Speaker 1: We're Tomy Lorenzo and this is the Pop Style Opinion
Speaker 1: Fest Tell Quitt's walk back to another edition of the
Speaker 1: Pso I am the team, You're telt Tom Fitzgerald, and
Speaker 1: I'm here with the low one, your tee lot. Lorenzo
Speaker 1: has my lovely husband. I don't even know people can
Speaker 1: understand the words that come out of my mouth anymore
Speaker 1: when I do the intro, but they love it. And
Speaker 1: I know we've mentioned this before, but every time we've
Speaker 1: met someone a listener in the real world, they always
Speaker 1: throw the lovely husband line back, which is terrible cute.
Speaker 1: And Lorenzo is my lovely husband.
Speaker 2: I am a lovely husband.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we have ground to cover today, and once
Speaker 1: again I need to apologize this podcast got pushed back.
Speaker 1: We're doing it a little bit later in the week
Speaker 1: than we wanted to, and we're tackling some topics that
Speaker 1: are not as fresh as we might have liked for
Speaker 1: this podcast. We're late in getting to someone, one of
Speaker 1: which is we finally got to see The Odyssey. Yes,
Speaker 1: and we have much to discuss about that today. But
Speaker 1: I also wanted to address the comments that we got
Speaker 1: on our twentieth anniversary post last week. But let me
Speaker 1: just explain why we're so far behind on everything right now.
Speaker 1: Is we the dogate our homework. I know I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm giving an excuse, but you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to let people in. We're very I try and
Speaker 1: let people into, like what it's like to publish, what
Speaker 1: it's like to be independent media when it's just the
Speaker 1: two of us. So we went to Ireland and Scotland
Speaker 1: earlier in the month, as you may have noticed because
Speaker 1: we talked about it on our podcast, and then the
Speaker 1: timing wasn't great, but as soon as we got back
Speaker 1: from Europe, we went out to visit our friends Mark
Speaker 1: and Jim and our friend David on Fire Island, and
Speaker 1: in retrospect, I would not have scheduled all of those
Speaker 1: trips back to back like that because I'm freaking exhausted.
Speaker 1: But and it pushed everything back. We didn't get to
Speaker 1: the Odyssey, we didn't get to talk to you about
Speaker 1: your comments on our post last week, so we're very late.
Speaker 1: And I know Lorenzo absolutely adores Fire Island.
Speaker 2: Right at first, we almost thought about not going again.
Speaker 2: We didn't go last year because we had to go
Speaker 2: to Texas and promote our book, which we loved. So
Speaker 2: we didn't go to Fire Island last year, and because
Speaker 2: we had also travel last year, so this year I
Speaker 2: was like, no, we have to go. I miss my friends.
Speaker 2: And the only time we could all get together was
Speaker 2: right after our trip to Europe, so because you know,
Speaker 2: we all we have friends from all over the country
Speaker 2: and then we get together there and spend you know,
Speaker 2: a few days, so that only worked after our trip.
Speaker 2: So I was like, whoa, we have to go. And
Speaker 2: I absolutely love the island. The island is phenomenal. The
Speaker 2: island can be whatever you want. I mean there's you know,
Speaker 2: it's pretty much a queer island, but not anymore. We
Speaker 2: have straight people too. You have all kinds of people
Speaker 2: going there, and it's a beautiful place, absolutely gorgeous, no
Speaker 2: cars allowed. It's that type of island. It's just relaxing
Speaker 2: and wonderful. Our friend Mark and our friends Mark and
Speaker 2: Gym they have a beautiful house there with a swimming
Speaker 2: pool and all that, and we you know, relax, drink,
Speaker 2: you know, and eat and do everything we need to
Speaker 2: do to just have a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: So so thank you Mark and jam Yes.
Speaker 2: And if you want to see some pictures of our trip. Uh,
Speaker 2: They're on our Instagram accompt.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yes, and that is why we're a little
Speaker 1: late getting to all of this, and for that I apologize,
Speaker 1: But hey, daddy pop Up needs to go out and
Speaker 1: have some vacation time.
Speaker 2: Seriously, all right.
Speaker 1: Last week we wrote a post about the twentieth anniversary
Speaker 1: of our blog, and I spent most of this year
Speaker 1: knowing that that anniversary was on the horizon, and then
Speaker 1: I spent most of the last month kind of tossing
Speaker 1: around ideas about how I wanted to talk about because
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about it, and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about it further today a little bit. First, I
Speaker 1: do I want to acknowledge the response to the post
Speaker 1: was lovely, and several of the comments that we got,
Speaker 1: both on social media and on our own site made
Speaker 1: me cry. I mean, people talking about where they were
Speaker 1: in their lives when they first discovered us and where
Speaker 1: they are in their lives now, or what we meant
Speaker 1: to them at a certain point in their lives. You
Speaker 1: have no idea how much meaning that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely for us, Absolutely we do not take that for
Speaker 2: granted ever, And I keep repeating that because it's true.
Speaker 2: Like you said, I started read it's funny because we
Speaker 2: post that, and then we travel and I started reading
Speaker 2: the comments and I actually had to stop it. I'm
Speaker 2: not lying. I had to stop because they were getting
Speaker 2: so emotion about them. I was like, I can't speed
Speaker 2: through these. I have to take my time reading these.
Speaker 2: People put a lot of effort to write those comments.
Speaker 2: And anyway, it's so kind and nice, you know, to
Speaker 2: read those comments. So thank you, thank.
Speaker 1: You so much, Yes, thank you. And I want to
Speaker 1: follow that up by as how do I put this,
Speaker 1: because I really don't want to make it sound like
Speaker 1: I'm ungrateful for those comments, because I'm not. I'm extremely
Speaker 1: grateful for them. But I think that that post. I
Speaker 1: had a goal in mind with that post, and it
Speaker 1: wound up becoming a much more celebratory post than I
Speaker 1: actually had in mind when I wrote it. So let
Speaker 1: me just sort of reaffirm a few things that I because, yes,
Speaker 1: that post was a celebration of what we have accomplished
Speaker 1: and what it means to still be publishing in twenty years,
Speaker 1: and and yes, we published. We wrote two books and
Speaker 1: two hundred bylines and five hundred episodes of you know,
Speaker 1: the podcast, Like all of that is an accomplishment, and
Speaker 1: I have no problem celebrating that or thanking the people
Speaker 1: for who have stuck with us all this time. But
Speaker 1: my goal in writing that piece was to really underline
Speaker 1: how bad things are. And I'm not doing this to
Speaker 1: get people to feel sorry for me, but I do
Speaker 1: think the general public does not understand how hard it
Speaker 1: is to be an independent form of media right now.
Speaker 1: The big difference between when we hung out our shingle
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six and now is that in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, the world was offering a whole
Speaker 1: range of opportunities for writers who wanted to put their
Speaker 1: work out there, and it was encouraging people to start
Speaker 1: do things like start blogs and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And for a good fifteen years that's how things were.
Speaker 1: You had, you know, social media came along, and then
Speaker 1: you had influencers, and then you had TikTok, and there
Speaker 1: was all these ways in which people could suddenly become
Speaker 1: a voice on their own away from the institutionalized voices
Speaker 1: of legacy media. That people could go out, build a
Speaker 1: little platform for themselves, find an audience, and make a
Speaker 1: living off of that and In the years since, legacy
Speaker 1: media has been bought up and consolidated by billionaires, and
Speaker 1: social media has been bought up and consolidated by billionaires,
Speaker 1: and now they are working as hard as they can
Speaker 1: to make sure that all other forms of media do
Speaker 1: not exist or do not have any sort of reach.
Speaker 1: So we have watched, for instance, our social media reach
Speaker 1: collapse over the last three or four years. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't because we lost followers. It's because social media lost
Speaker 1: all of its potency because the people in charge of
Speaker 1: social media, they just want ai slop, They just want bots.
Speaker 1: They don't care about things like content, and they will
Speaker 1: and you know, a person like Elon Musk, and actually
Speaker 1: a person like Jeff Bezos and a person like Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 1: they have a vested interest in making sure that independent
Speaker 1: voices have no platform. And I don't think they care
Speaker 1: much about a couple of fashion bloggers. What they're really
Speaker 1: trying to do is to get tech reporters and political
Speaker 1: reporters to not have platforms anymore. And we are getting
Speaker 1: stuck in the backwash of that, and it's making it
Speaker 1: much much harder for us to do our jobs. It's
Speaker 1: really I'm sounding an alarm here. Lorenzo and I are
Speaker 1: not going to go anywhere like we are going to
Speaker 1: publish until we die. We'll figure out a way to
Speaker 1: keep doing that until we die. One of the things
Speaker 1: we want to work on is shifting from a blog,
Speaker 1: you know, an advertiser supported blog, to a newsletter format.
