Simply Cinema 7/27/26

Hi there. Oh hey. And welcome to Simpler Cinema. We are your hosts Maximilian Simonelli and Dustin Braga. So Dustin, today we have the part two of our kind of, we kind of trailed off last time. We did. Our thoughts of Christopher Nolan's newest film, The Odyssey. Yes. Starring Matt Damon, kind of actually a grand slam of people he's worked with before. Yeah, it's quite the ensemble of the cast. Yeah, as a matter of fact we actually have a picture of the cast seen here. So you have Matt Damon, we have, let's see, we have Anne Hathaway, we have Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie. Let me see. We got Tom Holland. Yep. We have Charlize Theron. We have John Leguizamo. Yeah. He's actually really good. He was spectacular in this. Yeah. I was surprised there was no Cillian Murphy. A little bit. You know, I was kind of surprised by that. But you have a good, pretty good, pretty good ensemble cast. It is ironic to see, I mean not ironic, but just to see half the cast from the new Spider-Man movie coming out. Yeah. Like you have Tom Holland as Spider-Man, Zendaya as MJ, Jon Bernthal as the Punisher. Yeah. And there's one more I'm forgetting. I think there's maybe one more I'm forgetting. But just to see them talking to one another, not in a Spider-Man movie. Which is hilarious because they're doing press tour right now. They did press tour for The Odyssey, but the press tour for Spider-Man also was happening. So they had this big old overlap. Yeah. And only, I think it was Sadie Sink, who's a new cast member for Brand New Day. She's kind of the only one that's been doing the press tour right now because everyone else has been MIA for The Odyssey. Well, that's funny because I would imagine that, you know, with the amount of clout that superhero movies have these days, it wouldn't have surprised me if they were like all the questions were about, so let's talk about Spider-Man. No one cares about The Odyssey. You know what I mean? Like Ben Affleck went through that when he was doing, when he was Batman and it was like he's pushing for The Accountant to be like, this is my new film. And everyone's like, are you excited to put on the cape? And you can see the de-evolution of his enthusiasm being like, yeah, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to playing that. I got other stuff though. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. Anyway, what'd you think of the film? I thought it was, it is a pretty epic film. Yes. I think it is super grandiose. And honestly, I'm quite for this film. Okay. Fair enough. And, um, obviously it is a very long movie and it does about three hours. Yes. Almost three hours long. And it does feel it's runtime. I thought the pacing was okay though. Like it did. I didn't think it dragged. It just took, I don't know. Like it took a while for it to be concluded, but I didn't feel it. Me, I didn't feel like it was plodding along. What do you think? For me, there was a couple of scenes that felt longer than they should have. Fair enough. Um, but overall I would say it is fairly well paced. Um, it's very well acted and obviously, uh, incredibly well shot. Yeah. Yeah. They shot the entire thing. And, uh, IMAX 70 millimeter, which is a first for any movie. Yeah, that's true. And, um, you just got to give it up for the cinematographer, uh, his, uh, longtime collaborator, uh, he, uh, he did a extraordinary job. Uh, I believe everything was also shot on location. Yes, there was, I was watching the credits. Like, thank you to the crews of like Iceland. Yeah. I think New Zealand was one of them. I think there was one, maybe I think they did shoot part of it in Greece. Yeah. So yeah, some really cool locations. I got to say, I was talking to one of our anchors, Christina DeMora. She mentioned how supposedly they, all the music was like recorded or not recorded, but you know, was performed through actual like period accurate instruments. That's interesting. That's what I heard. Same thing with, we saw a little while ago with the trailer and Hathaway who plays the wife of Odysseus Penelope. And, you know, she's weaving this, uh, funeral cloak for, I believe it's her grand, her father or maybe his father. Yeah. Either way, the old King. And she always has to undo the, the, uh, the weaving at the end of the night so that she can prolong it because she's waiting and hoping Odysseus returns. Anyway, I heard that she spent a lot of time, uh, learning to actually weave. Yes. We've in the era, accurate to the film. Interesting. I was like, okay, that's one of those things. Like I appreciate, I appreciate that, but how many people would be able to be able to tell that? Right. I mean, I haven't heard that. I go, okay. Could be accurate. Maybe not. Could be. Yeah. But that's, uh, that sounds right though, because I mean, no one's one for accuracy. Yeah. Also a lot of actors, if they do the job well, they're going to go into some, uh, training for things that, you know, they normally don't do, especially for, um, music films, especially if they have to play a musical instrument. Very true. They go and learn that instrument for a few months. