Is THE ODYSSEY truly epic? With SIR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

Summary

Kermode & Mayo’s Take

Is THE ODYSSEY Truly Epic? With SIR CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

Sony Music Entertainment | July 16, 2026
With Mark Kermode, Simon Mayo, Ben Bailey Smith

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Overview

This episode dives deep into Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film, The Odyssey—an adaptation of Homer’s epic, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus. The show features Simon Mayo’s exclusive interview with Nolan, alongside Kermode and Bailey Smith’s in-depth, spoiler-sensitive review. The hosts also discuss notable new releases, the endurance of box-office staples, and broader questions about authenticity in cinema—especially in the context of AI—with a strong focus on the documentary Synthetic Sincerity.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Intro & Housekeeping

[01:00–07:59]

• Casual banter about delayed luggage and “the Barracuda jacket.”
• Upcoming Bristol Christmas Show (December 6th), discussion about event venues.
• Brief plug for the Watershed arts centre and the ongoing Aardman Films anniversary.

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2. Review: Synthetic Sincerity – AI & the Nature of Truth in Documentary

[08:00–23:27]

Film Description:
A Mark Isaacs docu-fiction hybrid exploring the nature of authenticity in documentaries and the blurry lines enabled by AI-generated characters.

Discussion Highlights:

• Kermode: The film continually forces the viewer to “never feel at ease” and constantly question what is real, who is acting, and the future of documentary veracity.
• AI as a “window with no soul” and the troubling future where “film loses the power to document.”
• The uncanny valley and “AI hallucinations”—dangerous misinformation, such as AI erroneously attributing Panic Brothers membership to Kermode.

Notable Quotes:

• “While the camera may never lie, the moving image does all the time.” – Mark Kermode [10:54]
• "Are any of the people that we meet in the documentary footage… are they real, or is that staged? I don’t know.” – Mark Kermode [12:38]
• “If they are all actors in that film, I’m sorry, but that’s some of the best acting I’ve ever seen.” – Ben Bailey Smith [20:37]

Takeaway:
Both hosts found the film thought-provoking, entertainingly unsettling, and relevant to ongoing conversations about media authenticity in the AI era.

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3. Box Office Top 10 – Hits, Misses, and Enduring Franchises

[26:36–39:34]

• Jackass: Best and Last: More tolerable than previous entries, has “interesting” aspects of male friendship despite crude humor.
• Supergirl: Strong central performance—though the film itself is “disappointing,” with online reactions influenced by gendered bias.
• Obsession: Modest-budget horror that’s found big success due to “genuinely scary” themes and sharp satire.
• The Invite: Adult toe-curling comedy praised for not fitting modern Hollywood templates.
• Evil Dead Burn: Kermode defends his take and the film’s horror-comedy legacy.
• Minions and Monsters: “A love letter to cinema…slapstick in the tradition of Keaton and Chaplin.” [34:21]
• Toy Story 5: Disappointing; “quite dispiriting” compared to earlier entries.
• Moana (Live Action):
  • Kermode: “Of all the live-action remakes, this is…my favorite one … Moana impossible to dislike, even if unnecessary.” [36:55]
  • Discussion: Some audience hostility and ‘remake fatigue,’ with many fans boycotting remakes of beloved originals.

Memorable Listener Letter:

• Daniel Woodrow (Headteacher) recounts how Dwayne Johnson treated his primary school to a personal Moana screening, underscoring Johnson’s reputation as “a stand up guy.” [41:34]

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4. Simon Mayo Interviews Sir Christopher Nolan: Adapting The Odyssey

[42:48–58:49]

Nolan on His Motivation and Approach:

• Pursuing The Odyssey was a “foundational story” opportunity, enabled by Oppenheimer’s box-office success:
  “When you’ve had a success like that for a studio, you have an opportunity to make something you wouldn’t otherwise get to make.” [44:00]
• Avoided big gods-as-puppeteers trope (à la Harryhausen) and instead opted for a “the gods walk among us” motif, emphasizing Xenia.
• Relished adapting the non-linear, “stories within stories” structure, drawing parallels to his earlier films like Interstellar and Dark Knight.

Casting & Characterization:

• Didn’t “think of actors while writing” to avoid limiting Odysseus; Damon was chosen only after writing finished.
• “Odysseus is Han Solo, not Luke Skywalker… a wily character.” [47:37]
• Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Tom Holland (Telemachus), Samantha Morton, Charlize Theron among the star-studded cast.

Music & Timelessness:

• Collaborated with Ludwig Goransson to avoid 19th-century orchestral clichés; instead, embraced ancient instruments and modern textures (including 808 drum machines) for “timeless” effect reminiscent of Vangelis.
• “He’s taking the most ancient instrument…and he’s underpinning it with the 808 drum machine from the 1980s.” – Nolan [53:51]
• Rapper Travis Scott cast as the bard, evoking the oral tradition of Homeric poetry: “We have rappers who use language in a very, very similar way to the way academics believe this story may have evolved.” [55:04]

On Set Atmosphere:

• Describes a “joyful” process, inspired by Damon’s attitude accepting difficulty as privilege:
  “How lucky are we that we get to experience those difficulties… and try and sort of find a way through?” [56:51]

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5. The Hosts Review The Odyssey

[58:51–81:57]

Technical Feats and Cinematic Scope

• “The first film to be shot entirely on IMAX…” – Mark Kermode [59:31]
• Unique use of massive formats and practical effects makes the cyclops sequence “breathtaking—astonishingly good.” [70:29]
• Some sequences “like Ray Harryhausen… but you believe it’s happening in front of you.”

Thematic Core

• “It’s a film about post-traumatic stress disorder, about facing up to guilt and one’s actions,” drawing strong parallels with Oppenheimer. [63:38]
• Explores “imperial hubris,” as Odysseus is “not a simple hero”; instead, he is “wily, complicated, sometimes foolhardy.” – Ben Bailey Smith [68:26, 78:05]

Performances

• Universal acclaim for Samantha Morton, with Kermode declaring:
  “Every single moment that Samantha Morton is on screen…I will eat my hat if she doesn’t win an Oscar.” [74:27]
• Anne Hathaway (Penelope): “So strong you’re constantly thinking about her—even when she’s not on screen.” [77:23]
• Matt Damon’s performance described as “old enough, haggard enough, complicated enough” to capture Odysseus’ ambiguity.

Structure and Pacing

• Both Kermode and Bailey Smith note some issues in the opening act (pacing, front-loaded exposition), but the film “finds its feet” with its first mythic set-pieces.
• “It’s almost 3 hours…probably half an hour too long, but which 30 minutes would you cut?” [76:23]
• Final act “so romping and powerful you forget the weak start.”

Accessibility

• “The most accessible Nolan movie yet… you’ll have a great time in the cinema.” – Ben Bailey Smith [81:36]

Summation (Kermode):
“Not perfect by any means, but so much in there that is astonishing… Everybody needs to see it, and in IMAX.” [80:40]

Summation (Bailey Smith):
“This story is like the original story… it’s the template for the hero’s journey. From pure entertainment point of view, you’ll have a great time.” [81:36]

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6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If they are all actors in that film, I’m sorry, but that’s some of the best acting I’ve ever seen.” – Ben Bailey Smith (Synthetic Sincerity) [20:37]
• “The Odyssey is Han Solo, not Luke Skywalker…” – Christopher Nolan [47:37]
• “He was born to do this… I think he could only have done it now” – Nolan on Matt Damon [57:09]
• “Every single moment that Samantha Morton is on screen…If she doesn’t win an Oscar, I will eat my hat.” – Mark Kermode [74:27]

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7. Other Content

• Laughter Lift: Classic dad jokes with Mark and Ben riffing on submissions from producers and listeners [83:00–84:53]
• Next Up / Take Two: More on Ride or Die TV, Greek myth films, “film club” discussions, and audience questions—available on the subscriber show.

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Important Timestamps

• [08:00] – Synthetic Sincerity review starts
• [23:27] – Box Office Top 10 analysis
• [42:48] – The Odyssey interview: Nolan clip & Simon Mayo’s interview begins
• [58:51] – Post-interview: hosts’ review of The Odyssey
• [70:28] – Cave/Cyclops sequence discussion
• [74:27] – Samantha Morton performance spotlight
• [80:40] – Final summaries

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Conclusion

An episode anchoring Kermode & Mayo’s brand of insightful, knowledgeable film critique:

• A genuinely lively Nolan interview exposing both craft and vision
• Thoughtful debate on AI and authenticity in film
• A critical but warm embrace of The Odyssey’s epic scale, both technically and thematically

Film of the Week, by a horse’s nose:
The Odyssey

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Transcript

[Rachel Hampton]

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[Ben Bailey Smith]

That's right, we have Malala. On season nine.

[Rachel Hampton]

Normal Gossip is out on all your favorite podcast platforms.

[Mark Kermode]

Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguardista and get an extra episode every Thursday, including bonus reviews, extra viewing suggestions, viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas, plus your film

[Simon Mayo]

and non film questions answered as best

[Mark Kermode]

we can in questions. You can get all that extra stuff via Apple podcasts or head to extratakes.com for non fruit related devices.

[Simon Mayo]

There's never been a better time to become a Vanguardista. Free offer now available wherever you get your podcasts.

[Mark Kermode]

And if you're already a Vanguard Easter, we salute you.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

So, yeah, kick off with some non, non synthetic sincerity, shall we?

[Rachel Hampton]

Mark?

[Simon Mayo]

Very good.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

So I. Well, I feel like I was just overheard you talking about.

[Mark Kermode]

Hello, Ben.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Hello, by the way. Sorry.

[Mark Kermode]

Hello, Ben.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Hello. Hello. I overheard you talking about a jacket that you're waiting for there, but I feel like listening to the last few shows. Don't you have a suitcase full of clothes that's somewhere else? Or have you discovered that now? Is that.

