Magic! Michael Caine! Christopher Nolan! and The Odyssey!

A Very 90s Odyssey Miniseries

We've washed ashore on the island of the 1997 made for tv miniseries of The Odyssey starring Armand Assante, Bernadette Peters, Vanessa Williams, and Christopher Lee. But first we talk the news out of CinemaCon about Christopher Nolan's film before diving headfirst into very 90s cheesiness. We talk the history of the director, the other shows it was playing against in June of 1997, and talk through all the ways this "wife guy" version of Odysseus stacks up against his peers. Next episode we ask "Why So Serious?" as Ammon journeys into The Dark Knight for the first time. Thanks for joining us!

Magic! Michael Caine! Christopher Nolan! and The Odyssey!

We came here to talk about magic in Nolan's movies and The Odyssey and instead it turned into a broad conversation about life, skepticism, science, and yes magic! We start the show with Michael Caine by Madness, we amble on with magic in The Prestige and in the world of Nolan's other films, especially the Batmans. Do we believe in magic? Is Oppenheimer about magic, too, even though nuclear fusion is technology? It's just Iron Man vs Scarecrow instead of Batman vs Wolverine. How does this inform what we think we might get in Nolan's Odyssey? And so much more. Next time we're starting on the tv miniseries of The Odyssey from 1997! We'll see you on that next island!

The Prestige (ft The Pledge and The Turn and David Bowie)

It's Batman vs Wolverine in a battle over magic! Christopher Nolan's The Prestige feels like a thesis statement about how he feels about storytelling and filmmaking, and we brought in our very own David Bowie special guest, Jon Madsen from the Yours Mine & Theirs podcast [https://open.spotify.com/show/5xO0DjwvW1SnR2cP3unIoK]. We start off with an important correction about anime. And then it takes us basically the length of the movie itself to dissect the plot. Andy doesn't do his Michael Caine impression but we talk about it anyway. JB out himself as the world's biggest Gavin Rossdale/Bush fan while Andy gets on his "grunge is a fake marketing term" rant. And do we think Tesla's machine was real, or was this all a fake? A supposed definitive guide to which twin is which [https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/6a93xz/definitive_scenebyscene_guide_to_the_prestige/] from reddit. Which Depeche Mode / The Cure albums map to which Nolan movies? Hey, remember that time Andy was on Yours Mine and Theirs and they talked about movies where the title was a question and we talked about O Brother Where Art Thou [https://open.spotify.com/episode/2QB5cKqVRlLsbhwD7I2BpK?si=0c7ff14f3a6543fe]? Also the time Ammon talked about 3 Claude Rains movies [https://open.spotify.com/episode/2y1gerc4skePLp83ZNkbPt?si=66c5dca9b66544fd] and JB talks about Depeche Mode 101 and other movies with numbers in their titles [https://open.spotify.com/episode/7xROZRYC6faAHNCAyhGCKp?si=833274c06b9344b7] and when Andy and Ammon talk Kirk Douglas, Clash of the Titans and Disney's Hercules while Andy is high on painkillers [https://open.spotify.com/episode/6da6jNfHXqUxIkV7MgfLXp?si=c07447426eea4364]. We're not sure what we're podcasting about next week! It'll be a magical reveal! Join us then.

L'Odissea (1911)

The earliest feature length adaptation of The Odyssey is this 1911 silent film created for the Turin World Fair. What do we think of this very straightforward adaptation and what does it say about our expectations for The Odyssey? All this and more-- and next week we're taking on Christopher Nolan's The Prestige!

Lupita Nyong'o Makes Us Lose Our Artistic Integrity

What makes an Odyssey adaptation an Odyssey adaptation? What baseline elements does it have to have to count as telling the story of The Odyssey? BUT FIRST, we discuss the recent (stupid) "controversy" over the rumored casting of Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Sparta/Troy. Why we think this is actually good casting... but we all thought she was playing Calypso? Andy apologizes to all the Batman fans for misnaming Mr. Freeze. And then we reveal what we want in our fantasy version of The Odyssey. What elements we think Nolan is likely to use and why. (JB's version is the best) We want the Agamemnon spin-off. Next week we do the 1911 silent film L'Oddisea which you can find on youtube! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbR97hqfG2o] If you'd like to set up your version The Odyssey, see the spreadsheet Andy set up of different Odyssey elements [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sXDh-UbNIh8DH4Dfvyl3bIWtA5S7BYa0upcfF2bSJzI/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0], plot points, etc. And you can still play our casting game here [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xMyrNpXHS7g7ZBewddFo-a9IG4knuilUNsnYXQHBcr4/edit?gid=0#gid=0].