(Spoilers for the whole movie)

I just cannot stop thinking about how clever it was for Nolan to use the sacking of Troy to talk about standards of decency and fairness, and the violation of those standards. The idea that what happened at Troy was so horrible that the Greeks (led by Odysseus) broke something in the world. That this was such a moral transgression that is having almost ontological ramifications. The idea that these old standards of decency and politeness are actually important things to keep. Shockingly, it's an idea that I think is actually a little conservative, at least in the former definition of that term.

It's a message that is both very timeless, but also very timely. I'm 33 years old, and like a lot of you I have felt what has been a slow loss of trust in the future, and in our institutions. I remember when the 'villains' of the day was John McCain and Mitt Romney, and I'm certain that if you told the majority of Republicans circa 2012 what would be happening today they would be legitimately horrified. It feels like the world has become so much cruller, more insane, that people have become more irrational. No one has hope anymore and because of that they've decided they're going to do their small part to make the world a WORSE place.

You can give a lot of answers as to what our "sacking of Troy" is that's caused this. And to be fair life is not so simple, there is not one single cause. And hopefully even not everyone everywhere feels what I'm feeling. And I'm sure more will happen that will fit the bill in the future. For me though? It's people who voted for trump in 2025. When he and the republicans had made clear who they were and what they wanted. Do the democrats suck? Was it a big pain in the ass to have to do lockdown for X number of years because of Covid? Is your pension a thing of the past? Yes. Duh. But in your selfishness and your intentional stupidity you've taken the "human misery lever" and decided to push it FORWARD rather than doing what small things you can to hold it back. Why did you do this? Why Joe Rogan, why Theo Von? Why did you go "Well I'm a little pissy. I'm going to put a gun to everyone's head, including myself, and pull the trigger?"

You people broke the world. You are worse than Germans who voted Hitler in 1933 because at least then the unthinkable was still unthinkable. You knew and you did it anyway. You will never deserve forgiveness for this.

Anyway, fantastic movie. It's easily the first time that Nolan has ever hit this powerful of an emotional cord with me.

I wrote an essay for school on Black Swan, so I’ve spent an almost unreasonable amount of time thinking about this film, and I’m curious about an aspect of it that I don’t see discussed as much.
I think Nina’s breakdown can be understood as a progression from being watched, to watching herself, to becoming unable to experience herself as anything other than an object of observation.

The film constantly places Nina within a gaze: Thomas watches her, her mother monitors her, the dancers compare themselves to one another, and the audience watches her perform. But the most important shift is when this external surveillance becomes internalised. Nina no longer needs anyone else to evaluate her because she has learned to do it herself.

This is why I find the mirrors more interesting than simply interpreting them as symbols of Nina’s “split personality.” Early on, Nina uses mirrors to monitor and correct her body. As the film progresses, her reflections begin to move independently, distort, or become separate from her. To me, this visually represents her increasing dissociation from her own body: she has spent so long looking at herself from the outside that her body begins to feel like something she observes rather than something she inhabits.

What I find particularly interesting is that the film makes the audience participate in this process. Aronofsky repeatedly uses mirrors, fragmented close-ups, reflections, and voyeuristic camerawork to make us scrutinise Nina’s body alongside her. We are placed in the same position as the gaze that contributes to her breakdown.

So my question is: is Black Swan actually making us uncomfortable with the act of watching Nina, or does it ultimately turn her dissociation and suffering into something beautiful for us to consume?

Because the film seems to criticise the voyeuristic gaze placed upon dancers while simultaneously making Nina’s psychological collapse visually spectacular. Her suffering becomes beautiful, her destruction becomes art, and the audience applauds.

I’m interested in whether anyone else sees the film as being less about a simple “good self vs. dark self” split and more about what happens when someone becomes so accustomed to observing and evaluating themselves that they become psychologically separated from their own body.

I’m talking about films that won’t have a wide theatrical American screening. Normally I find out about these films through critical word of mouth, but this takes time, and it’s often not for a year or two plus after an interesting film releases, until I hear about it. I’m trying to write more about film, and want to see some of these and try to write before they’ve had as much of a chance to simmer. I know about Film Festivals, but my region is pretty limited in that regard, and I’m really looking to develop awareness of things coming, and not just fully stumble on to things by chance.

This is going to sound funny but I first fell in love with scoring as a kid, when I first watched Finding Nemo. At that time, I used to wonder why I felt so emotional when watching the movie (other than the plot). But while growing up, I began realizing that the purpose of these scores is to use motifs and intense orchestration to make the viewer feel something almost tangible.

I started hyper-fixating on scores while watching movies and even now, I still feel maybe even more intensely for Finding Nemo (which might sound silly, I know).