[Mark Kermode]

That. That finally arrived. So that was the klm. Yeah. So we went. We went to this film festival in Lopud, the island, this island of Croatia. Croatia. And we flew out klm. We changed to Amsterdam. They lost our bags. So we got there, the bags weren't there. Then they found the bags just in time to give them back to us to get back on the plane to go back to Amsterdam, where they lost the bags again.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Again.

[Mark Kermode]

They lost the bags? Yeah, yeah, twice. And then they lost them for 10 days.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

KLM Eternal and KLM.

[Mark Kermode]

There was a. Exactly. Yes. As everyone keeps pointing out, I would have been better flying off, flying klf. But I don't know whether you Remember, you're probably too young to remember this. There used to be. British Airways used to have a jingle which went, we'll take more care of you, fly the flag. Do you remember that?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I don't remember that.

[Mark Kermode]

And in the playground we all used to sing we'll take the fair and you'll lose your bags. But so anyway, now. And yeah, anyway, so since then there is a, there is a Barracuda jacket which has been, which has been sent to me. Coming.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Is that like a flying jacket?

[Mark Kermode]

No, no, no, you know it's a Harrington. Is it? No, no, you know, it's a, it's a Harry. Okay. And, but, but it was, it was dispatched, you know, many weeks ago and I had a thing from them saying it's arriving tomorrow at 9 o'. Clock. And then it didn't. Then it didn't. It turns out it's been, it's been impounded at something and as I said, it's been impounded at customs because it's just too cool.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

It's just too cool.

[Mark Kermode]

They've taken one look at it go, no, I'm sorry, you can't have that level of cool. I'm sorry, that cannot go through customs. And I keep getting these emails from Barracuda saying, honestly, we've never had this problem before. We really don't know what's going on. So anyway, we'll wait and see. It'll arrive eventually. But no, the suitcase had turned up. Thank you for caring about that.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, no, I just caught the tail end of the conversation. I was intrigued by, by the jacket. The jacket sounds like a.

[Mark Kermode]

It's a beauty. It's a beautiful, it's a beautiful thing. You know, it's a G9 and it's. And it's a, It's a thing of. It's a thing. Well, it will be a thing of great joy when and if it finally turns up. Anyway, how are you?

[Guest/Producer]

You're.

[Mark Kermode]

Are you.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I'm okay. I am. I'm wearing, wearing my favorite England shirt, semi lucky England shirt because obviously when everybody hears this, we'll know that England have crashed out horribly from the World Cup. But as we're recording, it's the day of the SEM final. England versus Argentina. Yeah. Yeah, it's this thing called. It's the World cup and it's like all in the world are allowed to have a go to enter and you win this big gold globe basically at the end of it. The best team wins. Play with around leather.

[Mark Kermode]

You don't. Sorry, you don't Want to win because it's going to be presented by Mango.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I mean that's a tricky thing.

[Rachel Hampton]

Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Infantino and Trump, the sort of figureheads.

[Mark Kermode]

Wow.

[Guest/Producer]

That.

[Mark Kermode]

Wow.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

It says here that you're going to talk enticingly about three things today. What are those three things?

[Mark Kermode]

Yes, well, there are three things that we're discussing. One of them is Ride or Die, which is this new TV series, eight part TV series which is a bit of a romp. Another is a documentary called Synthetic Sincerity which is a small release but a very interesting documentary. And then this is the week finally sees the release of the Odyssey.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, yeah. And our special guest is the film's director himself, Sir Christopher Nolan. Simon spoke to him last week so it's pretty exciting. And you can get our take two as well without the ads by heading

[Guest/Producer]

to our Patreon page.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

All you have to do is search Kermode and Mayo Patreon and you'll find us. And Mark, are you gonna have your jacket in time for Bristol on the 6th of December?

[Mark Kermode]

Well, I'm certainly hoping so. We're going to. We're doing the Christmas show and we're doing it in Bristol. We've done it in London before. We're doing it in Bristol. We're putting our big boy trousers on, getting out of London. Very big deal for Simon who doesn't really like to leave showbiz North London as you know. So we're gonna be the Bristol Beacon on December 6th at 7pm you can get tickets. There's a link in the show notes and IND Indeed. If my jacket has arrived by then, I will be wearing it in December.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Come and see the Barracuda 6th of December. Check out the links for tickets. The the Beacon. Is that what used to be. Was it full? Was it called something hall? Is that the one they changed the name of after they tore the statue?

[Mark Kermode]

I'm not sure. But the good lady professor, her indoors is from Bristol so I will check her. It's going to be fabulous. It's going to be. It's going to be.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Listen, I might actually come along. I've got a lot of friends in Bristol. Colston hall, that's Colton Hall.

[Mark Kermode]

Is that what you're thinking of? Yeah, it used to be Colston Hall.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Great venue, good name change, wonderful city. What a fun place.

[Mark Kermode]

There's also there is a brilliant art center in Bristol which is the Bristol watershed, which is a great cinema, great art center. They do some amazing stuff there. Yeah, really, really good stuff there.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And actually I think is it in Take two. When we'll be celebrating some more Bristolian bits, won't we?

[Mark Kermode]

So yeah, because the ongoing Aardman animation re releases are happening. This is all part of the birthday celebration. So there's, there's more Aardman on the big screen. And the thing with a lot of these the admins is many people will only have seen them on the small screen. It's always worth seeing them projected in the cinema. So yes, the Aardman anniversary celebrations roll on and indeed will continue to roll on for a few weeks.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

So yeah, I sort of did a tiny throwhead at the very top of this show saying that we were going to fake some sincerity as the bonhomie ensued. But actually it was a reference to this very intriguing little documentary, Synthetic Sincerity. You're going to tell us about that?

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah. So this is new film by Mark Isaacs is a filmmaker who's best known work Filmmaker's House examined the way that documentaries, whilst they kind of appear to be objective, are actually narrative construction. And it's funny, I think the last time you were on we had a conversation about there's a book by Janet Malcolm called the Journalist and the Murderer, which is actually I think the most interesting kind of analysis of the relationship between, between a subject and their interviewer. And it's all about the kind of the way in which none of this stuff is ever not fraught. Anyway, on, on that documentary Filmmaker's House, Mark Isaac started collaborating with Adam Gantz and then he made Blessed Plot and now this, which, which he's described as the third documentary fiction hybrid of the trilogy, in which, quote, we look at film data and what is happening in the documentary film and the world it depicts as AI cinema becomes a reality. So the poster, which is actually a really good poster, the poster has got two gentlemen who one assumes to be cinematic pioneers that the Lumiere brothers. And one of them is saying, you know, August, sincerity is the key to documentary cinema. And the other who's sitting down knitting says, yes, Louis, if we can fake that, we've got it made. So what that implies is that the film is like a kind of playful meditation upon authenticity and verisimilitude, but particularly in an age in which AI means that, you know, while the camera may never lie, the moving image does all the time. So the film is this kind of very knowing mix of documentary and drama that purports to draw on the filmmaker's own back catalog and then plays out in what sounds like a Cronenbergian Institute, the Synthetic Sincerity Lab. Which is part of the University of Southern England. And here we are told that scientists are striving to create authentic AI characters. And the project is headed up by Professor Song, who, via a virtual AI assistant, presents the director with a unique proposition. Here's a clip.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Professor Song and I would like to

[Rachel Hampton]

make you an offer.

[Mark Kermode]

What kind of offer?

[Rachel Hampton]

The university will pay to license your

[Ben Bailey Smith]

corpus of films to help us to

[Rachel Hampton]

make our synthetic characters more human.

[Simon Mayo]

Great.

[Mark Kermode]

I mean, I'm just happy that people are still interested in these characters.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

In return, we want to invite you to document our working process.

[Mark Kermode]

I'm not used to filming in workplaces, but yeah, I'd be more than happy.

[Rachel Hampton]

Please do not disrupt the team though,

[Ben Bailey Smith]

as they are all under a lot of pressure.

[Mark Kermode]

So you hear from that. That kind of that slightly weird robotic voice, and you see the image of what appears to be a virtual AI presence and, you know, presenting this thing about, okay, we're going to do this thing. So the filmmaker agrees, hands over his back catalog to be duly scraped by the research institute to teach sincerity to their AI models through the use of real documentary interviews. And then there's also, there's. There's this very independently minded researcher who then selects an, I guess chef to be the main focus of the study, to be photographed and to be interviewed and to be interrogated by machines in order to create an AI version of him that apparently will be able to say the things that he cannot say. Now, at the center of all of this, there's this Bergman quote about how the essence of cinema is the human face. The human face is the most expressive of things. And it begins by saying, you know, in the past, we captured the human face by. With paintings, and paintings would only be done for rich people. And now, of course, then we've moved into photography. Now everybody has images of faces and we're always looking at faces in order to sort of to see what somebody is thinking. And we look into the eyes of somebody. Everyone says, you look the eyes, it's the window of the soul. But what happens when you look at an AI generated face which has eyes, but obviously it being AI generated, it has no soul. And there's this weird thing in the director's statement which says, in the past, to film something was to witness it. But what will happen to documentary when film loses the power to document? And what will happen to a society that cannot be documented? And one of the way the film asks that question is by making us, as we're watching this documentary drama hybrid, constantly wondering whether what we're watching is fake or actual. So, for example, at the beginning, when we, when we meet the AI guide and we are told that this AI guide has been created in conjunction with an actor. But I'm looking at it thinking, well, I don't know whether I, you know, it's moving in a strange, you know, that slightly Max Headroomy way, but I don't know, maybe that's just somebody acting. Are any of the people that we meet in the documentary footage, are they real or is that stage. Are any of the people that we meet at the Institute who we presume they're all acting, but I don't know, you know, so you spend the whole time watching it and thinking, I don't know whether any of this is real. I mean, I know that a large portion of it is staged because it is this sort of theatrical. In fact, there's one moment in it in which the filmmakers are in conversation with an AI, and then they stop and go, oh, hang a minute. And then they look at the script that they're reading from. And they're reading from this script. Do you remember? Have you ever seen that Stuart Lee gag? When he start, he does a gag, right? And then he goes off on a sort of, on a tangent. And then he says, and the funny thing about this is, is that this tangent, it's all written, it's all scripted.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember it.

