The Odyssey

♪ Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blank Check with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check. ♪ Is this the kingdom of the Czech Republic? I've heard that your co-host has been journeying on an odyssey across Europe, and there is an opening to co-host the podcast. And once again, I'm just a simple beggar and nothing more. Unsheath! Ah! Bling! I draw a bit into my bit bow. The bit bow. Right, yeah. And then here's my bit bow. Your joke arrow. Shh! Boing! Defy the pods. Oh, that was defy the pods. That's funny. Defy the pods cast. Wow. That was so great. That was really good. Yay! And you have authentic facial hair, much like Matt Damon. I do. I have. How would I describe this? I'm describing it as you look like Seth Bullock in Deadwood. Yes. I do. I've been saying conquistador, but you're right. I feel a little Don Quixote. It's a little. Maybe that's because I've been in Spain. Well, exactly. So, we should explain for the listeners. Basically, Griffin, he's always been rocking a mustache, but now he's got a pretty full soul patch. He's got the patch. I'll say this. So, the mustache has become more and more of an emphasis in how I conduct my face. I'm a fellow stash man. Of course. I get it. I love it. We stash it up. We look great. We're secret stashers. Sure. Thank you. I'm filming a TV show. I'm working on a TV show, which I'm going to say, sometimes I think people should make. And I'm going to say, Griffin, humble brag. Thank you. This TV show is very well run, but I am coming in late into a season, and there's a big wall in the hair and makeup trailer of like the 70 speaking roles in this season. Yes. And I'm introduced like 60 out of 70. There you go. And they're like, you need to have a facial hair design that is different than what anyone else has. So, it's like so many of the things have been claimed and variations. And I came in just sort of unshaved. I hadn't shaved anything in like a month or two. Going into. Going into this. And they were like, we're keeping the mustache and we're emphasizing the flavor saver. There you go. So, even right now, you're seeing me. I'm a couple days off from filming. The rest of my face has been squeaky clean. I got a little stubble back now, but I've been squeaky clean outside of mustache and flavor saver. He's squeaky. And you're right. I look exactly like Matt Damon in The Odyssey. Well, I was going to ask you, like, how long of a beard can you grow? Like, if allowed. Matt Damon's beard, the length of it is really impressive. I mean, if you can grow facial hair, you can grow a long beard. You can. It's about commitment. It's about time. My problem is, if I have too much beard, I start, like, picking at it as, like, a nervous tick. Exactly, right. And then I start, like, pulling at it and futzing with it. So, then I usually don't let it get past a certain point. I heard that Matt Damon grew for a year. He said a year. He said he had a beard for a year, I guess is how he put it. It's a full-looking beard. Yes, because in Greek antiquity, they didn't have fake beards, I guess. So, no one was like, no fake beards. Well, and we know that this is a movie that is 100% historically accurate, and that's why no one is angry about it. Exactly. Wait, people are already angry about it? Oh, don't worry about them, Ben. Don't worry about those guys. We're here to celebrate. It's guys? You're saying it's angry guys? What if it was all girls? Ben, if I told you that one multi-multi-multi-billionaire was angry about this movie, who would you guess it was? One very online, very rich man. Well, let me think. Are they normal, though? The most normal. Okay, then Elon Musk. Perfect sense of humor. Yes, exactly. Yeah, okay. Okay. What's this podcast called? This is called The Podicy. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David, but today we're going on a podicy. We are going on a podicy to Ithaca, and I guess Troy, and. A bunch of other. Assorted islands. Unnamed islands with scary stuff on them. Upstate New York cities. Yeah. Yeah, a bunch of other. Right. That's so true. Saugerties. Have you guys been to Ithaca? Of course. My mother is a Cornell alum. The thing that's really scary about Ithaca as far as walking around is the gorges, and you have to go over these bridges, and you just look down, and it's just. It's quite hefty. It's just. It's quite a drop. It's such a drop. I visited Cornell and Ithaca on a little college tour, and the one thing that everyone. We talked about was like, oh, yeah, lots of people just fling themselves off into the gorges. My cousin went to Ithaca College and just casually mentioned, like, yeah, people just will commit suicide. Because it's too gorgeous? Ithaca's very small, and look at the island. Like, God, everyone's fighting over this. Not that big. Yeah, but, like, you know, it's home. It looks like it has some nice beaches. It's home. I know. It's home. It's home. But, you know, Pattinson's coming all the way out just to try and get this little, like. Why not this island? Look at this island. This island's huge. Cuffalonia, right next door. Sure. I don't know. Maybe there are fucking monsters on it. Yeah, God, all these islands seem to have monsters on them. There are no monsters on there. They're just, they're just, like. Well, there's, you know, there's men. There's petty men. Men are the monsters. They're the real monsters. But you don't have, like, giant Bill Irwin, like, butt naked with one eye eating you. See, my read on it was just the smaller island is maybe more strategic. Maybe, yeah. It's just maybe safer. I think it's easier to govern, too. It's just kind of, like, hey, you know, got some sheep. I want to front load this. Yes. The Cyclops sequence in the movie is the highlight of the film for me. Interesting. I would not say that's true for me, but it makes sense that it is for you because it have big monster, which you do love a big monster. I love big monster. Right. I also love Bill Irwin. We love Bill Irwin. It genuinely was one of the first times in a long time that I watched a sequence in a movie and went, I have no idea how the fuck they did this. I had the same. I certainly, obviously, I was trying to give myself over to the movie, but I was constantly. I guess there's some forced perspective stuff, but I'm not totally sure how they pulled this off. But then it's that great movie magic thing where you watch one shot and you go, okay, I think I figured out how they did this. I think I can see this one. The next shot completely breaks whatever your sense was. And part of it is that he's pulling things back to basics so much that any overcomplicated process that you would just assume or hand wave away, you're ruling out. Yeah, I don't know. It was. It was very cool when he'd pick up Guy and eat him. Yeah, that was scary. I got scared. Step on him with foot. And step on him with foot. And squeeze him. And squeeze him. I know. You know what's so cool about The Odyssey is I wouldn't be surprised if all of us had a different favorite section of the movie. Okay, let's go around. Let's do this. Let's go around the horn. David, favorite section? I think Marie and I have the same favorite section, though. Well, I have two favorite sections. Oh, I know. My favorite section is certainly Cersei and the pig. Yeah. Cersei was a big standout for me, but I also was really, really moved by the flashback to Odysseus' experience of carnage in Troy. Oh, sure. That was very. Yes, I was very impressed by the narrative thing he was doing in the third act, certainly. Yes, that is fair. Ben? Okay, I'm going to attempt to say the name of these people, and I'm sure I'm going to butcher it. The last Dragonians. The big guys. The big fucking crazy knights. I mean, you like a big guy. Oh my God, it was so sick. Yeah. Yes. And that was crazy when it was like, who's that man? And then it turns around and it's a giant kid. Sure. And he's laughing. Well, that was great. It's weird that Ben liked the sequence with the taunting child and the giant brute army, and I liked the sequence with the emotionally wounded monster just in a fetal position in a cave played by one of America's finest clowns. I didn't know it was Bill Irwin until after the fact. Yeah, I had to tell you. It's such a good performance. Very cool. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making a Bartman movie, and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Those checks have not run out for one Christopher Nolan. They keep getting bigger. He has been on an uninterrupted run of checks being handed to him for now 21 years. Yeah? Yes. Yeah. What are we counting as the. Batman Begins, right? That was 21 years ago? Yeah, it was 2005. That's what's crazy. Oh, my God. I was but 19, maybe 20 years old, yeah. You could say that Batman Begins was the guarantor, but I think the circumstances around Batman were so weird at that point in time that they basically, gave him a blank check because they were like, we got no better ideas. But we already said this with him. He constantly has guarantors. He said about this movie, like, this is my biggest budget movie ever, and it's because Oppenheimer did so well. Like, it's like, it keeps. But you don't get to make a movie like Oppenheimer at Oppenheimer's budget without that being a bit of a blank check as well. Of course. So it's like. I have no idea what he does from here. He can do whatever he wants. I don't either. I think he has to go smaller, and I think he's. even sort of talking about that now. covered him many years ago his success has only grown at since we covered him at the time he already was arguably the filmmaker of his generation and with every successive film he's only become more and more important and now he's making what feels like uh the biggest movie you could possibly imagine yeah sure i mean we had this conversation after oppenheimer all of us we were just like the fuck does he do next when oppenheimer which on paper was a one for me makes nearly a billion dollars and wins every oscar yeah and performs as high as most of his films have ever achieved and then what is there even left for this guy to cash in and there were all the rumors that he was doing blue thunder that's made oh is he doing a horror movie is he doing a this there was he has said he wants to figure out a horror movie which is which is interesting but do you remember we were all in the office together i can't remember what episode we had just recorded or about to record and i went holy shit and i showed you there was a tweet and it was christopher nolan's the odyssey filmed entirely in imax coming summer 2026 right it was just all at once suddenly the announcement was out there we had known the cast the cast had been started been growing had been pinned to the board but we didn't know what it was and then we just went holy shit of course he had to do this it was either the odyssey or the bible it was the only move for him to do next as he's pointed out there's no uh hollywood version of the odyssey ever that's what's why he's like and that's why it had to be this no one had ever tried this obviously there's there were a couple sort of italian you know amanda sante that's a tv movie i tried watching that on youtube last night i turned it off after 30 seconds do you want to see what the cyclops looks like in it someone posted it to my work slack oh you know he looks kind of good he looks like a big baby let me see this guy i like this i like this guy he looks pretty good that's some griffin shit right it's a little bit uh dinosaurs vibe you know yeah like you know little early holland there did the jim henson creature shop work on this at all i mean one assumes right i mean let's find a lot of those tv movies i was gonna say that was their that was how they kept the lights on right exactly there's like the ted danson gulliver's travels around that time that was huge that well he was huge remember how big he was he was big he was and you know what griffin and the williputians were small i can confirm for you that the creature effects for this miniseries were provided by jim henson's creature shop they had a talking animatronic pig roasting on a spit that's cool love that uh they had a rod puppet sea slug sea monster and they had you know well maybe i'll try i'll give it another shot but i'll just fast forward to all the cool to the puppet stuff puppet stuff last night for research i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna i was like i want to watch some stuff to like get me in the odyssey mood again because we saw the movie what like three days ago uh so i watched the uh episode of arthur where dw retells the odyssey yes uh and i watched the episode of wishbone i was gonna say wishbone must have spun that tale but it's very interesting because okay in the arthur version with dw there's none of the like what's happening back at ithaca stuff it's just like it's just like it's just like it's just like dw on a boat encountering monsters uh sure and then in the wishbone version barely any of the monsters it's all back at ithaca i really hope there's a bunch of limitations listening right now as we talk about this um i just think it's i think it's crazy that children's media it's the first story well yeah well they you know they still do it i'm sure gabby's dollhouse has done an odyssey episode i'm not sure i'm not sure if she's gotten there yet i i just have to read this uh review for the 1997 miniseries that's cited on wikipedia because it's so it's such a good burn uh by richard nielsen of the arizona republic even though the made for tv movie is only four hours long i wasted a fifth hour stewing over how god-awful it was that's pretty good he's saying this is this shit was so bad it ate into further time in my life it ruined an additional hour of my life that miniseries had its own controversy at the time because they cast baby sinclair to play helen of troy because they had him kicking around the creature shop and people got really upset and that's and that's a muppets reference or is that i didn't know his name was baby sinclair you didn't know i think he's handsome but people thought he didn't have a face that would launch a thousand trips that was the argument i think he's handsome he's iconic i mean i don't know if i would call him handsome but like he's the baby he is literally the moment you think he's currently the moment i think now i think baby sinclair has never been more relevant as proven by how quickly all three of you understood the joke i was making i didn't like the joke i just forgot they're called the sink why are they called the sinclair because they're just a normal family but they should have had like a pun name i agree you know wait isn't there like a sinclair oil or like a gas station called sinclair with a dinosaur on it oh i think you're right that sounds a little that sounds like a stretch though no see look sinclair oil corporation fossil fuel yeah the reference this thing okay this is funny this is really good it's a really good show i am so smart that's too sophisticated okay let's talk about the odyssey the odyssey and our screening experiences so okay great we have three different screening experiences three different experiences three different cities three different three cities wow much like the odyssey the movie this is an episode that spans multiple countries multiple cities multiple formats uh multiple formats because yes okay so all right well marie and i saw it at the amc imax lincoln square 70 millimeter imax 70 millimeter imax where i guess you can't get like a seat at like the 3 a.m screenings in august right now like it's like right sold out for the rest of time we are checking our privilege uh it was i feel enormously blessed to have had the opportunity to not only see this film the in the you know the director preferred form of the movie but also to be able to see the film format big old theater but also in the best seat in the house of course we had my favorite seats in the back of the house near the secret bathroom yes which i really this is on the imax screen yes on the imax screen yes okay uh but it was 70 and you know the the felt like the the picture there were little little spots and yeah and i like that oh yeah it was very cool i like the texture exactly perfections now ben ben where did you see i was in chicago the windy city visiting went to an amc theater in downtown chicago and saw this film in 70 millimeter and and at that theater there's no ketchup and it's all it's like uh giardiniera right and a big pickle in your popcorn i'm doing a chicago bit yeah there was celery you saw inside the bean right the perspective was a little weird right right it was a little the picture was a little funky what's what's the deep dish version of a movie theater is it right the chairs are behind the screen it's like the whole theater is kind of like a conversation pit yeah but it just goes yeah pretty funny or it's maybe maybe it's like ben's original pitch of like the underwater upside down movie right right that would be good especially for that anyway okay so yeah you were in chicago chicago and so you went to a press screening there yes yeah and unfortunately imax not available they don't have an imax in chicago today i am that's pretty wild yeah for such a major market i guess or i guess if they do have one they don't do press screenings there i don't really know um do you know what format you saw ben was it 35 was it a digital you saw in seven okay so you saw in a gentleman 70 obviously most people around this country will not be able to see the film in like fancy fancy imax obviously there's you know digital imax out there and there's 70 out there there's a lot of i'm going to see it on 35 on saturday where nighthawk wow crazy i i saw i think the number is there's somewhere between 40 and 50 screens on the planet that show it in the kind of complete preferred nolan format now i have been in spain filming griffin's in spain in the entire country of spain there are only two imax screens both of which are digital wow i had purchased tickets for one of them at midnight so i was going to see this movie at midnight on thursday record with you guys and i was like oh my god i'm going to see the next day and then my buddy let's say friend of the podcast he came through in a major way here sam clements who works for the picture house