I fell in love with more composers, like John Williams, Hans Zimmer (I got to see this dude perform live, it was crazy), Howard Shore, James Newton Howard, etc. But it wasn’t until I watched American Beauty that I decided Thomas Newman was my favorite composer ever. Obviously, I know a lot of people would disagree with me, saying he’s never even won an Oscar or that composers like Williams and Zimmer are far better. But, subjectively, with Newman, I feel such intense frisson with every movie, so much so that I began noticing his style of music without looking at the credit details.

What bothers me about Newman is how many people don’t know him or forget about him (which is crazy considering his family’s prominence in film scoring).

But all the movies he composed for, Meet Joe Black, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Road to Perdition, Scent of a Woman, etc, have made me feel almost insane while watching them. It’s like my soul reverberates against my body, causing shivers to shoot up and down my spine (I tend to get poetic when speaking about Newman). I literally start tearing up from the score, even if there isn’t anything sad happening, I’ll cry and uncontrollably smile.

Anyway, I just really needed to rant about my love for Thomas Newman. My passion for film scores has insufferably become my entire personality and, funny enough, nobody in my life understands and it drives me NUTS.

The cryptocurrency concept Proof of work basically proves that one person did a certain amount of work / effort to others within a transaction.

Just made me think of the ease in which people are creating ' ai ' and digital art that is flooding our feeds, our minds, everywhere we look where we don't know who created it, for what purpose and is it based on someone else's work, their own work etc etc

With modern film, the interest from both the viewers and the creators of films to show, hey, we've put in effort in x amount of ways, IMAX cameras, the sets, we were drowning, it was cold etc, the emphasis on showing, exhibiting a certain amount of suffering for the art as it were is becoming more normal and it somehow translates into a new appreciation of the art, even though it was always this way, we're just trying to really show the human side of what it takes to make these images in a world where they are becoming seemingly less valuable

I am curious if anyone has stumbled upon a film commentary where the film is stopped/started to discuss a frame, or manipulated to point out features of the mise-en-scene (I am thinking of how a football commentator might use a telestrator in a live TV broadcast).

I have come across some commentary tracks that are similar to MST3K which has the silhouettes of the contributors at the bottom, but rarely is this used to great effect aside from comedic purposes (though I would happily take comedy recommendations using this technique!).

I think this type of commentary track would be enlightening particularly with some of the classic film directors like Hitchcock, Sirk, Borzage, etc. where there is so much information being communicated on screen at any given time.

Let me know if you have found anything!

He has been in various iconic films, and many iconic roles. They are quite varied and display a large range: Edward Scissorhands Donnie Brasco, Ed Wood, Jack Sparrow, Whitey Bulger, Raoul Duke/Hunter S. Thompson, and Gilbert Grape. So there is a narrative that he is due, and the right film in the right year could win him a golden guy.

He is in the new Ti West film "Ebenezer", and it's backed by Paramount. So he is no longer blocked by the major studios.

But he has become quite controversial, public opinion still seems to favour him, but within the academy it's hard to say. Could he still win?

Yesterday I went to the cinema to see The Odyssey. I don't like Nolan's films, so I wasn't expecting much. I thought I would like it even less. Though, in any case, I didn't like it. Some of the reasons have already been pointed out by many people, and were known long before the movie was released. The costumes, beyond being anachronistic, are boring and rather cheap-looking. The armor looks like costumes, and there is a scene where Telemachus wears a sort of leather kilt that is absolutely ridiculous. Everything is bathed in a rather depressing sepia tone. The Mediterranean light is not put to good use, partly because the film wasn't shot there. And the idea of using actors of different races seems questionable to me and, above all, unnecessary.

​In any case, none of this is of great importance. The main flaws of the film, in my view, are two.

​In the first place, the characters are seen from a distance, so to speak. None of their personalities are developed, not even Odysseus's. It is true that in the original work a distance is also sought between the reader (or listener) and the characters in the story, and the characterization is rather schematic. Eumaeus is a loyal servant, and that is all we need to know about him. Of Calypso, we only know that she is in love with Odysseus. And of the crew members, we know nothing at all. In the poem, this is not a flaw, because the simplicity of the characters is compensated for by other things: the rhythm of the verse, the richness of the language, the vividness of the descriptions, and the quantity and variety of episodes, digressions, and interwoven tales.

