movies – The Classical Antiquity Sidequest

Sidequest 36 – Ben and Victor Review The Odyssey

As you all may be aware, Christopher Nolan’s latest movie is his take on The Odyssey. Before getting into the movie itself, I get a few thoughts off my chest about movie theaters selling Pepsi products. Put simply – that’s some bull—t. Sell Coke or shut your business down. No one wants to drink a Pepsi while sitting in a theater. Now, I don’t have any issues with the fine people at Barq’s Root Beer, which is the beverage I had to settle for when I learned I couldn’t have a Coke, but Barq’s is not the beverage I want to drink when I’m watching a movie. With that out of the way …

In our review, both me and Victor try and avoid the political narrative that surrounds this movie. Neither of us think that this is a movie that is a critical statement for or against “Western Civilization” or the current state of our collective culture, whatever that term may mean, so we don’t see any need to analyze the movie from that perspective. Rather, we’re here to give our opinion about whether The Odyssey was or was not a good movie. And that’s the tact we take when talking about this film. In doing so, we also explain why Christopher Nolan didn’t have Odysseus call himself “Nobody” during his encounter with the Cyclops. Why? Well, because Better Call Saul already did it better.

One thing we do cover in our review is how much of the movie actually happened. Was it real, or was it the poor memory of a broken man? Odysseus is perhaps the O.G. Unreliable Narrator and we know how much Nolan enjoys that narrative trick. Please chime in with your thoughts after you listen and watch the movie.

Our overall thoughts are that the movie had its moments, but that it was a bit of a slog. Victor appreciated it more after a second viewing. I think I might do the same. And, if I do watch it a second time, we will review it a second time. We referred to a few characters by the wrong names during the review. I think we got it all corrected during the review, but if we missed some, let us know.

The theme music is from Brent Arehart. Please call the pod (540-632-0160), leave a message and you’ll get in an episode. Let me know what you think about what we think in the comments, on Bluesky, on Mastodon, on Reddit, or on Instagram.

And never forget that The Classical Antiquity Sidequest is a podcast without end.

Sidequest 9 – Antiquity on Screen with Dr. Monica Cyrino

Dr. Monica Cyrino, a consultant for many TV and film projects, stopped by to talk about the opportunities streaming services created for stories from Antiquity. We cover a host of movies and TV shows including Troy: Fall of a City, STARZ’ Spartacus (which is an insanely over-the-top show), Those About to Die and a few gladiator films (I bet you can guess which ones we’re talking about). Somewhat unexpectedly, we talk a lot about Ridley Scott movies which isn’t a bad thing, I just didn’t see that coming.

We also cover the negatives associated with more Antiquity content which, in the case of Troy, turned out to be racist online trolls. It’s unfortunate that those trolls had such a negative effect on what is a very good show that I came across on Netflix. The fact that a Black person was cast as Achilles shouldn’t bother anyone and if you’re going to spend your efforts trolling the show on the internet, maybe you need to get a hobby.

But enough about Antiquity. Dr. Cyrino consulted on one of the best television shows ever made, Better Call Saul. During our interview, she discusses how she got involved in the first episode and what her work consisted of. It turns out there’s a reason behind Chuck McGill’s choice of Latin pronunciation.

If you want to read some of Dr. Cyrino’s work, check out her book “Big Screen Rome“.

On the opening theme music, for now it’s from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-macleod/folk-round
License code: SHTJJRTVTRXQAID1

Please call the pod (540-632-0160), leave a message and you’ll get in an episode. Let me know what you think about what we think in the comments, on Bluesky, on Mastodon, on Reddit, or on Instagram.

And never forget that The Classical Antiquity Sidequest is a podcast without end.

Classical Antiquity Sidequest 6 – Ben and Victor Review 300

In our first movie review episode, our old friend Victor Lamas stops by to give us his thoughts on the Zack Snyder epic 300. It takes us a while to say “This is Sparta!” but we get there. Eventually.

During the review, we cover a lot of topics in this review including the miscasting of Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty from The Wire) as Theron as opposed to a soldier, coin the term “McNulty Subplot”, cover what the film got right and scratch our heads over why Hollywood feels the need to add ahistorical events to what are already awesome stories. We (read Victor) also provide a good historical backdrop on why the Persians and Spartans were fighting in the first place. Another topic we cover is how Zack Snyder did the Persians dirty in this movie – the portrayal of the Persians was just awful (albeit not as bad as in the sequel which is just flaming garbage). Seriously, Snyder dropped the ball here and could’ve been much less jingoistic in his portrayal of the Spartans compared to the Persians. This is especially true given that the Spartans were no lovers of freedom which we fully discuss.

If you want to read more about the 300 and The Battle of Thermopylae, read Gates of Fire and Herodotus’ account of it. Those are very, very good.

On the opening theme music, for now it’s from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/kevin-macleod/folk-round
License code: SHTJJRTVTRXQAID1

And never forget that The Classical Antiquity Sidequest is a podcast without end.