chain in the uk the great movie theater chain i was texting with him and he said i might be able to get you into the press event which was at the bfi south bank imax a big big fancy theater in waterloo very very large one of the biggest imax screens yeah and he pulled off a miracle uh his buddy david at organic publicity got me in i had a handful of days off from filming and i was like oh my god i'm going to uh i in fact have more than a handful of days off from yeah it seems like are you barely any work a little bit a little bit i've been doing a lot of siestaing but a little bit of work a little touch of work on the side uh a kind of pinchos amount of work just small tapas work um how many other uh phrases can i appropriate here but i got to see it at the south bank in in 70 imax which was quite a treat it is it's a it's a fucking big ass movie it really and this is Nolan's been working on this project for a decade of how much more more than a decade almost 20 years now because i guess it starts with dark night 18 years ago of how much imax can i get into a commercial release uh film and this is the first movie where he's gotten it up to 100 right every single shot in this movie i gotta say this movie's epic it is quite epic and i think regardless of what format you see it in the actual fidelity of the image that has been captured is pretty fucking astonishing yeah uh david erlich run of the pod uh friend of my life was at the same screening as us seeing the movie for the second time he saw it in imax for the first time and then for the second screening he saw it in 70 um and he said he preferred it in 70 which interesting like interesting uh i think he was just making stuff up you know the the first screening of a movie like this where it's all hyped you're all you're so like you know buzzed up watching it and it's hard to concentrate even you know the second screening you can focus more at what he's doing maybe that was part of it and if he's listening right now he should throw a wallet at himself yeah he should actually yeah that's right i'll say this we've we've all seen it one time we've been fortunate enough to see it one time before release in order to get this episode out quickly i don't think i had any like adjustment to you how high my expectations were or the hype i felt pretty settled into meeting the movie where it was at it does feel like a lot of movie to absorb on one viewer yes like i feel like i'm struggling even two days later to get my head around some of it i think the movie's excellent i'm strong as hell strong strong as hell yeah you feel like you got a complete take he was saying before we started taping like he's got the names locked down yeah i was saying yeah the names and he was like don't worry about it we're just gonna say the actor's names and i was like okay john leguizamo can i say he's my mvp in this movie of course he is griffin of course he's your mvp he's so good he's so good he's the krumholz of the movie i personally and i don't know maybe david you will agree with me on this i think samantha morton is the like standout performance i mean i i really think that everyone in this movie is very well cast and used but it was so nice to see people like samantha morton like morton and leguizamo who nolan's never worked with before where nolan clearly immediately was like that is the person i don't need to identify like whatever a bigger star here or what you know what like a glitzier piece like he matched the actor so perfectly leguizamo in the odyssey you're like that what like that doesn't automatically and then you see it and you're like i understand this completely morton makes total sense that you know that was not i i think i think they're the two mvps more morton you know we've talked about more than a lot this year and on the more of a color episode we were talking about how much in the late 90s in the early 2000s she was seen as like one of definitively the great actresses of her generation and she's receded a little bit and this just feels like nolan wanting to remind everyone how good she is and how powerful she is leguizamo i don't feel like i've ever seen him used like this before it's like this i was trying to think about this yeah unlocking new chambers for me because he's like kind of the heart of the movie yeah he's like he is in a way the emotional spine of the thing who all the other characters are filtered through i for some reason kept thinking about john wick because odyssey does have a john wick vibe of like he's coming back and he's mad like everyone should be afraid of course absolutely calling him and being like do you still have my car yeah right i mean it was a little bit that where it's like leguizamo is just playing the guy where it's like everyone agrees that this guy is reliable and wise like as hell like that is what we turn because i'm looking at leguizamo's i mean he works like leguizamo's always working but like what's the last time he was it probably might be john wick like that he was in something where i was like oh it's so what a great use of him like i didn't see bob trevino likes it which everyone said he was really excellent in i should see um he's the lead of that right he's bob trevino it's him and barbie ferreira yeah and barbie ferreira by the way she's having a hell of a year she is i'm loving barbie ferreira no everyone no mylon is great our buddy chandler levix great film that movie is so good chandler it's so good yeah you're listening the canadian i like the canadian film explosion of 2026 is to me the big story that's so true yes canada's everywhere right now oh let's see he's in the new exorcist leguizamo okay i bet you he plays like a priest who's like i don't like the looks of this we gotta get this you're right sounds very good i can see it i bet he talks out of the center of his mouth exclusively right down the center of his mouth those front teeth getting a lot of exposure is he like you know has he done like should we throw him like a glitzy miniseries so he can grab an emmy or something he was he was in an apple tv series called smoke which wasn't very good but it does he was in it it was in it it feels like he's primed though that's a good point david got leguizamo in like third position on an fx series he's like winning every award like who doesn't who's not happy to see legs johnny legs well king koopa well that's true although actually i don't really know that king koopa registered luigi as a threat did he i mean i can't really remember you know i haven't watched that film in a little while battle even like i don't really think koopa doesn't register luigi as a threat i would say that's a narrative shortcoming i would say if king koopa does not recognize one of the two mario brothers as a threat at any point that movie might have some script issues um i i do think i've seen the super mario brothers movie several times in my life i think one could accuse it of having script issues i think that's fair i think everyone would would bear that accusation with grace oh my god what do i say here put my finger up behind my ear um so here we are we saw the odyssey so griff you saw it at the bfi was that nice that's a lovely theater i've been there in a long time but it's very cool yeah it's a big old circle it's in a circle you got to go a little bit underground in a tunnel cool yeah because it's in like in the middle of a of a giant roundabout like it's like there's cars going it's in the middle of like a like a traffic circle yes and so you gotta take an underpass to go into the secret chamber cool that's great see any pals there uh honey ross friend of the podcast okay uh and sam sam clements was there with me i don't think i saw anyone else fair enough but i was i was immediately taken aback by and i think i wasn't reading early responses you guys had gone with marika brownlee ben was seeing at the same time that i was vaguely i'd gotten general thumbs up from people i knew but i wasn't reading anyone's deeper thoughts and i was taken aback immediately because i was sam some helped me get into the screen but he had already seen the movie and there was a whole kerfuffle with me being his plus one where they wouldn't let me in without him so he said i'll come and i'll sit through the first like 30 minutes again and then i'll leave and i said is like the opening particularly good i was wondering like does it have one of these classic nolan sort of james bond style dark knight tenant you open with something kind of just so fucking insane right and he was like the opening's great but it's not like that and the movie starts and immediately it was just like this is not where i thought this film would start this is not how the first hour i imagined would progress and the structure of this movie for a guy who likes to play around with structure is so different than i was expecting because he doesn't diagram it usually when he does funny structure tricks it's like really set up and explained and this movie almost immediately reminded me so much of thin red line okay yeah and that it feels like it's editing based on emotions um that's interesting so you know i will say the odyssey i'm gonna am i the only reader of the odyssey in the room right now not to not to odyssey mog anyone i mean i studied it in school sure okay so you read it i have no memory of it really but i have brushed up a little bit and just watching some youtube guides i i bought a uh graphic novel version of it with pictures who did who did this graphic novel it would be a disaster if the graphic novel didn't have pictures that would be a huge big bummer uh garrett hines i've i've seen this i think my wife has used this as a teaching aid because she teaches the odyssey your wife teaches the odyssey she does she does um but like you know the first four books of the odyssey are from telemachus's perspective they do have this kind of prologue kind of like where's odysseus you know like son of odysseus we should say telemachus is the son of odysseus and he is played by tom holland in the film you guys notice that yes peter parker peter parker himself uh nathan drake himself uh did you guys see the video of tom holland and matt damon doing a like junket thing where they had to guess make a pizza i did i did not see the one where they had to make pizza what do they have to guess they have to guess which of their films by just the colors of the frames you ever see the movie lutz thing or whatever yeah yeah that's a fun game it's tough to put those two filmographies next to each other that was what was really fucking funny right damon has like eight masterpieces okay so is this movie the departed interstellar or one of the 14 soderbergh movies i made And Tom Holland's like, is this Chaos Walking? No, for Tom Holland, they gave him three Spider-Man movies, and he had to guess. Oh, that's so lame. They all fucking look the same. It was so sad. I felt so bad for him. I mean, I think The Lost City of Z is my favorite movie that he's ever made. You love that film. Yeah. But then I think this is a huge challenger. I don't see anything else in his filmography that I would really vault up the list here. It is wild that, I mean, obviously, No Way Home was so fucking humongous and was, you know, one of the first in a series of movies that saved Hollywood after the pandemic, right? And it got a little erased by Top Gun and Maverick and Top Gun Maverick and Barbie and Oppenheimer and some of the movies that came after, but it was humongous. It was one of the 10 highest grossing films of all time. And he's been a little silent. And I think there's been a couple of years for all of us to stroke our chins and be like, is he juiceless? Like, where the fuck does his career go at this point? Especially because everything he tried to do outside of Spider-Man really didn't work. And yet, he's about to be the undisputed king of the summer box office. It's true. He's about to have a humongous fucking summer. He's going to have a huge July. It's just July. He's the king of July. Sully could have only dreamed of the kind of July he's having. That's so true. I think he was very well cast in this movie. Yeah, I thought he was well deployed in this movie. I think he's, you know what? I'm going to give him. I think he's good in the film. I know some people are like, ah, no, I just sort of felt like Tom Holland-y to me. But no, I think he. No, I think he's good. I think he really, he's really, he's good at playing someone who needs to learn. Like, and mature and grow. Like, and I'm not saying that as a neg on him. No, the problem with him is going to be the, can he ever age into anything else? I'm not sure. I don't know. I saw him saying in an interview, like, I think this will be the last time I'm kind of playing a kid. And I was like, maybe. like i know i know that he is 30 he is i cannot believe that he is 30 he do i do have a baby face but it reminded me a lot of his lost city is that performance like it did you know like there's that john mulaney joke of uh i'm sober which i know is surprising to people because i look like someone who hasn't done anything before right he's like i've just been sitting in a room meeting crackers yes right a lot of this odyssey spider-man promo tour has been tom holland pushing bureau his non-alcoholic beer alternative yeah and that's another thing where you're like i can't believe you're old enough to be sober now i'm happy for him that he's got whatever equilibrium he desires or whatever but yes it is it is interesting but he reads as perpetually 16 yeah he does he does which is why he's in this role in which literally the point is that he is not of age yet like the point of the odyssey is like you are a disused son you're a strong young man but you cannot inherit his throne yet so i gotta keep weaving this fucking thing until he comes back can i say hollywood thank you for your service how about you sit here in the corner and you do your thing and we're just gonna wait on matt damon to come back so the odyssey uh it is a film directed by christopher nolan and it does begin with travis scott uh the great travis scott a friend of christopher nolan's right they're best buds right don't they like send each other gifts and shit like they're like they are friendly yes because travis scott had a song in tenant i feel like that was their um that was their initial and he's got the end credit song in this and and you know it began with a song in tenet with him trying you know he's gonna sing the song of odysseus he's right and it's clearly nolan like taking you by the shoulders and being like you have to understand that this storytelling form exists now and has just evolved like yeah it's just changed and like but he's like it's a real mission statement moment for him where he's just like this is still what we do we tell like stories through verse to each other it's so good i was so startled by the first five minutes of the movie played in front of another movie is that true oh no no no no no the prologue which i saw is the trojan sequence which is much later in the okay because the horse i really tried not to see a ton of marketing for this movie like i saw the teaser trailer whatever it was where tom holland was like my dad's coming home or whatever and i saw that and i was like this doesn't look good to me but i'm so i'm not gonna watch anything else because i trust christopher nolan and you want to see it in context i want to see it in context uh but then i i know that i i don't know what movie they put it in front of an imax but some people didn't get to see the prologue you could see it if you bought a ticket to an imax so i saw i bought a ticket to the sinners re-release just to watch it okay it was also in front of one battle i think you know where i can't remember like it was it was the fall of it was like a little sizzle reel basically okay so it was not like the first fight it wasn't like dark knight rises where it was truly just like let's watch the opening because i too was genuinely shocked that the movie the first shot of the movie is travis scott yes saying sing oh muse and so i was like oh people did people know this was coming if they saw the preview i'll also say uh sam clements of picture house aforementioned goes to like the european equivalents of cinema con and he said that a month or two ago they showed what they said was the opening of the movie and it was very different than this it was constructed differently so it feels like they've been the editing of this movie feels very free-flowing i could see this being a thing that he kept iterating on until the last second um but to your point of the travis scott thing and the stupid controversies that existed around this movie which nolan very wisely didn't really weigh in on until recently he had to do the press tour and then i thought he put it perfectly which is you know a lot of people were complaining that there were things in the trailers and the posters and fucking whatever that seemed too modern or too casual or didn't seem historically accurate and this is partially a trap of nolan's own making in that his fans had to do something about it and they had to do something about it and they had to do something about it have come to build this sort of mythology around him of being like the guy who takes everything the most seriously whereas that has never been his thing there has always been silliness in his movies there has always been flights of fancy and stylization in his movies he is a literal-minded guy in a certain kind of way but it doesn't mean that he's a guy who just is like nothing but the facts ma'am and he said you know so much of what people consider to be accurate in these types of movies and that's why i think it's important for us to think about it in a certain way and i think it's important for us to think about it in a certain way and i think it's important for us to think about it in a certain way of how we tell these stories these things like that we like to think of of people speaking in shakespearean accents in a certain language is like a theatrical form that we use to connote seriousness that is put on epics like this and as you said this movie is starting out and being like this is the tradition that this is in and we're going to translate this into something that feels urgent to you right now a modern audience rather than trying to gloss it up in some