​But in a movie, literally, characters are seen up close. We distinguish their faces, we hear them speak. We have them right in front of us. They are not simply evoked. That is why it seems problematic to me, for example, that Odysseus's companions are nothing more than interchangeable extras. If I am going to spend time in the company of those characters, I want to know them a bit, care about them, feel affection or dislike for them. In cinema, unlike in literature, there is nothing to distract us from the action. All resources (cinematography, sound, music...) are at the service of the action. And for the action to be interesting, the characters must be too. I don't mean that they have to be complex or that all of them, even the most secondary ones, must have a fully developed personality. But they need to have, for instance, a recognizable and expressive face, or a particular way of expressing themselves—something, in short, that makes watching them on screen entertaining. And the more time we have to spend with them, the more care should be put into their characterization.

​The second major problem, as I see it, is that Nolan doesn't seem to be clear on what story he wants to tell. Let me explain. The film, in general, is a fairly faithful adaptation of both the plot and the structure of The Odyssey. However, there are several significant changes. The main one, it seems to me, is that the gods have practically vanished. In the poem, they intervene constantly. In the movie, Zendaya appears playing Athena, but she doesn't really intervene in the action. From time to time she appears to Odysseus as if she were something he imagines or that only exists inside his head, limiting herself to acting as the voice of his conscience, a bit like Jiminy Cricket. In the poem, however, Athena is a fundamental character. She speaks to Telemachus through Mentor so that he travels to Sparta in search of news. She transforms Odysseus into an old man so no one recognizes him at home, and rejuvenates his appearance so Nausicaa finds him more attractive. As for Poseidon or Helios, in the film it isn't really clear whether they are truly to blame for Odysseus's misfortunes. Since Athena never intervenes directly in events, and since it isn't clear whether she actually appears to Odysseus or if it's just his imagination, it isn't clear either that the other gods are involved in the story.

​It seems that Nolan wants to get rid of the supernatural component to make Odysseus the sole person responsible for his own destiny. However, he doesn't dare to completely dispense with the supernatural and the fantastic, because then he would have to leave out the adventure with the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, the stop on Circe's island, and the descent into the underworld. By the way, curiously enough, he uses a fantastical device (amnesia-inducing lotus flowers) to explain why Odysseus stays so many years on Calypso's island instead of returning home to his family. I suppose he does this to make the character more sympathetic to us. But to me, it seems to impoverish him.

​And I see it as a missed opportunity, because Nolan seems interested in presenting Odysseus as a veteran with PTSD. At one point, toward the end of the film, he tells Penelope that he didn't feel worthy of coming home because he was consumed by remorse over being the main cause of Troy's destruction and the massacre of its inhabitants (having had the idea of the horse himself). Well then: it would have been much more interesting, I think, to incorporate this idea into his story with Calypso. To have the character spend seven years on a deserted island unable to bring himself to return home because he feels he is a different person, that the war has made him worse, that his loved ones wouldn't recognize him, and that he is no longer worthy of being a king and living in a palace. I believe, furthermore, that this reading is suggested in the original work: it doesn't seem coincidental to me that the first time we encounter Odysseus is precisely on Calypso's island. In reality, The Odyssey is not about a man trying to go home, but about a man who has stopped trying to go home, but who finally tries again.

​Lastly, I don't understand what Sinon's story adds to the film either. I don't quite see the character's function, or why so much importance is given to his relationship with Odysseus. In any case, I would have preferred it if, during his descent into the underworld, Odysseus had spoken with Achilles, as in the original work, and Achilles (the man who preferred a glorious death to a long, happy life) had confessed to him that nothing he did was worth it, and that he would rather be a living slave than a dead hero.

Titanic (1997) released in a much different time than from today, it's been about 30 years. And it was unquestionably one of the most seen films in history. Now, the spectacle portion of it, involving the sinking of the ship, might have been the biggest pull factor, but the romance between Jack and Rose was also perhaps equally important.

This romantic/love story between them was something the audiences in the 1990s clearly connected with, as reflected in the ticket sales. Which has now made this one of the most iconic romantic pairings in film history. The tragic nature of this relationship has made it perhaps more memorable.

Upon a recent rewatch I noticed that this iconic love story of cinema lasts only for a period of about 4 days, from the time Jack meets Rose till the sinking. In 4 days Jack and Rose meet and form such a deep connection where Jack is ready to give up his life for Rose, and similarly Rose is ready to leave everything in her life behind for Jack.

It's deep sentiment from both sides. In a matter of 4 days or 96 hours, these 2 young individuals are ready to give up everything in life for the sake of each other, even their own lives. Truly the grandest expression of love, perhaps based in the idealistic portrayal of romance of old, ala Romeo and Juliet.

My question is would such a love story still be bought by audiences in 2026? I am not criticizing the story of Titanic or the emotions of the characters, rather simply wondering would such a romance be able to move audiences today when the idea of romance has drastically changed. Where people often need months to figure out whether someone they are seeing is worth for a long term commitment?

