I’ll have to watch this again as I was interrupted in the middle and the volume went from 2 to 16 at a moments notice— so I
Missed some dialogue .
A good character driven movie— simple suspension of Disbelief premise to drive the plot, and some shout out cinematic references to some horror movie bigwigs via lighting choices and standing in corners and over people. The BW Project, The Ring and Insidious in particular. Hereditary even .
I got outvoted again and ended up at Minions and Monsters (Xiǎoxiǎo Bīng & Dà Guàishòu), which was a very pleasant surprise. The plot’s not so much a lot of the time, but it doesn’t really matter. Minions and Monsters is delightful: full of silliness, allusions to old movies (esp. in the first half), and slapstick. I laughed a lot.
I wish there’d been a fruit cart, though. But perhaps there was one and I just missed it. Some sequences have a lot going on.
Oh no. Friends are taking me to see it later this week, birthday present. In IMAX.
None of the reviews I’ve read say it’s a good movie. I mean, critics love it and love to talk about it, but not one has said it’s good.
Kinda dread spending 180 minutes reclined for IMAX for a movie that’s pretty and all but not good. Still have grim memories of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.
I went into it with low expectations. Saw it with children who wanted to see it.
Came out saying it wasn’t bad at all (aside from 2-3 castings I didn’t think fit their part). Theater in Kaohsiung was full. Haven’t seen a movie in a full theater in Taiwan in maybe 2 decades. This movie will print over $1bn in ticket sales easily before its run is over.
Thanks for that! I feel like it’s safe to skip the Red Bull now.
It also helps knowing that Nolan had to meet Hollywoo’s woke casting criteria if he wanted this movie to be eligible for this year’s Academy Awards. Not a fan of E Page, but I see what he did there.
I know how to read—especially tired predetermined scripts, including the one I noted above.
It must be exhausting to be so closed to the world like this. Though given what’s going on in your country right now, I can’t say I am at all surprised.
I wouldn’t say it’s totally bad, it has good actors (Hathaway and Pattinson) and incredible music. My problem is more that I am the kind of snob who did ancient Greek translation competitions as a teenager, and I’m a big fan of ancient Greek culture. So, getting Odysseus’s personality completely changed to just a tough guy, run-of-the-mill Hollywood hero was disappointing. He is not complicated/man of many twists anymore. He is simple and predictable. I love the original character’s wittiness, his particular blend of metis and kairos; always being on the edge of being a gods’ favourite and offending them. However, in this movie, the gods barely appeared; they looked like normal humans and didn’t intervene. In fact, everything on screen seemed so…mundane. But the Odyssey is supposed to be a tale of fantasy and different mythological figures altering the fate of the crew. All the monster/deity scenes felt rushed, as if the filmmakers thought, “oh dear, we have to include these stupid monsters and sirens, okay give these people 0.5 seconds of them so that they don’t complain.”
So my main problem is not itself the “craft”, but the respect for the source material and Greek values. I know all adaptations have this problem, but if it’s just going to be Nolan’s PTSD-neo-catholic version of the Odyssey, just be honest about it. Don’t play that game of “oh this is a REAL adaptation from the Wilson translation” to state why your version is different from those in the past. I could discuss this for hours, but I have to work now, so I’ll stop.
The casting director’s hands were tied if Nolan and his financial backers wanted Odyssey to qualify for the 2026 Best Picture Academy Award.
It’s Hollywoo and its RAISE quotas that are woke, not Nolan.
Keep in mind that a Best Picture award adds millions in box office revenue. The boost in revenue from a BP changes the calculation of the movie’s future income stream and thus the return on investment. It’s a big deal in Hollywoo.
Did you even read that? You don’t have to be anything resembling woke to meet those standards. Having cast and crew that are significantly less diverse than the world at large, nevermind Hollywood, would easily meet those requirements. Certainly didn’t need to cast Paige to meet any quotas under those standards.