sort of sense of seriousness right and then you you almost immediately go to the beaches with the horse right you sort of do it's basically like he's starting to tell the story and you see elliot page getting pinned to the horse but then what is isn't it penelope and hathaway is like no i don't want to hear the fucking story because the point is it's like i hate that story enough of this we've been singing the song of odysseus for so long but where is he if we heard he did this where then why hasn't he come back if they won other guys came back where's my husband right the other guys said and meanwhile and mark walbert came back odysseus is on a beach with charlie's theron and you know send help vibes obviously nice work if you can get it vibes i love when she wears that little like fishnet thing yeah and i was like oh that's so couture she's the catch of the day she really is david she's the catch of the day i understand what you're saying i would say actually is the catch of the day she caught him and she's been feeding his ass lotus i know he really likes that lotus flower doesn't look that it's very pretty control it didn't look appetizing to me it doesn't look filling it about how it feels yeah i understand i could use some lotus sometimes definitely lately well i mean once in a while you got a lotus night yeah i mean you know i'll tell you you need to pull a pedal yep or two mike white he could use the lotus he could use i think he's got more than enough of it you should share the lotus he should you're right he should share the load i don't know i was trying to figure out a white lotus joke can mike white share the lotus please just share the lotus mike white share the lotus mike white did i just i just saw something that he wrote what was it oh yeah yeah okay he has a writing credit on that one and on three maybe he's got him on two of them am i wrong let's find out he also wrote migration he's he's quite he wrote migration he has no other minion credits but of course he wrote the emoji movie that's okay there we go which is not illumination but i lump in in my mind and he did write pitch perfect three and no others yes weird we both were watching through all the despicable me and minions movies in anticipation of minions and monsters simultaneously yes and it was very funny for you and i to check in with each other and be like yep still don't like these very much not anyway i like two more to watch right yeah no but they never really got me those those earlier ones see you were like way out on grew and really in on the minions and i'm a little bit on grew and i'm not that in on the minions and both of us were just like not my cup of tea some stuff i like anyway i don't like grew i'm sorry i'm sorry i kind of like her and you know who i really like grew's mom no grew's wife lucy who is her own person who has a lipstick taser and i think is quite fetching uh yeah she's okay played by kristen wig i'm glad she's cashing the checks i'm glad everyone's cashing their checks you know that's direct deposit on that one right no one's taking the time to run those to the bank no they're doing mobile deposit or at worst they're taking the photo on their phone do you think that um the cyclops in christopher nolan's version of the odyssey would have been harmed by stepping on a lego in the way that the cyclops and the minions version of the odyssey was it's i mean that whole sequence would be over in two weeks two minutes if odysseus had thought to carve a lego block that's all he needed to do the minions had the answer henry and james i wanted to bring up that we see uh elliot page whose character is sin on sin on yes uh and the horse so early because this movie feels very haunted by the horse the horse is very forward in the marketing it's on the poster they've been putting the horse up outside of theaters there's a horse popcorn bucket and i assumed oh there's probably a big horse set piece but that's not the main story that nolan wants to tell is just the hiding in the horse but this movie keeps cutting back to the horse as like this thing that fucking haunts odysseus yes that the thing that he's most known for what is seen as his greatest triumph he can kind of never get over what feels like the dishonesty of it yes so this is i would say the brilliant conceit of this movie and it's clear that nolan you know is like okay i'll do the odyssey he's sitting in his chair drinking a cup of tea not having a smartphone and he's like perhaps the odyssey but like the odyssey is is the the original great tale of western storytelling or whatever but like it is not something that you can locate emotion in easily uh and but it is if you read the odyssey it is obsessed with hospitality like that's a huge part of the poem the idea the ancient greek notion of hospitality and you know they call it zeus's law here you know the sort of like be kind to you know welcome a stranger to your home and like any simple beggar might actually be your co-host in disguise over exactly and might have wonderful seth bulka's facial hair and all that and it's a simple idea because like both the iliad which is also by homer quote unquote you know we don't really you know and the odyssey those things are not like and we really fucked troy over like those things are like it rocked when we smashed troy to pieces and you're like great you know yourself but like it's very simple for nolan but it's very clever for him to be like it's kind of fucked up yeah you know yeah we we we you know kind of lied our way in there and then we sacked the city and and a bunch of soldiers in a horse and to make this sort of like notion of like odysseus right is weighted with the guilt of like we did kind of defy the gods by doing that yeah and like we are the ones who maybe have contributed to the feeling that society is ending around us and makes the film feel contemporary without it feeling didactic to me like i was just kind of like a social contract i kind of can't believe he pulled that off yes in this movie much like oppenheimer is the same way right where it's very haunted by like the world we live in now oppenheimer made the terrible world we live in now he didn't mean to he was just smashing bits together in his his particle accelerator or whatever right you know and fucking everyone's wives nolan movies because he has become the guy at the top of the mountain he has become the person who represents filmmaking globally sort of as an idea and certainly as an industry and now is literally also the president of the dga a guy at his level of career rarely takes on an elected position like that except it feels like he's like there's too much at stake and my people need me and i have to fight for them all of his movies have increasingly become about two things one i am the only one who can do this the burden is heavy on me but i must do this for everyone else two what have i done oh sweet jesus what have i done and this is a movie about a guy who's like i need to do this for everybody else and the final shot of the movie is literally the shadow of the trojan horse it's like he cannot get out from under that shadow it's one of the first things we see in the shadow the silhouette is the last thing we see um you know it's it's beautiful stuff uh do you guys know about the sea people theory of bronze age collapse can i very briefly that's like what they were talking about this is what i'm saying the sea people that were ruining everything you know so sort of during the late bronze age all of the bronze age people were of the major civilizations in the mediterranean basically collapsed and no one knows why because it was so freaking long ago so we can't really we're talking like the 12th century bc or whatever and it led to the first dark age right not not the lovely dark age we like to think about which is like you know whatever like the eighth century and people rattling you know i don't know carts and stuff what do people do in that dark age wearing big rattle carts yeah they're off in blood into rats everywhere you know but like the right the old old dark age and one of these notions is like the the sea people like it's like an academic theory that like these kingdoms were done in by invaders and no one knows who or even why or except for but like and i just love nolan picking out on that and having that be this like looming threat in the movie and then of course at the end it's like well no but we are we're the we're the you know we're the ones who ruin civilization like going to do a stupid war that sucked for no good reason and then returning home to like you know like places you know our homes were in turmoil and like with civility gone and everyone at each other's throats and getting stabbed right i also think yes and with within that framework you realize that the big set pieces of the odyssey as a story are mostly about them being bad guests it's like we just got to get home and they land in a different place and come across a different creature and just kind of our shitty house guests over and over and over again there's that early moment where they show up on some beach and the guys have like burned their houses and are in a bad mood and hamish fratello is like we're greeks like we're we're not threatening like you know and then like even though he's like in armor and has a sword yeah why is he in armor and has a sword he's like why is he in armor and has a sword are you scared of us and the guy's like oh fuck you see people leave me alone let's clarify they pull up their whole town is on fire he's like why he's like we saw people coming we thought we'd just get this over with like rather than let you burn us to the ground we'll burn ourselves down like that's the level of paranoia and exhaustion everyone's at uh yes um but okay so let me let me try and unpack the uh the flow of the story here so yes the first bit obviously is just we're in ithaca we're with telemachus penelope is in a bad mood i was she's many a suitor really impressed by how cunty and hathaway was in this role she's great in this movie david what did you text oh let me find it the other day because i thought you worded this very well uh someone someone was noting what a busy year she's having six movies is it six i'm gonna look mother mary devil wears proud of two the odyssey oak street parody oak street oak street and i believe there's one more that i'm forgetting no it's just five six it's five it's just five there's a movie called alone at dawn that's a ron howard movie yes with and adam driver but i'm not sure if we know when that's coming out it'll it'll it'll come out eventually well now that i know it's only five she seems like a slacker i said anne hathaway is a gift to hollywood that we should always be thankful for and i certainly believe that the range of just even the three movies she's had out so far is pretty astonishing well it's also interesting because like it's not like anne hathaway had had she's been working like it's like she didn't like go dark but it was sort of the size of the movies had shrunk a little bit yeah like after oceans eight which she's great in but even that's a supporting role or whatever you know she's got that weird serenity the hustle dark waters year where like love serenity but it's it's a weird one the hustle was filmed like seven years prior right dark waters is a wonderful movie but she's kind of just showing up to help she's right yes as you said that was a tax deductible last thing he wanted disaster right last thing he wanted is one of those movies where you're like did they forget to finish it like sorry that movie which is the which is obviously was five stars a plus we love that one on blank check like all these movies are in one of two categories she tried something smaller and more interesting and it worked or it didn't or a real failed attempt at a major movie so the stuff she's doing that's good is not really at the center of the culture and the stuff that's attempting to be at the center of the culture is not working but then like you know locked down we're gonna give everyone a pass on that one the pandemic that didn't happen right uh armageddon time again she's great but it does it a little bit again kind of like i'm here to help this movie along i'm not and then i mean i did like but it didn't really go anywhere so good she's excellent eileen i did not see the rebecca miller film she came to me me neither no which is her and dinklage and who's the other marissa tomay oh marissa tomay uh and then and then there was the mother's curse or whatever that movie's called right her her very kind of like trashy 2024 of mother's instinct and the idea of you the idea of you is good no it's not yes it is it is good she's good in it and i respect her that movie is not good uh that movie that movie is good sure the boy band in it good was a streaming hit it was a big streaming hit i don't think michael showalter is capable of you of telling a story like that with sincerity i guess you don't think he knows how to put on a show walter i you know what i found it sometimes he does i found it very sincere i liked when they were in their hotel room uh kind of like kissing and dancing to um dance hall days yeah there you go but you were saying basically last year she was quiet because a lot of her 25 movies got pushed back to right mother mary got pushed to early yeah and oak street got pushed yeah can't wait for whatever the heck that is i know this is kind of her big center stage year and i love that it's such an array of even different sized roles and different styles of performance she's so kind of stripped down in this yes she's really just sort of laser focused yeah um and she's not doing any of the theater kid stuff that people sometimes bristle at and i think it's it's why she's so good and why as you put it she's a gift to hollywood because it's like she's like an old school movie star who can do any type of thing she really is and you know like the scenes she has the flashbacks with damon before he goes to war are really like simple and beautifully done and get all the emotion across very fast right fucking sexy yeah like but like you have very little time to establish a sense of genuine chemistry between those two characters and you're doing it late into the film and immediately you're like there's no way you're gonna do it right you're gonna do it right you're there's heat here there's a reason why she's not remarrying yeah no for sure i mean look robert pattinson is a handsome fellow okay i wouldn't fucking marry this asshole right would you this guy this guy's an asshole are we are we can we say he's an asshole he's an asshole he is so good i just love that he is always game like you know that he's not like whatever like looking for the sympathetic role or looking for the you know like he just wants to play little slimy freaks and he's so good at it announced that batman is being pushed back another six months and people are wringing their hands over and i'm like there is no better outcome than robert pattinson having six years in between batman movies to do whatever weird shit he wants to do batman's the ultimate hammock in between he's just given latitude to do whatever because they go like as long as you promise you're gonna put that cowl back on we'll let you play your worms he's got and he's got five movies in this year too he's got he's having a crazy year okay wait so it's this yeah it's prime time yeah which i hear is great it's the drama and then the other two are have neither of them have yet to come out correct one we just got a trailer for yeah part three and then what's the fifth movie it's the fernando merrill film here comes the flood with him and denzel washington that's a netflix thriller but does sound very cool yeah it's a good movie it's a good movie it's a good movie it's a good movie yeah yes yeah so he's all over the place and he's doing different voices and he's having fun being a little sicko and he is yeah he's the lead suitor here he uh likened the character to james woods uh character lester diamond from the 1995 film casino which we will be talking about soon just a classic robert pattinson poll to like read the odyssey and go like you know what this character's like james woods james woods and casino uh you've also got the great uh cory hawkins is like the main two suitor jerks yeah right he's sort of the right hand man yeah yeah uh i think he's just a total fucking gem he's always good love love to see cory hawkins yes yeah he's not working enough no yeah uh and then logan marshall green and mia goth yeah are the two kind of grima worm tongues of the palace right she is like this she's a servant to uh penelope yes i think it's unspoken in the movie but they are twins they're they're siblings logan marshall green and mia goth in the in the myth of the odyssey yes they're working together they're the bad servants they're not being they're not you know tending to odysseus's flock now who is leguizamo leguizamo holding a stick being blind he can see more clearly than everyone there's there is a bit of a you know there's an irony there that's true a real iron so a little rude for him to throw a dog off a cliff right at the stop of the movie uh david and i were concerned one of the first things we said after we got out of the movie was we were worried how ben was going to take the the dog violence in this film yeah it's the kind of thing that does turn ben off completely yes sometimes but i think because he did it like so early in the film it felt like just pulling the band-aid off and then of course they treat the other dog odysseus dog really well even though he's like old and sad and waiting for odysseus to return home i think they also the the inhumanity of how the animals are treated is used as a dramatic storytelling tool for the rot of society yes it is is not something that is done callously it's not using it just to shock you no no not at all no it's it's your i think all the stakes of they they are like because yes there's the argument for like shouldn't we shoot this movie out of a cannon shouldn't we start with something really exciting and it's like now you sort of it's not just that he wants to go home you're like his home is like ruined without him like it's like he's you're starting with there's a vacuum he's missing and it's just like yeah it's it's ruining what the story is