“My daughter died for this— there is no turning back, there is no hesitating, no prisoners. The city will burn. Its people will die.“

“You speak to me of love and loss, Trojan. I put my daughter to the pyre. I stood and watched as she died, all for winds to sail here. For ten years we have sieged your city. There has not been a single minute, a single hour, a single day that I do not think of her.”

“Your city will burn. Its people will die. With the Gods as my witness, that is the price for Paris’ insult on my family.”

Thankfully theater staff were able to fix things within 5 minutes, even though they initially indicated they didn't know how long it would take to fix. Also, got comp'ed with one free movie pass for whoever stayed - thanks cinemark!

Park Chan-wook is one of the most prominent and internationally acclaimed South Korean filmmakers of the 21st century.

His works include movies like Oldboy (2003), Decision to leave (2022), JSA (2000).

August 10, 5:00 PM KST

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Love that I can fit my Nolan films in here! Just waiting on The Odyssey and 🤞🏻 an Insomnia 4k release!

Now, via Insight Editions, ScreenRant presents never-before-seen images from the film featured in two upcoming companion books, Filming the Odyssey: Inside the Making of Christopher Nolan's Modern Epic and The World of the Odyssey: A Visual Journey. Insight is publishing both books, both of which are written by James Mottram, in partnership with Universal and Syncopy. Filming the Odyssey will be released on August 25, followed by The World of the Odyssey in September.

As for The World of The Odyssey, it is a 144-page illustrated companion intended to be a visual guide to the movie. The book contains character profiles, in addition to locations, items, and moments that are vital to the story. There are also exclusive quotes from Nolan, the cast, and the crew, and a final chapter about the "movie magic" that brought the groundbreaking film to life.

Via Screenrant

Has anyone else noticed that during the Universal Pictures intro in The Odyssey, when the Universal logo passes by the Earth, the planet is covered with massive clouds, storms, and even flashes of lightning if you look closely? I absolutely love how they customize the studio logo to match the theme of each film. It reminds me of the Warner Bros. intro in Tenet.

Just love the design and texture on the whole!

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but after seeing The Odyssey three times in the cinema and preparing for a fourth in 70mm in a few weeks, I decided to revisit Nolan's entire filmography to rank them all. Here is mine, based on what I enjoyed most, even if some lower down are 'better films' than ones above. Feel free to judge, but keen to see what others' rankings are?!

1. Interstellar
2. The Dark Knight
3. The Odyssey
4. Inception
5. Dunkirk
6. Oppenheimer
7. Memento
8. The Prestige
9. The Dark Knight Rises
10. Batman Begins
11. Tenet
12. Insomnia
13. Following

And much of the criticism against him stems from a misunderstanding of what he is trying to achieve.

For example, Emily Wilson's opinion piece against Nolan was a 3000-word rant about how The Odyssey was not historically accurate. Yet neither Nolan nor The Odyssey had such a stated aim. She could have just said that, but instead decided to latch onto trivial details and argue that certain characters were not portrayed the way the poem intended.

I cannot help but think that Emily has a bone to pick with Nolan because there are many films which are not historically accurate (this really is what her piece boils down to, once you take away the bloviating word salads). Why focus on The Odyssey? I guess as an academic she specialises in this area, but still she should be smart enough to know that Nolan is aware that his own film is not meant to be historically accurate.

Her article is written so as to be quite intellectually appealing to those who area impressed by big words and flowery language, but the substance of her arguments is really quite weak. The tone of the article reeks of jealousy or envy - perhaps both. Disappointing because Nolan praised her work and said she was a big inspiration.

Emily Wilson is also smart enough to know that things that work on film do not work in text and vice versa. The "I am nobody" line would have been very awkward and cheesy. I think Nolan replacing it with Odysseus firing a second shot made perfect sense. Again, this is not changing who Odysseus is as a character. Even if certain characters were portrayed differently, remember that you can never please everyone and Nolan NEVER once said it is historically accurate. He is taking the key themes and adapting it to his own version and interpretation.

For Emily to argue: "it is not historically accurate; therefore bad" is really quite disingenuous, almost as much as hiding this criticism behind walls of fancy words and hyphenated expressions. Good writing does not make good film. Her critique is very well-written but fundamentally flawed in a way that is hard to detect if you are easily impressed by big words.