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So it doesn't surprise me, but it's very cool that she did. Did you feel, I don't, I mean, obviously it's going to feel this way, regardless of what I'm about to say. I felt like I was watching a big, epic, grandiose film with, you know, big budget name actors, which is like, of course, that's what it is. And I don't know, I, cause the following day I watched a movie called The Return, which I I'll talk about this just, just briefly how, I remember way back when we were talking about Del Toro's Frankenstein and then Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride. And I was like, okay, this is like the era of Frankenstein films where there's two coming out. Right. 2024 saw a film called The Return where Ralph Fiennes, who I'll always know as Lord Voldemort, plays Odysseus. And it's a very grounded movie. They took out all of the God and mythical, mystical elements. Yeah. And it's really just the latter half of the story when he washes up on Ithaca and pretends to be a beggar so that he can find out how the suitors are mistreating his wife and yada, yada. And so it was just funny to see these two very tonally different movies depict the same part of a story. Right. You know, I said it was actually helpful because not knowing the story of the Odyssey, like extensively well watching The Return, I go, oh, that character was played by Pattinson in the Odyssey. That character was played by Tom Holland in the Odyssey. I was like, okay, making the connection. Exactly. This is helpful. Yeah. So, yeah, this is like the felt like the era of Odysseus. Yeah. You know? Yeah, kind of. But two totally different types of movies. The Return definitely was grounded. Yeah. But yeah, the Odyssey, I liked the way it was shot. It looked very beautiful. I hate to say it, though. It ended, I thought, yeah, that was fine. Yeah. I felt like it was not my least favorite of his films, as I've ranted before. Of course, I felt like it was fine. Yeah. I might see it again, but probably not for many years. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I feel I do need to see this again. Right. Yeah. Because I want to go see this in New York. One of the coveted IMAX 70 millimeters. Very nice. Yeah. It was it was a lot of fun. The screen is absolutely enormous. You felt it added to the experience. I think it did, mostly because I got to see the entire frame of what they shot. Yeah. OK. Yeah. When you go if you don't know, if you go see it in a regular theater, it's cropped. Yeah. But it was it was quite the experience. And I met up with one of my friends there and he saw this a couple of times now, maybe three. OK, wow. And he said that he enjoyed it the second time. OK. A lot better. Interesting. Mostly because the first time we're watching it, there's a lot that goes on. It's a three hour movie. We're taking it all in. And it's kind of more of a passive experience. The second time? The first time. Oh, OK. Yeah. Because you're you're just you're there. You're a vessel just watching that. Yeah. Trying to soak everything in. But there's a lot. Right. So it doesn't feel as you don't get to think about everything like you normally would. OK, I see what you're saying. Yeah. So when you went to go see it the second time, but you know what's going to happen, you know, you know how to feel at certain parts. Yeah. You know, you have the general idea of how this film is going to go. So that way, when you're watching it for the second time, you can actually take in different sections and experience the film like as a more emotional level, I would say. OK. Plus, you notice things maybe you didn't notice the first. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like kind of like if you're watching like a comedy, like a really fast paced comedy. Right. The more time to see it, the more jokes you get. Yeah, that's true. So kind of the same way you can even see like little like hints that were like maybe, oh, that was a nod to like, you know, out of the story or that's a hint at what's going to happen in the field. Yeah. It's a set up like it foreshadowing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So he liked it the second time a lot more. Did he like it the third time? I would assume so. The third time he was like, yeah, but he he liked it the second time. So I might, you know, give it another shot. That's fair. Yeah. I guess I feel like it ended and I thought I felt very similar as to watching this as I did to the movie Interstellar. OK. In the sense that like they're both good movies, but they're very large