[Mark Kermode]

And then he goes. And then he goes. And so is this that I just said now. And so was that. And then he does this whole thing that every. So in a way, there's this kind of meta thing going on that the whole thing is a construct and it's telling you that it's a construct and it's playing with the fact that it's a construct. And then it's. But it's still doing it while it's a construct. And it made me think, I don't know whether you remember, but back I think it was during lockdown, Simon and I interviewed Adam Curtis and I think he'd just done can't get you out of my head. And it was kind of, there was a lot of ideas around that we were discussing about, you know, what, what the images in the documentary meant. And in the case of this, I mean, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was, it was entertainingly head scratching stuff, not least because what you spend an awful lot of it doing is going, okay, hang on. So that's, that's. No, that's not real. That is. Which of course is the way that you should raise those questions. Funnily enough, just a couple of days before, I had a conversation with Jason Isaacs, who, of course is very, very interested in what's happening with AI and how AI is going to fundamentally change all film. You know, he's. He's kind of obsessive about this stuff.

[Guest/Producer]

And I.

[Mark Kermode]

It just reminded me that we really are on the cusp of. Of something in which, you know, I, as a film critic, I'm looking at this, said, this playfully made and intelligent and entertaining documentary that raises more questions than answers. And that's the whole point. What it's. What it's meant to be doing is making good. Well, firstly, it. It has to be entertaining, it enjoyable, which it is. But secondly, it is meant to leave you thinking, I don't know what, what. How much of any of that was real. And that's kind of the point. Yeah, I think. Worry you as an actor? Are you concerned?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I had a. I had an interesting conversation just a couple of days ago at a charity event when a guy who runs a big sort of creative digital AI company, like, gleefully told me about this project that he's working on wherein actors and singers sign over their likenesses to his company and he can create anything in their likeness as long as they agree to it and have it completely protected and make money for them. So you essentially have an avatar going and doing work for you while you sleep. And he was like, is that some. Something that you'd be interested in? I was like, well, as a. As a SAG member, equity member, like, I don't know if you remember the strikes. And he was like, of course. He's like. I was, you know, a big part of that, A big part of that was the determination not to have this happen. And he said, yeah, but what I'm talking about is giving you all the, all the rights and all the say. And I was like, I understand that, but don't you think it'd be a bit of a weird, maybe a slightly bad look once I've been a part of, or once I've supported these strikes, to also have. Oh, by the way, you can buy a Ben Bailey Smith and he'll do. Do your little tap dance and. And a moonwalk for 5.99. You know, I just. Something about it just. I was just like, I. It sounds. I'm glad that you've got the feelings and all of that at heart, but it's just. It's not for me. But the thing with this film that I thought was kind of perfect is exactly what you were saying. The way that even as you're watching it, you're in this sort of uncanny valley place where it's like, is that acting? Is that an actor? Is that real? And I, immediately after, as soon as it finished, started Googling everybody. And of course, the. The AI is an actress. She's a Romanian actor with a very unusual face and she does a lot of unusual stuff. So that's a great piece of casting. But then the very opinionated filmmaker, who's sort of the center of it. I think she's Lebanese.

[Mark Kermode]

Yes.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Is a very opinionated filmmaker. Is that person.

[Mark Kermode]

But in a way. Okay, but in a way. In a way. Here's the thing. So I did exactly what you did.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Okay.

[Mark Kermode]

After. After watching it.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

And then part of me is kind of thinking, roll. I mean, part of me doesn't even want to say any of that because what I want is for people to. Oh, yeah, no, no. In the same sense, almost a spoiler.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

You're right.

[Mark Kermode]

No, it's not a spoiler. But it's like I did. I did exactly the same thing that you did was when. Okay, hang on. Hang on a minute. Who? And funnily enough, when you start doing that, there is a whole really interesting story about who or what.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

You have been watching. Remember at the end. At the end of Dad's army, you have been watching. You know, so there is an interesting narrative about who or what you have been watching. Did you enjoy the film? Did you like it?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Massively. In that weird way you enjoy stuff that also slightly puts you on edge. I never felt at ease with the film, but not because it. That it was working. It was working, which is why I wasn't at ease. I was. I constantly. I was constantly recording lines from it into. Into the voice notes on my phone because there was this little things like nostalgia being the. This. This thief of. Of joy and. And things like that. There was just lots of things that made me think a lot and that I don't know about everybody else, but that is what I want from. From my cinema. Yeah, I. I thought. I just thought it was really thoughtful and a great way of sort of introducing this really complex, constantly evolving topic that is so prevalent right now.

[Mark Kermode]

Brilliant.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

A really brilliant way of presenting it.

[Mark Kermode]

Good. I'm really glad you enjoyed it, and I'm really glad you had the same feeling as I did. And I'm really glad you did exactly the same thing that I did the minute it had finished. So, yeah, good.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And also if they are. If they are all actors in that film, I'm sorry, but that's some of the best acting I've ever seen. Because I could. I. I thought maybe the AI is an actor. I had no idea about anybody else, and I won't. I won't discuss anybody else, but like, if that, if they are actors, then they are incredible. And if they're not, that throws up even more questions. So.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Hampton]

But you.

[Mark Kermode]

But you know, but you know what I mean. About, in a way, are you. I. You don't want the thing solved. Although, of course you do, because there is a. So what I would suggest is see the film and then do what we just did.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

Which is go. You know, go. Because there's a whole other story behind it about how much. How much of what you are told is actually what you have been told it is.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah. And also double, double, triple, quadruple, check everything anyway, as a. As a matter of course, in. In life, with every bit of information that you. That you hear or presented.

[Mark Kermode]

Man. I remember. I remember really good. I'm sitting here wearing a Rock Against Racism T shirt. Right. I remember, you know, the Glasgow Media Group and, you know, that whole idea in the. That was kind of pretty prevalent in the mid-1970s, which people saying for the first time, you need to ask where the information's coming from. Which newspaper is telling you it and why are they telling you it? And I remember. I remember first ever coming across that idea of the things that you see written that you need to ask where that's where that's coming from. And I do feel like this is all part of that ongoing discussion that we were always having is who's saying it, why are they saying it, what are they saying?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Absolutely.

[Mark Kermode]

And how much of it is true anyway?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

How many conversations have you been in that turn into slight debates and no one has the answer? And someone goes, okay, okay, let's solve this. Google's the question.

[Simon Mayo]

Google it.

[Rachel Hampton]

And then just.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And then just reads the very first result, which is. Which is an AI scraping of everything. That's. That's not even a source.

[Mark Kermode]

You know, one of the. One of the great AI hallucinations recently was there's this band, the Panic Brothers, that I absolutely love. They were kind of, you know, comic musical duo, and I gigged with them in the. Back in the 1980s in Edinburgh, and I was trying to find out if there was any record of the gigs, and I googled Mark Kermode, the Panic Brothers, and The AI thing came up first and it said, mark Kermode is a member of the Panic Brothers. No, I'm not. I mean, I'd love to have been a member of the Panic Brothers, but no, I'm not. There was two people in the Panic Brothers and neither of them were me.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is. That's the Internet. Go on my Wikipedia page. My name and age and place of birth are all wrong. I mean, that's just the beginning bit. That's the very first thing. You know, if that's. Yeah, that's what you're starting with. Anyway, God help us all. Let's get onto the greatest story ever told. What's still to come after the break?

[Guest/Producer]

Mark?

[Mark Kermode]

Still to come. Well, we will be looking at the chart. We will in the future be looking at Ride or Die, which is the TV show. But coming up in the not too distant future is the interview with Christopher Nolan and our review, because we've both seen it, of the Odyssey.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Can't wait. All right, keep it here and we'll see you in a sec.

[Simon Mayo]

Yeah. Mark, you remember that top secret business idea I had last year?

[Mark Kermode]

What, you mean credit flicks? The streaming service that only shows end credits? I've told you before.

[Simon Mayo]

No, no, it's not that.

[Mark Kermode]

Anyway, I'm not telling you now.

[Simon Mayo]

People are listening. Suffice to say, I'm ready to go to the market.

[Mark Kermode]

In that case, you're going to need Shopify. If you've been sitting on a business idea, Shopify makes it easy to bring it to life. Everything you need to start selling is included and ready from day go on. Well, it's simple for both you and the customer. From the moment your first one is ready to pay, Shopify checkout helps more of them finish their purchase. And when they come back, their details are already saved. One tap and they're done.

[Simon Mayo]

Well, that would be a weight off my mind. I could focus on growing the business. I could be ready to float on the stock market in a couple of years.

[Mark Kermode]

That's the spirit. Because Shopify handles the setup and checkout, you have more time to focus on growing your business and the tools to do it.

[Simon Mayo]

With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk take

[Mark Kermode]

Start your free trial at shopify dot co dot UK take.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

American express.

[Mark Kermode]

My los bro rewards. American express.

[Guest/Producer]

He finally got her.

[Rachel Hampton]

Oh my God, he got her. For years, a deranged man in Wichita known as the Poet stalked Ruth Finley. He sent her letters, gifts and poems. The Wichita police put everything they had into Ruth's case, but got nowhere.

[Guest/Producer]

The poet was always two steps in front of us, and we just didn't know why.

[Rachel Hampton]

And the city was already living in fear under the watch of another monster who called himself btk. And he also had a thing for poetry.

[Guest/Producer]

Could we really have two different people?

[Rachel Hampton]

But no one could have guessed how this would end.

