to me. I also, to be clear, do not think, and I think that this reaction to Emily Wilson's piece feels like an over correction. I don't think that Emily Wilson needs to be like faunting and worshipping at Chris Nolan's feet, because this movie brought a lot of new attention to and purchases of per translation. That's just because that is how she's an oh him. >> Exactly. So I don't think that that, like, the, I think there is a little bit of a response to this, like, how dare you, like, not be more grateful, which I don't think is appropriate. That's not, that's not the vibe to me. >> I do think that there is a difference, a couple things. One, I think that there is a difference between, we've talked about this, like, over the years and other contexts, between critiquing the work, which is valid, especially for an academic, a classist, somebody who has been spending a lifetime and a career, assessing and parsing this text, to look at the way that it was rendered on screen and say, did this do the thing that I think is most appropriate with the story is I think completely valid. I think the tone of the London review of books, essay, tipped into out of the realm of critiquing the thing into the realm of critiquing anybody who thinks it's interesting or smart or has something to say, which I feel is a slight, a slightly unfortunate place to be. I also just think personally some of the critiques seem like very off. Obviously, it lost me at invoking Lord of the Rings in Game of Thrones, like, it's a bad thing. In looks, this Odyssey is often reminiscent of other 21st century screen epics, not least Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. The visit to the Land of the Dead reminded me of the excursions beyond the wall in Game of Thrones. At the end of the film, a character sets out to sail beyond the sunset, and I almost expected everyone to break into Elvish. Is that supposed to be bad? I mean, the Tolkienist state hates the Lord of the Rings movement, making their schlocky blockbuster. I think there's nothing wrong with critiquing the thing. There was something tonally about this that just felt a little bit like shocking to me and sort of like if you like this, you're a dumb dumb, which I did as a bummer. But mostly the thing that I'm interested in and that surprises me is that we talked about this actually quite a bit on our Odyssey pod, but I would posit that while translation and adaptation are different arts and different acts with different intention, they are both at some level intending to interpret the text and intending to render the text any moment of time through a certain context for a certain audience. So I was a little bit like, where is the room for just that this is what adaptation is inherently as an act? And that was surprising. This thing has said literally that both in this essay and she did a wonderful, had a wonderful conversation with Derek Thompson on playing English that came out on the 22nd of July. So well after our pod, but in advance of, I believe in advance of publication of this. And Derek, we're talking about, so here's my big picture thing. Yeah. I actually feel kind of defensive of her around this because I, uh, a Oppenheimer critiquer felt how like lonely and shitty it can feel to have a contrary take to a big popular Nolan movie. Sure. And Emily Wilson and, you know, specifically has weathered for years, sort of the worst that the internet has to offer. And it's interesting because if you, if you listen to her watch the conversations she had with Derek about the film, um, it's, it, the tone is different from this London review of books. And so I don't really want to psychoanalyze someone that I don't know, but I have to almost wonder if she felt, and I've felt this way before, sort of backed into a corner with a gentle, slightly contrary take into like an even more contrary take. Do you know what I mean? Like that's an understandably understandable human response that I can see. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with her assessment here, but I feel kind of protective of her right to, you know, say those things. I know you're not saying that. But so it was funny. In the Derek Thompson conversation on playing English, they're talking about Alexander Pope's translation of Homer. Mm-hmm. And she says he's reading lines and she's just like laughing and she's delighted and she's like, what does that have to do with Homer? He made most of that up. It's wonderful. So much of the content is Pope's own idea of the Odyssey and what's it about inside the norms of his own culture. So she's talking about like adaptation and how much Pope added to the, Alexander Pope added to the Odyssey that had to do with like the time he was writing in, which is so much of what we've talked about Nolan adding to his version of the Odyssey. And then in this London review of books piece, she says adaptations needn't and shouldn't follow the original with anything like exactitude of a translation. Some of the best radically transform or resist the source material, providing what Harold Bloom called, quote, "strong misreadings of their ancestors." The most memorable creative response of the Odyssey, such as Euripides Helen, Virgil's a Neid, Milton's Paradise Lost, Joyce's Eulissie's, Walcott's Omerus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. She mentions Manel Miller Cersei, reconsider the poems at structure, narrative, and values. So like, she's not opposed to that. And then she also said on Derek on playing English, it was a big of seeing the Nolan movie. She said it's a big spectacle, fun time at the movies. My teenagers loved it, and it was fun to go with my teenagers. Yeah, I would say that's 0.4% of the commentary and the written essay compared to those. the other stuff. Well, actually, I mean, I actually don't think her, I think her than the snotis quotes are what are being pulled and resorted. I think there is a more considered imbalance take, but some of her very sharp words when she says abysmal and stuff like that, like there's no mistake in that as sort of balanced and considered that's that she's sniping there. And, you know, and I don't know why she is because elsewhere, she hasn't. I don't know if she just like woke up that day, just feeling spicy or whatever. And again, it's just sort of like, Sean was asking me about this and we were at Spider-Man. He's like, what do you think of this? And I was like, I don't agree with it. I will defend her right to the death to say it. She can say whatever she wants, you know? Yeah. I think there was just again something almost like surprising about the level of heat in it. You know, I think like a line, this is to me emblematic of what's interesting about different interpretations of the text or interpretations of interpretations of the text. Like, we are not this quote from the London Review of Books essay. We are not shown that we're killing our bad. Only the good men sometimes feel bad about it. A very different point. That's really interesting because that is specifically assessing a portion of an intention of the film that we, and I think many viewers, really responded too strongly, right? It's almost like Nolan's core thesis is to say, what do what level of culpability and guilt and shame do you carry with you for a choice that you make? And that is going to be the center of the frame, right? And what we assess because the idea of being able to identify it, carry with you, learn from and consider your mistakes and misgivings was Nolan's core text, right? So I think Emily Wilson saying that's either not the core text that I see it or in only focusing on Odysseus's guilt and not as much the harm inflicted upon the people who suffered, you're diluting maybe the potency of that argument. I think that's completely what he was a critique of Oppenheimer, completely valid. I would be ashamed to have ridden any part of this script. It's just like there's a diminishment in that that I think makes the other, again, completely valid critiques of the film from somebody who has spent so much time considering it in full, I think just like makes it harder for other people to basically even sit with them because it's like, boy, there's so much. But you know what I'm not defending, I'm not defending the language there. What I think is interesting is like there is this article crashed the London review of books website because so many people were reading it. Yes, because she used sharp language that permeated. I don't think if she had written a very, and I'm not defending, this is like clickbait sensationalist, whatever, like I'm not saying that she's doing that. But I'm saying like I think way more people read this, read this than if she had done the very measured critique and I'm not saying that's why she didn't, and I'm not saying she showed up. But I think it's interesting that it is just like introduced what I think is an interesting conversation. There are a lot of classicists who have taken exception with this interpretation of Odysseus. In talking to Derek Thompson, something that she was talking about a lot was like the idea of the anti-hero, like the flattening of Odysseus inside of this or sort of she's like, he's like Jason Bourne with PTSD. He's just an action hero who feels bad about being an action hero. I don't think that's only an accurate. I think in terms of presenting us with a more complicated to use that sort of very famous line from her translation version of this character, I think Oppenheimer is a more successfully complicated figure than Odysseus is inside of this telling of Odysseus. And something she, you know, she and Derek both were talking about Matt Damon's performance as Ripley and what a complicated like character that was. But what I would say is that Ripley's not a hero inside of that movie. And she's also cited, she and Derek both cited the era of the anti-heroes and television. There's a Prano's, Breaking Bad, etc., etc. Mad Men. That's an archetype that's much more successful inside of television storytelling where you have a lot more time to spend with that character than three hours to to deliver this. So like I read with a lot of the classicists who say this is sort of like a flattening of Odysseus. But I loved this movie. And I love what it's done to not, I mean, not boost Emily Wilson's sales, but just sort of like increase desire to read the Odyssey. This is a section from an SFGate article that my sister sent me. She said the San Francisco Public Library at the time of the publication of this article had a weightless of 758 people for the ebook of the Odyssey of which it has 124 copies plus 232 people who put a hold on the 87 physical copies of the book. And so just sort of like the the massive the way in which this is operates as sort of a welcome to people to come explore the more nuanced longer form version of the Odyssey. Here's a pal and this is what no one has always done. Here is a palatal popcorn-friendly version of this story. Yeah. Come into this world. If you if you saw Memento and you thought Memento was great, there's a whole world of noir waiting for you that you could enjoy. I think that you're hitting on the thing that rubbed me the wrong way about this. I think that the movie does that and this response shuts the door on that. It's like you are not and won't invite it or welcome to engage with this in this way only in this way. And I think she does it. I think she doesn't in that article and I don't think she's done it elsewhere. So I just feel like yeah. This day she wrote up and she she woke up and she chose violence and other days she hasn't you know what I mean? Which I think is interesting. Maybe so. Yeah. I mean again I think that debate around the interpretation is not only completely valid and appropriate but quite interesting. Yeah. So it's really about the the degree in the calibration of the space and they're like I think then we can move on after this but an emblematic line to me this is actually like I did have to chuckle reading this. As they say at the award show I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of the Odyssey. Meaning the complicated man line. At least the first line of my