in scale. They are to the point where I feel like I can't watch them right away. Like I could watch Inception, Tenet, The Dark Knight Trilogy, pretty much all of his other films, aside from Dunkirk and Oppenheimer, whatever, like over and over again. With these two specific examples, I go, I need to like let this go for a while, like not watch it for like a few years and then revisit it. You know, like if someone said, hey, I want to watch this film, then I'll sit down and watch it. Yeah. But yeah, like I said, it ended. I thought it was good. It was a good movie. Yeah. But solid. But like not top tier. Yeah. OK. Yeah. That's me. That's fair enough. It is. I mean, the movie is it plays along to the book pretty well. I would say I knew enough to be like, OK, he covered this, that and that. But like the inner details, I'm like because there were some people that were like, yeah, he took he got took liberties with that and changed that a little bit. You know, it's like it's just bad. Yeah. Because how the book is structured, it's it's you know, like Homer goes to an island, things happen, they leave, goes to an island, things happen, he leaves, which is basically how the movie also plays along as well. Right. Well, I was going to ask you this. Do you feel that because I use Harry Potter as the example, seven books, eight movies, right, building to an overarching story that is then concluded. This to me felt like it could have benefited from because everything's a miniseries these days. Right. I go, no, I feel like this could have benefited from like three or even like five movies. Yeah. Especially the latter half. That's why I think I liked the return a little bit because it was like it was one section of the story, but they really flushed it out. Right. Whereas this one, it's like, OK, we're at the end and it's, you know, you get to the point where he's he's in disguise beggar. But we the audience know who he is. Yes. So we're kind of like waiting like, all right, when is when did when did the characters learn what we already know? It would have been so epic if it was like we didn't know. Oh, he was Odysseus the whole time. Yeah. Twist, whatever. But but yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. It definitely could have benefited. I'd say maybe even like a couple, like a two part or more. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, the Odyssey, the the actual book itself is super dense and pretty long. Yeah. So I would say it would have benefited. Yeah. Yeah. Because now now is it true that he's going to make like the Iliad or he's working on something like that? I don't know. I was thinking that would be cool, too, if they like started doing that, like make the Iliad, make Troy. I mean, make the Odyssey. And then what is it, the Aeneid, I want to say about Aeneas who like escapes Troy and ends up being like one of the ancestors of the founders of Rome. Yeah. So I'm like, OK, like, you know, these stories exist. Make this. Yeah. You know, we have the technology. It could be cool. Yeah. It could be cool. Yeah. We will put a pin in this show now for two minutes. OK, but we'll be back. Stay tuned. And welcome back. Oh, hey. So before we took a break, we were talking about just the Yes, we were. Christopher Nolan. I guess I wanted to ask, were you like frightened by any parts of the movie? Frightened? I'll say there was some unsettling moments. There were some very unsettling moments, I would say. The Cyclops. Yes. Was really cool design. It was. It was a mix of puppetry and live action mocap. Right. Which is pretty cool. And they like changed. It didn't. I mean, OK, it's a big guy with one eye in his head. Yeah. But like they like turned the eye. Yeah. To give it more of an unsettling appearance. And his nose was also twisted. Yeah. Kind of like it's more of a facial deformity than anything. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And I'm watching it because, you know, the soldiers are stuck in this cave and, you know, the Cyclops is picking them off one at a time. And the imagery I go, this has to be has to be a nod to I can't show the picture, but where is it? The Saturn devouring his his children. Yes. By Goya. Yes. I'm like, this is absolutely inspired the imagery of the Cyclops eating one of the soldiers. And it's it's freaky. Yeah, it was really freaky. The other part I want to talk about is when Odysseus meets Circa, I believe is her name. See, I think we have Circe. Thank you, Circe. Duh. Not Circe Lannister. He meets Circe and she is feeding all of the soldiers and slowly turning them into hogs. Yes. And it's it was a freaky. Yeah, that was that was a very interesting like transformation sequence because I know like it, you know, how the story goes that they eat her food and then they transform into pigs. Yeah. But this time it was her like molding them like clay into pig. And