Speaker 1: But there are drawbacks to the newsletter format, one of
Speaker 1: which is that you are locked into a readership like
Speaker 1: that's it. Like the people who subscribe and pay for that,
Speaker 1: that's it. That is the entirety of your income. Whereas
Speaker 1: when you have an advertiser supported blog like ours, you
Speaker 1: work to gain an audience. You work to get people
Speaker 1: to come to your site who maybe don't come there
Speaker 1: every day. This is something that we have had to
Speaker 1: sort of explain to a lot of our regular readers
Speaker 1: is that we are not a closed loop. We did
Speaker 1: not choose to create a community, and there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with sites and platforms that work and strive to create
Speaker 1: a community of readers. We wanted an open readership. We
Speaker 1: wanted to be treated like a general interest site, so
Speaker 1: anybody can comment in our comment section. You don't even
Speaker 1: have to register, and that has been sort of the
Speaker 1: key to our success all this time is that we
Speaker 1: did not allow ourselves to become a niche, closed community.
Speaker 1: And what happens newsletters is that is you're locked into it,
Speaker 1: and if you start losing readers, it's very hard to
Speaker 1: find new ones that are going to pay for it.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I think newsletters are where it's
Speaker 1: at in the future. But again, to just sort of
Speaker 1: bring this back, we had a newsletter. We still have
Speaker 1: a newsletter. It's called Twirling Through What I love It.
Speaker 1: We wrote some great pieces back in twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty three. Part of the two reasons I
Speaker 1: abandon it one is having a newsletter different from a blog.
Speaker 1: It incentivizes you to have takes. You have to have
Speaker 1: a take, so you have to have a take on everything,
Speaker 1: and everything has to be long form and you have
Speaker 1: to unpack it, you know. And this wasn't our style
Speaker 1: of writing. Our style of writing was much lighter than that.
Speaker 1: The second problem with blogs is I mean newsletters, is
Speaker 1: that we started our newsletter on substack when everybody was
Speaker 1: starting on substack because it's it is the best way,
Speaker 1: it is the best platform for earning money for writers.
Speaker 1: Problem substack platforms nazis and comes an issue like as publishers,
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to be on Twitter at all. As
Speaker 1: newsletter publishers, we're not supposed to be on substack at all.
Speaker 1: And I guess what I'm saying. I'm expressing a frustration
Speaker 1: here because people are putting all the onus on small
Speaker 1: business owners like us not to make these choices, when
Speaker 1: the problem is not small business owners like us, it's
Speaker 1: the billionaires that are making these choices untenable. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: want to thank everyone for that, for the response to
Speaker 1: that essay, but I did want to take some time
Speaker 1: and talk about what we're facing as publishers right now.
Speaker 1: And I guess if I even appeal to anybody who's
Speaker 1: listening to this, try and remember that when you come
Speaker 1: to our site, like turn your ad blocker off and
Speaker 1: try and understand those ads are necessary to pay the bills.
Speaker 1: And we're going to keep on figuring out a way
Speaker 1: to do this. It will never stop. We love what
Speaker 1: we do, we love talking to you guys every day,
Speaker 1: but the world right now is working very hard to
Speaker 1: make sure that we can't continue doing that. And it's
Speaker 1: why you see so many sites and publications shutting down,
Speaker 1: so many culture writers and journalists who are now out
Speaker 1: of work and probably not returning to their fields because
Speaker 1: the jobs just aren't there anymore. And that's what I
Speaker 1: wanted to get across, is like, yay us, thank you
Speaker 1: for support, but also things are bad so and I
Speaker 1: had to work really hard not to make to make
Speaker 1: sure that that piece wasn't bitter and angry the way
Speaker 1: I sound right now. Probably, but I do feel like
Speaker 1: I needed to correct the record. Lorenzo's very quiet through
Speaker 1: all of this.
Speaker 2: I'm just listening now, I'm just listen. You're right. I
Speaker 2: also want to make the point that the only reason,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why we still here, it's because
Speaker 2: he's the two of.
Speaker 1: Us exactly low overhead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just the two of us on this site
Speaker 2: doing everything that needs to be done to keep going. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also your support. Without you, guys wouldn't be here, trust me,
Speaker 2: Thank you all they I mean we you know, we
Speaker 2: have a great product. I believe in it, but if
Speaker 2: you don't read it then it doesn't go anywhere. Sorry,
Speaker 2: thank you very much. And if you like what we do,
Speaker 2: if you think we should keep going, that's how you
Speaker 2: support it's come to our site.
Speaker 1: Come to our site, keep your ad blocker off light
Speaker 1: and subscribe to this podcast. Follow us our on social
Speaker 1: media when you can.
Speaker 2: Follow us on social media Instagram, any account we.
Speaker 1: Have Blue Sky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how we survive and keep going.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's all based on you, right, absolutely, Thank you
Speaker 1: for your support and please keep supporting us. All right,
Speaker 1: why don't we take a short break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk about House of the Dragon,
Speaker 1: and then after that we are going deep into the Odyssey.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. We're back, and there's a twenty
Speaker 1: two pound cat rolling all over this table right now
Speaker 1: looking for affection, sticking his button my face because when
Speaker 1: we turn these mics on tab Hunter, our big boy
Speaker 1: just loves to be part of the conversation. So if
Speaker 1: you hear a lot of and everything, that's that's him.
Speaker 1: That's okay. So how's of the drug? When that arrow
Speaker 1: went flying into Sir Kristen Cole's eye, and after I
Speaker 1: was done cheering, I turned to Lorenzo and I said,
Speaker 1: this is it. We're in the endgame and it's just
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of character deaths from here
Speaker 1: on out. I think this story is going to get
Speaker 1: very depressing in the in the remaining few episodes.
Speaker 2: It's funny because we were watching the episode and I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, he's very handsome.
Speaker 1: Bom dead dead, yeah, ah, but I was so happy
Speaker 1: to see him dead. Creep, I know, creep in an asshole.
Speaker 1: So I don't have a lot to say about this
Speaker 1: week's episode. I I'm enduring it. It's cooking, you know,
Speaker 1: it's on all the burners or and everything's bubbling away.
Speaker 1: All the plots are working for me. It's probably getting
Speaker 1: a little plot heavy. It's probably getting to the point
Speaker 1: where it's harder and harder for me for the audience,
Speaker 1: I think to keep track of everything that's going on.
Speaker 1: Are just split up in so many different directions, and
Speaker 1: I admit that I I don't really understand what some
Speaker 1: of these where some of these storylines are going, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, I really don't know what's going on with
Speaker 1: ormand High Tower or any of that. I don't I
Speaker 1: haven't read the books. Like I said in the past,
Speaker 1: I have a bare bones understanding of where the story
Speaker 1: goes and pretty much know how all the people who
Speaker 1: die how they die in the story.
Speaker 2: But I feel that that the show has this need,
Speaker 2: and I understand why to keep everybody on screen, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like because they're actors, they're they're hired,
Speaker 2: they have so they have to have some little story
Speaker 2: for that every so sometimes that gets to be a
Speaker 2: little too much, but I enjoyed it. I mean, everybody's horrible,
Speaker 2: you know. At this point, I'm like, I don't care
Speaker 2: if we all die. I really don't, because there are horrible,
Speaker 2: horrible people. I do appreciate some of the acting. I mean,
Speaker 2: I still love Alison Olivia. What's her name, Olivia? I
Speaker 2: can't remember my name? Cook, Yes, thank you. I think
Speaker 2: she's phenomenal. She is my favorite, and I really like
Speaker 2: her character. Her character makes sense to be, you know,
Speaker 2: her actions her.
Speaker 1: I mean I like to hate her characters. Well that's
Speaker 1: what I'm yeah, I mean I don't. I don't like
Speaker 1: or admire her character. I think she's an asshole. I
Speaker 1: think they're both assholes. I think ryan neiera and actually
Speaker 1: the story is doing a very good job of showing
Speaker 1: Ryania's turn, which I think I said this in the past.
Speaker 1: I think in some ways this show seems to be
Speaker 1: correcting the mistake of how they handled Denaris's turn in
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones because a lot of people felt that
Speaker 1: that turn came out of nowhere, and it didn't come
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. But it doesn't it wasn't well handled.
Speaker 1: Whereas Rhiniera, I mean, you can talk about all the
Speaker 1: pain and all the you know, the the way she's
Speaker 1: been shoved aside by the patriarchy, and the sacrifices she
Speaker 1: has made in her life, and et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But she's a bad queen. Yeah, she showed
Speaker 1: a bad queen.