really about is the fact that this guy's fucking gone and there are like two main sort of narrative or storytelling devices i guess the first is tom holland hearing stories about his father sure as he he's never met essentially right he was a baby baby when he left when he left so he is traveling and hearing stories from other people most notably john burnthal let me tell you something like the fifth season of serial and pull enough stories together from his dad to get a good narrative going and then the other on the other end we have matt damon with calypso played by charlie's theron and she is kind of goading him to remember how he ended up how did i get here what happened to my men but also being like do you really want to remember it doesn't remember are you ready yet doesn't it suck here have some more lotus baby yeah take some lotus we're right we're we're sort of like trying to put the pieces together of like okay what happened where are his men what happened why did he why hasn't he come home and then i feel like the first then we we do fine you know okay what do you remember we do finally get out and i guess is the first place they go to the to you know the the cyclops right like that's the first major sequence first major set piece in right but we also establish what life was like back on ithaca before odysseus left we meet young robert pattinson and young elliot page that's true i was gonna say yes this is set up early on you know a very upsetting dynamic of what is pattinson's character's name again uh it's like antonius or whatever antonius he's yeah yes and the the volunteering murray right and antinous antinous maybe i don't know i don't know uh what do i know every time every time i watch something where it's like little boys going off to war this also happens in uh horatio hornblower and in um master and commander i just get very upset well i think it shouldn't happen but they're drawing sticks and they're drawing lots yeah like a short stick gets you on the boat and uh odysseus cousin senon draws elliot page elliot page draws whatever the stick that means that he has to go to war right they say there's a lottery draft going on they need to build an army it's a lottery draft and senon gets picked who is a very small child yes right and the pattinson character sort of volunteers to go in its stead not just out of some generosity but also because of i think an ego of wanting to be a big tough boy he's a little older he's a teenager and odysseus puts his foot down and goes like it's got to be who's chosen and also says to the pattinson character no no no no no antonio you know it's pattinson draws the short stick senon is put in his place right oh okay yeah the whole point is that antonio's ducked the draft correct that's why him giving the lot back to him is okay this is your i misread that see i also didn't get that right like it's like uh antonio's is the i think think you know the richer he because he is like one of the big wigs or his family right on ithaca one assumes that's why he's the littler guy and like to take his they're saying that odysseus basically kind of knew what was happening and overlooked it or or like didn't put his foot down because like he knows like he doesn't want to wound the pride of the parents like they say and this will all be helpful on rewatch i will say because like this information it's the classic nolan thing of this information is being like hydraulically delivered to you in voiceover and flashback and you're like okay okay okay okay and you can tell like it's the nolan thing where he's like this will matter later like you need to know all the context i mean that happens in like the first 10 minutes very early you barely met the characters we have not met the characters and i did not even totally track that you know that sinan had become you know elliot page had grown up to be right right um because like it's almost as something to the effect of you know he he needed to do things to help him but he didn't he didn't he didn't do anything to help him but he didn't help the ego and basically odysseus says this thing of no it's actually good if you stay because you need to watch after your family and watch after my family as well which kind of poisons him with the idea of oh i have a responsibility to watch your family i should probably fuck your wife if you disappear that's kind of the implication is it not you know that that's he goes message received i got it so if you're gone for like five years i should start trying to fuck your wife i mean maybe greek law should have some rules on this okay maybe there should be time limits yeah um but okay so but no no we're with odysseus and it's post troy we still haven't really seen the sack of troy but we've seen little glimpses of the horse and all that uh and god the horse looks so good it looks really good really awesome it's awesome and he sees you know agamemnon played by benny safty in this crazy imposing armor uh nolan wanted him to have he has what's it called it's called black bronze in his armor which nolan was like these were like the most expensive sort of materials back then so we wanted him to have this got a gold spine on the back of his helmet so funny that it's benny safty not not that he's not good he is good we never see his face not really we see his beautiful hair yes i mean we see his face through a slit we see the yeah the it is interesting though that that was the main like one of the main posters for the film right was the back of agamemnon's head like the helmet i wonder how much he kind of just likes that imagery and how much it is that like much like the shadow of the horse the sort of like image of agamemnon's armor without ever seeing the guy inside represents this force that's pushing everything along right i mean and you know i interviewed benny safty last year i told you this marie yes and he had just finished the odyssey and i was like who are you playing and i just i just assumed he was gonna be playing some weirdo like i was like of course safty's gonna play like i don't know yeah like a a weird little trickster or you know right like uh yeah a mean suitor and he was like i can't tell you but i we were just in iceland like shooting on this like black beach is where you get to and then obviously that's the like afterlife that was another that was another favorite sequence in the movie this is really great um but you basically never see his face it's like the idea of him loomed so large and most directors i think would go oh so then what you should cast in this role is either a stunt performer because this is mostly going to be physical it's going to be who fills the suit or cast a guy with a voice like clancy brown because it's mostly going to be booming voice if you're not going to see their face and as you say it's so funny that he cast benny safty who's such like a presence energy guy yeah and is also like a sensitivity guy but safty is i will say he's very tall he's and he has this great hair and maybe nolan just kind of liked the physicality i appreciate it i think you know you guys bring this up you brought this up a lot in the peter weir series the casting for the final color yeah thing oh yeah and i do think that when we get the backstory of what happened to him and when he is in hades and he is speaking from the you know from the dead right uh there is like a pathos to it yes that it really got to me and you need to be able to unravel this guy you need to be able to strip away the sort of imagery and the mythology of him to get to a sort of broken person inside eventually so i um i'm not really a big ancient greece person and i was asking david sims on the subway home from the movie i was like i want to keep living in this world so like what movies should i watch next oh i wasn't even thinking movies i was going to suggest a time machine that seems a little expensive uh but sure you know i i did pay four dollars and 99 cents to rent troy on amazon prime i i want to talk about this briefly i'm very confused by this recent holding up of troy as the gold standard griff i'm we got to get into it that movie is fucking dog shit i hadn't seen it until like this week when i read watched it after the odyssey which is a movie that i haven't seen in a long time and i haven't seen it in a long time and i haven't seen it in a long time and i haven't seen it in a long time and i haven't seen it in a long time masterpiece and there is you know it's a the the iliad is part one the odyssey part two you know so it's like a prequel a lot of the same characters are in there what the fuck what's going on there hollow movie in my memory right i hated it when it came out i thought it was a bomb people didn't like it when it came out it got bad reviews it made money made a lot of money it was a hit but it was not taken seriously yeah it got no oscar attention after like you know in the warm-up because of movies like gladiator people were like maybe this will be a epic you know and i pointed out to you it is the same year as alexander there were two like giant budget swings that like great well if gladiator wins best picture what other like epics can we do and they did the most obvious they did the iliad and they did alexander the great like they did the most obvious ones possible both of those movies are flawed troy made a lot of money but sucks alexander didn't make enough money but is very interesting in my opinion and then they both have the director's cut dvd re-edit like they're like i fixed it and you're like no yeah i'm not sure that you do i mean the big problem with troy it's the ultimate pit thing of like he sucks at this yeah he's so good at playing squirrelly weirdo he's actually not good at playing the hero the alpha like that's not what he likes it's also that's his cat in the hat that's he has to make that movie because he pulled out of the fountain warner brothers were like you fucking owe us a movie and he was like do i have to do some movie star shit he's really blonde in it um i remember him looking great i wasn't into it the yeah but the thing that was really sending me at like watching it immediately after the odyssey was that brian cox yes playing agamemnon he is agamemnon yes very similar to benny safty and i'm just like wow these are two very very different interpretations of this and who plays odysseus sean bean sean bean he's the best part of the movie okay yeah see i don't even remember it that well but i just remember being like it's all surface level it feels like an impression of a type of movie a type of epic that actually has ideas within it well and it's only absorbed the aesthetics the the ideas that are in troy are not ideas about like man and more like mapping like political and historical ideas of war onto a myth which is not that interesting to me i agree with you i don't find that more interested in the interiority which is what the odyssey is it's like it's such a psychological story while also being really epic visually um it's why i i related this to thin red line is a your perspective character is changing a lot throughout the movie and b it feels like you're often kind of editing laterally through the character's memories and thoughts and feelings it is so much trying to find a way to put you in the inner life of these people rather than zooming out and turning it into mythology right so dave i gotta ask since we're talking about the iliad and and how that story then relates to the odyssey how do you feel about them not really including a lot of the gods in this story in this film we really only get so mention of of zeus we can talk about the gods on poseidon and poseidon but i'm saying we only really see so athena so the thing in the odyssey the story is for example one of the uh important moments in the odyssey is that uh odysseus is stuck on the island with calypso in this movie he has this emotional realization of like right i'm ready to go home i'm accepting the loss of my men right you know it's this big in the odyssey hermes the messenger god shows up and is like hey time to go yeah and this is like oh fuck okay he's like come on boats this way that happens a lot in the poem the gods show up and they're like totally i mean even the reason that helen ends up in troy is like Because of intervention from the gods. Right. And so, obviously, that's a little dramatically not going to, you know, that won't work. I think it totally makes sense that he, you know, he made that choice. It's just when you go back to the source material, I mean, especially in the Iliad, it's like the, like, the children of the gods are, you know, are all kind of connected. Zeus sees a lady and is like, he's a freaking swan. Yeah, he's going to turn into a swan, fuck her. She has eggs, and one of the children that come out of the eggs is Helen. Can I do a tiny little Merc spotlight? Look at what they were giving out at the screening. Oh, you got the pin? Oh, you got the Athena pin. I got the Athena pin. Oh, we didn't get pins. What did you get, Ben? I got the Athena. You got the Athena? They had the Athena and the horse, but you could only take one. I tried to take two, and I got yelled at very loudly. Well, the Athena pin feels like that would be my pick, because the pin itself is such an important part of the movie. It was before the movie. But I had a feeling this is closer to the movie object, which I always like in my merch. Because Penelope gives this pin to Odysseus as a way of remembering her, but also as a symbol to prove that it is him. Yes. I saw Interstellar again last week, David, because it was just playing in 70mm in Spain every night. They're just rolling out the classics, right? Yes. And you said that's a smart move. It's a smart rewatch. I have a feeling these two movies are going to be really paired together. A voyage home, yeah. I mean, Nolan loves his I-feel-so-bad-for-leaving-how-do-I-get-back-home kind of movie. Yep. I need to get back to my family. I need to get back to my wife. I need to get back to myself. Which is interesting, because he works with his wife. I know, but I just feel like it's clearly this thing that Ren—because so many of his movies have that. Well, yeah. I think it's less about the way that he— He runs his life as an adult, a husband and his father, but more of what he experienced as a child when his family was split up. I think it's 50% that, and I think informed by that, it is his worst nightmare. It's the reason he works with his wife and he makes everything a family production is because he can imagine no worse fate than being stuck on a shoot for six months away from his family. Like, he is just such an ultimate wife and family guy that he needs that unit around himself. And so if he's writing an emotional story of a challenge, it's the— It's the biggest challenge he can imagine in so many ways, which is why, you know, people go, why is he so obsessed with the dead wife thing? I like that he has moved away from dead wives and has found a way to tell stories about men longing for their wives that do not require them to be dead. But that scene is so fascinating because the dialogue, even though it's a very different scene where she hands him the pen, feels so similar, having watched it recently, to the final child Murph scene of, like, I'm coming back. I'm coming back. When are you coming back? I can't tell you, but I'm coming back. I just promise you that I'm coming back. Yeah. I mean, I think Christopher Nolan is, by and large, a charmed man who leads a wonderful life, and he knows that. Like, he's got a great thing going on. But that's clearly the fear that drives him a little bit or whatever, keeps him up at night, I guess. I mean, he's just—he's very similar to Shyamalan, in my opinion, in this regard. He's just so concerned with, like, the world we're leaving our children with. Like, what the future's going to look like for his family. And he can blow it out, you know, to big epic scale. But it's, you know, it's what makes these movies tick. The key difference between him and Shyamalan is, obviously, that Nolan is not very concerned with what if the devil was in an elevator. Other than that, I just think they were very— Not yet. Not yet. No, per se, he wants to do a horror movie. What if he's like, I'm remaking Devil, the M. Night Shyamalan-produced thriller? That would be the greatest move in the history of movies. I saw it. I saw Logan Marshall Green on the set of The Odyssey, and we started talking about Devil, and I said, who has the rights to Devil? And he said, I have them. They cost $1. You can have them right now for one whole dollar. Who directed Devil? Because it wasn't Shyamalan. It wasn't Shyamalan. John Eric Dowdle. What else has he done? He did the remake of the Spanish film Wreck. Quarantine. Oh, sure. Yeah. He did the Poughkeepsie tapes, which is one of those, like, fucked up, tiny budget horror movies that everyone talks about. Yeah, they kind of never got it. They never got a proper release. Right. And then he did As Above, So Below. Oh, sure. That's the Catacombs movie. Yeah. And then something called No Escape that I've never heard of. That is like Owen Wilson is stuck in a country that is having, like, some sort of, like, political uprising. Yeah. It's Owen Wilson trying to do Behind Enemy Lines again. It's like straight survival action movie. Except he's a family man. Chris Brosnan is there. Yeah. The Athena pin is handed to Odysseus as a, if I can't stop you from leaving, then let Athena watch after you. Which does feel like, talking about Nolan imagining his worst nightmares, it's like handing him a smartphone. It's saying, if you're going to leave and be away for a really long time, at least take this pin so Athena can pop in and talk to you all the time. It is such an incredible display of Christopher Nolan's clout that you're like, what does Zendaya play in this movie? Zendaya plays Athena. Athena, the god watching over Odysseus. She shows up at certain times over his shoulder and gives him a look and says, Zendaya, as an actor, is really, really good at doing, like, disappointed face. Unbelievable at it. Yes. When she makes that face, I'm like, oof, I feel bad. You don't want her silent judgment. But this is the kind of role where you go, oh, it's pretty small. You can't shoot her out three days because she has to be in 20 different countries. Yeah. She has to keep showing up on