[Guest/Producer]

That's one of those Hitchcock endings that we did not expect from Sony Music

[Rachel Hampton]

Entertainment and New Metric Media. This is the Poet. I'm Rachel Brown. The Poet is available now on the binge. Search for it wherever you get your podcast. To start listening today, subscribers to the binge can listen to all episodes all at once ad free.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Welcome back. Or if you are a patreon of Vanguardista. Of course we never went anywhere, right? Box office top 10 at number nine in the UK, 11 in the US is jackass best and last.

[Mark Kermode]

Where do you stand on Jackass, Ben?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I just, it's just not on my radar. Never saw the original, never saw any of the sequels. I don't know. It's not really my thing, I don't think.

[Mark Kermode]

No. Well, it's not really my thing. But of all of the Jackass movies, this is the one that I liked the most or disliked the least. And I do think that there is something interesting in it about male friendship. I can do without all the sick and poo. Yeah. Because I don't like sick or poo. But I think the male bonding stuff is actually quite nice.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Nice at number eight in the uk, nine in the us Disclosure day.

[Mark Kermode]

This is, as I said when I did it, it's, you know, it's a film made by a man in his 70s that looks like a film made by a man in the 70s. I mean, it is, it is. So much for throwback. I mean, it's a Spielberg movie and it's got some great things in it, but it is also very, very old fashioned. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, but I found the end kind of disappointing. Have you seen this?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I haven't.

[Guest/Producer]

Child.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

One film student extraordinaire has seen it. I mean, she watches everything. She was slightly disappointed by it as well. I think she went in like enjoying the nostalgic elements, but also felt that it, she. What she said was it felt a little bit tired. So I don't know. I have nothing to add because I've not seen it. But I was very excited until I got her review.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, a little bit tired. I think is fair. I mean, there are things in it that are great, but it is a little bit tired. And when you. And I think in the end you go, oh, okay, all right.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And that's not what you should get from a Spielberg movie. But there we go, another big blockbuster here. It's number seven here and in the US Supergirl.

[Mark Kermode]

We had a lot of emails about this last week because I saw it and thought that he's got a very good central performance and it's just a shame that the rest of the movie isn't anything like as good as the central performance. We had a lot of emails from people saying that they had enjoyed it more than I did. Obviously it had, you know, it hasn't set the box office alight. I, I know that a lot of people have been concerned that some of the really negative reactions to it have been, you know, the standard Boise thing about, oh, it's a girls movie, therefore we'll be rude about it. I mean, as I said, I think strong central performance, weak film. And it is always a shame if, if someone's doing really good work.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

You know, in the middle of it all. But the film itself is just not anything like as good as they need it to be. And that was how I felt.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

That's quite a frustrating experience, I find. I'll tell you what is doing well and refuses to leave. A film that's obsessed with the top ten, it seems at six in the uk, eight in the US is Obsession.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah. Ninth week of release and I mean the film cost nothing and it has made an absolute packet and it deserves to because it's a really, really smart horror movie. This came out kind of pretty much back to back with backrooms, but this is the one that stuck around because it's got, because it's about something. It's. It is genuinely really scary, but it's also satirical and it's got a really strong central theme as all the best horror does. And, and it's just, it's just going from strength to strength. I mean it is just holding on in there and good for it.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah. With, with like all these huge blockbusters on either side of it as well. It's pretty impressive.

[Mark Kermode]

I know, it's great.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

UK number five, US number six is

[Mark Kermode]

the Invite, which I enjoyed very much. And it's one of those kind of toe curling comedies. Two couples in a flat and the couple upstairs visit the couple downstairs and the whole thing turns into a socially excruciating nightmare. But I thought it was, it was well done. Very well played, very funny, very sharp. Has that kind of. You can listen to Simon's interview with the filmmakers. It's got that very kind of sharp old, old seventies Europe when, when people used to make adult comedies that didn't mean. Didn't mean something else. It meant grown up comedies about grown up issues as opposed to. Yeah, we had a long discussion about the fact that in America the word adult doesn't mean adults.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, I was listening and, and you know, I ended listening that to that section with a big smile on my face thinking, it's nice that we're still getting the odd proper grown up comedy out of the US Because I thought that was kind of dead in the water, Ben.

[Mark Kermode]

I think it was dead in the water. I think one of the things that's really interesting about the film is that it does not fit anywhere in the landscape of modern, you know, modern Hollywood production. It really doesn't. It sticks out like a sore thumb. So, you know, good for it.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah. And at number four here and over across the pond is Evil Dead Burn.

[Mark Kermode]

I hated Evil Dead Burn. I really didn't like it at all. And one of the things that's been quite interesting is under the. On our YouTube channel, people put, you know, comments underneath. And a couple of people really took issue with. They said, well, Mark Kermode said that Evil Dead was marketed as a comedy. No, it wasn't. Evil Dead wasn't a comedy. Evil Dead was a really terrifying movie. And it was a quote from Steven Spielberg saying, you know, most ferocious thing. Yeah, no, I know, I know all of that. But believe me, I also have interviewed Sam Raimi many, many times about it. Sam Raimi's phrase was the Evil Dead is a comedy. It's a Three Stooges comedy with blood and gut standing in for custard pies. You don't believe me. I've actually got the tape of him saying it. There's no question that the Evil Dead is a terrifying movie, but it's also a comedy. It is a terrifying horror comedy. That's what it set out to be. Yes, Evil Dead 2 made it more explicit, but it was there in Evil Dead one. So please stop lecturing me about things which you weren't around for when I was. Because I was there when the film first came out and I was there when the police impoundings happened. And I was there when the Snaresbrook trial happened. And I did do a massive amount of research into this. I will now get off my bike.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I love that. I love that. So, yeah, yeah, you leave him alone.

[Mark Kermode]

It's just like, for heaven's sake, you

[Ben Bailey Smith]

know, I hear you. Yeah, I hear you. And. And actually, we've got an interesting back and forth here at three and two in terms of franchises, haven't we? Because at number three in the UK, two in the US is Minions and Monsters, and at number two, three in the US is Toy Story 5. So two animated franchises doing very different things for you, I feel.

[Guest/Producer]

Yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

Toy Story 5 I found very disappointing, actually, quite dispiriting, having been, you know, having so much invested in Toy Story, Minions and Monsters, I just think is fantastic. And yes, there's loads and loads of silly, literate jokes and somebody had written in a thing which is, you know, Minions and Monsters. It's got a whole bunch of jokes about silent cinema. Mark Kermit is going to explode. But it's just. I mean, it's. Have you seen it, Ben?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I haven't. I haven't.

[Mark Kermode]

I mean, you need to.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Honestly, I was genuinely surprised when I heard your review.

[Mark Kermode]

Why surprise?

[Guest/Producer]

Because.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Because I know you're a big Minions fan and I think you've probably gone easy on a couple of Minions related works in the. In the past. And when I saw this coming out and I heard the interview with the. The director saying he didn't want to do any Minions films, I thought. I feared for this film. And then I heard your review and Simon's interview and how infused Simon was about it, I thought, oh, my God, this actually sounds like it could be one of the best Minions films. So I am definitely going to watch it.

[Mark Kermode]

I didn't.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I had very low expectations.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, well, believe me, I. It's.

[Simon Mayo]

It's.

[Mark Kermode]

It's a laugh a minute and it's. And it's a film made by somebody who loves cinema, and it is a love letter to cinema. And the Minions are the great slapstick, you know, tradition of the present. And if you. If. If, like me, you grew up loving Keaton and Lloyd and Jackson and all that stuff. Yeah. Then, honestly, Ben, I'd love. I'd love to know what you think about it, because I laughed like an idiot the whole way through. As did Simon. As did Simon. And we've.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I think it was Simon who said it was like airplane levels of jokes.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Like, it is that many jokes, which really is airplane level of jokes with Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, slapstick. I mean, that is.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

That's just poetry in motion for me. Toy Story 5, not so much, but at the UK, number one and us, number one another former animation. That's a bit of an animation anyway, the live action Disney Moana.

[Mark Kermode]

So an interesting thing about this, which was I thought that of all the. I mean I do think that all the live action remakes are pointless. And when, when I reviewed the film and Simon interviewed the director, I said, okay, look, if you assume that all the live actions are pointless, of all of them, this is, this is my favorite one. Partly because I just love Moana. I love the songs, I love the story, I love the characters. I love the fact that Dwayne Johnson animated and Dwayne Johnson real life, basically the same thing. But it's, it's had really, really hostile reviews. Although it's number one, it has under performed spectacularly and the trades are now saying that it' course to lose a huge amount of money and they're wondering whether this is the point at which the. The live action remake bubble burst. I mean it won't be. But I think it's kind of interesting that a lot of people were saying, I mean, because obviously, I mean, I hadn't heard any reviews of it, but when, you know, when I reviewed it, I. I just thought of all of them. It's like, okay, fine, I, I find Moana impossible to dislike. Of course it doesn't add anything to the animation. Of course it's not as good as the animation. Of course we don't need it because the animation was pretty much perfect. But if you're going to have it, this is the one that mithered me the least. And whilst watching it, because of the story and the characters and the songs and all the rest of it, I found myself laughing, I found myself crying, I found myself being moved. And I was sitting on the south bank just before going into NFT1 to do MK3D on Monday and a woman stopped me and said, oh, I just want to say I went to see Moana and I thought same as you did, was it was perfectly fine, you know, and that was.

[Simon Mayo]

And.

[Mark Kermode]

But I. There's so much negativity about it.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I mean, yeah, I mean, have not

[Mark Kermode]

been good at all to give, to

[Ben Bailey Smith]

give a young person perspective. My two daughters who are 21 and 18, both boycotted it because Moana means so much to them. The original film, like if you think of their ages. And when Moana came out, I mean, I had to take them to see that film numerous times and then of course buy the DVD and the toys and everything. So it's for them is a real emotional connection to the original.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And they've been getting angry and angry about all these live remake, live action remakes, and they feel a little bit like they're, they're, they're jackassing all over the legacy, you know?