Speaker 2: And I think why she's so frustrated and going crazy
Speaker 2: is because she knows that she knows that she's not
Speaker 2: a great king.
Speaker 1: One of the things that it was struck me watching
Speaker 1: it last night was the idea that, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying anything new about George or Martin in relation
Speaker 1: to how he views Tolkien. In some ways, all of
Speaker 1: this was written as a response to Tolkien. He wanted
Speaker 1: to take a different approach. He wanted to I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say correct, but he wanted to do things differently from
Speaker 1: the way Tolkien did them. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that really strikes me about these stories is I mean,
Speaker 1: when Tolkien talks about Middle Earth, he talks about just
Speaker 1: kings as these wise and wondrous creatures of nobility, whereas
Speaker 1: in in Uh the Dragon and How's of the Dragon,
Speaker 1: Song of Ice and Fire and all these stories, the
Speaker 1: basic premise of these stories is no, kings are terrible,
Speaker 1: Kings are inbred monster. You actually cannot take a throne
Speaker 1: without becoming a monster, and that is endemic to the
Speaker 1: storyline here. So she is just fulfilling the viewpoint of
Speaker 1: this entire stories, much in the same way that Ara
Speaker 1: Gorn fulfills the viewpoint of Tolkien by becoming nearly a
Speaker 1: Jesus figure by the end of the story. It's a
Speaker 1: complete upending of Tolkien's view and it's the difference between
Speaker 1: when a European writes fantasy and when an American writes fantasy.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's a better version, and I mean
Speaker 1: I would even go so far as to say it's
Speaker 1: not always a more interesting version, because sometimes this stuff
Speaker 1: gets really old, like just watching all of these assholes
Speaker 1: take the throne over and over and over again, it
Speaker 1: gets old. So but I do think it's closer to history,
Speaker 1: closer to the world as we know it to start
Speaker 1: with the assumption that anybody who takes a throne is
Speaker 1: not at heart a good or noble per, and strangely enough,
Speaker 1: that will tie into our odyssey discussion later. So I
Speaker 1: do like that, and I like that they're handling it
Speaker 1: in a way that makes it clear that a Rania
Speaker 1: is not a good queen, be she never probably would
Speaker 1: have been a good queen, and say, no one can
Speaker 1: be a good queen. No one can rule and still
Speaker 1: be a good person. Which isn't to say necessarily that, oh,
Speaker 1: the throne has corrupted her, although it has partially corrupted her. Essentially,
Speaker 1: that whole family is so innately corrupt that nobody in
Speaker 1: it could possibly do a good job. Allison. Yes, I
Speaker 1: have some feeling for Allison, and I think Olivia Cook
Speaker 1: is doing an amazing job of showing someone who is
Speaker 1: trying desperately to maintain some sort of control in a
Speaker 1: situation where she has almost no control and she's in
Speaker 1: constant danger.
Speaker 2: But what I like about her character is that she's
Speaker 2: fully aware. She knows what's going on, you know, better
Speaker 2: than most of them, because I think most of them
Speaker 2: are just a about a lot of things.
Speaker 1: Can I just jump in. I do think that is
Speaker 1: the difference between her and Rhiniera, and it's why she
Speaker 1: might possibly come off a slightly more sympathetic character is
Speaker 1: that she doesn't just know what's going on. She knows
Speaker 1: what she did right, unlike Ryaniera, who does not face
Speaker 1: up to any of the things that she did that
Speaker 1: have you know, brought blowback against her. Alison understands she
Speaker 1: made choices. They were not good choices, and she's stuck
Speaker 1: where she is now because of those choices, so there
Speaker 1: is some regret in that. However, she'd fuck over her
Speaker 1: I mean, she'd kill off all her sons in order
Speaker 1: to save her daughter, which I guess is a form
Speaker 1: of nobility. But she also married her daughter off to
Speaker 1: one of her sons, and I did like that. Helena
Speaker 1: called her out on that. What else, so we have
Speaker 1: the two queens. I mean everything that Damon does is
Speaker 1: not interesting to me at all.
Speaker 2: No, I think Damon now he's just a monster. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's nothing interesting about the care.
Speaker 1: I don't think Matt Smith is finding anything interesting in
Speaker 1: that portrayal.
Speaker 2: There's no nuance, there's no variation of his It's just
Speaker 2: an asshole. He's just an asshole, whereas people.
Speaker 1: Like Agon and Amons who are assholes much in the
Speaker 1: same way their uncle is. I feel like those performances
Speaker 1: have some nuance to them where you kind of feel
Speaker 1: something for those people. You feel that they're struggling in.
Speaker 2: Some way, right. I wish they spent more time with
Speaker 2: the other folks like Oh White than Hugh Hammer. You know,
Speaker 2: the whole thing with the wife and all that. I
Speaker 2: would want more of that, like a little side story.
Speaker 1: I don't really find it interesting. You just think, Youugh
Speaker 1: the Hammers he is good looking.
Speaker 2: No, but that's not it. It's just that you know,
Speaker 2: you need to show the other people. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I agree with that on some level.
Speaker 1: And I can tell that alf and Hugh their storylines
Speaker 1: are going somewhere. They are not obeying their queen, they're
Speaker 1: not happy with their queen, and they both got dragons.
Speaker 2: So but I couldn't care less about Raina and her
Speaker 2: madness and her dragon.
Speaker 1: And here's my issue with Raina. It's Raina. Now, it's Raina.
Speaker 2: It's Raina.
Speaker 1: I think it was interesting that they they combined her
Speaker 1: character with a different character from the books in order
Speaker 1: to tell this storyline. With Sheepstealer, but it doesn't actually
Speaker 1: make sense. Like she, the character in the books who
Speaker 1: has Sheepstealer, is not noble. She's not a member of
Speaker 1: a house. She's just a side character who's able to
Speaker 1: control the dragon by giving a member of the royal
Speaker 1: household this role. She's sort of stuck like, Oh, she
Speaker 1: wants to see her her family again, but she also
Speaker 1: wants to hold on to her dragon and live in
Speaker 1: a case like, I don't understand what what do you want?
Speaker 1: What are your motivations here? I do love Lady Jail.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I knew I could see the smile
Speaker 1: on your face. I'm like, he's noting to talk about
Speaker 1: Lady Jane.
Speaker 2: Put her in her plates, you know, like girl, But
Speaker 2: I would she really slap a targarian princess and.
Speaker 1: Threaten her a targarian princess with a dragon. I do
Speaker 1: love Lady James, and I love that actress, love the performance.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, all of that, that whole situation in
Speaker 1: the veil, I'm not sure that makes any sense to
Speaker 1: me at all. Where is that going? I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: I agree as similarly, as much as I love Alice
Speaker 1: rivers at Haaren Hall. It's starting to go on a
Speaker 1: little fucking nowhere, actually, you know, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it's going somewhere. But didn't we have all of this
Speaker 1: last season with her and Damon?
Speaker 2: I can't. I feel like, like I said, I feel
Speaker 2: they just need to have these people acting and they
Speaker 2: just give them something.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is an amazing cast. I'll give them.
Speaker 2: It's great. And the whole thing with Aim and I
Speaker 2: don't quite understand what's going on. They having a relationship
Speaker 2: now or she's trying.
Speaker 1: I mean, she wants that Haroen Hols. She wants Haron Hall,
Speaker 1: and so she's going to figure out a way she
Speaker 1: will find a man to fuck to get Haroen Hall.
Speaker 2: My god, because come on, that's an option of it's not.
Speaker 1: Going to marry into nobility.
Speaker 2: But she's obsessed with that place. She wants it, and
Speaker 2: then she's doing whatever she can.
Speaker 1: Carlss Vilaria, it looks like he's dead.
Speaker 2: Is he? People are questioning that online. I actually like
Speaker 2: his character, but he felt a little I'm I don't
Speaker 2: know what. Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: Yes, you had me for a while. And I think
Speaker 1: part of it is that actor's performance where it's like,
Speaker 1: could you just loosen up just a little bit? You're
Speaker 1: so stiff, And I realized that's a choice he's making
Speaker 1: as an actor. But like the scene with him and Baila,
Speaker 1: yeah kissing, no heat there at all, because the guy
Speaker 1: is just so stiff I need, especially since this character
Speaker 1: has gone through such an enormous shift in his perspective,
Speaker 1: his father has welcomed him. He is sitting at the
Speaker 1: Queen's table, like you should have a difference in your performance,
Speaker 1: but instead you're still the same stiff, sort of overly formal,
Speaker 1: kind of wounded guy. I just he stopped being interesting
Speaker 1: to me once he went wound up sitting at the
Speaker 1: Queen's table.