translation is like such a dunk. No, it's really funny. And like the the last thing I want to say is like I think there's complicated and then I made a movie. That was where I stopped. Well, I think there's been a misconception that no that her translation is the primary source or a movie. And if I you know helped that misinterpretation by how much I talked about her translation on our episode I apologize but like though he has cited her translation he has also cited Fitzgerald and Fagel's and all these other ones and he has never said that like he has spoken of her translation with like respect but he has never which she didn't offer him but like but but he has never said I base this you know if he had done so he would have had to pay her which he did not do and so like you know he's sort of like drawing from all these other versions also he like cited like a filmed version he saw when he was younger and all these other things like that so it's just sort of like the archetype of the Odyssey and this is why Greek myths are so interesting like adaptations of Greek myths are so interesting and and mutable and and I think should reflect the time. There's this great interview that a lot of people have sent to me and and tagged me in with Zeng Xu who is a political philosophy lecture doctoral student in Beijing she interviewed Nolan for about 20 minutes one of the best interviews I've ever seen about the Odyssey ever seen in the last couple weeks about the Odyssey but she was talking to him about how Homer wrote the Odyssey in a time of like great flourishing for Greek culture and that Nolan is making the Odyssey in this time of like crumble and decline yeah what he views is crumble and decline of Western civilization so like you know and she also talked about you mentioned this idea of atonement she also talked about how like atonement is not an idea that really exists in in Greek myth and writing and that is like she's like it's like a Christian lens and he sort of push back on that but anyway the point is she's like here are the lenses through which you've you've written this story and and she's like slightly pushing him on it but also like I think all of us or a lot of us are just sort of like that's what I like about this yeah what we loved about the Odyssey his not Odyssey is that he had something to say about a story that a lot of us were already very familiar with yeah I think that was part of what was so interesting not only about the film but receiving the film as an audience who was watching Nolan movies for two decades at this point and is watching this specific movie in 2026 so I think like to put a bow on my feeling about this a a classicist one of the preeminent experts not only now but ever on this text and this aspect of the Greek tradition and Greek myth interrogating the validity of a interpretation is part it's the proposition that's like the job right and so you know to and even if you again if you read Wilson's translation and the intro there are a lot of interesting things about like specifically over time how scholars have evolved their thinking about one specific element etc etc right so that's like the part of the point of this I think that the inherent in that though is also the idea that the and let's like be clear I'm not a classicist or a yet Odyssey scholar the idea of this oral tradition we talked about this in the deep dive like how many people really formed the concept and construct an identity that we consider Homer the fact that all of the translations over time have a different And not only specificity and presentation, but maybe that certain themes or elements are heightened or flattened certain characters are even going to be present or not. That's like part that's what makes it interesting to me actually. So I think that there are the idea that there is a way to challenge critique and interrogate while also making room for kind of the core pursuit. That would that would be a balance that I would hope we could all collect. I would agree. That would be preferable. I think the idea of this being an ambassador for a story, a welcoming introduction for people to examine the story, as you said, I guess, I guess I just always think it's kind of funny when people get this salty. Like, it's funny for me when Christopher Tolkien calls Peter Jackson's Lord of the Onion Rings. Like, I just think that's funny. And I don't think like I understand if people feel like, hey, man, don't like, don't make me feel embarrassed or like, I'm not intellectual or all like, yeah, I feel so confident in our intellectual reading of this and also like listening to Emma Emily Wilson talking to Derek Thompson about this. She not like got things wrong, but she interpreted things just wildly differently for me. Like, she was talking about how she thought about the film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was talking about how she thought, you know, the masking of the Trojans meant like the film was an interest, everyone was a puppet, except for Odysseus. Whereas you and I had thought had a really fruitful long conversation about the way in which the film chooses when to reveal the humanity and the identity of those care. You know what I mean? So she was just sort of like, that's a negative and I'm like, Oh, I actually think that's a positive. And, you know, and I think that's fine. And I do, I don't like, I don't know, anyway, we can just stop talking about this, but I think it's fascinating. I think it's interesting. I love that we got so many questions about it. Yeah, it is. I love that people are talking about it. Yeah. And that's that. Okay. Um, or listen to Donovan wrote in asking on the sirens front. Yeah. What artist or music other than the vampire list that could get us. To claw the wax out of our ears in order to listen, insist on listening, lash me to the mast. Right. I must hear this song. Right. Who would be that free? And then you could describe it in beautiful prose. And then there would be an essay about how the scripting of that prose was abysmal. Abysmal. Abysmal. And then we could respond to questions about it. Okay. So is there a choice to think about this? There's like which artist would I most be interested in hearing, capture the spirit of that beautiful passage that we'd love so much in the movie, right? What you most want is what you most can't have and what you most can't have is what you already had and lost that told me I didn't want to go home idea. So for me, obviously, and unsurprisingly, the artist who I would most want to hear capture that sentiment and presented to me is Bob Dylan and my goat, but that would be heard together. Because I feel like the Dylan siren song would basically be a mashup of if you see her, say hello and Mississippi, two of my favorite songs of all time, so I would really be interested in that. Yeah. However, I have seen Bob Dylan live in concert multiple times. And so if part of the question was, what if it's like younger, like more prime Bob Dylan, the freewheeling brought Bob Dylan, like we're pre-electric, we're going acoustic, out on the rocks. I mean, that would be great. I would really love that. If it was like supposed to be a little bit more an artist, I couldn't resist getting to see live for the first time and I hadn't previously. Then I might have to consider CCR or maybe Simon and Garfunkel. That would be great. Like the homer-bound remixed as a siren song, signed me up. That would be great. I also think Tom Wade's from two really well on the siren song rock. So I'm going with Dylan, obviously, but those are my runners-up and other contenders. Since you could not pick, I wouldn't pick list at. Who are you? Who are you picking? I love and respect list at. There's a lot of people, but I would forget above him. I think it has to be, what it would have to be is, if we're passing the rocks and I look up, and I see four lads from Liverpool in, like, consider this as well. Ors and other things. And it's specifically like the 1969 rooftop apple, let it be concert on the rocks, I'm listening. How could you not? The Beatles. How could you not? Of course. Yeah. So that's what I would say. The Beatles knowing it's like they're, them knowing it's their last time together. Is there any rope strong enough to keep you on the mast in that scenario, though? You can't keep you from George. You can't even try. It's not happening. Sure. All right. So that is that question. Next on the list. Mal. Yes. From Lauren and Nicholas. And maybe a few other people. Did the Aussie me more penis, P9, do you agree with Amanda, the Trojan horse is missing a big penis? Do you think the Cyclops has a penis? Is it as big as the rest of him? Should Nolan release the dong cut? I mean, Emily Wilson certainly thinks so. I mean, and it's not wrong. We agree. It's not wrong. Like the fact that he was just chastly holding hands with Charlize is pretty silly. Yeah. This is a, this is an Achilles heel to keep it on the theme for Nolan. I think that's the thing. Should Nolan release-- he's bad at it. He's bad at it. He's bad at it. He's bad at it. He's bad at it. I don't know. Has he ever had sex a little bit? I'm unclear. I'll write it in the lender of your books. Get on it. I think they've up to their bandwidth for-- I don't know. They pressure the wife. I do like sex. Has Nolan at it? Unclear. God. Um, that's, you know, at the end of the day, should Nolan release the dong cut? He doesn't have the dong cut. There's no dong cut of the Odyssey or any Nolan movie. Lamentably. We would love the release of the dong cut. There is no dong cut. I didn't really spend a lot of time thinking about the Trojan horse dong, though there's just if we're going to really think about this. Kind of a practical element. How many more people could you have hidden in the dong? Oh, at least one. If it's proportional-- well, think about that horse-- More than one. It looked like the only like 15 people were in there, right? How many people were in that Trojan horse? In the pitch. Oh, shit. That's my best. You know what? It was actually really good. I didn't say what a good sarcastically say what a good impression, because that was actually a pretty good one. I was impressed. So yeah, I think there would have just been a practical element to putting the dong on the Trojan horse. But obviously, this is-- this is about polyfumus. This is about the Cyclops more than anything. Or, though, again, if you just want the dong cut of a dysiastory, once again, I refer you to the return where Ray finds. Have I mentioned this on every Odyssey discussion? Will I continue to you in every future Odyssey discussion? Shows his deck and is in very little clothing for the entire film. He still looks fucking great. He's shredded. He's doing just amazing things as a performer, as always. So check that out if you're interested. I did find, and it was-- you know, because I kind of can only be me. The first glimpse in the first trailer that we got of the Cyclops, genuinely. I'm like, I guess I should be more embarrassed to admit this than I am, but my first thought was we're going to see Cyclops dong, like immediately. And of course, we didn't. Carefully place Linkla. And I think that that's a shame and pretty silly, because polyfumus is living in a cave with a bunch of sheep making cheese, and tending his flock. And I think that at some point, Odysseus and all of his men who were on the ground looking up at this hooking figure would see some some dick and balls, you know. I think they would. OK. I think they would. I think they might have some commentary on overall hygiene for the Cyclops and the scave. You know, though, obviously, the open seas are right there for a little dip, which you avail some self-love at the end. So yeah, I think we should have seen Cyclops dick. OK. That's my formal take on the matter. Do you have an opinion on this? Hmm. I don't care too much about the Cyclops dick or the Trojan horse dick, but I do think in vein of Emily Wilson saying, let's complicate this guy a bit. Yeah. He should have had the canonical sex that he has in the book, you know, no question. OK. That's you talking about penis is one of your, I guess, passions, if you