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, well, look, I mean, I completely understand that because my principal thing is you don't need to do any of these things because the animations, of course, need to be rebounded.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

But this is the best of a bad bunch. Is your.

[Mark Kermode]

It was the one that mithered me the least. And it's interesting that actually it's the one that's had the roughest ride. And it may just be that's fatigue. It may just be that people have got fed up. And it may be exactly what you just said, that people Moana means so much to people that you just don't mess around with it. I mean, if somebody said to me, well, how would you feel if somebody remade your favorite movie? Immediately, immediately my hackles are up. So I do understand it. I do absolutely understand it.

[Rachel Hampton]

Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Kieran has had a pretty intense reaction to it as well. Says, I always wondered what it would take for me to walk out on a film. Well, the day has finally arrived. I tried watching the live action Moana, and after reaching the halfway mark, decided I'd seen enough and left. I always thought I'd walk out if a film angered or upset me. Instead, I just found myself thinking, I know where this is going. I've seen it already. Why don't I just go and do something else? It felt like pausing a YouTube video and closing the tab. Except with £10 I'm never getting back. There's nothing left to say or feel about these live action remakes. They're not art from Kieran. I mean, that's quite strong. I think everything is art, but.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah, yeah, but, you know, like I said, I do get it, and I do. I mean, I'm not trying to be perverse by me saying, you know, of all of them, it's the one that I did I dislike the least or, like, the most, because it just, it's the one that, when I was watching it, you know, I, I had the least problem with. But I think it's because, and I. The comparison I made was with, like, Mamma Mia. Those ABBA songs are indestructible. You can do what you want to them. You can have Pierce Brosnan murdering the song, but it's still an ABBA song, you know.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very true. And, and, and, and, and for the sake of, of parity, I Should say we've got just as many pieces of correspondence that are positive about Moana as well. There's one here, actually, from a head teacher called Daniel Woodrow, who says the Dear Heihei and Pua I've emailed before, once in your previous incarnation when you read out an Ofsted report I'd written. I actually remember that. And Simon very kindly awarded me a pay rise on air that our governor sadly declined to implement. I actually remember listening to that. You may have seen the recent story about Dwayne the Rock Johnson surprising a UK primary school with a cinema screening at the new Moana. Well, that was us. Last Friday, 200 pupils plus 500 friends and family took over all nine screens of a local cinema. Wow. The children were treated like VIPs, with photos on arrival and every seat stacked stocked with popcorn, sweets, drinks, Moana cupcakes and signed posters. Dwayne also recorded a personal message that played before the film. It was truly magical. The week before, we took 60 children to the Moana Experience in London, where they met Dwayne, Catherine Lagaya, Auli Cravalho and Thomas Kyle. The children didn't even know that they were going to London. Duane was as warm and generous as you'd hope. He filmed a video with the children and kindly told me we were two big, bald, beautiful men. As for the film, I loved it, particularly the heightened emotional pull of Moana and Grammatala. The children will never forget the day Dwayne Johnson took us to the pictures. Best wishes, Daniel Woodrow, head teacher. I mean, very good. You think about what you know about the rock and then you think about just your kind of ingrained opinion about the rock, you know, based on the fact you've never met him. This sort of ties into all of those things for me. You can just imagine him doing it.

[Mark Kermode]

He just seems like a stand up guy.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Seems like a stand up guy.

[Mark Kermode]

Absolutely. Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Celebrating baldness as well. Love that little touch. Fantastic.

[Mark Kermode]

Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

All right, we're gonna go into another break now, but when we come back, it's gonna be Simon's brilliant interview with Sir Christopher Nolan. Okay. Our guest this week is legendary director Sir Christopher Nolan. He spent much of his career exploring the limits of cinema. As you'll know, from the future in Interstellar all the way back to history in Dunkirk. And now he's turned his hand to something even older. Greek myth. His new film, the Odyssey, adapts Homer's epic tale of Odysseus. Long journey home after war. It's a story of monsters, gods, no minions, and the consequences of his own choices. Nolan has described it as foundational, a story that contains all others. And you can hear Simon's conversation with him after this clip.

[Mark Kermode]

Tell me what you remember.

[Guest/Producer]

What?

[Rachel Hampton]

Wife,

[Simon Mayo]

A son.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And then what? We won the war. Help me go home.

[Rachel Hampton]

This is a household waiting for Master. I want you to choose me. Ithaca's king is coming back.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

No, he's not.

[Simon Mayo]

And that is a clip from the Odyssey. I'm delighted to say we've been joined once again by Sir Christopher Nolan. Sir Christopher, how are you?

[Guest/Producer]

I'm good, thanks. How are you doing?

[Simon Mayo]

I'm very good and thrilled to be talking to you again. Thoroughly enjoyed the weekend, mainly because I got to see your film. So how long after Oppenheimer did you settle on doing the Odyssey?

[Guest/Producer]

It's a world that I've been interested in for a long time. About 20 years ago, I was briefly attached to direct Troi at Warner Brothers, the David Benioff script based on the Iliad. And even though it's the Iliad, he had included the Trojan horse. So I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted to portray that, how to bring that to a modern audience, how to make that sort of fresh, incredible. And I came up with this idea of seeing this horse half buried in the sand, about to be swept away by the waves, and I got very excited about that. And it sort of stayed with me for about 20 years. And coming out of Oppenheimer, which succeeded far beyond that expectations, I mean, frankly, it was a great thrill, and it gave me an opportunity. You know, when you've had a success like that for a studio, you have an opportunity to make something you wouldn't otherwise get to make. And so to take on, you know, not just that ancient world, but also the Odyssey, that kind of original, foundational story that so many of us know and love and do it on a grand scale in a way that's never been done before, that's an opportunity that's just wonderful for a filmmaker.

[Simon Mayo]

Can you explain just a bit more about it being foundational? I mean, you've said that this contains all stories, which sounds as though it's quite scary for a filmmaker, but just explain just a little bit about that significance.

[Guest/Producer]

Actually, not so much scary as familiar. I mean, you find these stories within the poem, like old friends, you know, And I look at my previous work, like Interstellar, and realize how much that story drew from the Odyssey or the Dark Knight trilogy draws so much from the Odyssey. It's a tale that is deceptively Simple. It has a beautiful structure, nonlinear structure, the kind of structure I love. It's about stories within stories, flashbacks within flashbacks. But it's the story of Odysseus coming home from the Trojan Wars. It's this homecoming story. And that's a narrative I've been interested in for many years, as a lot of us have. It's very relatable, but it's also a coming of age story. Tom Holland's character of Telemachus is coming of age. The absence of this father that he barely remembers, if at all. And you have the character of Penelope at home, trying to keep things together in ithaca, waiting for 20 years for Odysseus to come back. So it's a love story as well, and it's a war story and so many different things. There are elements of fantasy and. And harsh reality to do with love and death and loss. So there's really a lot in there. But the story's incredibly cohesive and, I think very cinematic. When I came to look at the original text again and really burrow in on the specifics of the epic poem, I found amazing cinematic payoffs. I mean, just gold to a filmmaker. There's just so much in there and shockingly, it hangs together with all of that. And so, you know, for me in adapting it, and I love the process of adaptation, it's really a fun thing to take a different kind of text. Like in the case of Oppenheimer, I was working from a 700 page, very academic book about the life of Oppenheimer. And I'm trying to find the movie in that and with this very different kind of challenge. But it was a process of reading it again and again and again and really internalizing it and then sitting down and just trying to make the cinematic narrative that it. That it needed to be.

[Simon Mayo]

And at what stage in that, in the writing process and in the adaptation process, as you're working your way through the different translations, did Matt Damon occur to you as the perfect choice?

[Guest/Producer]

Not until I was finished. And the reason is, part of my writing process is to not ever think about actors while I'm writing. And I do that because if you think of an actor whose work you know or you've even worked with before, you're gonna limit the character to what you've seen them do before. Not intentionally, but you're just gonna write to them and what they've already done. And what I wanna do is write a character who's true to the needs of the story. And that I discover through the writing that I can then give to a great actor like Matt that hopefully challenges them and asks them to do something they haven't done before. And I worked twice with Matt and I know what an incredible actor. We all know what an incredible movie star he is as well. And Odysseus is a very, very complicated character, very complex. Not your traditional leading man, more of a supporting character. You know, I like to say if we're looking at Star wars, you know, Odysseus is Han Solo. He's not Luke Skywalker, he's not a simple hero. He's a wily. Wily is the adjective most commonly associated with Odysseus. He's a wily character and that's not normally what you hear. And so I needed an actor who could open that up to an audience without compromising the layers, without simplifying the character. But Matt has this wonderful empathetic ability to just open a character's dilemma to an audience and carry them with him on his journey. And never, never needed as much as on the Odyssey.

[Simon Mayo]

In the original story, the gods, Zeus and co. Are part of the story. Was there any part of you that wondered about having the gods in there or was that just not really feasible?

[Guest/Producer]

Well, no, I looked at it. There's so many different ways to approach this. You know, I'm a big fan of Ray Harryhausen. I love Clash of the Titans when I was a kid where he has, you know, Lawrence of Olivier and Maggie Smith kind of arguing and moving characters around like chess pieces as the gods. But what I found in the poem is two possible approaches. Yes, there's the approach where the gods are squabbling over humans and living in their own world. But it also presents this very, very resonant idea of the gods walking amongst us. And it relates it to the concept of Xenia. And Xenia is the idea of Zeus's law, as we refer to it in the film. It's this idea that in ancient times when you left the house, you were at the mercy of strangers completely. And so there was this code that said, treat others as you would be treated because they might be gods in disguise. And so in that way I got interested in the idea of viewing the gods the way that the characters would have viewed them. And that is there in the text. And so Athena, for example, is appearing to Odysseus in the guise of other beings, sometimes other characters. And so this idea of portraying the gods as they walk amongst us or amongst those characters has great thematic resonance for something that became very important to the Adaptation. It's there in the poem and it coincides with this other interest that I had in the world of the film, which was to turn around and say, in a pre scientific era, everything in the world, the sun rising in the morning, the tide coming in, the wind blowing, that's all absolute evidence, clear evidence of divinity around these characters. So they're living amongst the gods. It's not a question of belief. That's the world they're in. And so those two things together felt like something that we could get across very strongly, cinematically and keep us in the mindset, the character. It wasn't really about tone overall, because we embraced the fantasy elements of the poem. We certainly do. So really, for me, it was more about trying to experience these gods the way people would have back in the Bronze Age. That felt like it would be more powerful and more relatable for your score.