Speaker 2: I did like the whole thing with what is GWayne
Speaker 2: and Darren, you know the kids? Yes, that's interesting. I do.
Speaker 1: What's happening with the High Towers is interesting to me.
Speaker 1: I'm just not sure how it relates to the story
Speaker 1: at all anymore. And I do like GWayne a lot,
Speaker 1: and and Ormond is a lot of fun to watch,
Speaker 1: so I'm willing to see it play out, but I'm
Speaker 1: finding it very disconnected.
Speaker 2: And they kind of forgot Aimen a little bit, and
Speaker 2: we didn't see much.
Speaker 1: Of Amon's and heron hall. No which wagon agon is
Speaker 1: at the one with the burned face, Yeah they I
Speaker 1: mean we did see him a little bit. Yeah, But again,
Speaker 1: it just feels like that a lot of like we're
Speaker 1: waiting for the final I'm not the final battle, but
Speaker 1: we're waiting for something to happen. I'm enjoying it. It's
Speaker 1: a much better season than last season. And I feel
Speaker 1: like part of the reason this is all working so
Speaker 1: well is that they have the end game in mind
Speaker 1: and they actually know what it is, unlike how Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones, where they really didn't know what the ending
Speaker 1: was according.
Speaker 2: To is this the last season?
Speaker 1: No? Last next season is the last season, so.
Speaker 2: There's more coming.
Speaker 1: There's like what ten episodes left total? Eleven maybe, And
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that they're not going to
Speaker 1: drag this out for too long and they know how
Speaker 1: it's going to end. And I feel that everything right
Speaker 1: now in the story is slowly turning towards that ending.
Speaker 1: That's why I said we're in the endgame here, like
Speaker 1: it's just going to be a lot of death in
Speaker 1: the stretch from here on out.
Speaker 2: Although I didn't read the books, I feel like I
Speaker 2: can follow. Now, you know, I'm not lost right as
Speaker 2: I was in the past, so now I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: The writing is very efficient. They are very good at
Speaker 1: making sure that everyone's name is mentioned and everyone's agenda
Speaker 1: is pointed out, and they do a really really good
Speaker 1: job of balancing all of.
Speaker 2: These Yeah, and then this area, obviously she's gonna turn, and.
Speaker 1: It looks like it it looks like she might turn.
Speaker 1: I mean, Allison might have gotten her Hawk center, which
Speaker 1: would be quite a coup on Allison's part. I love Helena,
Speaker 1: Oh Helena. I just want her to tell everyone to
Speaker 1: fuck off and leave her alone.
Speaker 2: I know she's an interesting character.
Speaker 1: I think that I want her to do something really dark.
Speaker 1: I want her to, like poison someone or just do something.
Speaker 1: You need to get a little of your own back, girl.
Speaker 1: You just all these people are manipulating you. You need
Speaker 1: to do it, all right, to anything.
Speaker 2: Else, I think, become pretty much everybody.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take another break, yep, and then we'll
Speaker 1: come back and dive deep into the Odyssey. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. We're back, and we finally got to see
Speaker 1: the Odyssey last night. I said to Lorenzo literally on Monday,
Speaker 1: when we were coming back from Fire Island. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I know we have to do a podcast,
Speaker 1: but I really want us to be part of this
Speaker 1: conversation everyone's talking about and we haven't seen yet. So
Speaker 1: that was part of the reason why we haven't. We
Speaker 1: didn't do a podcast before earlier in the week is
Speaker 1: because we needed to go and see this. So I'm
Speaker 1: still processing this. I will say I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of Nolan's films. I don't think he's a flawless director,
Speaker 1: but I have seen all of his films and I
Speaker 1: think he is a very technically adept, very thoughtful director.
Speaker 1: I don't think this film is as good as Oppenheimer,
Speaker 1: which won him the Oscar last year. I do think
Speaker 1: it's a very very very good film. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a masterpiece. I think that's what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say here. However, that is not really a criticism, because
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of films are not masterpieces. And I
Speaker 1: would go so far as to say as ninety percent
Speaker 1: of all very very good films are not masterpieces. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot to make a masterpiece, and I don't
Speaker 1: think that's what this is. I think I just want
Speaker 1: to go ahead, and then I'm going to toss to you.
Speaker 1: I just I'm starting off with that because the initial
Speaker 1: round of reviews were so rapturous for this film that
Speaker 1: I just wanted to start off with I think this
Speaker 1: is a very good film. I'm not necessarily in agreement
Speaker 1: that it is quite as good as everyone is saying, good,
Speaker 1: all right, go ahead.
Speaker 2: I was interested because it's, you know, it's an interesting story,
Speaker 2: a very famous story. Many movies have been made in
Speaker 2: serious TV series about it, so I was curious to
Speaker 2: see his take on it. I think he's over praised,
Speaker 2: in my opinion in general as a director. I think
Speaker 2: people to tend to look at him and think everything
Speaker 2: he does is flawless, which I don't agree. I think
Speaker 2: he's an interesting director. He has an interesting take on things,
Speaker 2: the way he directs his movies. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I don't know. I think he's a little I
Speaker 2: don't know, full little what full of himself as a director,
Speaker 2: and stubborn sometimes on his decisions, like like the way
Speaker 2: he sees things and he wants to direct things in
Speaker 2: a certain way, and sometimes it don't make sense in
Speaker 2: the story in the movie, but he wants it that
Speaker 2: way because it's I don't know, it's controversial wards or
Speaker 2: it's a different take on something I think he is.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that point here, to this point here
Speaker 2: with obviously anyway. So I was curious and then all this,
Speaker 2: you know, all these articles written about it, like with
Speaker 2: the cast, because he hired all these people, and you know,
Speaker 2: hired you know, black people, brown people, and they're not
Speaker 2: all white, and then they're not what we imagine the
Speaker 2: artist it should be. So all this conversation, and I
Speaker 2: was really curious. I was like, all right, let's see.
Speaker 2: I watched the trailer. I was like, all right, you
Speaker 2: can't see much, but okay, let's see. I'll wait. You know,
Speaker 2: I have my like I said, I know the story.
Speaker 2: I was a fan of some of the fifties movies
Speaker 2: about it, you know, the Troy and Everything story. So
Speaker 2: I was curious. I really wanted to see how he
Speaker 2: and I was hoping, because it's twenty twenty six, that
Speaker 2: the technowledge that we have right now would work, you know,
Speaker 2: like would make magic and present a different version of it,
Speaker 2: a more interesting version with a.
Speaker 1: Lot more critical of this film than I feel.
Speaker 2: So I was like, all right, let me, let me
Speaker 2: see it. Let's go see it, And you know that's
Speaker 2: my introduction, all right.
Speaker 1: I think it's stunningly gorgeous film. I think it's an
Speaker 1: incredibly thoughtful film. I think he wrestles with the themes
Speaker 1: of the poem and he tries to subdue them into
Speaker 1: a cinematic form as best he can. I think he
Speaker 1: makes some choices that perhaps are questionable, and in fact,
Speaker 1: I'm going to question a few of them. I am
Speaker 1: not an expert on the poem at all, but I
Speaker 1: am trying to look at this cinematically and to see
Speaker 1: if he accomplished his goals as a director. And in
Speaker 1: order to do that, you do have to have some
Speaker 1: understanding of where he diverged from the poem. But I
Speaker 1: am not an expert, so I would not You should
Speaker 1: not expect me to have any sort of insights into
Speaker 1: Homer or into epic poetry at the Bronze Age or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But overall impressions, let's say, let's start
Speaker 1: with this. I loved how he made the world seem
Speaker 1: mysterious and magical but also really small when you get
Speaker 1: into and I know that the film was shot in
Speaker 1: like six different countries, and I mean they were pretty
Speaker 1: they were. He was shot in the Sahara, it was
Speaker 1: shot in Scotland, it was shot in Iceland as well
Speaker 1: as in the Mediterranean. But the sense that you get
Speaker 1: in this film is that they are just wandering around
Speaker 1: in a small patch of space and they just cannot
Speaker 1: get home. And at the same token, even though the
Speaker 1: world that they are in is not that long, I mean,
Speaker 1: because let's face that. I mean, he took him ten
Speaker 1: years to get home, but it's not like he sailed
Speaker 1: to America or anything like that. He didn't discover new continents.
Speaker 1: It all takes place in the Mediterranean for the most part,
Speaker 1: but it's three thousand years ago, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: much more difficult to travel. And I felt that the
Speaker 1: film did a good job of saying that without saying it.
