Brief notes on The Odyssey

There were three pennies sitting on top of the urinal. Two showing heads and one tails. I know finding a penny heads-up is usually considered a good omen but I am not sure what this specific combination of one cent pieces would deliver me. You’d think that taking the two heads-up pennies individually would equal two of your standard run-of-the-mill lucky pennies but I’m not so sure. That’s how these things get you. You need to be aware of the fine print. Just because I choose to leave behind the tails-up penny doesn’t mean I won’t still be cursed. With the way fate usually works I would guess the pennies are all connected in terms of their powers of luck. When you take into account the destiny and meaning of it all it's as if they were placed directly on the altar as an offering from man. Better left untouched if you ask me. There was no way I was going to collect a handful of piss pennies. I’m not sure those are lucky for anybody. No matter what the gods say. So I left them for the next unassuming chap who would dare to test fate themselves. Speaking of fate I had to rush back to theater 13 to finish watching my man Odysseus on his grand adventure. I had just witnessed the armored giants on this one island run the soldiers of Ithaca back to their ships crying like it was nothing. A real ass-kicking if I’d ever seen one. No lucky penny is saving you from that. A golden pin of Athena may help. Just not in the ways one would think or want.

That was something I started conjuring up when I had to run to the bathroom during our showing of The Odyssey yesterday. I try to fight the need to leave the theater but my zero sugar Mr. Pibb was too strong this go around. It's OK though I left at a good time and got back for the next stop on their journey. I just thought it was weird some dude would set his change on top of the urinal. Had to be a trap. It got me thinking about important artifacts and relics and not fucking with the gods. How fate can be altered even unintentionally. How there are consequences for people who play around with that sort of thing.

The Odyssey ended up being pretty good though. I haven't seen all of Christopher Nolan's movies but I'd imagine this one is near-ish to the top in terms of technical prowess and enjoyment level. Although I can tell there is some disagreement on what his best movie(s) actually is/are. Oppenheimer bored me to the point that I was getting antsy in my seat. I loved Tenet which many people seem to think was a stupid movie apparently. To that I say no they are stupid and my movie opinions are the only correct ones!

There was maybe only one moment towards the end where I felt a bit of a lull but otherwise it seemed the pacing was good for a movie almost three hours long. Over three hours if you count the trailers beforehand. Nolan leaned into the horror aspects of this cautionary tale–both in effects and movement–which I really appreciate. The cyclops section of the story was so well executed. Sorry if that's a spoiler but I feel like most people are familiar with the story somewhat? At the very least most people would remember the cyclops part I would guess. The story itself is also almost 3,000 years old. If not well then let me tell you: there is a cyclops in this movie. Imagine if you were trapped inside a claw machine game with a ton of your friends and the claw comes swooping down at random intervals in the darkness to take one of you away. Except you aren't getting taken home from the arcade by a nice a kid and their family you are being eaten alive. That's the kind of scary situation I'm into and they pulled it off really well.

As a film it really did capture the energy of an epic tale. It had a bit of the same spirit of wonder and fear that the Lord Of The Rings films had. I've seen people nitpicking the language used as not being accurate for that time and everything and I get it but like it's fine. It was good. I would watch it again even. While the cast is stacked with star power I would say it's not so much of a performance-driven film. Like Matt Damon was pretty good sure. Rob Pat nails the sniveling and slimy Antinous. Anne Hathaway probably the best of them all. But it's really just about the story. The Odyssey is already filled with everything you really need as a storyteller. I think Nolan did a nice job adapting it. It was great to look at. There were multiple times during the movie I looked over to Lacey making some face that could only be read as "holy shit that was cool."

The biggest surprise and my most important takeaway is that while the story is thousands of years old and "set in a time of apparent magic," things felt eerily timely to much of the current state of the world. Maybe that's because I didn't remember everything that happened from when I first encountered The Odyssey in high school but there are a multitude of lessons waiting for those who watch. Mainly that war is never a good thing. The dangerous people from the sea are a lot closer to home than you might think.