prefer. I love dicks. Yeah. I love my most about one of my passions, which is musicals. Great. Great. Great. Generally, a lot of emails from people about the musical Hades town, which is an adaptation of the story of War of Houston, you know, to see. And there's a film version of this. There's a pro shot that's in theaters that you can go see. Hades town, call in the musical exclamation point. Correct. Yes. How do you feel about that exclamation mark? Good. The musical. So, so here's, here's what I'll say about this. Yeah. I love Hades town. I saw it in Bragg 2018, the national theater in London with the original cast. And it opened on Broadway in 2019, I believe. OK. And so here, but here's the bind I found myself in. So the original cat, the original Broadway cast, which is who's in the pro shot that's currently in theaters. Yeah. And here's the thing about pro shots of Broadway musicals. I love that they exist. Yeah. Hamilton won, except like release them all in the interest of democratizing the theater, release them all. I like the idea of releasing them several years after the, you know, I do not want them to eat into the tickets that one can sell to keep the live theater alive. But I do think that eventually everyone should be able to see these shows that is like very important to me. Yeah. So, yeah. I love that this exists. - In 2018, I saw the show in London, the Broadway cast recording didn't exist yet, because they had not yet gone to Broadway. - Okay. - There are several recordings of Hades Down, 'cause it was originally a concept album that a nice Mitchell did with Bonny Verre. And then there was like this workshop version that they did that was released as a cast recording to 2017. So I come back from London, obsessed with this show. - Yeah. - There is no Broadway cast recording. So I listened to the 2017 sort of like, this was their off Broadway give us money sort of cast recording that they did. - Okay. - The lyrics are different. - Okay. - And that's the version that I sort of imprinted on. And Epic Three, which is this big song that Orpheus sings to convince Hades to let him take your Odyssey home with him. - Yeah. - This big sort of like Orpheus is the songwriter of all songwriters, the storytellers of all storytellers. She dramatically changed that. And actually, I will say an Emily Wilson style, a bismuth, dumbed it down. - A bismuth. - A bismuth. - Not a bismuth. - You'd be ashamed to have written it. - I'm gonna, and the food didn't look good. - I need to rewatch the food to look disgusting. I have a question. Okay. I'm gonna read you the lyrics of Epic Three from the version that I imprinted on. That was at the top of my Spotify wrapped for like actually several years. It's one of my most played versions. - Okay. - And this is Orpheus singing about Hades falling in love with Persephone, right? - Heavy and hard is the heart of the king, king of iron, king of steel. The heart of the king loves everything. Like the hammer loves the nail. The heart of a man is a simple one. Small and soft flesh and blood. And all that it loves is a woman. A woman is all that it loves. And Hedy is king of the sight and the sword. He covers the world in the color of rust. He scrapes the sky and scars the earth. And he comes down heavy and hard on us. But even that hardest of hearts unhardened. That's one of the best lyrics of all time. - Wow. - Even that hardest of hearts unhardened. Suddenly when he saw her there, Persephone and her mother's garden, the sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair, the smell of the flower she held in her hand, the pollen that fell from her fingertips. And suddenly Hades was only a man with a taste of nectar upon his lips. Like it's just one of the most beautiful like lyrical, gorgeous, poetic songs ever. I'm just gonna read you part of the Broadway, the other version that she wrote that became canonical. King of shadows, King of shades, Hades is king of the underworld. But he fell in love with a beautiful lady who walked up above in her mother's green field. He fell in love with Persephone, who was gathering flowers in the light of the sun. And I know how it was because he was like me, a man in love with a woman. That sucks. That's abysmal. That's abysmal. She fainted right into the field of the f***ing shit. Compare her to the other version. And I will also say I'm Reef Karnie, who was the Hades that I saw in London, is the Hades on the pro shot. I don't think, and you might know him from Penny Dreadful. He was in Penny Dreadful. He was doing great. Penny Dreadful. I do not think his voice is as good as Damon Donna, who voiced him in this other recording I saw. So I like sort of have these, like, I love Hades town, but I'm also kind of anti that version of it to a certain degree. Despite Patrick Page, who plays Hades, on her to shield, who plays Hermes, he's a legend, Amber Gray, Persephone, even Noble Zada, who plays, you're at a sea amazing. I will say, this is the last I'll say about it, if there are a pro shot version of Jack Wolfe, who has been playing Hades recently, who is incredible, or Donald Finn, who I love, who is in the other Bennett sister, and young Sherlock, who is amazing, or even Jordan Fisher, I would go see that, but I have been disinclined to go see the Reeve Cardi version, 'cause it's just like not, despite being the one I saw, and London, not my Orpheus. So that's my Hades town. - I'm glad that it, I'm really glad it exists. I'm glad that people love it. And I'm glad that my Orpheus, a hashtag. - Hashtag, not my Orpheus. - It was the Orpheus, and you're at a sea sort of era that we found ourselves in, is really interesting, because it was showing up in portable woman on fire. Robin, I talked about a lot when we talked about severance, season two, the Orpheus you were to see, I would say up until this Odyssey moment, had become sort of the Greek story of our time. - I don't know why I haven't watched this, 'cause I do love that one. - Let's watch Hades, I will watch it with you. - Great. - You wanna go see how musical with me? - I love to. - Absolutely, I would love to. Where are you on whether no one should make a musical, by the way? - A hundred percent, you should. - Great. - Obviously, yeah, unless it's abysmal, and then you shouldn't. - Would you be ashamed? - I would be ashamed to have seen it. - Anyway, so those are my complicated Hades town. - Okay. - I'm gonna show it again. - But I would definitely go see it, I will say. I don't really wanna see this pro shot, but I would definitely go see it with you, I could. - Great. - And listen to that, if you haven't yet, please go listen to that off Broadway 2017 recording. It's on Spotify. So it was the concept album with Boney Ver, which is also amazing. The thing with Orpheus, if you think about the way that Boney Ver sings, he has to sing in this high falsetto. And Reeve, I don't know, he's lovely. And he married his, you're ready to see. Those actors fell in love, and I think they're currently playing Gatsby and Daisy on the West End and the great Gatsby musical. So they're like sort of the Tom Holland and Zendaya Broadway. And I love their love story, and I think that's lovely. He's just hashtag delightful. - Not my Orpheus, right? - Okay. - Okay, self-proof air. - From Mocky, who'd have been your dream cast for the Odyssey, both, we're just doing this from the Nolan versus what we decided. - Yeah. - Yeah. If we could recap, we agree. We would not really wanna touch a single hair on the head of anything inside of this movie. We think it's, we love the Odyssey. - Right, just hairs on other body parts so that we could see them. - That no hairs on the heads. - That's you. - That's your desire. And I support you in that. - Show us the Cyclops tongue. - You think merely removing hair would have gotten there? - No, it's you have to move the whole length lock, my friend. This is the intellectual exercise we pose for ourselves. - Yeah. - You have to recast three roles in the Odyssey. - Okay. - Any three roles you like with three Nolan versus, let's say, regulars. - Regulars. - Okay. - I have, okay, I think I'm prepared for this. - Okay, what do you have? - I don't, but I would like to, even though you literally just said it, repeat out of an abundance of caution. The caveat that this does not mean we believe these roles should have been recast. But I think there's a real contender for one of them that I'm like, I'm not saying that. Damon shouldn't have been an Odysseus butt. - I am. - I am. - I do think Christian Bale would have been fucking dynamite. - I say Guy Pearce. - Guy Pearce is the biggest issue. - Interesting. - I mean, that would be great. - Yeah, that would be great. - I mean, I guess I don't know, are we using our regulars and been in multiple, let's just say they've been in Nolan bit. 'Cause then I can use Guy Pearce. - Okay. - So then that's, that's okay. - Yeah. - Yeah. - So that not necessarily regulars, but we know he wanted him back. And various suits wouldn't let him as we talked about in the Mementopod. That was a weird one. And I think, you know, Killian Murphy would have been a fantastic, in some role, a lot of his leading men would have been like great candidates. - Not for Odysseus, but for some role in the movie. I mean, his whole, like, you know, a number of people would have made sense to return here. I think Belle would have been great as Odysseus. I think he obviously has a little bit less of the, we're kind of inherently inclined to like root for him and forgive him that we bring to our relationship with Matt Damon. Though as we've talked about, as we talked about with Hugh Mann and Interstellar, for example, that's part like weaponizing that is part of what's fun about putting Damon in a more complicated man role. - But I just think Belle would have been able to capture all of the elements, the introspection, the grief, the remorse, the complicated choices, the physicality, the idea that people would want to follow him, what would kind of spring up in his absence? I mean, we're basically describing his Batman and his-- - I just, I think there's more in to Ripley and I guess Will hunting aside. I think there's more interiority to a Belle or a Pierce performance than there usually is to a Damon performance. So like I like to Damon in this role even much better than I was worried he would be, but I do think a Pierce or a Belle, especially in those moments of silence when you're just having to convey so much with a look. - Guy Pierce on Calypso's Beach would have been. - Yeah, the think of the responded beard situation but I love it. - But I love it. - Yeah. - And the beard would have been great. - Yeah. - Okay, so we're both opening by Recasting that Damon, top one. - Yeah, tough. - This is what a Belle bag's all about folks. - That was great. - Oh, it is. - Can we stand the beach for a minute? Stand Calypso's Beach? - Oh, you're recasting to her leaves. - I am. - Who are you picking? - Let's bring Marion back in. - Okay. - What do you think about this? Because I think that it leans directly, perhaps too directly, but even more directly into the let's make the Inception Beach stuff a clear comp here. And also, I think there's a little bit more of a insidious quality there. - With, and Emily Wilson would approve, it would complicate the story a bit to make Calypso less like, sorry you were here for so many years but I'm just trying to help you remember your family now. - Yeah. - You should come home. - I think a slightly more sinister trap. you're here as my sex prisoner? - Yeah. - And I liked it. - Would have worked here. - And our girl, Marion. - I would. - Dying like this in a seat could have done that well. - I would have done Marion. This is not one of my picks, by the way, because I think Samantha Morton's perfect. But like, the Marion Cersei is interesting. - I consider that, but decided I simply could not even put into the university idea of recasting the Samantha Morton possible. - Michael Caine, how's he not in this movie? - As you may have. Well, I don't think he's really working. Because he's just a bit in firm at this point. - Mistom. - Yeah. I mean, it's been a minute, but I think Michael Caine, a little younger than he is now. Michael Caine is mass. - Great one. - The loyal servant. - Okay, I don't actually think the Alfred of the movie, essentially. - Would have been great. - I'm not actually suggesting this, but this is more about the bit. Do it for the bit. Tom Hardy's too big of a performer to do this movie's version of Agamemnon, but Tom Hardy has a man. - A giant helmet and mast face would be, I think a real amusing continuation of this era of Hardy in not only movies and stories period, but Nolan movies specifically where his face is obscured for reasons that kind of elude us. So I'll throw that out there. I did have one other contender after you say your third that I wanted to debate with, see what you thought 'cause I don't know how I feel about it, but I thought it was at least worth tossing into the ether as a consideration. And maybe it'll be what you say right now. - Not to sound too much like Bill Simmons, but it counts 'cause he's in an orseller. - This is it! - Timmy is sluggish. - Timmy is sluggish. - Okay, great. Yeah, so the Hardy one was kind of a bit, but that's actually my third one. - Timmy is in an orseller, so he definitely counts. - Regular, I don't know. But let's toss the word regular out and just say Nolan verse. - He'd be great. Guy Pierce, Michael Cain, Timothy Chalamet. Yeah, I'm about it, fantastic. Christian Bale. - If Bale is Odysseus and Timmy is Telemachus. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yes, yeah. - Yes. - All right, we solved it. We did it. - Okay. - We solved it. - We solved the food we already really, really loved. Great stuff for us. - All right, G.C. asked about the format. - Yeah. We, you and I have only seen this in IMAX. We have not seen it in 70 millimeter. - No. - But we just wanted to take a moment, you know, sort of, this listener was asking sort of, to compare the formats or had any thoughts or opinions about it. But we just wanted to take it a moment to talk about this site. This like moment inside of big budget filmmaking, when we have Ryan Coogler step out of the stage, it's gonna come a con to talk about the large scale format, and he's gonna use for Black Panther 3, or when you have a, you know, just like my memories of going to the Pact IMAX metrion to see Doom Part 2 or sinners, or whatever the case may be. And definitely Doom Part 3, when it comes out, I saw Oppenheimer at that theater. It was amazing. So just sort of like this moment of like spectacle that is not just like, you know, and I say this complimentary, we both love Spider-Man, but like not just this sort of Marvel kind of spectacle, but just sort of like almost Lawrence and Arabia, kind of like magic of movie and scope, kind of spectacle. What do you wanna say about this moment? - I, I'm off two minds on this, because I think that like getting to, so again, haven't seen it in 70 millimeter IMAX, but have seen it a couple times in IMAX and thought it was just absolutely astonishing. And in general, living in a city like LA, where we have some opportunities at certain theaters to see, you know, a 35 millimeter print, a 70 millimeter print, IMAX Dolby, we'll have an affinity vision with us before long folks. Joking about that last one, I mean, I'm not. That's about to happen, but it's not real. (laughs) - A wild times. - I think it's amazing to be able to sit there and see the movie in the grandest way possible and to really get closer to the filmmakers intended presentation and vision, then we like would dare to believe that we could have. I think that's amazing. I do think that it's a bummer that it, two things. One, that it is just like, I think there's a little bit of a, unless you're like really paying attention to this, it's hard to, we're at a point where sometimes you're like, I don't even know which of these I should pick. Like a little bit of a paralysis of choice where you boot up your Fandango app and you look at the screenings and you're like, I see seven options for this movie. What am I supposed to do? And so that feels like a little bit of a newly prevalent conundrum for filmgoers. Though again, I think having the choice is awesome. The real thing is like, it's just too hard to see the movie, the way the filmmaker wants you to see it. And that's I think a bummer. So for the majority of people, yeah, like if you're in LA or New York or London, San Francisco, major city that has a really robust cinema infrastructure, you at least have the opportunity to like, fight your fellow man for a ticket and refresh your app constantly. And maybe if you want like, pay more on the second hand market, but the fact that that's where we are, that people are reselling Odyssey, 70 millimeter IMAC tickets on eBay. It goes back to my sort of like pro shot thing, the fact that like for some people it's an impossibility, you know, like to your point. Like I feel the same way where I just think, I think it's incredibly cool. I think it's really exciting. I think it sucks for people who have no access to what I max theater, you know, or if we think back to last year to one battle. That was an even more extreme. This feels more extreme because the interest is so significant and so many people want to go to a 70 millimeter, I'm screening and like can't. But if we think about the, okay, there are four, during one battle, there are four like projectors in the world that can allow you to see this movie, exactly the way the PTA wanted you to see it. - The same person. - It was the same person. - That's like tough, right? - It was in San Francisco. - I'm thriving, everyone else is hot. - So yeah, I don't know, I do not personally, I really rely on you and our pals at the big pick to give me like some sort of industry insight into this because I don't have a good enough feel for the economics of the theater business to understand why there aren't more. I do understand at the most basic level, like, "Didn't we have a conversation about this that they can't build more?" - Yeah, that's the projectors. - But like then they're refurbishing them and it's like, can they literally, can they not? Is it cost prohibitive? - How can they not? - How can they not just like open them? Look at the innards, 3D prints, some replacements. I don't understand, I genuinely want to be one. - I'm not a, you know, a technician, I'm not an engineer, it just seems impossible to me that these things exist. - Yes. - And there's no way to replicate them. - And then if it becomes a matter of less and actual genuine impossibility and more a cost prohibitive conundrum, then it's like, well, if there's enough clear palpable interests and from the consumer, from the movie going public to buy that ticket, to line up and go to those formats, to those screenings, then give people more opportunity to do that. So when does the supply demand tip into like clearly we need more screens that can show movies this way? - The thing about the large format sort of iMacs, 70 millimeter situation, is it, you know, it creates this fervor inside of this sort of these hot beds of people who talk about film, let's say. Not everyone who talks about film lives in New York and LA and Chicago and services go, et cetera, et cetera, but a lot of them do, you know, in the US, let's say. And so if you can create this sort of like, and that sort of like scarcity idea, you know, makes the, you have to see it. And you, if you see it opening, if you got just tickets to see it opening, we can, you want something, you know? And so then it creates this like online chatter and conversation, which means that people who don't have those formats are still like, but I want to see the Odyssey opening weekend, because it's this big sort of exciting prize that one can win if one goes to see it. And so like, they kind of get the benefit of it without having to build those theaters, but I think they should build those theaters everywhere. And I also think there should be bookstores everywhere. Like, I think these like, physical media macas should exist everywhere and be accessible to everyone. And I think pro shots of live shows should exist that everyone can see them. That's what I think. And Christopher Nolan should make a musical and we should see some Cyclops Dick. That's not at least. I will say we got an email from Christina who said, with the Odyssey and Heat rivalry, both becoming big hits this year. I have to wonder how long until Hollywood adept Song of Achilles into a movie. So song, so for some books. Well, so, 'cause I just love talking about books. As do you. I wanted to ask before we talked about this, 'cause I know you haven't read Song of Achilles yet. - I know, I know you will. - It's on the list, but I know you will. Before we get into this, I'm just curious, 'cause I don't think I know. Do you have a favorite Greek myth? Like a myth that either has or hasn't, that you would love to see adapted? - I don't know if I can pick just one. I feel like we, part of what I like about the Greek myths is getting so many versions of them. Something that was so fun about finally reading Percy a few years ago is the list and total volume of Greek myth that is incorporated in some capacity into one or many of those books is really joyful. I mean, I've always been a, you know, Prometheus head. I love, I love Prometheus. That's one of my favorites, and I would probably say that Orpheus is like a top three for me. So it does make not having seen "Headies Town" pull in the musical exclamation point slightly puzzling, given that that's on offer. I mean, something like "Dedalus and Icarus", obviously, I really enjoy "I'm Atheist's Head", you know, like "The Minotaur". Yeah. So I think, you know, to your point about like with Orpheus about how that felt like it kind of broke, contained, and became one of the myths of the generation, you know, obviously, I feel like it's impossible to think back on our lives without seeing something like, you know, flew too close to the sun as just a common part of people's speech and how they talk about things. So, you know, same with Orpheus and the fire, I think, like something about something about the myth in general, and the way that it is incorporated to how we parse and assess human behavior, even if we're not thinking about the full story behind it, you know, something like, like, its shipathesis making its way into the MCU was like such a thrill for us. So whether it's like an active adaptation, or just a point of reference, or even just a way that people frame choice and consequence, you know, it's kind of inextricable, I think, from how we process culture. But yeah, I guess I would have to pick Orpheus, probably as number one, probably, non-auticy version. I do love Achilles, so it's very strange to me that I haven't read Song of Achilles, given how you and a number of people in my life really love that book, and Cersei as well, which I've also not read, but I know people love. Song of Achilles and Cersei, both incredible, incredible interpretations of these stories. And Song of Achilles specifically is about Achilles and Patrick Liss, who was either, is like, cousin, his friend, his roommate, or his boyfriend, if you prefer. And sort of, you know, how Patrick Liss and Achilles and their relationship impacts the war, Odysseus is a significant character in both of these stories, actually. So just to be clear, you think that this book is a better telling of that than the movie Troy. With respect to Garrett Headman, I do. I want to, years ago, I read a couple of passages from this for you on one of our Valentine's day. I want to read you a couple that are not tremendously sexy, but I just like, we've already given me that gift on another podcast. Well, one of them, one of them is the most famous and I will read it, but okay. This is a conversation between Patrick Liss and Achilles. Name one hero who was happy. I considered Heracles went mad and killed his family, feces lost his bride and father, Jason's children, a new wife, were murdered by his old, Baleraphon killed Camera, but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus's back. You can't. He was sitting up now leaning forward. I can't. I know they never let you be famous and happy. You lifted