Speaker 1: At the same token, he makes the world look and
Speaker 1: feel mysterious, weird and old. I loved the castle in Ithaca.
Speaker 1: I thought it was so fucking gorgeous. I loved that
Speaker 1: it already looks three thousand years old. And maybe there's
Speaker 1: some question as to whether or not it should look
Speaker 1: as old as it looked, but it felt like we
Speaker 1: were in an old civilization, which at the time, this civilization,
Speaker 1: it actually had been around for a long time, so
Speaker 1: it would have had some weight too. Right, let's see
Speaker 1: what else. I I don't think the film has much,
Speaker 1: and I could be wrong. People might be mad at me.
Speaker 1: Maybe I just missed it all, but I didn't think
Speaker 1: the film had much in terms of a soundtrack. In
Speaker 1: terms of the music, I look. I have a lot
Speaker 1: of memory of the music in the film at all.
Speaker 2: I look for it because they use that same guy
Speaker 2: who just won an Oscar I can't remember his name,
Speaker 2: long haired guy, and he's very talented, and they use
Speaker 2: him and he's very good. So I was listening trying
Speaker 2: to pay attention to the soundtrack very little. It wasn't like,
Speaker 2: you know, pumping circumstin now. This wasn't a lot.
Speaker 1: And I think I think a lot of Nolan's choices
Speaker 1: in this film, for good or for ill, was that
Speaker 1: he wanted to avoid a lot of cliches about the
Speaker 1: cinematic depictions of the Bronze Age. So everybody speaks with
Speaker 1: an American accent, even the British actors do. He cast
Speaker 1: you know, he did racially blind casting and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and when it comes to the music, I
Speaker 1: think he wanted to avoid anything that sounded like, you know,
Speaker 1: old timey Greek, like you know, people plucking liars and
Speaker 1: harps and stuff like that. I think he wanted to
Speaker 1: avoid anything that's smacked up cliche.
Speaker 2: Right. He is a Swedish composer. His name is Ludwig Garanzen.
Speaker 2: He won for Oppenheimer and you know he's done tanted
Speaker 2: his work with Nolan before. He's a very talented composer.
Speaker 2: And apparently Nolan said that they he didn't want orchestra,
Speaker 2: they didn't want like sounded sound a little too modern. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: I think anyway.
Speaker 1: It's not a criticism of the film, but it really
Speaker 1: struck me later. I was like, wow, I can't remember
Speaker 1: one musical moment at all.
Speaker 2: I can't. Yes, I agree, and I mean I.
Speaker 1: Guess you could actually see that as a criticism because
Speaker 1: it plays into a larger criticism. But that I do
Speaker 1: have about the work, and it's true of Nolan in general,
Speaker 1: is that it's cold. His films are cold, and they're clinical,
Speaker 1: and there's a certain detachment in his films and in
Speaker 1: films like the Batman films or in Memento or in Oppenheimer,
Speaker 1: that sort of detachment works well with the story, and
Speaker 1: I think it it didn't work well here. This is
Speaker 1: a story about passion and fire and sex and blood
Speaker 1: and music and food, you know, like it, and we
Speaker 1: didn't get any of that, and we just got this
Speaker 1: sense that all of these people are living a very
Speaker 1: dry sort of life. And I don't think that's a
Speaker 1: very good way to depict a Bronze Age culture. Like
Speaker 1: they weren't. They had a rich life, They had a
Speaker 1: very rich cultural life, they had a rich history. They
Speaker 1: and all of that is is kind of kept as
Speaker 1: minimalist as possible because that is his style of directing.
Speaker 2: Right, I think, all right, here's my take. It's a
Speaker 2: very old story. It's like, what three thousand year old story.
Speaker 2: That's why the journey feels so special because you know,
Speaker 2: it took Otis's like a lot of time to go
Speaker 2: from front A from point A to point B. So
Speaker 2: it it's an old story, so you know it, And
Speaker 2: that plays a lot into the whole story that it
Speaker 2: took it took him a long time and everything was unknown,
Speaker 2: you know, all these lands, all these places. So I
Speaker 2: think that's what's special about the story, what he confronted,
Speaker 2: what he saw when he went to every island, and
Speaker 2: so that I needed that. I think that's part of
Speaker 2: the story, is that it's the the absurd, all the
Speaker 2: things that he saw on every land, that he had
Speaker 2: to go through on every land. So I needed that.
Speaker 2: I was expecting that. I mean, it's it's what is
Speaker 2: it like twenty four books or something, the region of
Speaker 2: the story. Of course, he can't cover everything, but I
Speaker 2: felt like he missed a couple of things that I
Speaker 2: wish was in the movie. But again, you make choices.
Speaker 2: I'm not you know, you choose what you want to show.
Speaker 2: I felt that not having the gods more present, Yeah,
Speaker 2: can we shelve that.
Speaker 1: Because that's a whole conversation I am planning.
Speaker 2: I missed that part. It felt like the decisions. It
Speaker 2: felt to me. We'll talk about it later, but it
Speaker 2: felt to me that whatever they were going through, it
Speaker 2: was just the weather. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the philosophical aspect of how
Speaker 1: we handle the gods, but that's a way to earth.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get into the form and what we
Speaker 1: liked and disliked before we start getting into the themes.
Speaker 1: I also want to run down almost all of the
Speaker 1: major performances and talk about course. So uh, And I
Speaker 1: struggled in the beginning.
Speaker 2: Can I just say a few more? I struggle in
Speaker 2: the beginning with the language. But I went back and
Speaker 2: forth on that. Let me just let me just finish
Speaker 2: my thought here. At first, I was like, this is
Speaker 2: very common length, it's a very common language. It doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like a little special. But again it's my brain
Speaker 2: going back to all the old versions of the story.
Speaker 2: It felt a little simple. But then I kept watching
Speaker 2: the movie. I kept seeing the movie in a movie theater,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you know, it makes sense here. I
Speaker 2: understand where this is going, the language and the cinematography,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's it's a more realistic approach the story,
Speaker 2: their conversations and all that. So I guess the language
Speaker 2: works here, but and I'll add more to it later.
Speaker 2: The common language combined with very bad performances is just
Speaker 2: threw me.
Speaker 1: Off, all right, So I guess we'll get into the
Speaker 1: themes then. And I don't think we are going to
Speaker 1: agree on this, but I he's a very deliberate director.
Speaker 1: He makes very deliberate choices. So for him to have
Speaker 1: everyone speaking in an American accent. There was a point
Speaker 1: to that, and I don't think it had anything to
Speaker 1: do with class or anything like that, because as an Englishman,
Speaker 1: I don't think he thinks. I don't think that's how
Speaker 1: he would have approached it, like, oh, the classic characters
Speaker 1: have English accents and the non classic characters don't. That
Speaker 1: isn't what he did. That's what they did in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: All the evil people had English accents and all the
Speaker 1: good people had American ones. So there's a lot about
Speaker 1: this film that diverges from the themes and style of
Speaker 1: Homer of the original poem. And that isn't because Nolan
Speaker 1: didn't understand it, or that because he necessarily rejected it.
Speaker 1: It's that he is trying to, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, he's americanizing the story, and he's doing that
Speaker 1: on purpose. He isn't. I mean, I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: This is my read. I feel that he cast, he
Speaker 1: did racially blindcasting, and then gave everyone an American accent
Speaker 1: because he is making a film about America in the
Speaker 1: present day. When you look at the story about about Okay,
Speaker 1: there's so much here that I have to unpack that
Speaker 1: we're going to get into the casting as well. So
Speaker 1: about halfway through the film, I was having problems with Odysseus.
Speaker 1: I was having problems with Matt Damon's performance because I
Speaker 1: felt like he wasn't modulating his performance at all. I
Speaker 1: felt he was just giving me Matt Damon, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't forget the sense that this is some great
Speaker 1: warrior king. I just feel like some guy from Boston.
Speaker 1: But exactly again, Lorenzo, I think that's deliberate and well.
Speaker 1: First off, Nolan said in an interview for The Vulture,
Speaker 1: he said he cast Matt Damon specifically for that reason.
