Critical Drinker: The Real Problem with the Odyssey

18:42Francis Foster:You can spend three hours in the cinema watching Christopher Nolan's movie adaptation of The Odyssey, or you can spend that same three hours understanding the actual poem for free guided by a Hillsdale College professor. Hillsdale College runs free online courses on the books that shape the Western tradition taught by their own faculty using the same material their students study on campus. The newest course covers home as the Odyssey. Professor Benedict Wayland walks through it. Courage, loyalty, leadership, temptation, family, and what it actually means to go home. It has held an audience for close to 3 ,000 years.

19:16Francis Foster:That doesn't happen by accident. The scene that changes how you read the whole thing is Calypso offering Odysseus immortality if he stays with her and he turns it down. He picks a mortal life, an aging wife, a home that might not even want him back anymore. That's the entire argument of the book in one scene. There are more than 40 of these courses and I couldn't recommend them more highly. Go to hillsdale.edu slash trigger to enroll. It's totally free. Read the classics, study the West. That's hillsdale.edu slash trigger. Yes, they are. You can see a lot of the pivots starting to happen within the bigger franchises, like Marvel is a good example of that.

19:54They very much pivoted away from all that political identity politics pandering. And I think Hollywood has grudgingly learned their lesson. I think maybe they convinced themselves, probably based on things like what they see on the internet, on social media, and so on, that the world was this progressive, hard left utopia, and they needed to match that. And it didn't work out. And it took tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue, probably over a decade to finally realize it. But they got there in the end. It's just a shame that, you know, so many of these pop culture franchises that we grew up with, you know, whether it's Star Trek or Star Wars or Indiana Jones, whatever it might be, they've all been casualties of war in the process.

20:41And they're not really going to come back in the

20:43Konstantin Kisin:way that they once did do you think we're going to look back and go i know you've got your criticisms of christopher not and as do i it kind of reminds me of the guy you meet down the pub who's smart but likes to tell you how smart he is do you know what i mean you know using words like chathonic and you know everyday conversation god did you really did you really need to christopher but are we going to look back at him particularly with oppenheimer and go like this is a guy who maybe saved Hollywood? I mean, ultimately, as I said earlier, I would take like 10 Christopher Nolan movies over one like crappy, you know, franchise rehash, some dumb popcorn movie, whatever criticisms I or anyone else might have of something like The Odyssey.

21:25It's still a relatively intelligent movie grappling with some pretty challenging source material. And hey, there's a lot of people now that are probably going to read The Odyssey in its original form because of this movie. It will pique their interest in classic literature. So, hey, if Hollywood has to go in one direction, I'd rather it was that.

21:43Francis Foster:Well, yeah, the only thing is, like you said earlier, and I think all of us were discussing this, you kind of put it up there with the ancient World War movies and you go, Gladiator, Troy. You know, you can throw a few others in there, but it's like, it's not even on that level. You know what I mean? And you're talking about one of the greatest directors in Hollywood history, according to some people. and one of the greatest stories in the Western canon, if you like. And it's just like 7 out of 10 at a stretch. Unlike a Gladiator that was, you know, 10. Yeah, I mean, for me, the bar for this sort of thing is, would I want to watch it again, right?

22:22So you could probably, say you were flicking through the channels, you happened to catch Gladiator on. You'd probably say, yeah, I'll watch this. It's pretty good. With The Odyssey, nah. I said at the end of my review, I'll probably never watch it again. and probably not really think about it again. But then you guys are asking me about it and you're making me think about it, damn it.

22:39Francis Foster:Well, you do this for a living, coming on movies. But we wanted to touch on Project Hail Mary as well. That's another very, very popular and successful movie. Yes, absolutely. Again, when you guys talk about the lack of politics, the lack of pandering in it, great. It's a movie that's just entirely about, you know, adventure, science, friendship, just universal themes that basically anyone could watch. And you don't have to be like some hardcore science fiction nut to appreciate it. You know, it's not pitched at the same level of a Christopher Nolan movie, which is a great compromise. You know, it makes this stuff accessible.