like you only saw like portions of it. Yeah. It was like I like, you know, the you know, the groans of the men slowly turning into the squeals of the pigs. Oh, this is like unsettling. Yeah. Yeah. It was it was different. And I was I was I was kind of for it because it was different. Yeah. Yeah. Then, you know, how you would regularly think about doing it. But yeah, it's it's it's weird. It's unsettling, but cool. And one part I think we have it in the image here. So in this poster, you can see these giant like metal men. Yes. That they're fight like, you know, they look just like giant soldiers in armor. And I didn't quite know what part of the story this was. One of our coworkers thought it was just like maybe just Nolan just added this to be like or, you know, omitted one part of the story and substituted it with this. Yeah. No, they oh, they are an actual thing. OK. It was just like just big guys in metal armor. Oh, we have to fight him and then we can't beat him. So we run away. And I was like, OK, that was a very quick. Right. You know, it came and went. Yeah. It was supposed to be, I think, a much larger thing. OK. Especially in the book. Like I said, they they changed that. They kind of come and go because you only have so much time. Right. That's true. The Lastragonians. That's what they're called. OK. But yeah, they're supposed to be a little bit of a bigger threat in the book. And they were also supposed to be cannibals, believe it or not. Yeah. They had a little more to do in the book. This one, it was more of they came to the island. They got a threat. They have to leave. Right. I gotcha. Yeah. Just to basically kind of do a little checkmark. Yeah. Again, the movie might have benefited from having like three or even five movies to flush out the story. Yeah. You know. But anyway. Yeah. Although I will say that he did kind of briefly cover the Iliad in like the first 30 minutes of it. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It's basically like I told in flashback, like, yeah, because what do you remember? It's like he's eating the lotus flower. He doesn't really remember stuff. So it's like I remember I had to leave my work because he's like he's contractually obligated by like by King Agamemnon to go and defeat Troy pretty much. And then he talks a little bit about how he like I thought of the horse and how we could hide the horse scene. Yeah. The showing like the you know, it wasn't just like, oh, yeah, we hid in the horse like they hid in there for days. Yeah. A bunch of men. It's like they couldn't eat, whatever. And they like were tossed about. And at one point, a guy gets stabbed. Yeah. And they have to like wipe the guy wipes the sword clean of blood so that the guy on top doesn't know. Yeah. And he's got to cover his mouth. That was kind of cool. Yeah, it was. But yeah, they kind of cover the Iliad a little bit, a little bit in the beginning there. It's basically like, hey, if you didn't read it, here's what you missed. Yeah. But I think that did the film benefit just for context wise? Yeah, I agree. It also was it was more or less told in a linear sense because no one plays with timeline of his movies. He does. There were flashbacks. We learn new information as we go along. That's a far cry from like Memento, which is told like part of it going forward, the other part of it going backwards. Yeah. The only Nolani thing about it is Nolani thing is Odysseus basically telling what he remembers about his time with Calypso. Yeah. And which they changed that. I heard that it was like he's more of a oh, he doesn't remember. Like whereas in the story, I think like he like willingly is with her those like seven years or something. And I kind of, you know, so they change some of the some of the like motivations of character. They did. They did. But it's not anything super egregious. Right, right, right. At least I don't think I did like that. Most of the film was about like his regret and like, you know, the fall of Troy is treated with such like not the end of civilization, but like they basically were savages and just like destroyed this once beautiful city. Yeah. You know, it was like the ends didn't justify the means or the means didn't justify the ends. Neither justified the other. Yeah, I can go on. But but yeah, so that was it was interesting. It was. Yeah. I think this is probably the most linear Nolan film. Yeah, more or less. Yeah. I mean, if we're not counting Batman. Yeah. Yeah. Batman's pretty linear. Yeah. But I think he had a bunch of text that he had to work with. Right. And I think for for what he did, he succeeded pretty well. Yeah, let's say so. Anyhow, it's trailing off just thinking in a safe space, safe space to do. Yeah. Any final thoughts that you have on this final thought? So I'm actually contractually obligated to mention for my mother's sake, the dog Argus, wonderful