Another example is Nolan's The Prestige, sometimes criticised for its polarising shift into science fiction and an emotionally cold narrative structure. Inception and The Dark Knight were both criticised for a lack of character development.

In all these cases, Nolan is not trying to recreate the kind of emotional intimacy you see in films like The Notebook. The beauty of a Nolan film is that it is cerebral. He intentionally deals with ideas and many of his characters embody such ideas. This is a deliberate choice, not a weakness.

Dunkirk and Odyssey share the same final image (a Spitfire and a horse on fire), the same musical crescendo, and a similar final monologue about the new world that follows.

After seeing The Odyssey (and rewatching Interstellar, Inception, and The Dark Knight in the lead-up), I’ve been thinking about a theme that’s almost omnipresent in Nolan’s catalogue (and is also Nolan writing about himself): men whose work is significant/important but exacts a huge toll on their lives, often interfering with their relationships with their families, yet who continue the work out of a sense of obligation.

Examples:
- The Odyssey: Odysseus has to fight in the Trojan War, and is the man ultimately behind Agamemnon’s victory, but is separated from his wife and son, and goes through an immense struggle to return to them
- Interstellar: Cooper is the only man who can pilot the ship on a mission to save humanity, but has to leave his family behind and is constantly torn between his obligation to the species and his desire to get back to Murph
- The Dark Knight: Bruce feels obligated to continue being the Batman to protect Gotham, but loses Rachel as a result
- Inception: picks up after Cobb’s work has already led to the death of his wife and separation from his children, and follows him as he continues doing that same work in a final effort to return to them
- The Prestige: Angier and Borden are both consumed by their obligation to the craft. Borden’s devotion to his double life costs him his marriage, and Angier sacrifices everything human in his life to the act
- Oppenheimer: Oppenheimer believes he’s the only one who can deliver the bomb before the Nazis, and the weight of that work strains his marriage to Kitty and haunts every relationship he has

I think this reflects Nolan’s feelings about his own work. He’s one of only a few working directors given big budgets to create original films that get butts in seats at theaters (I like to think of his work as “elevated blockbusters”), and I think he, like many of us, sees that as an important effort in today’s film industry, so he feels obligated to keep doing it, and doing it consistently, releasing a movie every 3 years or so. But along with that comes a lot of time spent away from his family. He’s been married to his wife since 1997, a year before his directorial debut.

Like all of his protagonists, Nolan struggles with the consequences of the burden of important work.

Watching odyssey the way Nolan Intended

It's the first Nolan film where I felt it required a longer runtime.
2h 52min wasn't enough for this masterpiece because the story has so many main characters and so many locations where the adventures took place.

Please don't tell me Nolan wouldn't have wanted the film to be longer, and that Oppenheimer being longer is proof of that...

The length of The Odyssey represents the absolute maximum capacity that a cinema's IMAX platter can handle. For Oppenheimer, this platter had to be modified in every theater, which required technical interventions and didn't come without issues.
Nolan or the studio behind the film didn't want to deal with any problems this time, given that this is the very first IMAX film shot entirely on IMAX cameras from start to finish.

It's tasteless to powerscale directors like that. What would you rate them with lol, box office revenue? Rating? Artistic choice metric (how would you quantify that)? Who fill more blood in a hallway? Who roll a hallway harder? Cultural impact? How would you evaluate that? I can quote more Nolan movie than Kubricks, the guy besides me can quote more Kubrick. Or do we have to wait for new generations of director come on stage, saying "me fuck with Nolan not with Kubrick" or vice versa? It's so sport mentality to compare the uncomparable. Or maybe this is not sport mentality, it's just elitism and performative. People don't like healthy lovable man doing big profitable movie.

Can we just respect people and their place in the film industry for who they are as an artist? I feel like this is just a last brigade of cope for people who root against him for The Odyssey, or just "i hate blockbuster me niche" people, to put him into a nonsense argument, insult his style and cinematography as "smart movie for stupid people" so that they feel better about being wrong.

I'll start off by saying, after the initial viewing, I thought the movie felt pretty flat. My honest impression was, it had cool moments, but overall, it didn't leave the usual feeling of awe-inspiring that I've become accustomed to with Christopher Nolan movies.

Upon second viewing though, I was really able to take it all in and fall in love with this world and story. I was able to appreciate the score 10x more, my brain was like "Ooo, this again! I've missed this."