[Simon Mayo]

What were your words to Ludwig Goransson? What did you want from him?

[Guest/Producer]

Well, I went to Ludwig and I worked with Ludwig in a way that because I don't use temp music when I'm editing the film, I want to use his music, bespoke music. So I always started working before I actually shoot the film. So I show him the script, and in the case of the Odyssey, I said, look, I've examined this poem, I've adapted this poem. I find it to be earthy and grounded and accessible. So I'm casting and I'm talking to the actors and we're talking about doing this not in the style of a Hollywood movie from the 50s and 60s. So, for example, the actors aren't going to speak with sort of mid Atlantic or British accents arbitrarily, things like that. We're sort of taking the references to kind of 19th century art that permeated those Hollywood movies. We're ignoring all that. We're trying to go back to archaeological sources, go back to a more accessible version of what this could be. So when we look at the music, surely that means we shouldn't embrace the 19th century romantic tradition in music that really is the foundation of modern film schools. Even, you know, this sort of Ragmaninoff meets Wagner kind of thing that drives most of our films. And Ludwig loved that. He's like, yeah, let's take the orchestra off the table and then look for different approaches. And what he started doing was saying, okay, it's the Bronze Age. Let's look at instruments made of bronze. Is there somebody who can play the aulos, this twin flute instrument, or the lyre, this stringed instrument that we see illustrated on pottery that was in existence thousands of years ago. And he started to put together this incredible soundscape and this incredible way of approaching a score that did not come from this sort of 19th century tradition.

[Simon Mayo]

A few years ago, when you were on Desert Island Discs, you chose Vangelis score for Chariots of Fire. And the phrase you used for it was nostalgia for the future. Is there any element of that in the score for this film?

[Guest/Producer]

Yeah, definitely. And thank you for noticing that phrase. I was pleased with the time.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, it.

[Guest/Producer]

It definitely. He, you know, he's taking the most ancient instrument, the owos, and he's having a player express the emotions of the character with that. And then he's underpinning it with the 808 drum machine from the 1980s, you know, and then he's sampling all kinds of sound effects, you know, with the synthesizer and making these extraordinary soundscapes from it, not unlike some of what, you know, Vangelis was doing back then. And I think what Ludwig embraces in that is this idea of timelessness. And the thing about something being timeless, the thing about synthesized scores, is they can create voices you've never heard before. And what Ludwig has in here is his ancient voices you've never heard before. And then he has absolutely modern voices you've never heard before. And so, yeah, you're creating this emotional feeling, this emotional landscape of the characters and this incredible soundscape that's, I think, timeless, really.

[Simon Mayo]

If we're talking about the music, you have a bard, Travis Scott, who's there? What was your. Because obviously this story was passed on orally for so many generations. What were you hoping for there?

[Guest/Producer]

I'd worked with Travis on Tenet. He worked with myself and Ludwig, contributing to the score and in particular, a song for the end of that film. And as I was analyzing the poem and I was analyzing particularly the element of how these stories are handed down. So for about the last hundred years or so, the academic community believes that oral, formulaic poetry, one bard singing a song, another bard growing up, listening to it, making his own, adding to it that is the way that the Odyssey is thought to have been handed down to Homer, who then wrote it down. That's the current theory. But the academics, when they talk about it even to this day, they'll relate to Yugoslav folk poetry that was recorded in the 1920s and things like that. And to me, it seems stunningly obvious that we actually have a much closer analog for that. You know, we literally have bards of our own. We have Rappers who use language in a very, very similar way to the way that the academics believe, you know, this, this story may have evolved. And so it felt very apt to go to Travis and say, look, let's have this character of the Bard. Let's embrace this element of what lies behind the Odyssey and try and approach it in a different way.

[Simon Mayo]

Final question. Listening to an interview with Matt Damon talking about this film, he said a few years ago he would have been complaining about being uncomfortable, but he said, every day I felt joyful on the set. And he, I haven't heard any actor use that word before when talking about how he was on set every day. Almost like setting an example for all the other actors. Was it? Is joyful a word that you would use for making this film?

[Guest/Producer]

Yeah, I would. And Matt inspired a lot of that in people. And I think Matt and I, you know, we're the same age. He's been doing this longer than I have, but. But we both got some years under our belts. And I think when you start out facing difficulties in making large scale films, that can be frustrating, it can be overwhelming. You deal with it a lot in negative ways. When you've been doing this for a while, you start to realize, frankly how damn lucky you are to be doing what you're doing. You start to really count your blessings a bit more. And I think what I saw in Matt is every challenge that we presented him with, you know, he was realizing that's an opportunity for problem solving. He's just doing what he loves, what he was born to do. And I feel the same way. And so, yeah, I think he certainly inspired in me a feeling of like, yes, it's difficult, but it's supposed to be difficult. We're making the Odyssey, it's meant to be hard. And how lucky are we that we get to experience those difficulties and try and sort of find a way through? I mean, it sounds a bit Pollyanna ish, but I mean, it's a very strong feeling coming from your leading man when you're putting him through everything we were putting him through. And he's accepting it with good grace and trying to really use it to fuel an incredible performance. I mean, I just love what he's done with Odysseus. And I think he could only have done it now at this point he's right where he needed to be to find the truth of this complex, weary, middle aged character.

[Simon Mayo]

Well, it's such a wonderful film to experience. In fact, it's like an experience of total immersion. We're all on the boat, we're all in the sea, we're all in the cave. And I don't think I've ever thought in a film ever. I don't think Poseidon is going to be very pleased with what you've just done. So anyway, so that's where I was.

[Mark Kermode]

Chris Dungan, thank you so much, much

[Simon Mayo]

for talking to us.

[Guest/Producer]

Thank you very much.

[Mark Kermode]

Wow, great interview.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Great interview. I, I can't believe that he referenced rap music. I'm, I'm, I'm really impressed by that. That's great. That rap had some say in, in the production of, of that movie. You know, it's, it's one of those art forms that always takes a, it's always takes a bit of a beating in terms of like levels of intelligence that people even think it has or hasn't. So Lovely, lovely to hear why Travis Scott pops up at the beginning and the end of the Odyssey. Yeah, quite an experience. What did you make of it?

[Mark Kermode]

Okay, well, look, I think we'll go long on this, Ben. We've both seen good, so there's much to be said. So. Okay, the, the first thing to say is that it's, it's the first film to be shot entirely on imax. First feature film to be shot entirely on IMAX film cameras. It's a long standing dream of Nolan's. He did individual IMAX sequences and the Dark Knight and wanted to do a whole movie. He said, in fact he'd wanted to do it since he saw IMAX at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago at the age of 16 and thought, wow, one day I'd love to make a movie doing that. And in order to do it, they had to develop this, this blimping system to make the IMAX cameras, which sound like a lawnmower, apparently to make them quieter. And then you have to change the film cartridge every three minutes. So it's a really complicated, difficult thing to do. It's also one of the most expensive R rated movies ever made. R rated in America, 15 rated over here. Bear in mind, however, that Oppenheimer was also R rated and you know, went on to do nearly a billion. But I mean it's, it is a, the sweet spot usually if you're spending $250 million is PG 13 in America 12A here. This isn't that it's 15 and are so a lot of risks being taken. Also a bit of history. The Odyssey, the story of the Odyssey on film is as old as film itself. I mean there's A melier's short from 1905 that's inspired by the Odyssey. There's an Italian odyssey, I think 1911. There's, you know, the Robert Wise film in the 1950s. There's the Ulysses with Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. There's Ralph Fiennes in the Return recently. I mean, the story in all its many different formats has been with cinema as long as cinema has been around. All very, very different films, all drawing on similar source material. Nolan in that interview says, well, it's foundational. It's a foundational story. And that he himself could see echo in the Dark Knight trilogy in Interstellar. He says it's a coming home story, it's a coming of age story, it's a love story, it's a war story, it's a story of death and loss and fantasy and reality. And also this thing about him being attached to the David Benioff's script for Troy, which is the weirdest thing because that's got the Trojan Horse in it. And then he talks about obsessing about the Trojan Horse since then, of course, that movie ended up being not very good. And I think it was a bit of a bullet dodged, frankly, because we had Christopher Nolan done Troy, then he would now be doing this. It is impossible to imagine the Trojan horse that Chris Nolan, Christopher Nolan, Sir Christopher Nolan, conjures for this film having any place in a film like Troy. Because of course, traditionally the image of the Trojan horse is the kind of, you know, it's almost the light hearted, beware gift bearing Greeks thing.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, Picture four wheels on it.