Speaker 1: He knew that people would listen to this guy and
Speaker 1: assume that this guy was a good guy because of
Speaker 1: the persona. And this is what I want to say
Speaker 1: about all of the casting choices, especially when you get
Speaker 1: into the major major stars in this film, and it
Speaker 1: is a star studded film, they are all being cast
Speaker 1: because of their persona. So Matt Damon plays a guy.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that. And I'm not crazy that
Speaker 1: he did it this way. That Nolan has this obsession
Speaker 1: with memory and with timelines, and he forced it into
Speaker 1: this story so that Odysseus has amnesia, and there's multiple
Speaker 1: and there's all these flashbacks, and nothing is told in
Speaker 1: a linear way, and I kind of got annoyed with
Speaker 1: the whole thing. However, when we get to the end
Speaker 1: of the movie and he's telling about his regrets about
Speaker 1: the sack of Troy, you realize that he has been
Speaker 1: lying to you as a narrator through the entire movie,
Speaker 1: and that Odysseus is actually terrible. We get hints of
Speaker 1: this throughout the story. We get hints of his he
Speaker 1: keeps making these bold mistakes. He shoots the cyclops when
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have done that, that sort of thing. But
Speaker 1: it's not until we get to the end of the
Speaker 1: film that we realize, Okay, he has been lying the
Speaker 1: whole time. He was bad throughout this whole movie. It's
Speaker 1: very notable that you see scenes of his soldiers beheading
Speaker 1: women and ravishing, you know, ravaging women and burning down
Speaker 1: you never see him do it. And he tells this
Speaker 1: version of the story that holds him up as this
Speaker 1: moral figure when in fact, he's been lying to you
Speaker 1: the whole time, and he has been a dark figure,
Speaker 1: a violent figure, and a liar throughout this entire story.
Speaker 1: So this, to me is my take on why I
Speaker 1: think he's making a commentary about America. I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: saying it's an allegory or anything like that, but he
Speaker 1: wanted to tell a story about a violent, disruptive culture
Speaker 1: that is dying because it's lost its way, because it's
Speaker 1: lost its moral center. And to him in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: the best way to shorthand best shorthand way to do
Speaker 1: that is to constantly refer to America.
Speaker 2: Interesting take, and I.
Speaker 1: Do think that's why so many of the choices he
Speaker 1: makes are in I don't think all of them work,
Speaker 1: and we can talk about the gods in fact, do
Speaker 1: you want to lead right into that?
Speaker 2: No, I just felt that it's not if you don't
Speaker 2: know the stories, not very clear why things are happening.
Speaker 2: I agree with that it feels like things are happening
Speaker 2: because it's bed weather or the island is dangerous, but
Speaker 2: you know, there's a reason why their boats went that way,
Speaker 2: or because they had that kind of weather, you know,
Speaker 2: and because certain things appeared or not.
Speaker 1: It makes some really strange choices here to be sort
Speaker 1: of circumspect about the existence of the gods, and in fact,
Speaker 1: he makes Odysseus out to be basically an atheist, which
Speaker 1: makes no fucking sense at all. And there are parts
Speaker 1: of it where I've I've said this to you when
Speaker 1: we were leaving the theater, I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, but I do know this. When
Speaker 1: you get into Greek drama, Greek poems and Greek plays,
Speaker 1: gods are not concepts. They are physical, actual people who
Speaker 1: speak and interact and do things. And that was the
Speaker 1: belief of the Greeks back then. So when you have
Speaker 1: this sort of Judeo Christian idea of invisible gods in
Speaker 1: the scott like, no, that's not that's not what they thought.
Speaker 1: What I don't like and I don't think characters like
Speaker 1: Odysseus would have acted that way, right, That's.
Speaker 2: Why I don't like his choices. Sometimes he makes he
Speaker 2: makes these choices, and sometimes they make no sense at all,
Speaker 2: or they don't they're.
Speaker 1: Not Are you talking about Odysseus or Nolan.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Nolan and Joe Like he pretty much
Speaker 2: had no god, but then he decided to have Athena because.
Speaker 1: You know, well he he If.
Speaker 2: You have Tom Holland, then you have to have Zindan
Speaker 2: in the movie, So let's let let's let's get up.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, he didn't have Athena, he had no guilt. Well,
Speaker 1: Nolan shot it in such a way and that reveal.
Speaker 1: Listen that I heard that there was a last minute
Speaker 1: reveal about who Zendeya really quote unquote really is in
Speaker 1: the film. So I was ready for it to happen.
Speaker 1: But when it did happen, I was like, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: poignan as hell, that's heartbreaking as hell. And he hasn't
Speaker 1: been having visions of Athena all this time. He's been
Speaker 1: having visions of the girl that got killed at Athena's temple.
Speaker 1: She is his guilt embodied, yes, but in the story
Speaker 1: is I know. But in the movie, right, he made it,
Speaker 1: and that's part of the theme is and this is
Speaker 1: why I feel it's really confused, because putting aside Zendeya,
Speaker 1: who I really felt by the end of that final
Speaker 1: scene where he's confessing about the sack of Troy, I
Speaker 1: thought that made it clear that she's not a goddess,
Speaker 1: she's his guilt.
Speaker 2: I understood that at the end.
Speaker 1: And my point is that doesn't that's fine whatever I
Speaker 1: don't care. I didn't. But you had a Cyclops, you
Speaker 1: had the Lystragonian giants, you had seriously turning them into pigs.
Speaker 1: You had skill in charibdis, you know, pulling them out
Speaker 1: of the open ocean. You had all of these mythological
Speaker 1: figures and monsters and witches, and you didn't shy away
Speaker 1: from depicting them as monsters and witches. Right, why are
Speaker 1: you being weird about the gods? And again, I think
Speaker 1: this comes down to he did not want to do
Speaker 1: like a Ray Harryhausen Clash of the Titans kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He did not want to show Zeus on a mountaintop
Speaker 1: or Hermes running or whatever the hell the story required,
Speaker 1: because from his perspective as a director, that would have
Speaker 1: been cheesy as hell. And I get that. But what
Speaker 1: we wound up with was a sort of Christian version
Speaker 1: of the gods, which, you know, the sort of you
Speaker 1: never see them, they're mysterious.
Speaker 2: No, that's not it, That's not how the Greeks saw them. No.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if you're going to embrace that
Speaker 2: kind of story, you have to you have to ignore
Speaker 2: how to have gods. You have to acknowledge the gods
Speaker 2: I mean, they're the reasons why shit is happening. You know,
Speaker 2: the guys are deciding where the where the fuck they
Speaker 2: go and who kills them or tried to kill them
Speaker 2: or you know, it's it's not that simply.
Speaker 1: I did roll my eyes, like the scenes with Calypso
Speaker 1: where she's like, you know, serving as a therapist and
Speaker 1: there's all this thunder happening because if you know the stories,
Speaker 1: Zeus wanted her to let him go. So that's Zeus
Speaker 1: yelling at her.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 1: I realized we can't have Lawrence Olivier come down holding
Speaker 1: a lightning bolt and getting a speech. But that you know,
Speaker 1: as a director, you need to come up with better ideas.
Speaker 1: That to me was the major failing.
Speaker 2: And certain combinations made no sense to me. She's someone
Speaker 2: giving him the lotus flower, which is not the case
Speaker 2: in the whole way. Now, I mean, yeah, avoiding certain
Speaker 2: things like there's things that were interesting in the story
Speaker 2: that he didn't show, which is fine, it's your choice.
Speaker 2: You avoided them. The leather bag situation, what else, things
Speaker 2: like that that I wish it was there but wasn't.
Speaker 2: That's but it felt to me that the women just
Speaker 2: showed up and you know, like I mean, it felt
Speaker 2: to me that every time there was a woman, you know,
Speaker 2: there was not much there. They were just there to
Speaker 2: I don't know, support the man, and and.
Speaker 1: I wish they hadn't get that.
Speaker 2: I wish they had explore those characters a little more.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is it's not very clear what Calypso
Speaker 2: is or I don't know. I just that felt to
Speaker 2: me that.
Speaker 1: I'll grant you that. I think again, the Calypso here,
Speaker 1: this scenario was I don't know why we're being so
Speaker 1: circumspect here she is a se nymph, like she's obviously
Speaker 1: got him under a certain amount of control. Like why
Speaker 1: are we pretending that she's just some gorgeous woman fishing?
Speaker 1: But I do want to see this actually makes a
Speaker 1: good segue into the point about casting. Why don't we
Speaker 1: take a short break now when we get back, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that. We're back talking about the Odyssey, and
Speaker 1: now we're going to talk about the casting. Lorenzo doesn't
Speaker 1: like of these actors, so you need to take all
Speaker 1: that with a grain of salt. But I do want
Speaker 1: to point out a few things here. As I noted,
Speaker 1: he cast Matt Damon because he knew the audience would
Speaker 1: assume that Matt Damon was a good guy doing moral things,
Speaker 1: telling the truth. He's essentially the Jimmy Stewart of his generation.
Speaker 1: He's that kind of actor where the audience is on
Speaker 1: board immediately. Similarly, you can look at Charlie's m M.
