OK. I thought the movie was fine. Not bad, not great. I was saying to initiumseries (she hasn't seen it, so don't send asks!) that it was technically proficient but ultimately soulless, which frankly is the mark of a Nolan film but for me, the material of his other movies allow him to get away with his soullessness more than The Odyssey did because well, it's The Odyssey and so I would like to see imagination when watching an adaptation of a --- of the Greek myth, you know?

While it was visually nice because, again, it's a Nolan film, it was not as much of a spectacle as I expected it to be and seeing it on imax would've definitely elevated the scale of what I was seeing, like you could see the scale on a regular movie screen but also know, oh yeah, it would be all the More on an imax screen, and yet it still wouldn't have been a visual spectacle. Like I actually kept thinking about the original Pirates trilogy and how if it was made exactly as it was made in the 2000s but with different actors, like with Actors, now in 2026, I personally think it would've blown The Odyssey out of the water

and would've been lauded with the same type of praise especially because it would've had the imagination. The characters in Pirates treat Calypso and Davy Jones and his damned crew and the cursed crew of the Pearl as fact, as just a part of their world and yet the movie itself is mythical and with Nolan and The Odyssey, I just feel like he did the Ancient Greek version of dressing everything in his movie-signature tailored suit

and that isn't particularly interesting but it's also not surprising because while I don't know anything about comics and while I do enjoy The Dark Knight immensely, from what little I know of Batman, that's effectively what he did. He put the material in its version of a tailored suit.

And of course the point could be made and probably has been made that it's not about being imaginative or romanticizing the journey Odysseus and his men take to get home, it's a battle of his conscience, a struggle against fate, against the gods, a battle with against nature both human/self and the elements, and so we are meant to feel that slog, that weight, we are meant to feel the years pass by, except I think it needs to be more of a character film for that to work and still be interesting. And I don't really think we get that. We get Odysseus' pride/hubris and his regret and his guilt for effectively ending civilization with the sacking of Troy and the violation of Zeus' law but personally, I don't think we spend enough time on his actual arc, on him getting to the point of humility for that type of argument to work. Because even though we see his hubris and his arrogance, it's not portrayed in a way for him coming back to Ithaca as a beggar to have the symbolism it should because we also don't really see his need for glory in the movie, what we see is a man who thinks he knows best and then gets his men killed. Sure, he listens to Calypso when she tells him to just let the raft take him home and accept Poseidon's punishment and Zeus' mercy/grace in equal measure but him reaching that point of acceptance isn't fleshed out enough for it to really feel like an actual arc.

There were certain plot points/elements that were way more interesting to me than others. The actual battle of Troy was compelling.

The men on Circe's island.

Zeus' wrath was a good sequence though I couldn't look at it directly in the theatre because of the flashing

The weight and significance of Odysseus and Penelope's marriage was done well all because of Anne really

which leads to the acting where everyone seemed to be acting in a different movie. The women deserved better screen partners idk

They had presence, they had gravitas, they emoted, they had nuance and it felt like Nolan's direction to the men was legit you just have to be there. Robert was kind of the only one who seemed to want to do something with his role. Tom was bad. I think it didn't bother me that much because him being out of his depth across Anne Hathaway translated to his character being kind but naive and untested.

Matt just didn't work for me as Odysseus because Matt Damon is just a guy. He is not someone who I think has the presence or the range or the talent to encompass the spirit of who a character like Odysseus is meant to be, like he's a guy where I would expect his crew to kill him after at least the, like, second time he leads them to peril.

It felt like 3 hours. By the time Odysseus comes back as a beggar I was ready to leave. For all the bitching about Travis Scott being a bard, he's onscreen for like 30 seconds, I'm not even exaggerating. Maybe a minute but I doubt it.

But it is also racist to say something like "coloniser teams need African players to win!" Which is a sentiment I have seen regarding France and Belgium in particular. Yes, both teams have many Black players on them, yes this is due to colonisation and the often forced movement of people, plus the historical links between coloniser and colonised countries mean that citizens of the latter are more inclined to move to the former than a different country. If you were gonna move from say, Algeria to a European country, it's a smart move to go to France, where they speak the same language as you do.

That doesn't mean Black players on European teams aren't European! Many of them are the children of immigrants, and have lived their whole lives in the country they're representing. Kylian Mbappé is French. He has spoken about it before, saying (this is a direct quote about representing France internationally)

"It’s because I was born in France, I’m French. I did everything in France, I had French culture, with origins that are Cameroonian and Algerian. But I grew up with French culture. It comes from the heart.”

When you say something like colonising countries need African players to win matches, you are firstly perpetuating the idea that Black people cannot be European. This is ridiculously false.

Secondly, you are perpetuating the idea that Black bodies are somehow built for labour and athleticism in a way that white bodies aren't. This is a racist idea that comes from slavery, when Black people were enslaved and dehumanised, with white enslavers saying that they were uniquely suited to hard labour, bc Black people are stronger than white people and don't feel pain etc etc. The idea of European teams somehow "importing" African players for their teams is racist!

The Black players on European teams are European. They are immensely talented players, that have put in just as much, if not more work, than their White teammates. Many Black players already face horrific racism from fans, especially when teams lose, and we do not need to be racist in a "liberal" way!

Hey everyone, I'm still behind on last month's rent and I need as much help as I can get. I'll need at least $500 to keep a roof over my head, and that's not even including foodstuffs

I'm sorry to keep asking and I love you all

Venmo and Cashapp: RefreshPaige

Paypal and Wise are also an option

ICE killed another person in maine today, just days after the murder of lorenzo salgado araujo in houston

the maine immigrants rights coalition has released a statement confirming he was a 26 year old columbian man who was authorized to work in the US and had a valid social security number

Or the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP): https://ilapmaine.org/

There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.

The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.

The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare. Oh, and it includes chemical restraint, too. The government has directly refused to exclude chemical restraint from the required process, calling it "trialling medication".

If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.

I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.

Please please consider helping me out financially to get my best foot forward as a small time educator. Thank you.

Current Goal: 0/750

Link to a post with all my pay apps and gfm info below:

So many notes, so little help.

think again motherfucker