[Mark Kermode]

Four wheels on it. Also picture the giant wooden rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know, that's what. But this is the Trojan Horse story seen from inside. And it is, it's not, it's. It's a source of pure horror. Half buried in the sand, as he said. That image is really arresting. About to be swept away by the waves. And in fact, that the Trojan Horse story as we see it here is closer to that sequence, which you'll remember in Dunkirk when they're in the hull of the ship taking fire than it is to any sort of sword and sandal epic. And also contextually, as with Inception, which Nolan pretty much got to make because the Dark Knight had done so well. Interesting that he said here that this came into being because Oppenheimer, which looked on paper like an arthouse project, was so massive and was one half of Barbenheimer, the biggest box office bonanza of EVs. And then he's using that to go, fine, well, now I'm going to. Now I'm going to make this. So he's now making this grant foundational story on a scale that hasn't been done before because it wasn't possible. He said in that interview that this is a version in which the gods, they walk amongst us, in which they incarnate in our treatment of others. Because that thing about, you know, be kind to strangers because you never know whether they might be, you know, a God in disguise and indeed one of the main characters. I'm going to try to sort of dance a little bit around spoilers here, but one of the main characters who is a vision of a God, Their appearance, as we discover, is in fact very, very earthly and is rooted in something which our hero has experienced. And I think in many ways, I don't know whether you agree with this. I think in many ways it's a film about post traumatic stress disorder. I mean, it's a film about somebody who goes to war and whose apparently heroic endeavors leave him feeling so removed from heroism that he cannot go home. And instead, I mean, that, of course, is the kind of core of the story, instead becomes this kind of, you know, lotus eater and somebody who's just retreated into themself. And it's also, and I think you can say this in the same way as Oppenheimer is, and arguably so is in some way deception. It's a film about guilt. It's a film about facing up to, you know, the Oppenheimer thing. You know, my God, what we do. It is a film about facing up to what you have done. It's. It is a film about somebody who on another level has become death, destroyer of worlds. And if there are gods in this story, they're the elements, they're the storms, they're the, you know, there's, as Christopher Nolan was saying in that interview, it's. That's how you would experience it. So it's doing a really interesting thing with the story. And, and it's turning the kind of idea of heroism on its head. Does, and the question then is, is, does it pull it off? Now? I would like you to kind of to, to, to just jump in whenever you agree or disagree. Okay.

[Guest/Producer]

Okay.

[Mark Kermode]

So here's my feeling. I saw it.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

If, if we can rewind slightly, then go ahead. I would just add. To. When you were talking about themes, I would add Imperial hubris as a theme because, you know, just before I watched this movie, I just finished reading this incredible book. Probably one of the most exciting books I've ever read in my life. It's called the Wager by David Grant. He also wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, which got turned into a movie, as I'm sure all our listeners know. And the Wager is about. True story. So this is a historical, historical fact. It's about a. A naval fleet that was sent, Sent out from the UK to ambush a Spanish Armada off the coast of Chile in the, in the late 18th century. And the, this British fleet was sent out there to a place they'd never been. Never worked out how to get that far. Really, really dangerous part of the world in terms of the way the sea behaves. But the British fleet was sent off because, hey, of course we're gonna do this. You know, we'll, we'll get down there, we'll. We'll kick the Spanish in the butts, we'll steal all their treasure, nip back. Job's a good un. Of course, Job is not. Yeah, Job is not a good un. And what it unfolds appears to be, even though this is all historical fact, you read the book thinking this is punishment for eating. Eating the cattle, you know, don't kill the cattle. And it, it felt like the perfect setup for watching a movie like this, I think. So I would just add imperial hubris, because the way that Odysseus behaves is not. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. He is a king. He's a lesser king because it's Ithaca, it's not the whole of Greece, it's a small island, but he is a king and he, he has a mini empire of his own. And when you are a king and you have people following your every decision, hubris can be a thing that gets hold of you. In fact, I think hubris is an ancient Greek word, now that I say it, if I, if I can remember my Mark Forsyth well enough. And so I was well prepped for this film and I was worried. I was saying to the redactor, sometimes I think of Nolan a little bit like a football manager called Pep Guardiola, who is widely accepted, is possibly the greatest football manager operating today, one of the best in the world. But sometimes with really, really big games, he sort of overthinks it, over intellectualizes.

[Mark Kermode]

Okay, okay.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And the game becomes a bit of a mess and hard to follow. I'm thinking of tenet here. I think. I genuinely think the Odyssey is the most accessible Christopher Nolan film that he's made. I. I cannot wait to watch it again. I watched it with Robbie Colin in the imax. And he was watching for the second time. And I want to take the whole family anyway. So thematically, I just wanted to go back.

[Mark Kermode]

No, no, no. Great. Okay, so now. So here's my experience of watching it. And I've seen it once. I saw it in imax. I saw it at the BFI IMAX in Waterloo. And the first thing I would say is see the film in im. I have a. I have a friend who saw it in a different format and they felt that they were missing something. Crucially, see it in imax. That is how it was designed. So here's what I thought as I was watching it, okay? And feel free to agree or disagree with any of this. I thought it started poorly. I thought it started in somewhat plodding fashion. Stories within stories, yes, but an awful lot of front loading. An awful lot of setting up and establishing. And it felt at the beginning to me like a trudge. Ponderous, a little clumsy. I mean, yes, it's got the Nolan timeshift stuff, but it felt less interesting than before. So at the beginning, I had a slightly heavy heart. It was a massive image, and it felt like a massive, lumbering thing. Then it moves into. And because Christopher Nolan's got such admiration for Ray Harryhausen, I have no problem in saying into Ray Harryhausen issue territory. And it really finds its feet when you get into the cave and. And the. And you have the encounter with the Cyclops. Okay, again, this isn't a plot sport. Everybody knows that. That's in the film. But that scene is brilliant. That scene is you. You look at it and you think that's actually there. That's actually there in front of me. And I have no idea how they. I mean, it's. I'm partly. Your brain is going puppet.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I don't know.

[Mark Kermode]

You know, I don't. But it's there. And I believe that I'm in that cave because it's so massive and that that is actually happening. I thought that sequence was breathtaking.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Same. It triggered a core fearful memory for me, which is that when I first started reading on my own, you know, and you sort of moved on from your parents reading you stories, and you start reading chapter books. I started with Roald Dahl, like a lot of people. And I must have been about seven or eight, and I was reading the bfg and that concept that he instills at the beginning, that if you're still awake at a certain time, this huge hand is gonna swoop in and grab you. That absolutely terrified me. As a. As a kid. So when that big hand came sweeping down in the cave. Absolutely. It was the second big gasp moment. I think I had a gasp moment before you. I understand what you say about the opening of the film, but two things really worked for me within that period. One, I didn't look up who was in this film. I genuinely didn't know. So as each face appeared, I was

[Mark Kermode]

like, oh, right, you're going, okay.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Oh, my God. Wow. Like, it is star laden and it feels like everybody's really grafted Sting. So I had that little thing to sort of keep me going in that section. And then it was the. The sight of the horse. I, I literally, the first time you

[Mark Kermode]

see the horse, that is.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I had a little gasp.

[Mark Kermode]

So, no, no, of course. I think that is the. No, that is absolutely defining image. So that sequence, as I said, I grew up on Harryhausen and it was like, as somebody who, you know, I grew up watching stop motion and then I was never that impressed by CG a lot of the time. And I was just. Couldn't believe my eyes. It was just like, I. This is astonishing. This is astonishingly good. And then I thought it lost its mojo a little bit again. And I became quite conscious of the fact that I think it's 2. At 2 hours 50. I'll be honest, I think it's 25, 30 minutes too long. But then again, it's like, yeah, which 30 minutes you're going to lose. I'm sure that you know that. And then Samantha Morton turns up and the whole.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Oh, my God.

[Mark Kermode]

Now, here's my contention. That entire sequence when Samantha Morton is on screen, the whole film goes into a different level. And the reason is this. Firstly, it had me thinking of Brian Yuzner's Society, which is one of the kind of foundational texts for a horror fan like me, you know, because Society is a film in which this sort of fleshy shunting reveals the rich to be this bestial, you know, the true nature of the rich. And in the case of this, everything, everything about the scene from the minute that Sam. And what I also don't want to do is I know people may know this, but I don't want to say who Sam Morton is playing, because one of the things that the film does is it kind of reveals identity slowly. And I'm very glad that I saw it having not known exactly where we were. But that sequence, the rhythm of it, the tenor of it, the nature of it is it felt like the whole movie was suddenly elevated to this level. Of dreamy wonderment. And it's really interesting because there is. I mean, one of the things about the story is maybe the whole thing doesn't happen. I mean, any sort of Soul Survivor narrative is. Well, maybe the whole thing doesn't happen. I mean, maybe the whole thing is playing out in somebody's conflicted head. But in that sequence, firstly, sor. Samantha Morton. I'm sorry, if she doesn't win an Oscar, I will eat my hat in Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe Manor. It's that performance. I mean, she's brilliant. She's always been brilliant. She walks on water as far as concerned. But the level of it. And I came out of the film and I texted a friend of mine, said two words, Samantha Morton.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Kermode]

And it was just like sonic. And then. So I subsequently read an interview with Christopher Nolan, who said he's only ever seen the cast, seen the crew applaud on set twice. And the first time was Heath Ledger doing the Joker and the second time was Samantha Morton in this.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

No, that doesn't surprise me. That whole sequencer cameos, that is beyond.

[Mark Kermode]

It's not. It's not a cameo, Ben.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

It's not. No, it's not really. But I mean, in, in. In terms of. If you think about it in terms of that, that movie's three hours long.

[Guest/Producer]

Yeah, no, no, I know.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

It's like it's not enough Samantha Morton. And I'll tell you something else. If you go back to the original poem, Odysseus actually ends up spending a year with her with that character.

[Mark Kermode]

I know, I know.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And I could have spent a year with Samantha Morton.

[Mark Kermode]

But everything about the rhythm of the film, everything about the feel of the film. I'm going to invoke the Exorcist. I'm sorry. There is a sequence in the Exorcist in which Karris is asleep and there's a 45 second dream sequence, which is almost the most powerful thing in the whole film because it's the. Which the film seems to turn into like a magical incantation. It slips into something else. And I felt that the entire sequence when Samantha Morton is on screen was that, okay. And then it sort of comes down again a little bit, and then it comes to the final act, which is about 40 minutes, which is so good and so romping that at the end of it, and does so much stuff about tying the themes together and overturning things, you know, and explaining to some extent why we've had this stuff that you forget just how much at the beginning it was on uncertain ground. Now I will concede this, seeing things the first time quite often it's because you don't know the arc of the film. It may well be different the second time round.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, true.