Speaker 1: You don't need to explain too much about what's going
Speaker 1: on there because it's Charlie's. She looks like that, and
Speaker 1: all you need to do is say he's stuck with
Speaker 1: this stunningly gorgeous creature who will not let him go.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I don't love that Calypso wasn't
Speaker 1: explained better, but I am explaining his casting choices. So
Speaker 1: when you cast Shirley's Theren, you don't really need to
Speaker 1: explain too much about what's going on there. She looked
Speaker 1: fucking amazing, and this shows up.
Speaker 2: It is a your perfume campaign.
Speaker 1: I mean she was in nets and rags and she looked, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just explecting amazing.
Speaker 2: It's der commercial right now.
Speaker 1: Similarly, Lupita and Yango I gasped the first time they
Speaker 1: showed her because you know she's I already know what
Speaker 1: Lupita looks like but they had her all done up
Speaker 1: like a queen and jewelry and everything. Again, you cast
Speaker 1: Lapita and Youngo in that role because A she's undeniably
Speaker 1: beautiful and B she just gives you regal. She looks
Speaker 1: like a queen. And when you put her in those
Speaker 1: like you know, old style Greek jewelry and every you know,
Speaker 1: Bronze era jewelry and fashions, and I realized that none
Speaker 1: of that stuff was accurate. She just feels like she
Speaker 1: belongs there. She looks like she belongs in that world.
Speaker 2: But that that was my point. Yeah, my previous point
Speaker 2: is that these women are were just gorgeous women.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true of well, I yes, I
Speaker 1: don't think that's true of seriously, and I don't don't
Speaker 1: think that's true of Penelope.
Speaker 2: Penelope was an exception because she's the major exception, well
Speaker 2: because of an Anne Hathway's incredible performance.
Speaker 1: Yes, Anne Hathaway won for the Ages.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: That was like I kept thinking of, and I mean
Speaker 1: this as a compliment, when her and Matt Damon were together.
Speaker 1: First off, I was like, wow, look at those middle
Speaker 1: aged faces, man, And I do like that. Nolan really
Speaker 1: lingered on that, you know, lingered on the fact because
Speaker 1: they are playing characters who are probably slightly older than
Speaker 1: they actually are. Because she's the mother to uh Telemachus.
Speaker 1: Well no, granted she's old enough to be mother to
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old, but it felt like I was
Speaker 1: watching like Sean Connery and Katherine Hepburn. It just felt
Speaker 1: old school, and with her especially, it just felt like
Speaker 1: an old school diva turn. She ate.
Speaker 2: She was phenomena. I love.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, go ahead, No, she was.
Speaker 2: Phenomena because she was able to convey all the emotions,
Speaker 2: all she was going through as a mother, as a wife,
Speaker 2: and all that, all the queen as the queen, all
Speaker 2: the waiting, all the stress to deal with those suitors,
Speaker 2: and all that. She did a phenomenal I think, I
Speaker 2: think you have to do that. You have to embody
Speaker 2: the story. You have to embody the character so that
Speaker 2: it becomes believable that you look at that person and
Speaker 2: you believe that that person went through hell, went through
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. Well not necessarily him, but went
Speaker 2: through a lot of stuff. And you look at her
Speaker 2: and you can tell. And when she opens her mouth,
Speaker 2: she she does it.
Speaker 1: She doesn't about her performance is that she spends most
Speaker 1: about whispering yes, and but whispering with an intensity because
Speaker 1: she is intense and she is angry. But at the
Speaker 1: same token, she is extremely vulnerable and scared.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean she has to be behind a wall.
Speaker 1: So she's fierce in her line deliveries. But she's also timid.
Speaker 1: She manages a timidity at the same time. It's such
Speaker 1: a well modulate to performance. And honestly, if she doesn't
Speaker 1: get an Oscar for that, that's crazy to me.
Speaker 2: She should at least be nominated.
Speaker 1: She will be, I mean, and Matt Past will be nominated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is anyway, But she she is phenomenal. Let
Speaker 2: me just say one more thing. I was looking at
Speaker 2: her and I was like, wow, you came a long
Speaker 2: way as an actress.
Speaker 1: She really really did. She really really really did. She
Speaker 1: is like a standing testament to movie stars who become
Speaker 1: better over time. Yes, who allowed their movie stardom to
Speaker 1: make them better actors, and she is a prime example
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean truly there and performance was you know, delivered.
Speaker 1: It was this week Emily Wilson, the translator of the
Speaker 1: the Odyssey, who you know, the right wingers hate and
Speaker 1: who Nolan. Nolan used her translation for his version of
Speaker 1: the script. She came out with an article in the
Speaker 1: London Review of Books this Week and it was nasty
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of blowback to it. She
Speaker 1: was highly highly critical of the film, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people felt it was nasty of her to be
Speaker 1: so critical of a film like She apparently had sold
Speaker 1: a million copies of her book after an old announced
Speaker 1: that he was doing the movie, so a lot of
Speaker 1: people felt like, well, you're trashing a film that made you,
Speaker 1: that is making you rich. I don't really want to
Speaker 1: get into too much about her piece. I do think
Speaker 1: she was looking at it, obviously from the perspective of
Speaker 1: a scholar of that era and that material, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that actually makes for a very interesting film
Speaker 1: review because you're just going to list all the things
Speaker 1: that they got wrong, which is essentially what she did.
Speaker 1: But she did talk a lot about Charlie's theron being
Speaker 1: a therapist, and I was like that one, I will
Speaker 1: grant you. I don't like those scenes at all. There's
Speaker 1: no sense of mystery there and she just talks like
Speaker 1: she's in you know, southern California meeting you were in
Speaker 1: her office, like it just didn't be a ancient or
Speaker 1: weird or fucked up the way it should have.
Speaker 2: Been, because Nolan was obsessed with him not remembering things
Speaker 2: and she was there to try to get those information. No,
Speaker 2: she's greedy, she is selfish to the she you know,
Speaker 2: she kept him on the island so that she could
Speaker 2: it's a rape essentially, so she could screw him for
Speaker 2: seven years.
Speaker 1: And all of that is tossed out the ways because
Speaker 1: she's so gorgeous.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing. There's no sex in the movie.
Speaker 1: I agree with, and that was something Emily Wilson pointed out.
Speaker 1: And again, yet they lead such dry lives in those stories,
Speaker 1: just that no one enjoys food, no one enjoys drinking,
Speaker 1: no one fucks, no one sings.
Speaker 2: And there's no I don't need to see sex scenes,
Speaker 2: but I but sex was a very important part why
Speaker 2: these men did the thing they did. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: A Calypso sex scene was probably required. Yes, And the
Speaker 1: fact that because her time together is completely sexless, and
Speaker 1: he looks like he's about nine hundred years old in
Speaker 1: those scenes.
Speaker 2: I mean he lived with Circey for a while. I
Speaker 2: mean none of that. I understand this choice.
Speaker 1: But but and he yeah, he slept with her, he
Speaker 1: slept with Princess Nasoga, right, he slept with everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't. And again this comes again. It's all about
Speaker 1: him being an unreliable narrator. So, for all we know,
Speaker 1: the Odysseus of the movie was going around and fucking
Speaker 1: all these people, but he had a story to tell
Speaker 1: about his returning to his beloved wife.
Speaker 2: So and he didn't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I'm giving Nolan too much credit here,
Speaker 1: but but that I do understand the idea that we're
Speaker 1: not going to show how terrible Odysseus is until the
Speaker 1: very end of the movie, which is that's silly because
Speaker 1: it's his obsession with timelines.
Speaker 2: It's not a journey.
Speaker 1: I uh huh. I agree with that.
Speaker 2: If you think of a journey, people go through things
Speaker 2: right and betrayal, you know, fucking out the people, screwing up,
Speaker 2: you know, betraying your your your your you know, your
Speaker 2: people whatever, and then you come back. So this way
Speaker 2: is just very black and white. Okay, well I'm just
Speaker 2: going here, Oh my god, the weather and then you know,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know, our boat blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and I'm back and it's it's that's not what a
Speaker 2: journey is about. Yeah, the whole story. I mean, the
Speaker 2: reason why this story is so wonderful is because he
Speaker 2: go through so much, you know, there's so much, so much,
Speaker 2: a lot of challenge, you know, a lot of things happen, right,
Speaker 2: and that he has to go through with his people,
Speaker 2: with his you know, and I don't know, it felt
Speaker 2: a little light to me. That's what I meant by
Speaker 2: the language. Also, you combine the language and the performance.
Speaker 2: I thought the I mean, I absolutely hated Tom Holland.
Speaker 2: He eats horrible in the movie.