an eyebrow. I'll tell you a secret. Tell me. I loved it when he was like this. I'm going to be the first. He took my palm and held it to his, swear it. Why me? Because you're the reason. Swear it. I swear it. I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. I swear it. He echoed. At that moment, hands touching, he grinned. I feel like I could eat the world raw. One of the things about these Greek stories that we tell over and over and over again, especially the tragedies. There's a line from Hades Town that Hermes, it's a bookend of the Hades Town musical, Hermes, who's the narrator of the story, is we're going to tell you the story of where facing you're going to see. And in the reprise, he says, don't ask why, brother don't ask how he could have come so close. The song was written long ago, and that is how it goes. It's a sad song. It's a sad tale. It's a tragedy. It's a sad song, but we sing it anyway, because here's the thing. To know how it ends and still begin to sing it again. As if it might turn out this time. I learned that from a friend of mine, meaning Orpheus. So just sort of this idea of like we tell these stories over and over again, even if they are like, you know, this is a tragedy. Yeah, sure. This is a heartbreaker. The best one is what I mean. And just sort of like, you read it and you get swept up in this sort of like, here's the killies being like, I'm going to be the one hero who's going to be famous and happy. And we know that that's not the case. And so that sort of bittersweet quality tinge is the whole thing. Here's the most famous line from song with killies. I could recognize him by touch alone by smell. I would know him blind by the way his breath came, his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death at the end of the world. It's an incredible book. The rights have sort of been kicking around Hollywood for a really long time. Matthew Lopez, who made the red, white, and blue Amazon movie, which I thought was aggressive. We find said he really tried to make it and it didn't work out. So I like to think that my Lynn Miller is how much she's involved in any of this is being particular in sort of like how the adaptation will go or Hollywood just hasn't figured it out yet. But what's possible is that like seeing again, the success of heated rivalry and then the success of the Odyssey, I think we are never more primed to get a song of a killies mini series or movie. Should it be a mini series or should it be a movie? If it's a mini series, it should be like for like, it should only be, it should be sure. It should be like eight or 10 episodes. No, four. I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. Right, streamer. Where does this belong? Um, like an HBO BBC co-pro sort of situation. Signed up. Signed up. Sounds great. Um, and I just want to like come through with some bullfinches mythology, Avid, which of course is not great, but Roman, this, this incredible Edith Hamilton mythology version. You know, she wrote this in 1945. This is a new edition, but it's got just like incredible illustrations. And then this is the one that I grew up on. Um, but a lot of children of the 80s and 90s grew up on. It's like literally falling apart because I read it so many times. That's actually in really good shape. Uh, that's quite intact. Really? Okay. Well, from the outside, from the corners and the spines, it looked well preserved. No, there are sections that are just literally falling out of it. Um, my favorite Greek myth is actually not a Greek myth, it's, it's a Roman myth is Cupid and psyche, uh, eros and psyche, if you prefer the Greek, but it was a Roman story. But what I love about Cupid and psyche is that, um, how it over time became essentially the beauty of the beast myth, it comes from Cupid and psyche. It's a, that's a retelling, that's a French retelling of this Roman iteration of this Greek story. Um, and so just that sort of like, interpolations of stories again and again and again over time. And it's like because of Cupid and psyche, we have Disney's beauty and the beast among like other, other things. And so where would we be if we not only did not have Pride and Prejudice in Zombies, but didn't have Bridget Jones's diary as interpretations of Pride and Prejudice? This is something to think about. I'll give you one of those. I only care about Bridget Jones. And it's not the Zombies one. Yeah, I've actually never read the Zombies one. It's not good. Yeah, but I met the, I would consider Bridget Jones my religion. So Bridget Jones fantastic, clueless, amazing, the vast, you know, I watched clueless every other weekend at my dad's when I was a kid. We went from rescuers down under into clueless as we got older because we would go to my dad's every other weekend. Shout out to divorce. And there was always a movie in the mix, rescuers, then you get a little older, clueless, love it. You know what, clueless, 6,000 times as a kid, perfect movie honestly. That's great. I should rewatch that. It's been a minute. It was interesting. I was like digging slightly and to keep it in psyche. Something I hadn't dug into is like how Aros, who is like this, like the hottest man alive, went from a hot young man to like a chorubic little, well, baby, winged baby. And the answer seems to be that as like a Hellenic or as Athenian culture moved further away from like valuing women, the idea that Aros would be, you know, basically the servant of his mother, Aphrodite, they're like, that's a little baby move. And it's not really a hot young man move to just be the servant of his mother. So tell the Targaryen's absolutely. And then also Christianity got involved. So they just like give like, they're like wings must be an angel, got it. Anyway, that is our brief little mailbag. One last thing I'll say is that our listener Katie wrote it and just wrote, "Can't believe you caught on another boat, literally, immediately after that." And I just thought that was really funny and I wanted to read it. Great stuff. Yeah, and she's the escaping son somehow. And there are no private jets at this time, nor rubers. What's the, what's the, what's the seafaring equivalent of an Uber? I mean, it's an island. How do you get across the water somehow? In the time of the Odyssey. Yeah. I don't know, but they've got the like, Vaporitos, what they're called, the like, Venice water taxis. So. There you go. Those exist. Yeah. Alright, so there are 13 films directed by one, Mr. Christopher Nolan. That's right. He also produced Man of Steel, but we are not counting that. Just the ones he directed. We are going to do this at the end of our series, but we genuinely all jokes aside, don't know when we're doing the op. And I'm repot, so we didn't want to wait any longer. This felt like a good moment. We were going to try. Sean's away. He'll be back. We were waiting for Sean and, but he'll be back soon. And if we can figure out how to do it, we'll be away. We're working on it. One day. We're working on it. So. - Yes. - We are gonna do the 13 films, starting at the bottom, we're gonna go back and forth all the way up to number one. And we are each sharing our personal rankings. We're not making a collaborative ranking. - No. - Why would it be? I would posit with love in respect to our, beloved colleagues and friends who just tried to make a joint ranking, that part of what is interesting about a Nolan ranking is, I think that the variance person to person is significant. And there might be like tears and clusters. Oh, these five movies are probably in the middle of these. But even that, I don't think so. I think we're gonna have someone in our middle and that are high on other people's lists. I, it's just what the ranking is. It's just so much variance. - It's like a love language. Though I recently found out that the love language idea was originated by a guy who was just trying to make excuses where why he didn't do chores around his house. And he's like, that's not my love language. And created a whole philosophy around it. - I admire the entrepreneurial spirit. - Oh, okay. All right, anyway, what's your number 13? - We're gonna do takeaways at the end, right? Like after some, or anything you wanna say before we start, that feels important. In terms of what you wanna say about anything else. - Save it 'til the end, I think, 'cause I don't know how to say it without spoiling. I'll just say I found this incredibly challenging. Despite having just spent a year talking about Nolan's movies and thinking it might be easier to rank them at the end, I found it very, very hard, particularly in the middle. I was actually like, you know, some, okay, what's the exact order among these two or three? But I knew what I wanted at the top. I knew what I wanted near the bottom. And then there was a lot of like, oh my God, is this movie really gonna be like ninth? That seems crazy. - But I mean, that's the thing about-- - But here we are. - That's the thing about Nolan is like, his ninth, or like masterpiece. - This is, this is exactly an addition to the variance person to person, which is part of the fun. This is just such a stacked loaded filmography that it is like kind of amazing how good the bottom of the list is. I don't think a single one of these, there's a movie or two. There's one movie that's not for me, personally, as we chronicled. But even that, I admire as a film. - Yeah. - And like, I think that none of these movies, you could say are not good or in some way interesting. So this was just very, very, I thought this was really hard. I knew what I wanted at number one. I knew what I wanted in a couple of other spots. I found this to be an act of, just an absolutely torturous act outside of us. Did you find it very easy for you to slot one through 13? - I just feel less stressed about it 'cause I just feel like I can change my mind anytime. - Of course. - And I did over the course of our rewatch. So this is just taking my temperature right now of like where I am. - Maybe when we do the App and Hammer pod, it'll be different. - But I was curious if my number one was going to change sort of like what I've been sort of like feeling like my number one was, if that was going to change whether after seeing the Odyssey or after us, like discussing everything and it hasn't. So, same. - Same. - Spoilers, same. Okay, so number 13. - Yeah. I am putting at number 13 a movie that I actually quite enjoying that we had fun talking about, but that is I think even though it has a lot of very nolyny elements in it, the least this is a Christopher Nolan movie of the whole filmography. I'm putting insomnia from 2002. - Same for the exact same reason. - Exact same reason. I actually, yeah, I just fun movie. - I don't even need the caveat of like it has a lot of, it just like it is, I think, objectively, the least nolyn movie. - Yes. - And I haven't slept in days and I can't trust my own mind, be in many nolyn movies, of course, but it's not. - And I think it makes sense for where we find it, like coming off a memento, given the opportunity, he's adapting an international feature that he enjoyed. He's working with Al Pacino, there's just like a lot going on and it's like, and then it's a hit. And so after that, I think he comes into that a bit on the back foot in a just sort of like overwhelmed by the opportunity kind of way, and then he goes into Batman and that's still overwhelmed by the opportunity, but having like successfully landed the plane on an Al Pacino movie, I think he's coming with like, just a bit more clutzpah about his own perspective on like an archetype character and stuff like that. So yeah, it's on the end, number 13. - Had a little bit of a hard time ordering 11 and 12. Okay. I feel like we're gonna have these in the opposite order, but we'll find out maybe. At number 12, I have a movie that was new to me that I absolutely genuinely loved, but I am putting following the first film from 98 at 12. It's a mini film, a little bit longer than an hour, and it is as we talked about the skeleton key, the blueprint for basically everything that follows in Nolan's filmography. I thought it was incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking and really actually