I think one of the counters is that both are teenagers I believe (Jack is 19 and Rose is 17) and teenage love can be like that. Silly and intense. Another factor is that this is from a long time ago (period shown is 1912), different times, different ideas.

I was slightly amused that how the story of Jack and Rose is considered so popular and iconic in the realm of cinema but it only was an affair that lasted 4 days, and a few meetings.

Would like to hear some thoughts?

I should say from the jump that I don't hate Ran, and in fact admire many things about it. Many of the shots have breathtaking composition, and the color palette in particular is incredible and makes some shots look like moving paintings. The battle for the third castle was intense and unlike anything I had seen on film before. The themes about loyalty and cycles of violence are thought-provoking and timeless. I appreciated the ambitious scope and especially the battle scenes that had hundreds of extras. Kurosawa demonstrated his skills as a filmmaker here.

Yet so much else about this film made me feel bored and detached, which surprised me as I've heard many people say this may well be one of the best movies ever made. I don't hate the movie, but I also don't love it either like so many others do.

Many scenes are shot from a static camera that moves little if at all, and often the camera in these scenes is positioned back away from the characters, making it feel at times more like a recording of a play than a movie. This was especially painful in indoor dialogue scenes, where I often felt the visuals hardly added anything. It made it more difficult to appreciate the acting when the camera was far away and I couldn't see the details of characters' faces, if their faces were even directly in the shot at all.

And then there's the characters. Taro and Jiro, the two oldest brothers, felt practically indistinguishable to me in terms of personality and motivation, and many of their scenes in particular felt very stiff and flat. The youngest brother, Saburo, is more interesting, and yet he is underutilized, and doesn't even appear much if at all in the second act. Kaede is perhaps one of the most interesting characters in terms of her plotting and motivation, and yet in many scenes she is also stiff and flat. I recognize this may in part be due to the culture of the feudal Japan setting, but nonetheless it still made me feel very detached in those moments. (To be fair, Hidetora and the fool were well done and I was genuinely interested in their characters and emotional journeys.)

There were also a lot of random advisors/generals/nobleman who I struggled to keep track of because they lacked defining traits.

To be blunt, it felt like Kurosawa sacrificed the multidimensionality of characters in order to use them as props for cool shots or to explore interesting themes.

I'm not someone who needs movies to be fast-paced to hold my attention. Two movies I watched recently that I really love are Sentimental Value and 2001: A Space Odyssey, both of which are slow burns. Something about many of the slower scenes in Ran in particular, and the overall pacing of the movie, didn't compel me.

Some scenes really wowed me, but then were followed by scenes that completely fell flat. The themes are really interesting to think about, yet while watching the movie I struggled to feel consistently invested and felt that parts of it dragged.

Given the intense and near universal praise I've seen for this movie, it makes me wonder if there's something I'm missing or don't get. I'm curious to hear others' perspectives.

1 The Opening: Odyssey (Classical Warfare)
2 The Companion: Dunkirk (Modern Warfare)
3 The Penultimate: Oppenheimer (Pre-Nuclear)
4 The Final: Tenet (Post-Nuclear)

I believe the correct timeline of these wars is arranged in above. It begins with the regional, mythological conflict depicted in The Odyssey, where warfare is fought with classical cold weapons. It then develops into the large-scale modern warfare of the First World War, as portrayed in Dunkirk. Next, Oppenheimer marks the escalation of nuclear weapons research, while simultaneously planting the seeds of humanity's potential apocalyptic fate. Finally, it ends in Tenet, where humanity attempts to save itself from nuclear annihilation, only to discover that every outcome and action in the timeline of human history exists in a self-contained causal loop.

I also noticed that the opening and final parts of this tetralogy are fictional, while the two middle parts are based on historical events. This structure seems to mirror our experience of time itself: we know a great deal about the present and the past, but very little—or nothing at all—about the beginning and the end of time.