Speaker 1: I do think Tom Holland and Sunday are the two
Speaker 1: weakest performances in the film. I don't think they were
Speaker 1: up to the material. Well, first of all, I don't
Speaker 1: think the material asked much of either of them, But
Speaker 1: that was probably Nolan realizing that he couldn't ass much
Speaker 1: of either of them. I don't hate them as much
Speaker 1: as you do, but I agree with you that they're
Speaker 1: not actors of any great No, not really. And and
Speaker 1: Tom Holland just has two or three expressions that he
Speaker 1: cycles throughout that.
Speaker 2: And he's he sounds like a teenager number one, and
Speaker 2: I know the character is not about tag, but anyway,
Speaker 2: there's a scene with when end Hathaway's.
Speaker 1: Like showing him showing you her guts.
Speaker 2: He's just staring at her the whole time, like what
Speaker 2: is going on? Dude? Your mom is talking to you,
Speaker 2: yell at you have some reaction here. And the same
Speaker 2: thing with India. There's a scene where she she's looking
Speaker 2: at him and some some something about going back home
Speaker 2: with Matt Damon. There's a scene a very serious thing,
Speaker 2: emotional thing, and then she acts like she's pouting.
Speaker 1: She looks, she pounce a lot. She resorts to that
Speaker 1: pou a lot. And it was in euphoria. It's in
Speaker 1: the Spider Man movies, like like.
Speaker 2: He he's expressing I don't know, I forget the scene,
Speaker 2: but he's talking think about going back and it was
Speaker 2: time to go back or something like that, and she
Speaker 2: pounced and I'm like what.
Speaker 1: Anyway, However, there was a scene I think it's when
Speaker 1: they're leaving Hades, which I have to admit that scene
Speaker 1: in Hades was fucking stunning with all the black sand
Speaker 1: and everything, and sin On speaking, I know you didn't
Speaker 1: like Elliott Page in this movie. But I thought sin
Speaker 1: On was fucking stunning in that scene, and I thought
Speaker 1: his performance was amazing in that scene. Yeah, I also think, again,
Speaker 1: why did you cast a very slightly built trans masculine
Speaker 1: man for this role. That's why. I mean, people all thought,
Speaker 1: all the right wingers thought that that he had cast
Speaker 1: Elliott as Achilles or something like that, But no, he
Speaker 1: cast him as you know, the one that Odyssey has
Speaker 1: fucked over, the one that got fucked over by everybody,
Speaker 1: the one who clearly wasn't suited for battle, right, That's
Speaker 1: why he cast him. That's and to me, that's very
Speaker 1: interesting casting. It's very thoughtful casting. So I get all
Speaker 1: of that, and I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I felt that the performances had no weight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't agree. I think Damon was excellent.
Speaker 1: I think Hathaway was excellent. I think I was disappointed
Speaker 1: with John leg I think Samantha Morton was fucking amazing.
Speaker 1: You really weretant you didn't think Lego Ozama was good.
Speaker 1: He's gonna get nominated. I thought it was probably when
Speaker 1: I thought he was amazing.
Speaker 2: He didn't know what to do with Mia Goss. I
Speaker 2: mean she has a Yeah, he didn't know what to
Speaker 2: do with it.
Speaker 1: He didn't know what to do with her. And I
Speaker 1: loved her the little bits of her that I saw.
Speaker 1: I love her the character. There's more to the character. Well,
Speaker 1: I know he hangs all the maids exactly. Well, they're
Speaker 1: not going to show that. We're not going to show
Speaker 1: because he's you know, they don't want him to be
Speaker 1: too much of a monster.
Speaker 2: Samantha Morton was awesome.
Speaker 1: She was That scene was very disturbing.
Speaker 2: That's what I was expecting more of Nolan in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six with all the technology and everything we have
Speaker 2: available today.
Speaker 1: Like when she's she's molding their faces.
Speaker 2: Turning them into pigs. That was gorgeous to look at.
Speaker 2: It disturbing, disturbing, but I was expecting more of that.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, yeah, do more of that. But no,
Speaker 2: I thought it was awesome and she was really really good.
Speaker 1: She was very good and I liked that. Again. I
Speaker 1: really want to go back and watch this film a
Speaker 1: second time, because you know, he waits until the end
Speaker 1: of the film to show to you that Odysseus is
Speaker 1: actually a terrible person. But that's how she was reacting
Speaker 1: to him. I mean, her reaction to him and his
Speaker 1: men was understandable and relatable if you think about the
Speaker 1: world that she lives in, and you know, again, if
Speaker 1: you go back and watch it a second time. I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of hints throughout the film
Speaker 1: that the story you're not getting is not completely true.
Speaker 1: And I think that is a major scene, because you
Speaker 1: if you believe everything that Odysseus is telling you up
Speaker 1: to that point, and if you believe that his men
Speaker 1: were very friendly and nice to her when they first
Speaker 1: got there, then she's acting crazy. What the hell's wrong
Speaker 1: with that bitch. You get to the end of the
Speaker 1: story and you find out its and his men were
Speaker 1: horrible and monsters and they were violating Zeus's law everywhere
Speaker 1: they went. Her response actually makes much. It's protective, it's correct,
Speaker 1: it's the right way for her to act. So I
Speaker 1: do think it was interesting and I think it's an
Speaker 1: excellent film that is going to get a fuck ton
Speaker 1: of Oscar nominations. Of course, I think many of those
Speaker 1: nominations will be warranted. I really think a Hathaway, Damon Legozamo,
Speaker 1: they are all getting.
Speaker 2: And Samantha probably Samantha.
Speaker 1: Morton is definitely going to get one.
Speaker 2: I thought Robert Pattinson was okay.
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought he was great. Again, going back to
Speaker 1: the casting thing. If you want some snively little shithead
Speaker 1: they can't trust and you are waiting for someone to
Speaker 1: kill him, you cast Robert Pattinson. Everybody he cast was
Speaker 1: cast for those reasons because they're movie stars and they
Speaker 1: already come with baggage. And he was using that in
Speaker 1: the store in a way that I thought was very smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I feel like, don't. I mean, now
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, it's like going to the supermarket. You
Speaker 2: buy certain items because you you you know you can
Speaker 2: rely on them for certain things. I don't think that's
Speaker 2: acting to me. That's not acting to me. It's picking
Speaker 2: people who you know you can rely on. But that's
Speaker 2: not acting to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about their acting. I'm talking about their casting.
Speaker 2: Well that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: You good casting is when you were casting movie stars.
Speaker 1: You cast people according to how you know the audience
Speaker 1: is going to react.
Speaker 2: Why. I think the keyword he's movie star, they're probably
Speaker 2: that's the mistake in casting them. I have to say,
Speaker 2: I absolutely love all right. Yeah, we disagree on this
Speaker 2: I absolutely loved him, Himish Patel whatever, he was very good.
Speaker 2: I thought his expressions, his loyalty, it was just heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: I thought that he did a phenomenal job. I really
Speaker 2: liked his performance.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind seeing him get nominated as well. But no,
Speaker 1: Zendeia and Tom Holland absolutely not, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Terrible, terrible, absolutely terrible. Sometimes you don't know if it's
Speaker 2: a Dune movie or whatever the hell she doing because
Speaker 2: it's the same expression, the same poddy.
Speaker 1: Oh right, yeah, she pounded all the way through doing
Speaker 1: as well, Yeah, it's her thing, it's her thing.
Speaker 2: And then why is she there? Because Tom Holland is there.
Speaker 2: They have to work together, they can't be separated anyway.
Speaker 2: He was terrible. He was really really bad. That guy
Speaker 2: can't do anything but Spider Man.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's He was quite as bad as
Speaker 1: Lorenzo was making it out to be terrible. This is
Speaker 1: a great film with some questionable choices that are worthy
Speaker 1: of being discussed. But I don't agree with Lorenzo's take
Speaker 1: on everyone being terrible in this movie. And I want
Speaker 1: to hear what you guys all think. Yes, so let's
Speaker 1: do you anything else you want to add.
Speaker 2: The locations were absolutely gorgeous, and it's an interesting take.
Speaker 2: It misses a lot of stuff I don't I didn't
Speaker 2: hate the movie. I thought the movie had an interesting
Speaker 2: take and uh, but some important parts were missing and
Speaker 2: most of the performances were terrible. That's mighty all right, then,
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear what you guys think. We'll be
Speaker 2: back next We'll be back tomorrow with a bittercut movie club.
Speaker 2: We're watching Blue Moon, and we'll be back next week
Speaker 2: with whatever crosses our eyes or crosses our desk. Until then,
Speaker 2: take care of yourselves. Love you Meana, by bye bye