different ships. Yeah. I mean, she's obviously, like, in the movie probably for five minutes total. She makes an impression. She makes a huge impression. And she must have been, yeah. I mean, every small part in this movie is played by someone that has a Wikipedia page. Yes. Like, our mutual acquaintance, Griffin Shiloh Fernandez, is in this movie. Yes. Somewhat briefly. He plays one of the Trojan soldiers who I think approaches Elliot Page in the beginning of the movie. Never takes. Never takes his mask off. But it is crazy that, like, even those guys are played by guys. Totally. Right. I mean, who wouldn't want to be on these sets, right? The beggar in the beginning is James Remar. Who was that, Griffin? Yeah, I asked David and I didn't know who it was. I believe it's James Remar. No. No, no, no. Griffin, James Remar is the prophet. Is he Hades? Oh, okay. Yeah, like, terrorists, yes, or whatever his name is. But, yeah, he's the guy buried in the sand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I recognize the bottom of his. Yes, while I was trying to pay attention to that scene, Marie kept being like, Is that Richard from Sex and the City? And I was like, yeah, I think so, Marie. Be quiet. I knew James Remar was one of the two cloaked guys. I don't know who the guy was at the beginning, but he seems so familiar. Yeah. By the time this episode comes out, we're going to find out. Marie and I were trying to figure out who that was. We couldn't figure it out, but I'm sure we will know in a bit. It speaks to the Nolan. It speaks to the Nolan mystery box kind of thing. There's still so many actors for this movie with unlisted characters on IMDb. Yeah. Like, the cast has been announced, but it was not really told who was playing what other than the top ten people. Right. Right. Let's just talk, because the movie is a bit of like an episodic structure. Okay. Let's just talk about the scene. Okay. So, all right. Cyclops. Cyclops is the first big thing. They go to island. They follow some sheep, as you do. Mm-hmm. Yep. Into a cave. There was that nasty moment where Odysseus just sees, like, giant bags of cheese hanging on the walls of the cave and just eats some. I was like, you know what? They're hungry. They're tired. I guess. I don't know if I would eat cave cheese. I don't know that I would eat random cheese hanging in a cave in a sack. Sort of where cheese. Cheese comes from. It is, in fact. But usually it's been, for me, inspected by a government, one assumes, or at least by somebody. Fair enough. Like a merchant. Fair enough. A trader. If there was a stamp on the bag of Agamemnon giving the thumbs up, would you feel okay if that was the inspection? Of course. Or if it was, like, you know, Cyclops, you know, Polyphemus's, you know, beloved homespun cheese cave, you know, he had a little sign. Some sort of branding, you know? I will admit. I will admit this, because it was a special screening. The BFI South Bank, the concessions was not open. Oh, that's too bad. And I really wanted a popcorn and a soda the whole movie, especially because it's a long film. So when he goes over to the bags of cheese, I went like, that's disgusting. Is he really going to eat this? And then the more he started eating it, I started getting jealous of him. You're like, kind of go for a bag of cheese right now. Yes. Do they sell cheese bags? I had to. A handful of cheese. They had popcorn going at the IMAX, but they had shut down all the other things, so I had to go downstairs. Talk to the ticket taker and be like, hey, I need to go buy some food, because I'm going to, like, faint if I don't eat something during this three-hour movie. And she was like, yeah, whatever. So you got chicken nuggets, nachos, and popcorn? That's right. Is that a problem? Is there a. A three-course meal. I also got orange soda, and the freestyle machine kind of spat some, like, orange, you know, like, the sort of concentrated stuff on me, and it looked like I had robbed a bank and, like, a dye packet exploded on my hand. Yeah, it was very good. bedtime I did feel borderline faint towards the end of this movie i was talking to you guys before a quarter just how fucking hot it has been in europe yes and halfway through every day i get uh exhausted just from uh taking steps and i think europe has like one air conditioner per country right they kind of just like fast around right so this this week i think spain has it and sadly i'm in london right um i i do you know it was bad timing to uh take a euro trip uh you know for some amount of work right when a heat wave is hitting the entire continent on the other hand i feel great that i left the united states and new york in particular at the time that the diarrhea wave is hitting there is one of my friends has it yeah there is some there's some diarrhea your sister everyone has the diarrhea my sister i don't know if we want to announce that on the podcast she stacked it yeah she stacked it and she crammed it she crammed the ria no it is fun no griff i think you're wrong you would be thriving right now because basically the government is like you can only eat the most processed food imaginable do not touch a vegetable leaves are not for you look everyone everyone's complaining about how bad it is i go yeah welcome to my world now you know what it feels like for a minute driven you're also missing the wildfires is causing a lot of residual smoke down here so you also can't really or you're not supposed to go outside which is for a griffin newman there's also you're also missing the wildfires is causing a lot of residual smoke down here so you also can't like the legionnaires outbreak on the upper east side so you wouldn't be able to visit your grandma that's a good point my grandmother does live on the upper east side to dox her i also say i mean ben if if the wildfires from canada are brushing over into new york city i imagine it wouldn't be a good time to barbecue any smoking i would try to do would get intercepted by the smokes that were not in my control yeah i'm very particular you know i'm fruit woods only have you been trying any of the barbecue in europe it's not really a barbecue hub that i've been trying to make my own of course yeah you lugged a a weber green egg or whatever all the way on the plane some jamon some jamon some smoke i'm smoking some jamon right i mean they smoke meat well there but uh yeah yeah i i am smoking meat well here so so why do you like the cyclops because he big boy we did talk about this a little bit all right it's quite scary i think the sequence is a marvel i think it is something so uncanny to just make him a guy i think it gets to what's the opening uh title at the beginning of this film it's something like it is a time of of magic something like that i can't remember yes fucked up uh and this is obviously a fantastical story that uh asks you to believe that uh centuries and centuries and centuries ago magical things happened and at some point they just disappeared from the world right and more likely actually so okay it's all true sorry the the opening title is it is a lawless time uh crime syndicates compete for resources food medicine hyper fuel on the shipbuilding planet of corellia the foul lady proxima forces runaways into a life of crime in exchange for shelter and protection and coaxium you can you can smoke that right you can keep it hot coaxium needs to be cool as hell so we got to keep it away from madrid right now oh yeah absolutely not yeah in paris they got no ac right right yeah it is funny that paris they're just like no no no the cigarettes have no filters the the apartments have no air conditioners um no air conditioners but we're gonna smoke all the time right and they take some damn naps they do they they do all the taking siestas napping oh yeah you get me um sorry i i know we were making jokes but i did look up the actual uh opening prologue line it's please it is a time of apparently magic oh there we go love that yeah um this is a thing i like about the realization of the cyclops tied to that is it feels like you're witnessing something that could they make him a scale that clearly becomes magical right but other than that you're like am i just looking at a person with facial differences am i looking at something that could have been misinterpreted and through the oral tradition of the story being told and retold and reprocessed got more and more extreme right uh they don't i mean you know in the story he talks to the cyclops more because the whole thing is the he tricks him into thinking his name is nobody he also gets him drunk and that's how he ends up falling asleep right and you know that's when the cyclops is asked like who did this to you he's like nobody did this to me you know like it's the trick you know it's a classic odysseus the the cunt the cunning guy right and nolan has said like i just couldn't figure out how to make that work like it's just a different movie i guess if it's just like he's talking you know like he wanted it i guess to feel more primal which it does he does talk he makes noise and he says beside him and it made me so sad it's very it's quite this is the other thing it's that it makes the character more sad because you're sort of like is is he almost being bullied by these guys right they treat him like he's not you know intelligent at first they're dealing with him like he's a wild animal and then the realization that he has the ability of speech which implies obviously like deeper internal thoughts has come after they've already fucked with him a bunch he also crunched a bunch of them he did that's true be crunching there's some self-defense of crunching i liked that the aesthetics of cheese but i guess his law says you should offer your cave cheese to anyone who shows they made a nice fire for him yeah that's true i thought the aesthetics of the cyclops design really reminded me of 90s like i could have seen him in like the madonna bedtime stories music video that's that's a marie thought right there i like this i like that his eye is sideways yeah it's kind of vaginal oh and that's another marie thought right there a little bit well anyway he burns his freaking eye he does he does he lights the sword on fire and they they what they poke him to wake him up and then stab him in the eye yeah and they and then they you know they have the hay and they pretend to be sheep pretending to be the sheep which is you know that is in the arthur version of the odyssey um because they don't want to really show violence uh the cyclops is embodied by buster the rabbit and dw just ties his ears around his eyes his eye is the is the uh odyssey episode of arthur from the stephen crowder era or was he not voicing brain at that time um i uh have to admit that i am not super familiar with the cast and crew behind the show arthur he only voiced the brain for two seasons griffin out of 25 so it's hard to hard to you know narrow it down i think he did do jekyll jekyll hide jekyll hide hide jekyll jekyll though if i'm not mistaken uh someone will check that i was a little lost here but that's i'm assuming that's an arthur episode there's so many musical number yeah memes about children's entertainment and it's hard to keep up um so they escape yes they do escape but odysseus odysseus does fire a little parting shot yes shouldn't have done that should have done that in the story in the poem it's he just says his name triumphantly and that's what gets them in trouble but it's the same basic idea of like now they've invoked the gods now i think that nolan keeping the gods at a distance is good because it keep it keeps the men's sort of opinions like kind of up in the air too you know where they're like none of the gods have cursed us right and but i like the idea that it's like or maybe you cursed yourselves just by you know the way you've behaved over the years like without it not having magic because odysseus has hubris kind of throughout the story let's call out another thing here one of i think it's maybe our true introduction to odysseus in the movie but in that first 30 minutes we're getting so much information in different times thrown at us we're watching tom holland train with mentor who of course is uh ryan hurst our friend from the lady killers who played lump he looks like he just walked off like the set of sons of anarchy or vikings or whatever like he's looking great david would you be surprised to hear that in fact he was on sons of anarchy yes yeah and of course next is playing kratos in the god of war series that everyone thinks looks perfect oh everyone's um what i was going to say is we're introduced tom holland is training with mentor and they're sort of explaining the way that his father used to fight and his rules and everything and then there's like a flashback within a flashback and um odysseus is explaining his whole method of stringing his bow which is sort of his like millner test of no one can take the throne unless they can string his bow a thing that only he can do but also that he loves to pluck the bow yeah to sort of play the musical note before because he thinks it's the honorable thing to do to alert whatever he is about to shoot at that he's engaging them in battle that hunting is is the same yeah you know what he doesn't he come the trojan horse is the complete denial of correct warning but even here with with the the cyclops you know he like tricks him and then he turns around and yells like another one yeah and just fucking like he does he does briefly slip into khaled mode and he regrets it the rest of his life And he brings out, like, 20 guest acts. Yeah, right. Himesh Patel! That guy you've seen in a lot of movies playing heavies! What's his name again? Can we shout out Himesh Patel for a second? Who we were introduced to, obviously. Shout out to Himesh Patel. Andrew Howard is who I'm mentioning there. Okay. Yeah, and William Lee. But yeah, now, Himesh Patel, who's in Tenet. Yes. And is wonderful in Tenet. Plays kind of an Adam Goldberg, gum-chewing, annoyed asshole in that. Yeah, he's in the one set piece, basically. I guess he's in two. But, you know, he's like a helper guy. You want me to do what? Like, he's that kind of guy. Crash a plane into a free port? Right. And then yesterday, he's obviously, like, doing a Hugh Grant thing, I think, incredibly well. And then in this, he's just playing, like, ultimate straight arrow right-hand man who's increasingly questioning, what is this mission we're on? Like, can I trust this guy? Yeah, I got a bone to pick with Wikipedia for The Odyssey. In parentheses, 2026 film. They list Himesh Patel as Odysseus' second-in-command and incompetent brother-in-law. Perhaps in the, again, I have not read the poem. Yeah, in the poem, he is cowardly. He's a fool. He's sort of, like, the emblematic thing of, like, the men just not listening, not, like, heeding the signs and going into it. That's one of the characters in the original poem that he's, you know, gifted that bag that controls wind. And then, like, he and some of the other crew members think there's gold hidden in it. Yeah, because they're, like, petty, you know, silly men. Yeah, yeah. I think in this, he is hyper-competent. I think he is portrayed as hyper-competent in order to cast more doubt on Odysseus, right? In order for Odysseus to doubt himself more. I also think him being such a, like, earthy, reliable character makes the ultimate loss of him. Right. He's the one you're really attached to among the men. Really, really, really sting. You need one of those guys to really be kind of delineated and fleshed out in that sort of way. Yes. Walt, sorry, just to rewind a bit, we're talking about the Matt Damon bow trick. Mm-hmm. Not the bow. Not the plucking of the bow, but the stringing of the bow. Yeah. I'm just going to come out and say this. I've never really been a Matt Damon is hot girly. Sure. Matt Damon's reliable. He's good. He's handsome. He's a cutie pie. He's a cutie pie. But, like, I've never been, like, ooh, Matt Damon. Takes the roles in things like Ford versus Ferrari or Air or whatever. It's like, well, he's the kind of doughy, you know. Middle of the road guy. Like, he's not the sexier guy. He's become a little America's dad. We were talking about this in our True Grit episode with Stavi that, like, it's funny that Matt Damon had this big action star run with Jason Bourne, and it feels like he's firmly settled into his I am dad mode. And then we remembered, oh, right, his next movie is The Odyssey. Like, he's doing his one last seemingly I'm going to get fucking swole as hell. He's ripped, yeah. But he's ripped in a really attractive. He's sinewy. Like, realistic. Realistic way? Earthy. Where I was just like, ugh. I think they should have put the bodysuit from live action Moana on him. I think that would have worked better. Don't you think? Yeah. My problem with Odysseus in this movie is that he had nipples. And I wish we could just take those off and just have smooth, rubbery pecs. Have you seen it yet, David? Are you seeing it? No, I won't be seeing it. None of us are seeing it. Well, unfortunately, Ben had to see it. Unfortunately, I did see it. Why? Because we are Critical Darlings. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Right. So you had to help out there. But no, no, my daughter. Oh, I should mention, it sucks so hard. Not good? It sucks on ice. Yeah. When I saw it, the theater smelled like vomit, which felt really right. Which theater? Which theater was it? Oh, Alamo. I've been walking around vomiting in theaters recently just to kind of like, you know, mark my territory. Yeah. No, my daughter has seen the trailer for multiple times and is always just kind of like. Yeah. And I'm like, that's grown up Moana. And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, hmm. You know, she's not like, I can't wait to see that. I mean, that explains the box office. We were opening Weekend Minions and Monsters. We were right there. And she was. You were crying. It was like fucking Bernie Mac at Def Comedy for her. She was just like pointing at the screen and screaming at like everything the Minions did. Good. I mean, as were many other children in the audience, obviously. And adults like Marie Barney Salinas. I was not. I was just like very touched by that movie. I was just watching it kind of with like my hand to my chest going like, this is so sweet. They love the movies. You got verklempt. I love James. I love James. James is an artist. I've quoted before Robert Downey Jr. saying that his performance in Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays is the most relaxed performance in the history of cinema because of how much heroin he was on. I think The Rock's performance in live action Moana would make him jealous. Yes. I want to know what he's taking so I can use it. To fall asleep at night. Griffin, do you think how about this theory, though? I'm going to throw this at you. Dwayne Johnson, as we all know, actually loves independent cinema, made The Smashing Machine. You know, he's out here supporting artists. He's saying he's making another movie with Benny Safdie, an adaptation of a Daniel Pinkwater book. We'll see if that happens. It'd be cool if it did. I mean, I think the issue there might be no one will give them the money, but we'll see. But he brought down the Snyderverse. OK, he did it himself. The hierarchy of power did change. Exactly. He has. He's now brought down possibly Disney live action remakes. Is he a man on the inside? Is he actually doing God's work? Yes. Yes. You know what I mean? I mean, I love this conspiracy. I've been viewing him as the enemy for a while. And yet I loved his performance in Smashing Machine. You and I both like that movie. I do. And he has been successfully killing the things I hate the most in modern American cinema. I think he might be just like here to help. This is all I'm saying. I just think now, is this perhaps, you know, challenged by things like he's in Jumanji 3 this year, which is hard to get excited about. But I'm trying to remember, did Bella Tarr direct Jumanji 3? Yeah, he directed that and it killed him. Yes. It's his final film. It's his eyes wide shut. Yeah. And, you know, I did get served up that interview recently. Did you see this, Griff? It was going around from the Black Adam time where the guy is like, so which Joker would be in Black Adam? Like Jared Leto or Joaquin Phoenix or Barry Keegan. And he's like, Barry Keegan. And they talk about it seriously for two minutes. He's like, what he's doing is. And I'm just like, oh, my God, what are you guys talking? It's like it's the ultimate just like how everyone just went insane about multiverses and didn't know what they were talking about anymore. And he was acting like Black Adam could just like bring all the worlds together. I know. I know we've already made this joke within this conversational circle. But I just. I just need to underline it. There is nothing funnier in the world than a year long marketing campaign that was all framed around the hierarchy of power in the DC universe will change. And he conclusively did do that. Yes. It's not in the way he intended. He fully lived up. Maybe he didn't intend it. Maybe he did. Maybe he did. Anyway. Moana's dog piss. Yeah, I believe you. I won't be seeing it ever. So. OK. We talked about Cyclops. Cyclops. Cyclops. OK. So then. So Poseidon friggin pissed Poseidon mad because they fucked with the sun. Yeah. So they get driven to another island. Cyclops is dead. Which is where they meet the the large men, Ben, that you were. Oh, sure. Dude, you approved of so much. And I do the nightmare of the kid who's like laughing and. Yeah. Yeah. That that that stinker. He's got kind of wilder energy. Yeah. What's that? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. You're. You're the large nemesis. Right. The 10 year old that I am feuding with. And so they're driven. I mean, the 10 year old who has your number. Nolan is so good at this, like, stark nightmare stuff. Yeah. Yes. But when they go to the other side of the island and they're just seeing the animals, you know, like the tiger in the line, you know, like the weird. Oh, that's kind of looking at them. That's on Cersei's island. That's the same island. Oh, it's the same island. Yeah. Same island. Yeah. And and they write and they encounter Cersei. And this is I mean, it was just like I know. So I know that Cersei will turn them into pigs. Right. And I know that Christopher Nolan really tries not to use CGI, obviously. I mean, I'm sure he used a little bit in this grift because he's, you know, he's making the guys big. There's the whirlpool like there's stuff. There's the creature when they have to make the bargain, the rock creature with. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one thing that felt conclusively CGI. Right. Where it's like, what are you going to do? I mean, right. Some of this has to be. I know so much of it for him is he doesn't. He doesn't want these stages in the process that will degrade the film that when you run these things through optical printing and then you have to write or rather unless you do optical printing, if you're running them through a computer and then you're sort of outputting it again onto film, you're losing fidelity. And so I know he tries to keep those things to an absolute minimum, but it is just sort of striking to just see guys who are big and not 80 feet tall, big. Yeah. Right. But just just. Just a little too big. Yes. But the way they associate. simply have her just like stretching the faces to turn into pig and just the grossness of the like entrail soup oh my god so gross it starts forming this like waxy kind of like weird icicle coming out of their throats i wanted to throw up because did it not remind you all of spirited away well spirited away is referencing that i mean yeah yeah that's you know that's this is this is the First time anyone told these tales. So the TV version of The Odyssey that we were talking about was being really bad. Do you know who plays Cersei in that, Griffin? Tell me. Fran Sinclair from the TV show Dinosaurs? Close. Bernadette Peters. Oh, which is so cool. Yes. As soon as I found that out, I was like, oh, I could see her just like feed and slop to pigs. Like, you know, just be like, eat. Eat my slop. Eat my slop. Oh, my God. She looks pretty hot. Yeah. Bernadette Peters. We love her. We do love her. I, I, but yeah, Cersei sequence. Incredible. But again, like, so, okay. So in the poem, Odysseus does fuck Cersei and have a couple of kids with her and leaves there for like a year. They cut all that out. Good. I just love that, again, this sort of simplicity of how he solves this problem of like, understanding that there's something like wounded and dark about her grabbing the bird, like realizing it's important to her. And then the way Nolan solves that puzzle so simply of like, she's just like, I like her better as a bird. It's her sister. And it's, but it's also that he breaks off from his crew. He does go hunting. Well, also because they don't like. Yes. They're already kind of doubting him and thinking that the gods have smited him. And they, they have. The gods have smited him. They're questioning his leadership. You know, and, but, but he might be the first to defy the gods and successfully and maybe prove the gods wrong. What's that tweet? I'll look up the tweet. But yeah, he shoots a deer and it turns into a very, very handsome naked man. I saw some. Tight little tushy. Yeah, exactly. This is, this is the famous tweet. RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris, but I'm different and better, maybe even better than the gods. I'll send it along to you guys. And that's from Senator Ted Cruz. While we're, while we're talking about Samantha Morton. Mm-hmm. The great. Do we think that she is in the supporting actress Oscar conversation? Sure. I think it's quite possible. This isn't the everything Oscar conversation right now. Yeah. Right? I think, I think this is such a kind of reemergence for her and it's such a scene stealing role. And even in the way that Nolan's been talking about her performance in the movie, he's been really spotlighting her in interviews. Yeah. Even though she's not part of the core like press team that they're pushing out there. Right. And she's, he said like. He compared her to Heath Ledger's. Oh, sorry. I'm stepping on your thing. No, he said there are two times in my filmmaking career where an actor has done something that when I called cut, the crew broke into applause. Wow. And it was Heath Ledger, I think during the pencil trick scene. Right. And, and this. And when John David Washington said, I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago. That was the third time. Well, but to be fair, they applauded the hot sauce. That's actually what they were applauding. And when Elizabeth Debicki opened a car door with her foot. Even though she was on the other side of the car. Remember that. Yeah. When she height maxes. When she leg maxes. I gotta watch Tenet again. You gotta watch Tenet every single day of your life. That's a big time commitment. I don't have that much time. I don't know if you noticed, but there was applause in our audience when her name came up in the credits. Oh, that's nice. I did not notice that. Yeah. My, my crowd had one guy like the not another teen movie guy who was trying so hard to get a shot. To get applause breaks happening throughout the movie. And the movie's a little too contemplative and moody. Yeah. Our only applause breaks were for the moment where Corey gets the arrow to the throat upon saying you're Odysseus, which rocks. Correct. That is the only time it successfully happened in my theater. This guy truly tried ten times. Right. There were ten times where you would hear. Maybe he was trying to turn on a light and he had a car. He was clapping. You think it could have been that? He was clapping on. Clap on. I want to say about the Cersei sequence. Yeah. That much like the village that burns themselves down preemptively, her whole rationale is, I know, man, they were going to do something. Right. That Odysseus is like, why did you do this to them? They didn't do anything to you. And she's like, I know where it's going. Yeah. That there is a time of such incredible distrust happening. That. That people have started defying the gods, that they've started defying each other, that they're defying the laws of like behavior and that everyone is just on the defense all the time. Yes. Like she can't trust anything anymore. As we have said already, you know, everyone's speaking of these invaders from the sea who don't follow Zeus's law. And yeah, I mean, could she have maybe asked five to ten questions before she served them pig soup? Maybe. I don't know. She's gone a little mad up there on her by herself. She's also just got pig soup on the back burner all the time. They are like, oh, you have food? And she's like, yep, slop it up, sloppies. It's so gross looking. It was so disgusting. So she is the one who says, you're going to have to go to hell, Hades. Sorry. You know, and he's like, nobody ever does that. And she's like, I don't know what to tell you, man. You're going to be the first. You're going to pull it off. Yeah. And so they go to the underworld. Pretty rad. Oh, my God. It's so sick. And the black beach. The black beach. The black Icelandic beach. Yeah. Oh, I need to go to Iceland. It's beautiful. And it's a four hour flight. I know. You got to do it. I'm going to do it. I've been. Yeah, it's been on my list for years. Sit right over there. They have hot dogs. Oh, good. OK. That was the only thing holding me back. I'm glad to know they have hot dogs. Pop over there for an Icelandic hot dog. OK, perfect. That's great news. And yes, and this is James Remar. First, he inquires as to, like, did Samantha ever show up and is just like that? And just like that. And Damon's like, yeah, but it was weird. They clearly just kind of shot it separately. And she just kind of like has a one sided phone call. And it wasn't really satisfying for anyone. He tells Odysseus to meet him at the top where the air is crisp. That's a girl next door reference. Cannot. Wow. Remar cooks in that movie. He's always cooking. I mean, the guy cooks. Apart from Mortal Kombat Annihilation, where the stove was broken, I guess. But the gas was cut. But Marie did remind me on the subway ride home of the other next door. What's the Jennifer Lopez movie? The Boy Next Door. The Boy Next Door. Where someone either either she gifts the boy next door or the boy next door gifts her a first edition of the Odyssey. Yes. A first edition of the Odyssey. Yes. Iconic. Could we do a next door Patreon series? Well, OK. Are we doing movies with the title next door in them? There's also kind of a lot of like fucked up neighbor movies. Girl next door. OK. He's he's on the next door. Next door. OK. We've also got girl next door. Boy next door. We've got a 2020. Oh, no, that's a TV miniseries. I'm out on that. Are there any other good ones? The girl next. There's two. Sometimes we are the spy next door. OK. Jackie Chan. The spy next door. Uh-huh. I'm not seeing a lot of good stuff here. I think you would have to more do a neighbor series, right? Like rear window. Well, that. But, you know. Kind of thing, right? Yeah, exactly. Like, what's the one where Samuel L. Jackson's the cop? I like that. Is there white? Lakeview Terrace. Lakeview Terrace. You know. That's an insane. Pacific Heights, which is really fun. Pacific Heights, I love. Any movie where people are like kind of peeking through blinds, you know, and then like, ah, like something happens that makes them go, ah. Wasn't there like a. A racist Dennis Quaid bad neighbor movie recently? Yes. Where again, it's like. The intruder. All right. The. Dennis Quaid plays the racist? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's Michael Ely and Megan Good move next door. Yes. He's like, hi, I'm your neighbor. In a transformative performance, Dennis Quaid plays like a somewhat unhinged reactionary. Well, this is the Dennis. The Dennis Quaid thing is so funny. It was this thing in The Substance, too, where I'm like, you're in this movie playing a character that is like. It's like satirizing the kind of guy that you associate yourself with politically. So like. It's fascinating. He's got some self-awareness. Are you self-aware? Arlington Road. What if your neighbor was possibly a terrorist? Another fun one. I've never seen that one. Yeah. You've never seen Arlington Road? I've never. I've got to see Arlington Road. I do think Rear Window is the king and origin of it, Ben. Like, I think. Oh, yes. Like, that's. Rear Window, I would say, is the best one. I don't know. Have you seen? Have you seen The Intruder? Disturbia? Disturbia. Which is just Rear Window. That's Simpsons episode, Bard of Darkness. Is that what it is? That's a great episode. Love that episode. That's the one where Milhouse tries to write Milhouse, but he wants to go to the pool, so he writes Milpool. Milhouse rules. David just smacking the table laughing. Milhouse is so good. Everything's coming up Milhouse, I think, about once a day. Of course. Yes. The Simpsons did an Odyssey. They did. Did they? Yes. Homer told the Odyssey. What season is that? It's one of those anthology. episodes where it's three stories in one right oh yeah sure i sent this gif to one of our group texts the other day david i think it was blank dough but of the lineup of the suitors who are coming for marge in their version of the odyssey because i remember that being the best section is just like disco stew and mo and everyone courting marge oh i see yes it was called tales from the public domain which is really funny the odyssey is the first and then they have a lisa simpson as jonah bark lisa's jonah bark and then a hamlet episode called do the bard man really funny and i believe the final joke in that episode is he finishes telling the story of hamlet and he goes and of course it was adapted into a movie called ghostbusters and then they play the ghostbusters theme and homer dances to the ghostbusters theme for one straight minute over the end credits marie is laughing marie is laughing i'm laughing do you the title of uh uh of the odyssey section is though brother where art thou yeah which is that's pretty good that's pretty good but still it's like a season 14 episode i'm skeptical that this was very it's so funny that i have to keep bringing these back all right okay friggin homework ass ben also thank you people have been saying lately on the reddit or whatever like wow ben's really like he's become kind of the taskmaster no ben is doing his job ben's doing his job that mood will persist on the reddit like wow ben's really like he's become kind of the taskmaster no ben is doing his on this he is the producer of this show and he is keeping us somewhat on uh on track just trying to come up to ben tears in their eyes and they say thank you for producing so yes the sequence on the beach speaking to the blind prophet beautifully this is yes speaking to elliot page right so like elliot page kind of emerging as like the heart of the movie as the sort of avatar of the men odysseus sacrificed for what exactly like the betrayal because yes basically what happened with sin on is that they they convinced him on they actually did leave like sin on did not know about the trojan horse in order for the trick to work sin on needed to be tricked as well so they believed it and odysseus defends himself of like the trojan horse and he's like oh my god i'm gonna look i needed you to believe it i needed it to be real you yes you died and i i heard you die and i was sad about it but it meant others didn't have to die but you can tell he knows like this is a bit of a because it's like what so for what so that we could pillage a city like you know the whole reason of the trojan war is like literally the dumbest thing it's in trade routes or whatever you know come on bring up jar jar binks it was the it's some guy's wife well okay the stated reason obviously yes is that uh paris of troy stole helen from uh menelaus yeah her face too pretty right and brought her but they say in this it's like agamemnon would like even if we got helen back like agamemnon wants to disrupt troy's like control over the trade republicans do they blame it on some other thing wait the republicans i thought that was like a stand-up party founded by abraham lincoln that's never done anything wrong oh you're right i'm sorry so we see they were actually the good ones all along we see agamemnon he has been murdered yes this is right so then we're right we're moving over to telemachus uh who goes to see menelaus played by john bernthal brother of agamemnon right very