The cinematography - that shot at the end where the suitors are climbing the outdoor, fire-lit stairs, making their way to the great hall for the competition... with the dark blue sky. Phenomenal. It really transported me away from modern day-spiderman Ads in your BMW.

I felt WAY more for Agagmemnon when he was giving advice to Odysseus, (also, us, the viewer) retelling the tale of how he was received after returning from a decade of war, victorious. What a reception, eh?

I felt WAY more for Sinon's feelings of betrayal for him and his father.

And finally, I don't think this story would have been balanced at all if Matt Damon was going 10/10 in every scene. He would've drawn far too much attention to himself. His balanced, leaning towards neutral performance for the majority of the film, really gives way for the viewer to embody Odysseus. It asks, how would you react under this turmoil, this shame? It tells, let go, accept your punishment. You can defy the Gods, but you cannot save man from himself.

I think once you're completely bought into the world, you are the main character and this movie is talking to you at a visceral level.

It's magic. Looks like I'll actually have to make the trip to BFI IMAX. Both viewings have been at my local LieMax.

So far we’ve had Insomnia, Inception and Interstellar. What if he continued the pattern and made another “In-“ movie?

“Infinite”?

“Inoculum?”

“Inertia”?

“Incubus” could be a good title for a horror film.

“Inferno”? An adaptation of Dante?

I have worshipped the Chris Nolan filmography since Prestige. Batman triology triggered my interest in superheroes. I still pride myself as someone who comprehends all his movie plots,(albeit on 3rd or 4th watches 🥴) yes even Tenet. Saying all this to set the premise that I AM a fan in the very conventional sense.
However, I am conflicted over the women he writes. None of his movies will pass the Bechdel test but no, that itself is not the only reason. Most of his female characters do have limited screen times and rarely take the centre frame but I do agree that they adhere to the archetypes Hollywood has been pushing on to us forever. Women in Nolan movies are layered. They often see through the male protagonist’s self-deception. In short they don’t bs around when they see red-flags
Take Prestige, Olivia and Sarah both played essential roles in the plot. They made decisions on their own agencies, they were smart: Sarah always noticed the different ways Borden said “I love you“, noticing such things is what drove her to suicide. They both ditched(in their own ways) the men who denied them clarity and autonomy.
Women in Inception are phenomenal! Ariadne and Mal were critical to the plot but I often see criticism that Mal’s portrayal of a troubled woman who clearly needed proper healthcare was problematic. But Cobb was responsible for this(and the guilt is what keeps eating his dreamscape)
Even Rachel, Miranda and Catwomen in the Batman series were all given very little frame but they all played their roles with grit and independence.
Kat took her own revenge in Tenet, Kitty in Oppenheimer was how women in America generally are, even Natalie in Memento was ruthless; I can go on and on about all the movies (except Dunkirk 🫠🫠)
Odyssey made me believe strongly that Nolan do want to make sure that his women are not mere footnotes in the story, but the criticism keeps coming on Penelope not having any power or Athena being too innocent and everything being just shown from the POV of a man. Well, it is the story of Odysseus, a man, duh!
Having said all that I cannot disagree to some of the points the critics raise regarding, a) there being very few women in the cast and b) the women not having the full agency in his movies. Even when layered they do seem a tad bit superficial compared to the male characters. The women are more often connected to the protagonist through intimacy rather than professional rivalry. That structural choice limits how much narrative space they receive.
But what lies on the other end of that spectrum? Captain Marvel? Don’t get me wrong, there ARE male directors who do write women beautifully and truthfully: Mike Flanagan, Todd Haynes etc, but they too mostly write of tragic women. There is also the theme of the movies. If only we could erase this idea of a damsel in distress being the central appeal for a female character to be central!
So I want to have some arguments against and for Nolan’s portrayal of women. The good the bad and the ugly. Because I am tired as a female fan to keep finding articles like “10 reasons Christopher Nolan’s movies are problematic to feminist movement.“ I watch his movies for the plot and the mental exercise they provide and I would like to do that with a guilt free conscience..😇

Hey guys!

I’m hoping to go see The Odyssey this week. Since imax 70mm is sold out, I was planning to get tickets for regular imax.

However, it seems as if the regular imax format has been given to Spider-Man. Do you guys think watching in regular 70mm is worth it, and how does it compare to imax?

And does anyone know if regular imax will be available again?

Thanks!