[Mark Kermode]

But I came out of it thinking okay on a performance. I mean, Matt Damon is surprisingly good in the lead. I mean, I was surprised when I heard that he was that piece of casting. And then you go, oh no, that's perfectly. Yes, of course. I think he's absolutely right. He's absolutely right. And that thing that he said about. He's not, you know, he's not Skywalker, he's Han Solo. Anne Hathaway knocked it out the park. I mean, just, you know, a terrific performance and that. And the thing about the empty throne, which isn't empty, which, you know.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

No, I think it's so hard, it's so hard to be in a film of that size playing a part of Anne Hathaway's character's size. Because Penelope, I mean the, it's the idea that she keeps alive. Just like in the poem. The idea of Penelope is important even though she doesn't feature all the way through. And Anne Hathaway is so strong in this movie that you are constantly thinking about the, the few words that she told you 45 minutes ago.

[Simon Mayo]

Yeah.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

You know, because there's such a huge part of it. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I thought she was unreal. Everyone brought their A game. Matt. Matt is a really interesting choice I think because when I think about him as a jewel, not just the Jason Bourne, I'm a hero. Like a bit more of a, a complexity to him. I think of the Departed, you know, know and evil. Matt Damon is good, is good Matt Damon because it's, it's like he's the guy, he's such a hero. In, in your eyes, your understanding of Matt Damon outside of.

[Mark Kermode]

But he also looks, he looks genuinely haggard.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Absolutely.

[Mark Kermode]

He does. He looks genuinely haggard and that's what you need.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

He looks genuinely old enough to be Tom Holland's dad's great, you know. Yeah, he looks, looks ripped but tired. Great. You know, that's, that's what you'd expect from a middle aged king in that time. He, they, they did all their, their own dirty work. So physically he looked, he just looked right for it. But again, you know, to go back to the original text, Odysseus, he's, he's. I don't know if he's a hero or an anti hero. Maybe he's neither. But he things are happening to him. And there are decisions that he could make that could make things a lot better that he chooses not to take. And there are other decisions he makes that are just downright foolhardy and, and, and dangerous. You know, so he's a. He's a very complicated guy. And they actually keep out some of the nastier elements from the poem don't appear in the film because maybe that would make us lose him as a hero altogether, I don't know. But, you know, the text is there for everyone to see.

[Mark Kermode]

I think that, I think the casting across the board is, you know, is great. I mean, I think it's, you know, the cast are all Charlize Thrawn. I mean, it's just like you just go, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got access to absolutely everybody that you need and you've got that. So look, in summary, this is my thing and I'd like you now to summarize as well. My feeling is on the first viewing, firstly, you have to see it. You have to see it in imax. Secondly, I think it's half an hour too long. Thirdly, I think, as is within the nature of the story, it is episodic and some episodes are better than others. But I think that when it gets the things that it, that it's about when they, when they're there, it is really fantastic. I think that there are some action or adventure or fantasy sequences that are. I've never seen the likes of before. And I think that every single moment that Samantha Morton is on screen, I think that sequence is one of the best sequences I've experienced in the cinema. And at the end, the end of the film is so. Is so powerful that you're inclined to forget anything that was wrong. So not perfect by any means, but so much in there that is astonishing. And of course, bottom line, everybody needs to go and see it and everybody needs to go see it in imax. Give me your summation.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I would say as a non film critic, just as an audience member, for me, like, you are gonna have a great time in the cinema. I can just guarantee that, that it's. This story is like the original story. It's this and the Bible, like, then it's all literature that you've ever heard of. Okay? Like, it's one of the first two stories and it's when you go, you sit, you sit down, watch it and you're like, oh, I almost feel like I've seen this before. Because you have. It's like the template for the hero's journey. Right. It is Star wars, it is all of these things. And from just a pure entertainment popcorn point of view, you're going to have a great time watching this film. I think it's his most accessible film that he's, he's made out of, out of all of his movies. Whether that's the best or not. That that's arguable. But I, I just couldn't recommend this enough as an, as a night out even, you know, film criticism aside.

[Rachel Hampton]

Sure.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

So there you go, the Odyssey and, and you can sign up on Patreon to hear Mark pick his top Greek myth movies in our feature. That gives you some suggestions for thematic extending viewing one frame back now. Epic movie, epic review, epic discussion.

[Mark Kermode]

So there's me saying the film was too long and I'll just discussion of

[Ben Bailey Smith]

it, I think just a tad. So I think what we might do is we did mention at the top the TV series Ride or Die on Amazon Prime Time. I think we'll, we'll knock that into the overflow in take two. Yeah, we'll put that in take two. And that means we can sort of fast forward into your favorite section of the show, Mark, because.

[Guest/Producer]

Excellent.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, and, and mine as well. I mean, you all know how much I love this as a super sub. And not just a super sub, but also like a professional stand up and joke writer. It's always great to come on here and be contractually obliged to read some of the most egregious jokes known to man. Yes, it's time for the laughter lift. Okay, cue the music. Yeah, it's a bumper week. Bumper week this week because we've got two jokes written by the redactor. Two written by some of our Patreon listeners.

[Rachel Hampton]

Okay?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

So whilst in between your side splitting, Mark, you're gonna guess who wrote what. Okay, okay.

[Mark Kermode]

All right, fine.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And I'm interested to see the results of this. So let's kick off with an old classic. Hey Mark, why can't dinosaurs clap their hands?

[Mark Kermode]

I don't know. Why can't dinosaurs clap their hands?

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Because they're dead. Hey Mark, I've been visiting my podiatrist for a long time. She's been sent saying for years that I need medical insoles. I ignored her up to a couple of weeks ago and now I finally relented and you know what? They actually work. So I stand corrected.

[Mark Kermode]

Hey, okay, so that's a redacted joke.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

I don't mind that. Let's find out afterwards.

[Mark Kermode]

That's a redactor joke.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Okay, log that one. Log that one. Hey, Mark, there's a Geordie pub landlord and his mate, right? The landlord says, I'm sick and tired of that miserable Spanish actor coming into my pub and causing trouble. Have you barred him? No, but he's on his last chance.

[Mark Kermode]

Okay, that is a. That's a written in.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

You reckon? Okay. And lastly, Mark, how do you turn a duck into a soul singer? This is an old one.

[Mark Kermode]

Oh, I know this.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, yeah, tell me this.

[Mark Kermode]

You put it in the oven and it's Bill with us. Yay.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Okay, so that you're writing.

[Mark Kermode]

That's definitely a writing because the redactor wouldn't have sent that in.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

And you think the first two are the redactor? I stand corrected. And dinosaurs.

[Mark Kermode]

I think I stand corrected. And dinosaurs are the redactor.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Well, I can tell you that is four out of four, Mark. Correct on all counts. Fantastic work. I like the I stand corrected one. Not bad at all. Listen, if you want to contribute your own to terrible dad jokes in future, all you need to do is head over to our Patreon. So we'll have a little ad break, I guess. Or are we going to end it there? Because there's no.

[Mark Kermode]

Right. I think we're. I think we're done. We've gone on for so long, we're having to push everything. It's going to be a bumper take two. Listen, if you're not subscribing. If you're not subscribing, sort that out now because there is going to be so much, so much in take two.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah, you need to go on an epic journey over to Patreon and sign up and become a vanguardista because we've got so much coming your way. But for now, this is the end of take one. So it's just left for me to say that this has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's team was Jen, Eric, Josh and Heather. Producer was Dom and the redactor was Simon Paul. Yeah, I mean there's a whole extra real weight in meeting. And take two, the overflow car park. More chat about current releases. Ride or die is going to be in there one frame back. Which this week is on the best films based on ancient Greek. Greek mythology. 5 question. Film club questions.

[Mark Kermode]

Your majesty.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Thank you. You're cut out. And keep guided. The best films available on streaming services. 2 bonus reviews. Questions where we're tackling the question about whether you can end up rooting for completely the wrong person in a film. I mean, Odysseus if you want the full show, you'll find it on Patreon. You can get take two AD three along with the full back catalog and the chance to vote on future episodes by signing up. Just search, Kurt, search. Just so. Oh my God, I've done it again. Just search Kermoda Mayo, Patreon and join the church. This is. What an amazing question. We've got one film. What's your film of the week?

[Mark Kermode]

Well, we had two because we did do synthetic, but I think. Yeah, but I think by a horse's nose, the film of the week is the Odyssey.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

It's like the old Brian Clough quote. I'm not saying I'm the best, but I'm in the top one.

[Mark Kermode]

Top one.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Yeah. And don't forget people of Bristol and and all over west. I mean, I'm gonna travel from West London. Mark and Simon are going to be at The Bristol Beacon December 6th. Tickets are on sale via the link in the show notes. And you'll be pleased to hear that Mr. Mayo returns next week.

[Guest/Producer]

Thanks for listening.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Listening. Warning.

[Mark Kermode]

The following ZipRecruiter radio spot you are about to hear is going to be

[Ben Bailey Smith]

filled with F words.

[Rachel Hampton]

When you're hiring, we at ZipRecruiter know you can feel frustrated, forlorn even. Like your efforts are futile. And you can spend a fortune trying to find fabulous people only to get flooded with candidates who are just fine. Fortunately, ZipRecruiter figured out how to fix all that. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free. [e-mail] Zip with ZipRecruiter you can forget your frustrations because we find the right people for your roles fast, which is our absolute favorite F word. In fact, four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.

[Ben Bailey Smith]

Fantastic.

[Rachel Hampton]

So whether you need to hire four, 40 or 400 people, get ready to meet first rate talent. Just go to to ZipRecruiter.com Zip to try ZipRecruiter for free. Don't forget that's ZipRecruiter.com Zip finally, that's ZipRecruiter.Com Zip.