good bernthal oh yeah when is he bad only when he hosts a podcast i would say sometimes bernthal can did any of you guys hit the gas a little too heavy dog day afternoon no i did not because i heard it was bad yeah i this is what i heard as well i heard some very loud rumors that it was not good someone told me that it uh opened and people were laughing and they had not anticipated that and so then they leaned into it that doesn't sound good to me um but i bernthal's excellence in this he's excellent and it's like telemachus is seeing in bernthal bernthal's like yay i won now i'm here shit's mad helen doesn't like me you know her face is all scarred and she's like i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna kill you i'm gonna kill you yeah my hot wife isn't even hot anymore right and then she's only gonna launch 500 ships now right and helen's like and don't forget what happened to agamemnon's like i don't want to talk about that we're not even gonna talk about that but it's another thing that we had been seeded it's seeded very early in the story where odysseus tells penelope like agamemnon like sacrificed his daughter for favorable winds or whatever and penelope's like what and like odysseus is like i don't you know it's a spoiler you know it's war what are you gonna do and like the minute agamemnon comes home a champion like his wife is so mad about that and murders him yeah and but both roles of course played by lupita youngo the great yeah um we also get at some point around here the fuller sequence of the trojan horse attack yeah we see that before they go to the underworld right because we've seen sort of like sinon's sacrifice more in full oh sure we also see i like that this movie answers some of the practical questions i have had about the trojan horse it was stinky in there they were just pissing and puking it really reminds me of dunkirk yeah yep um i i also love that they show that anytime the horse is like turned over that all the guys inside uh-huh have to like reconfigure their bodies yeah at one point the troy soldiers are stabbing the horse and one guy gets stabbed and they all like cover up his mouth yeah the guy's just drowning at the bottom of it yeah oh yeah you don't want to be at the bottom you don't want to be you want to be near like the head yeah yeah get me near the head of the horse please very jackass not that very jackass of them very jackass great jackass yes i'm odysseus and this is jack then it's just like the horse oh man and there would be one point where like preston lacy would fall on top of we man inside the horse sure that would be really funny yeah uh what i was gonna say is that john bernthal another thing that was like very much out of context in the teaser for this movie of him just being like hey you want to hear about my brother like just talking like john bernthal or whatever and that was another thing in the trailer i was like all right you got tom holland whining about like my dad's coming home and then john bernthal just talking like john bernthal and i was like but it's all it's removing the distance from these things and i was also talking to a friend who was saying that i was like i'm not going to that like you know there are a million different translations of these things and some of them are like no the wording is something more casual than father totally works for me in the context of the movie the characterization of these characters like the way that these characters are portrayed makes absolute sense and ultimately makes the story really relatable uh for you know contemporary audiences but not in a way that feels forced yeah um but yeah i was not saying hello fellow kids right i just i just rewatched uh amadeus last week which you know perfect movie but again that to me is like the classic version of we're going to apply sort of like modern sensibilities sensibilities to it yeah um to a you know historical story but it just it just works um to to wrap the uh yes the the the black sand beach like the scale come out of right when they all come out of the sand and start charging or it's like all the shades want is like news of people who are alive right like uh this is where it's sort of seeded for odysseus of like you're gonna need to pay tribute to the men you lost like you you know you haven't been honoring their deaths enough and then telemachus i feel like from menelaus is getting the sort of the information of like you can't just walk back to your house and think everyone's going to be happy to see you odysseus will need to survey the landscape when he arrives you know yes yeah and you've got you know you've got the intrigue of like pattinson and cory and all these guys are like maybe we should kill telemachus you know whatever that's all a little bit of kind of like that's that's screenplay chaff or you know like but but pattinson's big seduction scene is pretty excellent yeah yes he does a good job of towing the line between being actually really convincing but also winking at the audience he plays the which is hard to do to show that he's almost pulling it off uh and then what happens next well so he gets the prophecy and he knows odysseus knows what's to come yeah but he does not tell his men which is that they will come across a whirlpool as well as this i don't even know how to describe the monster it's like a spider different arms it's a octopus you know and it's a man-eating monster of you know it's sometimes it's depicted as like a maiden with like dog heads coming out of her body which is kind of a ben yeah no shit yeah punch that turns into a bite yeah he cools um but it's you know odysseus keeps being told by people like cersei and uh the the the what teresias teresias like your men are going to die yeah and odysseus is like no you know they don't you're telling me how we can avoid that and they're like that's true and you will live but they're not gonna it's not gonna work yeah and like their ultimate fallibility is like they make it to this island where they're like don't eat those juicy that's the thing juicy cow and those cows look good those cows look good they belong to the sun god apollo so you can't fucking eat them but it's just like a marshmallow test of like but the minute you're here you can't leave the winds die down and you're just gonna get hungry or hungry until you're like well maybe we have to eat the cows and then you know yeah they all get struck down in the in the in a store they go in their little barbecue hole griff they do go in a secret barbecue hole they smoke those cows yeah that is true um we also see the sirens we do we do uh and again you know nolan connects this to like odysseus is like longing for what is lost like versus just like he's so horny for these hot ass singers which is sort of the classic sirens thing of him being like let me out of my world i want to get there you know instead he's just wailing and crying like a great performance moment from damon there yeah oh incredible shit when he says the thing of like it's like the tastiest itch and when you go to scratch it you realize it's under the skin it's so evocative it's good shit i it's this is some good shit i think he pulled off some good shit here nolan i'm gonna tell him that in a typed note ben i assume that you believe if you listen to the sirens everything would turn out okay mary all they would just be like you're so chill you rock now you can go here's a bunch of your time they give you money yeah of course here are our wallets um and so yes uh whatever did you know uh what oh i wanted to ask about the boat stuff what do you think of the boat stuff because they shot boats on a freaking real ass boat man i think like the oldest available boat is what they used it's like a viking boat piece for yes i need to read mag it's uh the boat is called the draken 115 foot boat from norway right i guess it's a it's a modern built boat yeah because obviously you're not i guess you're not allowed to take like uh items of antiquity out to the open ocean they just go buy some like london museum and they're like can i have that but it's uh it's imitating obviously like an ancient viking long ship or whatever and uh i would have thrown up yeah i mean i think a lot of people did i read some story about nolan being like do you mind if i shoot you throwing up yeah i read that too cool which is cool uh yeah i mean rowing seems relaxing i don't know it does not seem relaxing i could get into the groove of it i'm telling you oh sure like just a kind of like repetitive thing you know put on some ambient music and the in the airpods toss some apex twin on music he just listens to the sirens that's true yeah right good rowing music yeah i would i think i would have died at troy no i would have died before we even got to troy like i wouldn't have made it right i wouldn't have made it that far right exactly they would have eaten me let's be honest in this time i would have uh died in the cradle yeah exactly die right i would have died of like air allergy or some shit maybe maybe i would have been sacrificed because i am like a firstborn child you know they would have tried to sacrifice me and the gods would have rejected me like no thank you what are we supposed to do with that shit um okay uh also throughout this whole time we keep flash we keep you know cutting into odysseus with calypso she keeps being like remember more what happened to your men what happened to your men and finally he breaks down yes finally calypso right and he is mad at calypso kind of like look man you needed to again like i feel like traditionally calypso is just a trickster like calypso literally means like steel drum right yeah um she conceals you know like that she's like a liar right you know but like she's just kind of like if you wanted to go you would have remembered like you're only remembering now because you're finally ready yeah to sort of right accept the emotional truth now like would penelope be thrilled to hear this no no but and so yes he goes home in disguise as a beggar god bless nolan like he is very true to the tale of the odyssey which is like the last part of it is odysseus disguised as a beggar hanging out in his house being like hmm you know yeah i loved all the beggar stuff i also love that uh legasamo gets to shine so much in this section so much more because he becomes the one uh one ally he has right uh well there's that nice old lady yeah who notices his legs scar also the dog the dog what's the dog's name argos argos oh i'm so sad poor boy apparently it's very controversial that in this film he touches the dog it's controversial that he doesn't sound that controversial to me i don't know people are like he's not supposed to touch the dog i did find it so funny in that interview that they were asking nolan like are you worried about this backlash at all and he was like one i don't consider backlash from people who have not seen the film yet two everyone forgets that i worked on batman movies for a decade i don't think people forget that but he's right no but he was just like i i've dealt with fucking nerds for a decade i don't give a shit so uh by the touching the dog tom holland recognizes this is my dad yes that is when telemachus puts it together thank god because telemachus would seem really dumb otherwise i think at a certain point where this guy's like no i'm not odysseus but i know him coming this way soon okay sorry so the dog the thing with the dog is the the dog is what potentially gives him away yes his identity so the question is does odysseus kill the dog or does the dog die dog dies the dog does die in the movie but some people are like actually it should have been odysseus name an important or learned person who has said that you cannot recite randos on twitter is there a real person who has talked about this uh probably not no it is a bunch of comments from and i will say this confidently fools so penelope has set up this test for all the suitors which is the the trick we see odysseus do way earlier in the film where they line up a bunch of axes it's basically like this incredible like target trick he would do yeah yes uh he would string his bow and then he would fire the arrow along the axes and it would be really cool and everyone would say odysseus you're the best never leave yeah fucking rule and so now all these suitors are lining up they can't even get this bow strong it's so good it's yeah they're fools well we we gotta go uh back a bit no we don't yes we do because we have the whole scene when he talks to penelope through the screen and that's yeah sure because that's before this is a it's all you know it's this is all happening in this it's before the trial but that sequence when it's finally revealed what actually he witnessed at troy and that right that is the right and we've talked about it a little bit already but right that's the emotional thing nolan's getting it this is what he can't get over and he's not revealing himself to her he's he's using a fake again he's going kind of like yeah what if a guy who knew odysseus knew that he felt really shitty about the sack of troy because he had been kind of gnarly and bad i i had uh i had tears in my eyes oh no it's so good that the revelation of zendaya like that really just crushed me that worked for me so well yeah like the use of her in the sack of you know like the and then him looking at athena quote unquote you know yeah because zendaya basically was just some peasant woman who gets struck down but then kind of embodies athena then throughout the rest of the film like his guilt his story yeah and the sequence is exciting like it's also genuinely thrilling to watch yeah i mean i think with the these stories get passed down and by virtue of them being passed down you lose some of maybe the more unsavory elements like the fact that there is an uh an adaptation of the odyssey on the show arthur that you know yes i think that is of course the peak of of the telling of the story homer was happy about it but the cruelty of tying buster's ears together is something that nolan derent depict right there there is so much emphasis on the heroic moments and the moments of valor that like maybe some of the other aspects of what happened don't get passed out yes but it's also a movie that's it's so explicitly about guilt that i think it it's not like it's uh whitewashing the character you know no no no i'm not saying it's whitewashing the character i'm saying that like when there's i think of like i'm tired of hearing these stories about odysseus or other people that are like really really great when it doesn't really like like mirror the feeling of the loss and the guilt and the tragedy and finally we get to see that part of the story and it breaks you and yes like it's be good it's really good look iliad in the odyssey the poems are about triumphant victories over barbarians like they he is he is putting this in a completely modern context this is not something that you know he is uh like borrowing from homer he's but he's putting it in very well i think we should shout out that um a big influence for him was a somewhat recent adaptation by emily wilson which is a kind of it's important distinction just mentioned it's the first time that this poem was ever translated by a woman right which i don't approve of to be cool okay i think i think she should be translating raw food into cooked food in the kitchen sorry that's a joke uh actually the lead of my review was which i think is very for one i couldn't think of a fucking lead so i use this instead but like emily wilson you know famously the odyssey usually kind of begins like tell me of odysseus like the man of twists and turns right like that's the sort of greek translation of and she renders it much more simply as like the complicated man and like i think that's what nolan is responding to of like this is not just um the person who had twists and turns that he navigate like this is you know there is something introspective we can find in this man yeah no there is yeah the other thing this movie reminded me of a lot and i don't know if i just i haven't been reading or watching a ton of interviews with nolan so i don't know if he's already called this out a bunch reminded me a lot of excalibur in sort of the vibe of it being this kind of like earthy dreaminess even just the way he uses fog and smoke throughout the movie and sort of finding this way to make a tactile version of of magical ideas to me he's cited last temptation of christ and that to me is also what you're talking about a little bit that moment where he stands up and he's got like bits of the beach on him on his back yeah that felt very correct what are some other things i feel like he's been talking about some other movies uh andre rublov sure hey oh yeah yeah yeah ron right right that feels like you know anytime we're zooming out to a bunch of guys running on the beach that feels like a lot of people are like oh my god i'm not running on the beach that felt very cursed like late kurosawa to me uh girl next door i've seen him yes that out a couple times because of the fact that she's next door and james remore and also is the juice worth the squeeze is kind of a common refrain in this movie is that that's the elisha cuthbert movie yes right and timothy oliphant is there he would i would put him on the supporting actor ballot for that right he's the he's the kind of like the joey pants who shows up late and he's like all i remember is that paul dano and emile herscher in that movie they're in it right yes he's he's like the ray leota and something wild right right he's the the spark plug at the third act right he's really good yeah okay he makes the five uh so yeah so he does the trial reveal himself none of those other men can string that fucking bow he can string the bow pattinson is like i won't even play the game like he's trying to take the kind he's like i won't fall for your trick yeah i know what you're trying to say here but he ain't coming back so you just got to pick one of us anyway and that is i feel like around when odysseus uh do shoot cory hawkins yeah he did uh in the throat and his last words are you're odysseus it just it just it was really cool it just made me very happy uh and it was really fun to see matt damon go apeshit yeah dude that fight sequence is incredible yeah quiet it does feel like this is the last time he's gonna