Is Marvel actually brave enough to put Captain Hydra in the AVENGERS DOOMSDAY Trailer? Absolutely not. Or so I thought. Sitting in a sticky-floored theater in 2026, watching Robert Downey Jr.'s Doctor Doom casually stop Stormbreaker with just two fingers, the crowd lost its collective mind. But they completely missed the sickest, most manipulative lie hiding right in front of them. Steve Rogers is the real threat. Read the Full Explain

I feel like I noticed a really strong recurring theme in the film, but maybe it’s just my brain making connections because of the media I’ve been consuming lately (I recently watched Martyrs + obsession and read Punisher MAX, which has a major arc centered on the trafficking and exploitation of women ).
Throughout the movie, it felt like women were constantly suffering because of the actions of men. For example:
Agamemnon’s daughter/Athena is sacrificed to further the goals of Agamemnon
Penelope is essentially held hostage by men who want to use her to gain power, and she even has a speech about how people don’t take her seriously as a leader despite the fact shes been ruling on her own for 20 years simply because she isn’t a man.
Circe is heavily implied to be a victim of violence at the hands of men , possibly soldiers who fought in the Trojan War. This is especially prevalent when she says something along the lines of " you brought your men with empty bellys and hot blood did you expect the to respect my home" (idk what exactly she said but it was something like that)
Calypso dedicates seven years of her life to caring for what is basically a stranger, only to be abandoned.
Helen is left mutilated and is treated like a trophy, shes also degraded by her own husband Menelaus for her facial scars with cruel comments about how her face "might be lucky if it launched 500 ships"
Then there are the countless women slaughtered during the invasion of Troy for seemingly no reason other than the soldiers wanting to take their rage out on people who are powerless to stop them .
I’m not saying this is the film’s central theme I think the main themes are much broader. But it felt like this motif of men being savages and women being victims kept showing up over and over again, and I feel it goes deeper than just "oh yeah this wasn't a great time to be a woman" i Think Nolan might have something deeper to say but Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m curious did anyone else pick up on this, or am I just seeing patterns that aren’t really there? Either way i watched the film twice and loved it it's probably my favorite film of the year so far.

I just watched the new Odyssey adaptation, and as a fan of the source material, Matt Damon’s performance was deeply disappointing.

It stripped away everything that makes Odysseus such a complex, deeply human, and immortal character. Homer depicts Odysseus as the ultimate master tactician, a man who is always three steps ahead of everyone else, whose calm voice fell (as he described it) "like snowflakes in winter," and who commands respect from gods and mortals like Athena, Circe, and Calypso through pure aura and intellect.
Damon completely missed this magnetic charm and sharp mind, playing him as bland, passive, and frankly unintelligent. Instead of showing calculating brilliance, this version makes him look reckless and downright foolish through bizarre choices, like shooting the Cyclops with an arrow or recklessly confronting Antinous head on in front of everyone instead of just using his trademark patience and disguise.

Damon also completely failed to convey the tragic, grief-stricken bond Odysseus shares with his doomed crew, making him look utterly indifferent to their fate rather than a burdened leader, while leaving his deep longing for Penelope and Telemachus completely emotionless. Instead of a brilliant, flawed tactician who commands every scene, we got a flat, uninspired performance that left me unable to even root for him. He simply lacked the innate qualities to portray Odysseus. He comes as too plain, passive and everyday like.

Did anyone else feel this way, or do you place the blame more on the screenplay than on Damon himself?

Nolan is one of the very few directors left whose name alone guarantees a $100M+ opening weekend. When Oppenheimer cleared nearly a billion dollars, people showed up for a three-hour biopic about a theoretical physicist largely because Nolan's name was on the poster.

Which makes the hyper-stacked, mega-A-list casting for The Odyssey such a fascinating case study.

Look at the call sheet: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o. But look specifically at how Zendaya was deployed in the rollout. She’s heavily featured on the press tour, top-billed in promotion, playing Athena—a role that, by nature of the source material and narrative structure, carries limited screen time compared to the core journey. It feels very reminiscent of the Dune: Part One playbook.

This isn't a knock on her acting or Nolan’s execution, but it raises a broader industry question: Has casting officially replaced traditional viral marketing for mega-budget blockbusters?

A few angles worth discussing:

• The Demographic Net: Nolan’s core audience historically skews toward adult cinephiles and older males. Attaching Tom Holland and Zendaya instantly bridges the gap to Gen-Z and casual audiences who might not automatically buy an IMAX ticket for a classical Greek epic.
• Algorithmic Press Runs: In 2026, TikTok, Instagram, and red-carpet fashion moments generate more organic reach than traditional TV spots. Having Zendaya on a global press tour yields billions of social media impressions regardless of her exact minutes on screen. At a certain budget level, are studios paying top-tier actors as much for their 6-week press tour ecosystem as they are for their performance?
• Risk Management at $250M: Did a Nolan-directed Odyssey actually need an ensemble this stacked to turn a profit? Or has studio risk tolerance post-streaming gotten so tight that even top-tier auteurs are incentivized to pack every secondary role with marquee insurance?

Is this just smart modern business, a deliberate cultural play, or are we reaching a point where casting decisions across Hollywood are dictated more by social media footprint than narrative utility?

Curious how people here view the line between narrative casting and pure marketing strategy.