quite expert for basically like this my first movie, one degree removed from being like a student film, kind of incredibly impressive. It was hard for me at the end of the day to put it above anything else, even a movie that I like way less than it, that I put one spot about it for reasons I'll explain in a moment. - I'll explain it, because you are right that we have those flips, so my 11 is following and my 12 is your 11, which is 10 it. And it's just not for us. - Not a fan. - Just not for us, even though like I think I like it much more than I did before when we sort of like went back through it and talking to Rebecca about it, and like- - I do like it more than I did when we started, but I still put it at the bottom of my ranking just above insomnia. - I don't like it more than when we started. Actually, which has surprised me, but despite that. - Yeah. - I think that there is still so much in it that intrigues me, certainly the film, just the craft and filmmaking of it, obviously, amazes me from the story perspective. There's still enough in there that I admire the ambition of an eager to reconsider over time. That I'm like following. I thought was amazing. I loved it. I'm so glad that it's a part of my consideration set now for thinking about Nolan's work. I don't know that anything will change about how I consider following over time from here, whereas like 10 in, I think there's still a chance that I could find more ways to appreciate it over time, but it was never gonna get beyond 11. It was honestly, whether it was gonna be 11, 12, or maybe 13, I know. - On the list. And so I think having done this whole thing is the only reason it's not 13 on my list. That's what I mean by I like it more. So it's bumped up a couple spots. - There you go. - Okay, so we both have Insomnia at 13. You have 10 in at 12 and following at 11, I have following at 12 and 10 and at 11. This is where I think the real variance in our list probably will be in. Number 10. - I wonder if we have something from the same franchise, but a different movie. - I have Batman Begins here. - Okay. - You have Star Trek Rises? - Yeah. - I don't like that I have Batman Begins at 10. There are two things on this list that feel really weird and wrong to me and they're where I have Batman Begins at 10 and they're where I have what I have at number nine. I really like Dark Knight Rises, even though it is kind of a mess for all of the reasons that we chronicled with Voss. There's stuff in it that I just absolutely love. And so I do enjoy returning to it more than I enjoy returning to Batman Begins. So all of the Nolan Batman movies from movies that I love and I'm glad we have. And I kind of like frankly overall one of my big like woes of my list is that the whole Batman trilogy is not but individually and collectively higher. So surprising. I love Batman Begins. I think that movie's amazing. So I'm just like how is that a 10? But the other movies are just so undeniable to me. - So yeah, I have the Dark Knight Rises number 10 and I have Batman Begins at number nine. - Okay. - So similar. - It's kind of like how do you get it higher on the list, you kind of can. - Yeah, you can't. - And it's hard because like, you know, especially when you're piecing out a trilogy because the Dark Knight, which is gonna be higher on both of our lists, is only there because of, you know, it's police in a trilogy. I think you know, Batman Begins of course plans to see that's important for the flowering of the Dark Knight, but I think the Dark Knight Rises not being as successful. Also then like in retrospect, makes the Dark Knight feel like even more of a miracle that it works, you know what I mean? And so all of those things are important for glorifying the Dark Knight, which can be as high as low as it is on your list, we'll find out together. - Yeah. I'm surprised that you didn't have Batman Begins at number one just because of you guys get across. Stay tuned. Okay, so Batman Begins is my 10 Dark Knight Rises, is your 10 Batman Begins is your nine, so it's time for my nine. This was the single biggest shock of my list. I have Memento at nine and I don't know how that happened, but I just, it's where it is. And I, this is like, I think that when we were, I was trying to think back 'cause I think especially the first handful of Nolan Paz we did, I think we stopped doing this maybe midway through the series, but for like five, six, seven pods, we were doing a check-in on our top five, like a casual one, not a formal one. I think Memento is my top five the entire time we did that. - So this is really what happened. - Some of it is just spoiler, the odyssey is. - Did you forget to tattoo it? - Did you forget to tattoo it on your legs so you could remember? - Maybe. Some of it is just like the odyssey is here now, so that is no surprise gonna be pretty high on the list. Some of it is reconsidering pinheimer a little bit more. And then some of it is I think probably frankly, having miscounted in real time, and just saying Memento's a top five movie for me, and I'm like, when I sketch out was that ever true? I don't know. I love Memento. I think it's a wonderful movie. So to me Memento at nine is really, maybe more than anything else on the list. Again, of a piece with that man begins at 10. For me, just a testament to the depth of the filmography and how stacked Nolan's career has been. because I think there are a number of contemporary filmmakers who you'd say Memento is the best movie they ever made or could hope to make. The fact that it's not a top five or top three is just for me is just a testament to the craft elsewhere. But I do love Memento. So I was shocked to see it here. You have it much higher? We'll find out. - So we're at eight. - Interstellar, for me. - I have it pretty close to there, but not there. - Not much higher. - Interstellar, which, you know, I appreciate even more than I did before, you know, with our review of it. We did as part of our like space exploration series and around Project Hill Mary. We talked to Van about it. We've heard from like so many people that it's their favorite Nolan, that it's their favorite film, that it's all these things. It's Sendeya's favorite film, like love to know that about her. I think it's fantastic. I do think the sequence where McConaughey, Cooper, is sobbing over videos of his adult children is like one of the best things has ever happened on film, honestly. - And for memes. - You care so much more about memes than I do in general. - Which is so weird because I'm on social media so much less than you are. - I don't remember. - Why do memes have such a hold on me? I'm on Instagram a lot. - You're on Instagram a lot. - I'm just happy to be on multiple platforms. - You spray your time and I am just like, a brain rot of real straw has gripped me in fall. It's taken me. - Okay. - Yeah. - So again, to your point, this is not an insults of interstellar to put it at eight, but that's just where it is from. - It will be received as such by the. - An abysmal choice, would you say? And the food looks horrible. - Again, mine didn't slot much higher for me. I have darkenerized this is eight at eight. Okay. Would I like to have it higher? Honestly, no. This felt right. This is like, I like that movie. - Yeah. I love on revisiting it. I just absolutely love watching Bane. I love watching and halfway as cat woman. I enjoy the movie. It's a date. I have interstellar at seven. So not much higher. - And what's better? - I think that other than maybe what I have at number one and two, might be the thing that actually moved least for me across the whole project. Like, I feel like the whole time I was like, interstellar's kind of middle of the pack for me on the whole filmography. Because as we talked about at length when we did our part with Van, there are things in that movie that I love and that wallet me. And there are things in the movie that just simply don't work as well for me as they work for a lot of other people. And that's okay. The thing that I think I had a similar experience is. - It would be quantum interdimensional library of love. - Among other things, yeah. I have a lot of first act and third act story notes and script notes as you know. I think the middle act, the human stretch is just absolute dynamite. And the visual splendor of that movie is astonishing and there are some emotional beats in it that are just gobsmacking. So there's a lot in it that I love, but when I watch it, it is like, I can't. I can't, there's yet to be a time where I've watched interstellar and I don't have the same notes on it, even though there are things about it that really grip me in that I love. So seven feels right. I had this similar experience to you though, where I think the thing that I came out of this, we both knew this and recognized that I had clocked and actually talked about it before we did that pod. But just the Nolan project in this moment and Nolan's centrality in the culture, really, really undeniably recognizing how important this movie is to so many younger people. - Younger people, but also mainly I've talked to a couple people who are older than me who are interstellar is my favorite and I was sort of like, okay. - I will say this was one of my revelations is that my husband, he's a much bigger interstellar fan than I realized he's like astonished that I have it at seven. - Oh, astonished. - I love thinking, I love every time you refer back from when you've like float in your rankings by Adam and he's like, I literally positioned this one to him is like, I'm gonna read it to you? No feedback, no, no. - So like, I don't wanna hear anything and he's like, interstellar at seven, it's crazy. So maybe seven's a slot for us to be unpopular 'cause here's our, I have the Dark Knight. - Oh, wow. - Yeah, holy shit. When you were giving me a little side, I raised eyebrow. I thought you were like, it's number one. - It's still gonna be in the top three for you and how dare I imply otherwise. - It's number seven. - Whoa. - Yeah. - I am actually, you just shocked me. - I have one point on it. - Tell me everything. - Oh, one point on my list, it was like number three. But then I just like kept reconsidering and I was just like, but I can't. But I need this higher, but I need this higher, but I need this higher and I kept shuffling down and I kept being like, I'm okay with this lower. I can't tell if the reason I'm okay with it being number seven on my list is like, I know it's at the top of so many other people's list, so I'm just sorta like, you don't need to find it. - And Dark Knight doesn't need you to defend it. - It doesn't need to be championed by me. It's a, it's a, like, it's the paragon of comic book films. It is like a wonderful film with an absolutely incredible undeniable once in a lifetime performance from one of our great actors who left us way too soon. Like that forever will make it something that that matters, no matter what comes and goes in terms of like our superhero tastes. But when I think about what I love in a Nolan movie, it's not replacing the ones that I have above it. So maybe number seven is the slot for us to wild out and chalk in and it's like people. - You blew my mind. I don't, I'm not challenging anything you just said. I think that all is completely reasonable. Seven surprised me, but I think the overall, the overall assessment makes complete sense. I'm excited to hear your top six now. Interesting, okay, wow. So you have, you do have, maybe you have momentum at six. No, I think you have momentum in your top five. Well, we're gonna find out, interesting. - You're a mystery to me. It's nice to know I can still surprise each other. - Honestly, after, it's like, - I am the mystery box. - It's me like a couple decades into a marriage and you're like, we still got it. - You shocked Adam with where you put in her cellar. So, you know? - Yeah, but not in an exciting way. - You're still like, I'm Darryl. All right. - I'm Darryl. Okay, wow. So we're on number six. - Number six. This is where I, and I was really torn on how I ordered five and six. This is a little bit of the pattern by list is like these like, okay, these are definitely in