As I have gotten older … and even more curmudgeonly than I was when I was in my middle years … (a hard thing for those who knew me then to imagine, but it is true nonetheless) … my attendance at events … even something as simple as going out to the movies … has diminished greatly.
Mostly, I find attending a movie these days more than a little aggravating. I readily concede, the popcorn at a commercial theatre is deceptively better than the kind I get at home … yet not so much better as to in any way compensate for those folks checking their cell phones in the dark while the picture plays.
There is also the matter of digital projection. If I am going to see a movie digitally, I might as well be comfortable at home watching on my 85” TV screen, indulging in whatever snacks whenever I want, and only occasionally having to chastise a neighbor for looking at their cell phone while … without commercial interruption … the film goes on … either on TCM, by Blu-Ray, or via the app I have on my home screen as a result of my membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
I last attended a movie theatre on that well-publicized weekend of Oppenheimer and the homage to Barbie back in 2023. I wrote about both films at the time, along with a screed about the substandard management of the Regal Cinema in Miami Beach. That theatre has since (understandably) gone out of business.
A lot has happened since that weekend: a national election, a changing of the guard in D.C., a new war in the Middle East, a national championship for the New York Knicks for the first time this century, the Ukrainians continuing to survive the Russian war machine, soccer (excuse me, football) becoming a very big deal in the U.S., a major realignment in college sports … most significantly with the Big 10 and the SEC … and antisemitism became a thing … again. Oh yes, and Christopher Nolan made another movie … The Odyssey.
Nolan’s film is a box-office phenom. A giant among pygmies. The most talked about motion picture since the double bill of Oppenheimer and Barbie. Big … really big. Big enough to get me out of my living room, off my Island paradise, and into a movie theatre with 70 mm projection. (Note: I deliberately avoided IMAX. Not only are those theatres sold out into some distant date, but I also had no desire to endure any post-theatre neck pain caused from scanning from side to side as if I were at center court at a three-hour tennis match.)
Gables Art Cinema, in the Florida community of Coral Gables, provided exactly what I sought. Watching film, projected from reel to reel, whether 35- or 70-millimeters wide vs the digital image, has been said to be as different as listening to music on a vinyl recording as opposed to the same melody on a tape deck or CD. The presentation at the movie house in the Gables proved to be pristine.
Despite all that, I can sum up my view of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in one word: disappointment.
You can stop here if you do not want to read about the banality of the dialogue, the unevenness of the casting, the lack of anything resembling “heart,” or the soul of what should have been a great movie. This one is all flash and dash … like a marvel comic book … except, at least in those comic books, the hero has an “origin story.” That story of origin goes a long way to making the lead more interesting … relatable … even, maybe, human.
I know, I know, mostly all you have heard are wonderful things about the movie and here is this old cranky guy trying to save you money and, in the process, raining on Mr. Nolan’s parade. I must here remind you of my praise for Oppenheimer three years ago. I have no “jones” about Christopher Nolan but I do worry, if this is what he did with the money he made on his previous film, who knows what he will do with all the lucre from this enterprise?
In my experience, I have found that some folks … and most filmmakers … benefit from being reigned in a bit by having someone to whom they must answer. Nolan demonstrates with The Odyssey that, like our current White House maven, you trust him with unchecked power at your peril.
Homer created this piece over three thousand years ago. It has stood the test of time. I am led to believe Emily Wilson’s translation of a decade ago … the first by a woman into English … is, in a word, fabulous. None other than Claire Danes (Homeland) narrates the audio version. Reason enough, right there, to participate in the narrative.
Folks, I am willing to bet neither Homer’s nor Wilson’s teenage Telemachus ever once called Odysseus “dad” … something he does in the Nolan movie … a lot … and the film contains a plethora of relatively modern swear words from Nolan’s mundane script as well.
The costumes ring relatively “true,” the effects and action sequences are all right up there with any of your lushly produced superhero movies but beyond that one must ask … why? What’s it all about? Where is the heart? What is the meaning? Why not use a narrator to bridge the gaps and give the story some perspective? What happened to all the sex and lyricism of … if not the original … than Ms. Wilson’s translation? How was this hysteria for tickets at the box-office created, and where can I find the marketing genius responsible for all this hoopla for my own Before and After Cagney & Lacey, coming out this September 30 and now available for pre-sale at Amazon?
Enough. How best to sum this up?
As a 20th century Trojan from the University of Southern California, let me paraphrase Laocoön, a Trojan priest, who (according to Virgil) around 700BCE, spoke to his fellow citizens in ancient Troy, saying:
“Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.”
Translation: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.
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“Before and After Cagney & Lacey,” a second memoir… coming this Fall from McFarland Publishers. Pre order here.
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