dog, so sweet that he waited for his master and was loyal. And it was it was so sweet. So the dog was great. Yeah. Love the dog and I love the dog. Anyhow, overall, like I said, it was it was maybe I didn't see it again. I further appreciate it was a good movie. I definitely ended. I go. That was good. But I also felt like it was fine. Right. One of my friends asked me this, and this is kind of interesting to think about. Was there any moment in the film that actually stuck with you? Because I know like a lot happened, but stuck with me. I mean, honestly, I think the Cersei turning the men into hogs. It's funny. I was watching this as an old show called Thriller, which is like a precursor to the Twilight Zone. One of the episodes is about like if Cersei was living in contemporary modern day 1950s, running a farm and she lures all these men unsuspectingly to. But it's just like, you know, she like waves her hand and they become hog with this, like the molding of the face. Yeah, it's all this is really unsettling. Yeah. So that part stuck with me. Yeah, that's fair. That's good. That's good. As for me, it's the ending monologue. Yeah, that. Yeah. Odysseus had. That was good to Penelope with Athena played by Zendaya. Just just kind of bursting out in tears. Yeah, that actually was really like that. That was a very good moment. It showed his regret. Yeah. Yeah. And it was it just stuck with me a lot. Yeah. That final and where he's slaughtering everyone. Yeah, that was a cool battle. Yeah. Oh, we will take a quick break. Sure. We'll come back. We're going to tee up next episode. Next episode. Stay tuned. And welcome back. Oh, so just, you know, in closing, get out there and watch the Odyssey form your own opinions and then maybe watch the movie Troy as well to see how many liberties were taken with that film, because that was definitely I'm watching it go. If the Odyssey is more accurate, which I'm sure it is, like to the original myth by Homer, then I remember thinking, oh, OK, this character survives and then this character goes this way instead of that way. I was like, oh, so the Troy really took liberties with what he was doing. Troy was a bit of an embellishment. Yeah. To the story. And then watch the return to see a totally different movie from the Odyssey. Yeah. Yeah. And if you want to watch the TV miniseries that came out in 98, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. With Armand Assant. OK. Playing Odysseus. Yeah. I saw it when I was in high school. That's pretty cool. I'm going to watch that at some point myself. Yeah. Very nice. Very cool. And then so teeing up next week, we're actually going to tell you next week. So maybe you can get out there and do some homework before we tell you to do the homework. Yeah. So recently, a late great actor has passed away. The man in question seen here, Sam Neill, known most famously for Jurassic Park. However, next week, we're going to do an in-depth look at his filmography, some of his most well-known works, some of his lesser known works. It's funny. I recently watched I guess a watch mojo, like top ten. All right. Yeah. And nowhere on the list was a performance that I feel should have totally been on the list. And I go, how do you not include that one? I won't give it away. Oh, we'll talk about it next week. So excited to get out there and watch some Sam Neill movies to pay tribute to the late great actor because we'll be talking about it next week. Yes. Please go watch some because he is a fantastic actor. He was. Yeah. A fantastic talent that we lost. That's true. Tragically. Yeah. Suddenly. Yeah. Yeah. Sad. But we are going to honor him with some good movies. Yeah. Next week. Yeah. It's going to be fantastic. Oh, yeah. So do you have a favorite Sam Neill movie? I don't want to give it away. That's the one I want to talk about. Next week. Okay. Next week. Fight the urge. Oh, my God. Okay. So. Okay. Do you and if I have a favorite Sam Neill movie and I mean, if it's Jurassic Park, fine, but also like don't let it be Jurassic Park. That's the one that everyone it's everyone's favorite. Yeah. Yeah. He is Dr. Graham. No, I I saw him in a performance. This was a while ago. Unfortunately, the name isn't clicking with me at the moment. Okay. Sounds like a good movie. It's so good. But yeah, it was I think it was a little I think it was pre Jurassic Park. Okay. But yeah, he's he's quite the force. Okay. But the force of nature. Sounds cool. Yeah. If I remember, I will remember it. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about it next week. We will. So as always, thank you for tuning in. Naturally. Thank you for listening to the two of us talk about movies. We're loving it. We're having a great time. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, next week we'll have Sam Neill and the movies. Of course. Yeah. We'll see you then. Bye bye.