these two spots, but one order was like something I had a lot of trouble with. I had very few like, should this be two or 11 kind of conundrums, but I'm like, should this be nine or 10, should this be six or five? I have Oppenheimer at six. - Need to. - To me, this feels right in terms of my relationship to the film, which we have not yet explored on podcast. - I know, but honestly, this is a huge leap up the list from where it would have been before this project for me. I would have had it lower on the list. I like really do not, no, but like I did not respond to it the way that other people responded to it. - Yeah. - And I think in that sort of Emily Wilson fashion, I got so irritated by people being mad that I thought it was just okay, that then I started like backing into a corner of like, it's not that good or whatever. And then, you know, I rewashed it for it, 'cause we were gonna do the Oppenheimer pod and then illness got in the way. But I did all the prep for it, but a lot of time with it. And I'm just sort of like, actually this movie is fantastic. - Yeah, that's great. - Oops, turns out everyone was right. And also, you're allowed to change your mind. And also, in light of the Odyssey, really has impacted my reading of Oppenheimer. So while this might seem low for people, I just wanna let people know that it is way higher than it would have been if we had done this a couple months ago. And I think it's a fantastic movie. And I really enjoyed my time prepping for that podcast, which we will eventually do. - Listen, here's the good news. You have Dark Knight at 7. No one's paying attention to you having Oppenheimer at 6. (laughing) Calm down. - No one can calm down. - I support you fully. I love this. I swear I also have it. And I've said before on the pods, I did not see it. I didn't do Bob and Heimer in theaters. Halo is having a surgery that weekend. So we were home with him and then the next couple weeks with his care. And I just didn't get to it in theaters for some reason. By the time I saw it at home. I was like, I feel okay about having seen this at home. We have a nice television. We've got good speakers. We closed the drapes. Everything was fine. I didn't feel like I was necessarily completely deprived of seeing it in the way that it absolutely needed to have been seen. - Right. - My relationship to it is, I also have an uptick in appreciation for the reason you said, like thinking about it as part of this tapestry and this connected focus for Nolan across his work, particularly heading into, you know, just in conjunction with the Odyssey, I find that aspect of how Nolan is exploring his kind of central, the opus across his films and like the themes and aspects of humanity that are most interesting to him, like really kind of amazing to consider. So that, I liked thinking about that part of it more as well. I think that the performances in Oppenheimer, both the first time I saw it and then revisiting it a couple weeks ago are amazing. - I think Killian's amazing. - Killian's unbelievable. It's like one of the best movie performances of the century genuinely. I think Emily Blond is bad. - And you recently compared it, we had a, it's not her, it's the character. - I said the character could be played by a gin bottle and I stick with it. - He did say that, yeah. - Fight me. - Emily Blond, disclosure day. - I'm crown of fight. - Astronom, maybe. Remember when I clicked in your ear? Remember when I elbowed me in the collarbone? physically injured you. It was worth it. It was worth it to share that experience together. I think that the my relationship to Oppenheimer to spoil our eventual pod is that I think the the visual splendor of the movie astonishing the thematic examination astonishing the performances astonishing the first two hours among my favorite stretch of Nolan filmmaking ever. The third act is just not for me the final hour of the movie is just not for me and I the the focus of the movie around the hearing and Donnie's character is a choice that I just don't genuinely don't understand. So it was never going to move past like it was never going to go to like my top four. I don't think even though I believe the first two hours have a the first two hours of Oppenheimer have a case for number one. Overall, the film like this feels like appropriate in the ranking for me, even though it's the dark. It's just really I also I also just don't think down he's very good in the movie. Honestly, like I just think that like well his I mean his lot very and Victor von Doom has always been more. You're obviously your preference, you know, an olden is like ill served in that movie as well, but like there's so much greatness in there as well. Um number five. I have done Kirk here. Okay. You have memento. I'm a memento. Okay. Exciting. Um the reason that I because I was like, should I put up an hammer of five and don't and don't Kirk at six and here's why I didn't. I would rather watch Dunkirk, like it's jack loud in season, baby. Yeah, it is jack loud and slow horses coming. Pride is coming. Slow horses is coming out of my birthday. What a fucking treat. I think I think I saw September 16th. Listen, date, right? Is that right? It's September. I can't wait. Um is Dunkirk a bigger achievement than Oppenheimer? I think you could make the case in terms of some of the filmmaking. It's obviously not for everyone. We we love it. It was so fun to talk to Chris about it. Um I really love the three different slices of that film and the way that they are presented to us and then come together and what we realize in real time. And the first time and then what we could kind of reassess and parse on a revisit. I think it's gorgeous visually. I think that the exploration of community and as CR talked about with us on that pod, like the dopness of the sea, the sea has dope and also wanting to get home, you know, it could be pretty dope too. It's just like I'm more likely to want to boot up Dunkirk and watch it again than I am Oppenheimer and so that was a tie breaker for me. I'm a mentor number five and actually I'm kind of shocked it's as low for me. Um but try having it at nine. I don't understand tough. Um I think you know I think this is just a masterpiece. Everyone knows it is. It's just an astounding first like fulling feature. Um right following is that a fulling feature? I don't know. Anyway, um just what a calling card for for a storyteller. Yeah, the interplay between Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan inside of the story. Guy Pierce is just sort of like a consummate Nolan leading man and just sort of like what what is explored here in terms of which we talked about a lot on the Odyssey podcast being the architect of your own misfortune. And um the willful architect of your own misfortune. Um and yeah, I just I think it's a masterpiece. It's really good. And I think about Carrie and Moss bidding in that beer. Same on the daily same. Um I have to say I'm surprised about something you have as high as you do clearly based on what you haven't. I thought you would have inception lower than you have it. Okay interesting. My number four. Yeah. This is where I have the dark night. It fell out of my top three. Odyssey pushed it out spoiler. Um my top two has not changed the entire project. So okay, perhaps unsurprisingly. Um I think the dark night is great. What I ended up my top four. The movies were clear to me. I knew the top four coming out of Odyssey at least. I'll spoil my list a little bit even though we were going to reveal the individual picks and say that I ended up with two tiers. One and two are originals and three and four adaptations. And that that was a little when I was really like how do I order these four movies that I have the reverse. Great interesting. Okay exciting. I think that what Nolan does when he's adapting a text is like so. There's something viscerally end intellectually and emotionally and spiritually just astonishing about it and I love it. What he. Oh actually you know what that's not that's not true. Two three and four all adaptations only one is the original now that I say that but I think that. The ones that I have at three and four. Let me reframe this are adaptations of texts and stories that are very central in the culture. So it is a no one higher to the prestige. There will be no shots fired at the prestige but obviously that is a text so it's certainly counts as an adaptation but I think that's a little bit different than like what is Nolan going to do with the obvious story people have been telling for three thousand years. Or what is Nolan's got what is Nolan's dress so I was surprised to not have dark night in my top three but like I guess my version of what you were saying is it's more about the movies that are above it than it is like at the merit on dark night. A comic book superhero movie and a genre movie that I think is not only excellent but certainly undeniable as a force and very important for nerds like us and the stuff that we cover. What do you have it for just where you have. Why is why is why are you so compelled to like guess before the person says the thing I'm trying to puzzle it out in real time because I know your number one for sure now I think I know your number two. So it's the question of where you have done Kirk and inception which order what's your number four inception okay my number four is inception and I think. I think there are versions of this list where I would have it a little lower but I think that. You know what's worth celebrating in Nolan you know we talked about this when we talk about the Odyssey is again this just sort of like something that you were like particularly frustrated with Emily Wilson about is just sort of like this welcome hand into the theater and the way in which the conceptions like come to the theater come to the movie theater have a really fucking fun time have a good time enjoy your fucking self I've crafted for you yes you know and he talks about tenant being sort of like his bond movie but I kind of think inception is his bond movie and it's just sort of like I've crafted for you just a perfect jewel of a fun fine time with the movies you know what I mean with the great cast I you know there's a couple of you but like great cast great concept I do think it's lacking some of the emotionality that I really when he can achieve that I think puts Nolan on another level for me and so that's why it's not higher on my list but also as I've told you one million times in our relationship together when you love something it makes me love it more and the fact that an inception is your number one makes it more important to me than it would be otherwise because what you love matters to me saying that's why I'm going to go watch 80s down colon the musical exclamation point with me okay the top three is here this is exciting I found this pretty hard I found this easy I found the top easy to your point the top was easy in the bottom is easy in the middle is just sort knowing the four films was easy or during them was I had a I knew a number one was I had a little bit of a hard time with two three and four but I put the Odyssey at three you have a higher I do yeah I really really considered putting it at two and I won't be surprised if when I get to watch it again that's where it feels like it is like I I think that my experience with the Odyssey over time will be that it moves up and not down I thought this movie was unbelievable you know I have we've had a wonderful time talking about it and thinking about it and considering it at the end of the day the two movies that I have at number two have been like such a big part of my life is a for so fan in a story for so long yeah I had a really hard time moving about it yeah it feels like recency bias to put it higher but I did put it higher but like it does it feels like that will I think be proven valid over possibly but again this is like my number 13 right now you know what I mean this is how I feel right now and we'll see how I feel next year maybe ten it'll be back at 13 yeah with distance number three done Kirk and here's my done Kirk is there that thing that Chris said about like all of his movies