go action star mode i mean probably except for maybe odyssey 2 to odyssey 2 furious i i just feel like damon is not a guy who's like desperately holding on to his ego of being a certain type of leading man i feel like he is happy he made an action movie exactly born the last well actually the rip which i guess was this year yeah but that's a different kind of thing that's more of like a thriller that movie but it has some action in it yeah gun action is different from it's very different action yeah right um and i guess the instigators which everyone remembers so well uh jesus christ it took me a second to even pull what you were talking about that was kind of capery like there's like cars he spends a lot of them like his character is they take his like therapist played by hong chao hostage with them yeah so it's a lot of him talking to his therapist while other people do stuff i do think gun heist stuff is different like that kind of movie is different i mean like and then obviously even like the last duel or whatever like a movie that i love a great movie and it does have you know action in it but it's yeah brutal and kind of you know and he's i mean he's playing a guy who has to go to court to argue he gave his wife an orgasm what i'm sure he will do action sequences again but i'm saying i think this feels like yeah his his final like big action hero movie although i don't know although anything about this daniel's movie yeah no one does that is his next project like what is that the rumors i have heard make it sound like that's what it is and in fact i think a lot of why there was such a musical chairs of which a-list star was going to play that role is that that role is a little secondary to the narrative that he's in a lot of the movie but he doesn't get to like have the big wins i feel like that's something damon is happy to do exactly yeah that's what i'm saying i think he's happy to like surrender that and go like i'll let the younger cast sort of drive the story and i'll just service the plot wait i'm so sorry i i just clicked on the reddit did you fucking see this yeah i i was talking about the highway sign yes do you know what happened a highway exit in georgia that just says griffin newman no no but it's what it's no no no no no griffin oh okay but from far away it literally just says griffin newman why is this happening is that the name of the town or something it's very it's it's really upsetting i feel like i'm witnessing something that's really upsetting i feel like i'm witnessing something that's really upsetting i feel like i'm witnessing something that's really upsetting sort of glitch and it's a little backwards okay and you know the best thing about it about that sign you can eat it too uh yes here i will tell you the answer it appears to me that there are two separate places griffin georgia and noonan georgia and i guess you can access them both from this exit that is wild all right i should move to that intersection i think you need to move there we gotta go there maybe when we drive eventually to disney world live show and in griffin noonan live show let me get in touch with the bookers down here the griffin noonan sign okay sorry back to the odyssey um yeah he kill everyone he kill everyone and you know there there's some it's just like a fun sequence where you got tom holland and uh what's his fucking what's his name the guy who used to logan marshall green logan marshall oh sure three-name guy who used to look like tom hardy right i was gonna say when tom hardy and holland have not worked together in a while you can at least get logan marshall green uh i think that role was supposed to be cosmo jarvis and cosmo jarvis probably had to go film uh go to japan right um but uh you know they're upstairs and there's a hole in the the floor all the weapons before the suitors showed up so now but then he goes and he tries to put him through the hole right so yeah there's that moment where patents just go spears he's not even doing anything no scene is so funny he's so funny he's so good at playing this kind of like desperation and this like faffishness you know i cannot wait to see him play uh chris hansen i i just think it's like such genius casting and i'm really excited for it he's really cool i want to see it um but uh yeah and odysseus it's like him versus like 60 guys and when he finally is victorious at the end of the battle he's just got spears poking out of his body he does get a couple yeah well a couple he doesn't make it through scot-free he takes he takes some some l's no one has a little bit of fun making you think like maybe he's gonna die yeah and he's like he's not a superhero no no we're gonna do dark knight rises it's like what we talked about we're gonna fucking retire we'll go off he's gonna he and anne hathaway are going to go off into the sunset together telemachus king he's proved himself he's done great and then when he gets on the boat is when he might finally reveal like by the way i did spend eight years on the island with charlie's throne anyway let's go and we might have hooked up a little bit yeah yeah just over the clothes stuff yeah no totally she always had her fishnet thing hat on like and and it was it was the lotus look what can i tell you it was all lotus i feel like back in ancient greek times there was like an understanding that like sex is different i think over the jeans doesn't really count yeah i mean they had so many jeans then it was such a denim-y uh society this is such a dungaree movie it is funny it's the last thing i expected for it to be so heavy on the levi's product although the costuming is awesome it is and i love that it's not like corny like sandal and sword like over the top no it's it's very like simple and kind of rough hues like david literally wears like a cut-off t-shirt at one point uh but it's just you don't need the over-the-top robes and and all the nonsense you know what movie's costuming is dog ass uh dog ass troy nominated for an oscar they made all the costumes out of dog's asses they made all the issue that's why it was impressive they're brad they got brad pitt wearing crop tops like cerulean blue crop tops and sarongs it was devils product era where does this come from in history what do you mean it's actually before they beat them to the cerulean punch i was i was researching ancient greece crop tops i could find nothing oh yeah you couldn't find anything when you googled that i could find nothing although it is funny how in bushwick right now caesar haircuts and crop tops on man are so popular yes yes hot odyssey summer yeah yeah there you go uh i remember troy being a very naval forward movie yeah a lot of boat a lot of boat no i meant like a belly buttons oh yes you're right you're right it does have it's both naval with an a and naval with an e yeah yeah yeah yes i'm not sure if you see eric banna's cute little innie or outie i'm not sure what i wish i'd love to take a look i'm a little worried about googling eric banna belly button i don't know what what what that'll do to my algorithm looks like an innie a classic okay a classic innie that was just one of those movies where everyone i think was just like i need biggest arms on this set you know like everyone's just like hitting the gym constantly no they're not that bulky all right they're not that bulky like you see uh what's orlando bloom well he was naked a lot and it is it is peak 20 look at this very male model yeah banna looks good banna looks banna looks good it's the heftiest and it looks good um final thoughts on christopher nolan's the odyssey very good really fucking good um i can't wait to see it again same i i just i'm like there's so much more to just unpack and notice i think it'll be a very rewarding second viewer yeah yes yeah um i you know i i think it kind of had a little bit of everything sure you know this little a little bit of this a little bit of that really firing on all cylinders i thought it was well paced i was never bored no same with oppenheimer just kind of moves tight 250 yeah uh david your wife wants the bucket she does how do i get that fucking bucket god the horse i'm keeping my eyes on the orders if it goes back in stock anywhere i'll send it to you i am so i am really looking forward to your wife's review i'm really excited for her to see it because she's been somewhat skeptical she's not like a diehard nolan fan anyway but i we're gonna go see it yeah and her review will be on a patreon tier that doesn't exist and will never exist right we haven't we haven't come up with a tier that high yes yeah maybe the bucket is huge the bucket's really big it's really big and then there's also the imax camera bucket yeah which is cool i think so i think that one one of them is regal and one of them isn't amc can we say quickly they had to i mean nolan basically threw the challenge down to imax they've been refining the technology to help him make these movies not just in terms of the filming but even in terms of the projection because there was a time limit on how long an imax movie could be there's sort of a three hour cap right yeah right but it he helped them work up to three i think it used to be two something right um but they finally made the smallest version of an imax camera possible for this movie yeah and they also developed what they call the blimp which is a case that goes around the camera that suffocates the sound yes because that's everyone says it's so goddamn loud you can't hear yourself thing the dialogue scenes that's why usually he only shoots the more visual scenes in imax and the dialogue scenes aren't and this because he was going to do the whole thing they had to blimp it up it was all it was all imax i'm that aspect ratio never changed i'm very curious because i am seeing it in 35. millimeter like it really did feel like he was using the entire imax frame i'm curious i mean there have been the infographics that have been going around at the different formats and some people complaining that if you don't see it in a perfect square is the framing all going to look weird no to me that only looks bad if you're watching the next it only looks bad if you know what you're missing but if you don't know what you're what you're missing you don't know what you're missing i'm sure it works yeah so i'm sure i'm sure it'll look great it would be funny if it's like you don't see demon's eyes horrible like they did no work thinking about it it's just like jaws talking to each other no it's very good i think it's gonna make a ton of money i think it'll do very well my father-in-law has texted me you know being like you heard of this and i'm like oh i've i've seen it manny i've seen the movie and it is phenomenal you should you should go i know griff do you have a box office predictions i mean we assume moana will jump 100 so it'll be number one and then odyssey number two no i think people are assuming that this is going to open over 100 yeah right i mean oppenheimer opened to 80 against barbie yes because we should mention we're recording this thursday after the day before we're recording this yes the the night it's coming out basically um but i think it's probably going to open to like 100 110 the thing with these format forward movies is the opening weekend cannot be totally humongous because a lot of people wait until they can get the ticket they want yeah yeah people so you have a lot of people who are going to wait two or three weekends which means this thing's going to hold incredibly well but i think it's probably going to open to like 100 or 110 would be my guess 200 and then end up uh i think i end up at like yeah yeah i'm guessing it ends up around 350 domestic i don't know i bet this plays well in greece a billion worldwide yeah it'll play well in greece yeah i think that's true and we should demerit you know offer some demerits for this film casting neither no stavi no manzouks right no stamos the big three no who does stamos could have he could have been one of the suitors yeah he could have been the horse in there um and you know who the other guys from full house oh well bob saget isn't with us anymore who's the third uh joey coulier health problems yeah he could have had a puppet laurie lachlan convicted felon yeah geez wait what's going on with full house actually it's bad it's bad over there uh house too full i mean and penelope does have a full house it's a good right that's a point yeah david that house has too many people in it sometimes you remind us that you're the film critic that you're the one real professional in this field that is like writing penelope does as i'm being like taken out of my office by security with like you have been fired i'm like no no no let me let me my friend i think you finally found your lead i think it'll be odyssey moana minions i don't know what else is out there uh evil i would not be surprised if there is a moana drop that is so significant that minions or toy story are actually ahead of second weekend moana yeah yes uh the invite has been growing quite nicely i think that might that might continue to do well yet griffin i know it is not playing in spain i think it maybe doesn't come out for another month or two i'm trying to see it while i'm here in london so i may go see it after this record or i may go see it tomorrow i really i really enjoyed it you should just watch the people upstairs the spanish film that it's based on in spain this is true but i mean the great camera first i don't know which one i should watch first i don't think it matters i think you're fine okay well well well well well well uh yeah let's wrap it up i mean you know you can't be cooking in there forever in that london this is one of the most relevant films of 2026 it's one of the biggest films of 2026 it will certainly go down in history as one of the films that represents this year which of course means that next week we're talking about in the blink of an eye no yes yes yes that's true that is true but hey my brother's on that episode i remember us having a lot of fun your brother joey sims is cooking yeah yeah we we have a good time on that app maybe not talking about the blink of an eye that much a 2026 hulu release that you might be hearing about for the first time right now i'm excited to watch it are you no okay uh yeah i i like one of the three sections in that movie a lot and i'm curious don't tell me don't tell me which i'm not gonna tell you but i'm curious when you watch it i'm not gonna tell you but i'm curious when you watch it if you have the same response i think you will um uh and uh yeah so we've got two more stanton films right to fill out that little mini so we got in the blink of an eye and toy story 5 two films he directed in 2026 uh and then over on let's also no i was just gonna call out you you uh say the patreon david yeah on patreon we've got the final robocop entry which is robocop 2014 five stars someone i remember yeah uh illegal it should be yeah right no suicide is contemplated on that episode i'm kidding kidding um i was just gonna call out we we have announced uh our john carter screening which sold out uh really fast uh in which uh andrew stanton is going to be doing a q a with us what a fool he is we are not sure if we will be able to record and or release that but we are going to be doing a uh sit down with him in studio that's so that will be coming later and we will figure out the deal with the film and we will be doing a sit down with him in studio and we will figure out the deal with the film and we will figure out the deal with the film and we will but for a number of factors that we can talk about later we're not totally sure what form that will have down the line but look forward to a release on the main feed as just a bonus episode yes it'll be a kind of old school thursday bonus i think is the plan and on that note griffin oh sorry please wait no there was one thing griffin before we started recording you said you had a big joke you wanted to make did you make that joke about how funny is it that i left new york and everyone has diarrhea now i made the joke very good oh that was the joke okay yeah yeah yeah yeah thank god we got that in there because you did put a pin in that and so often we put pins and things that never get unpinned i want to start a new segment called the cork board in which anytime we we say we're going to put a pin in something ben you write it down and at the end we check the cork board what do you think that's a good idea that's a good idea i also see that working as a fun like social media i'll write down cork board for the cork board idea yeah cork board for the cork board unfortunately the next two months of episodes have largely been recorded get ready for a bunch of episodes that don't have the cork board in no and probably have a lot of unfinished tangents let's be honest there are a bunch of marks for sezi well tell us what to add anything you miss in the upcoming episodes on the corkboard and be polite uh and for all the arthur talk in this episode i must say and as always jekyll jekyll hide jekyll hide hide jekyll jekyll jekyll jekyll hide jekyll hide three people will be so happy i'm gonna get a seltzer one sec yeah david can you get me a seltzer too david can you grab griffin a seltzer he almost did he did a double take okay good now can i do can i do a little port towards the camera yeah if you pour it into the soundboard it'll come through my headphones blank check with griffin and david is hosted by griffin newman and david sims our executive producer is me ben hosley our creative producer is marie bardi salinas and our associate producer is aj mckeon this show is mixed and edited by aj mckeon and alan smithy research by jj birch our theme song is by lane montgomery in the great american novel with additional music by alex mitchell artwork by joe bowen ollie moss and pat reynolds our production assistant is minic special thanks to david cho jordan fish and nate patterson for their production help head over to blank check pod.com for links to all the real nerdy shit join our patreon blank check special features for exclusive free content and free content for all of you who want to be a part of the franchise commentaries and bonus episodes follow us on social at blank check pod subscribe to our weekly newsletter checkbook on substack this podcast is created and produced by blank check production