are about trying to get home was like such a stunning like inside I thought so great but more than that I think done Kirk is you know when you think about Nolan as a storyteller um you know there's we we ding Nolan sometimes for the writing and I think that's fair we ding Nolan sometimes for lack of emotionality and I think that's fair but what you can never ding Nolan for is his inability to visually tell a story and so the way in which done Kirk could I think of all his movies operate well maybe following operate as a silent film almost like you could tell this story and and oftentimes it you're just following characters silently around you know especially in this sort of like if only ten or a silent on the on the shore you're like following characters around and sort of like silently invested in their in their well-being and so like you know similarly with like hearty up in the air it's just a lot of it It is just sort of like the visual, what the score is doing. And so that is just something that only a master of visual storytelling, and that is what cinema is. Like when we talk about adaptation, which we'll talk about, you know, with Miner One, you're number two, like that's its own skill set, and that is really important to us and something we love talking about. But when you talk about especially large scale storytelling, this is a visual medium, and the way in which in Dunkirk, he is able to be with absolute precision, able to tell these intertwining out of step in time stories about desperation and brotherhood. And I just, I think it's a masterpiece. It is fantastic. And what it tells you about the visual element that you're citing specifically, like what that unlocks for us about thinking about like perspective, you know, if you're seeing the ship because you're on the pier, or if you're seeing it from the sky, or if you're seeing it from another boat that you decided to sail forward into the abyss, or if you're seeing it from the water that you just got thrown into, like what is your relationship to that and what knowledge do you carry and what knowledge do you need to make a decision if the decision is rooted in the sense of the collective pursuit, like it's, it's really just amazing. And even though Dunkirk is an original film, like it is an adaptation of like, you know, especially for, for English people, you know, people of the UK, like this is just sort of like, what are their stories. Yeah. Yeah. There's this great stand of routine that I get served occasionally on, on social media, this guy talking about like, you know the story of Dunkirk, right? It's like, um, pipip-pip-chirio, uh, we've lost the lads, the lads are stuck on the beach. We need to go get the lads so we don't have boats to get, we cannot dock the boats on the beach to get the lads, um, pipip-pip-chirio, let boats to go get the lads back. And it's just like, that's what that movie is and it's just like, really good. So, yeah, this is, this is a core story of sort of like UK English history, uh, and, and this is his, you know, artistic way of, of telling it, you know, and we've seen a million or more two, uh, stories and, you know, I've been on that fucking beach before with like a tonement, you know what I mean? Like, I've been there before, but this is just sort of like, a beautiful song, a beautiful poem, a beautiful painting of, of this historic event. So, yeah. It's a great movie. Crazy to put it number one, but, you know, number three is that right place, right? Yeah. And a business choice, I would be embarrassed personally, but uh, God, good bit, it's becoming a good bit. Um, number two, you have the Odyssey here, tell us why, I mean, I don't have covered it. I've covered it. That's why. Honestly, we've covered it. Um, and the Odyssey as the caper for this project really sort of sows together, plus like, yes, an adaptation of a classic story was always really going to work on me. And we talked about this when we talked about the Odyssey pod, like in a way that a Batman adaptation would, would just sort of be straight to the heart of certain people. Yeah. Um, a classic that I studied multiple times in school is going to be something that I'm just going to like sing the sweet spot. Yeah. And until he makes a musical. Well, let me ask you this, then, not to predict the future because how can we, but until he makes the musical, do you think that the Odyssey has a chance to become at some point? You're number one? No. No, I'll tell you why. Okay. Um, my number two is your number one, the prestige. Do you want to talk about that last and I'll talk about my number one inception since you already talked about that one? We can put a bow in the inception conversation and then end on prestige, which feels fitting for our pod, I think. Um, I have inception at number one, because it's my favorite Nolan movie and that hasn't changed since the minute I saw it for the first time. I just think it's incredible. I think it's a masterpiece and for whatever reason, some of its flaws are to me, like, endearing and part of its charm and I think feel in a kind of meta way embedded into the text of, like, the godly pursuit of world building. Um, I, I, I think I find more, you know, I think your, your points about the emotionality of it compared to, like, certainly the movie we'll talk about next and some of the other ones. I understand. I think for me, it is such a treatise on longing and yearning and loneliness, uh, and the desperation to compensate for the things you're missing by forging things that you don't really need that I, I find emotionality in it in a way that I think speaks to me and, uh, it's just, like, one of the more inventive and, like, filmically visually, creatively rendered stories. I just will never forget, like, seeing the trailer for inception for the first time and watching the streets of Paris fold and nothing about my experience to it dampened or diminished since that first second. So I, I love it. It's certainly, you know, actually, maybe that, maybe it would be dark night. I was going to say it's certainly the Nolan movie I've seen the most, but I have seen all of the Batman movies quite, but not only it might be dark night rises, which is not as bad as I told you. I saw that movie. But not as theaters like a sociopath, not as many times you've seen Clueless. I don't know that I've seen any movie as many times as I've seen Clueless, including Revenge of the Sims, which I saw seven times in theaters. Um, so yeah, it was always going to be inception. I was open to the possibility, as I said on many of the pods, that something would move past it, but it just, it held on, it held on and that's where it will be forever, I think. The prestige at number two was, frankly, the one I had a slightly bigger, like will something knock this out of the two spot for me, even though I adore that movie, I just have so much admiration, appreciation for so many of the others. I wasn't sure what it moved to three, what it moved to four there. I, I had it in those slots a couple times and it like, it didn't feel right. It just didn't feel right for me, given how much I love that movie and how mesmerized I am by it every time I returned to it in terms of a puzzle, in terms of the, the emotional half, the performances, um, I just, I honestly just couldn't move it out of the two slot when it came down to it. I had to keep it there. I love it. Tell me why it's your number one. You know, this is really, it has been my number one, like this whole time, um, and, um, I was open to that movie, but like, something that really unlocked for me recently was, again, I was, I believe it was an Instagram reel of some guy talking about Nolan's, he was critiquing the Odyssey, um, and he was talking about Nolan's, like, great men and the way in which he watched these men sort of, um, in their quest for greatness cause a lot of damage, um, and, you know, that's true of Oppenheimer's, true of Odyssey, it's, uh, true of inception. It's true of, um, I don't know about it, interstellar, if we lay that at coop, but, um, you know, it's true of Batman, it's true of all the, it's all, all these people. But in most cases, um, there is like a happy ending for those guys, Oppenheimer's a question that's, you know, that's cold salmon at a banquet and stuff like that. We can talk about Oppenheimer when we get there in more depth, but like, you know, Christian Bale in Batman gets to live happily ever after with Ann Hathaway and like, you know, Italy or something like that. Um, Matt Damon gets to sail off into the sunset with Ann Hathaway, seems like a pretty good ending. So does Matthew McConaughey, it gets to hang out with Ann Hathaway in space and we're still like, you know, Nolan's like, guess what, you get Ann Hathaway, right? Uh, I would say the two exceptions, it's really funny. The two sort of greatest exceptions there are, uh, Memento, where I think, you know, Leonard is going to be stuck forever in this spiral of disaster spiral. And the prestige where these two men cause a great deal of damage in pursuit of greatness, often on each other. And they don't wind up with any kind of happy ending. They wind up in sort of like pain and despair in a way that I just find like compelling. Sure. You know, and, and so not, not that I need like, not there has to be a moral punishment. But I just think it's a more honest telling of the damage that greatness can cause to oneself and, and to others and, and that pursuit of, um, whether it's like technological greatness or fame or whatever it is, how the, how the, the foibles inside of ourselves, uh, you know, can, can hoist us is what Greek myth is often about. And so the fact that Odysseus gets to go home, feel really bad at what happened with the Trojan War. But ultimately, Ann has to leave at the cup. That ultimately, like, gets to hang out with Ann Hathaway in a nice, but it is exile if it's, if it's with Ann Hathaway, you know what I mean? So like, so I just think, and I think that, that emotionality that I look for in the best of the, the, the, the Jonathan Nolan that I feel inside of this movie, especially as it pertains to like Rebecca Hall's character, um, and the Christian, the double Christian bail performance and the Hugh Jack one performance. I just think, uh, this is a masterpiece. So it is. Yeah. That's one. So, all right. Read your list. Top to bottom. Let's, let's recap from, from the number one. Yeah. Okay. Number one, number one, number one. Number one. Number one. Number one. Number one. Number one. The procedure. Number two. Honestly, have you heard of it? Number three. Dunkirk. Number four. Inception. Number five. Memento. Number six. Oppenheimer. His best picture winning film. Number seven. The dark night. Understeller. Number nine. Batman begins. Number ten. The dark night rises. Number 11. Following. Number 12. Tenet. Number 13. In Psalm. Yeah. Strong list. Number one, inception. Number two, the procedure. Number three, the Odyssey. Number four, the Dark Knight. Number five, Dunkirk. Number six, Oppenheimer. Number seven, Interstellar. Number eight, the Dark Knight rises. We're nine of a memento. (laughing) Number 10, Batman begins 11, 10 and 12, following 13 in Somnia. We did it. It felt pretty good about that, honestly. That's our Nolan Ranking. That was our Odyssey mailbag. Maybe when he next does a movie, we'll update the list. Make the ranking a living document. Check back in five, six years. That sounds great. When he's back at it. It might be different by the time we do our Oppenheimer podcast, who's the same? Tirely possible. Thank you to Carlos Sherboga. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you to our Jennifer Gopal. Thank you to Jacob Cornett. Thank you to Scott Lee. Thank you to Jimmy Adinawan. Squad. Thank you to Valerie Reuben. Thank you to Joanna Robinson. Thank you to Christopher Nolan. Thank you to the Greeks and all their myths. Thanks to Emma Thomas. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks to Jonathan Nolan and to Lisa Joy. And we'll see you for Talk the Thrones. That's right. Sheesh. Live! That's right. Live. See you tomorrow night, either on the YouTube channel. Get in the chat. Bye. [BLANK_AUDIO]