23:17And it tells just a nice, charming story, a relationship between a man and a rock, effectively, a rock monster. And yet they make that creature, Rocky, more likable. and they give him more humanity than all these CGI, Star Wars characters combined. It's impressive what they did there. But I'm pleased to see things like that successful. And I want to see more movies like that as well.

23:42Konstantin Kisin:Don't you think when you were watching this, I was watching Ryan Gosling's performance and look, credit where credit is due. The way that he carries that movie, he's likable. Even though he kind of plays this sort of wimpy, nerdy guy and he looks like that, it's stretching the boundaries of credibility. shall we just say. But however, it shows the power of star quality. The fact that he carries that movie opposite a puppy. A puppy? Sorry, a puppet. Puppy-ish qualities.

24:11Francis Foster:What movies are you watching, mate?

24:14Konstantin Kisin:But he has that. That shows the power of star quality, I guess, is the point I'm making. Sure. And, you know, they're in relatively short supply these days, like actual movie stars who or box office draws. You know, there's not many of them left. Like he's risen to that sort of level now where it's like, you know, a Ryan Gosling movie. Okay, that's interesting. Tom Cruise is obviously one that's a holdover from a previous generation, but he just refuses to age out. So fair enough. Russell Crowe. Yeah. But there's very few of them nowadays. You know, again, like we're all about the same age. We grew up in like the 80s and 90s.

24:52You know, there was back in the day, it'd be like, oh, there's a new Arnold Schwarzenegger movie or whatever, like that would get people's interest, but we don't really live in that world now. So when you get guys like that who can carry a movie, partly on star power, partly on just the likability of their character, hey, again, it's proof that maybe there's a bit of life left in that world still.

25:12Konstantin Kisin:And do you know what? I was watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's not biopic, it was his, no, it's not biopic, but it was his documentaries based on his life. And it was great. on Netflix. And they were going through all these movies, not just, you know, The Terminator, which is incredible, or Terminator 2 or Predator, all brilliant movies, but things like Twins. And you just go, oh, movies were fun. Yeah, they were. They were allowed to be fun. And again, like, you know, a lot of these movies wouldn't have made crazy box office revenue like we do nowadays, but they're still memorable. You know, you still remember Twins or you remember or Terminator 2 or whatever.

25:56Their box office would be pretty dwarfed by today's, but they had something about them. I've talked before about someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger compared to someone like The Rock, who's the closest we've got to a modern-day equivalent, an action star, big burly guy, and really specializes in these popcorn action flicks. But most people would struggle to remember any movies that he's ever done. Right. Maybe The Fast and the Furious, but that's pretty much it. The amount of money he's made over the years dwarfs what Arnold Schwarzenegger made at his peak. But people remember Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

26:34They don't remember The Rock.

26:36Francis Foster:Arnold Schwarzenegger movies are better. Objectively. Yeah. A lot better. Yeah. You know? There was more care put into them and probably better writing. And I don't know, maybe they came at the right time when the industry was different. Yeah. Well, Francis mentioned Netflix, and one of the things I've always wanted to discuss with you is what you think the impact of the streaming services has been. Because there's some amazing stuff. There's some rubbish, obviously, but there's also some amazing stuff on there. You know, I'm really enjoying House of Dragons at the moment. And also, a friend of mine introduced me to Landman.

27:11Francis Foster:Have you seen that? I have, yes. Oh, so good, isn't it? That's on Paramount+. So yeah, I think Taylor Sheridan created Landman and he's got this entire universe of shows like Yellowstone, Tulsa King, Dutton Ranch. And they're all, how can I describe it? It's basically TV shows for men. Because it's all just like manly men working on oil fields and having punch-ups and stuff. But he absolutely understands his audience. And he said recently, he almost does shows like that to piss off the Hollywood critics because they know he stands for the opposite of what they stand for. And he'll intentionally just write stuff in there to annoy them because he's successful enough that he can get away with it.

27:57But again, there's a demand then for shows like that. And so they work. But yeah, in terms of the streaming services and what they're going to do to the industry, I did go through a phase where I thought they're going to be the future. You know, theatrical releases are gradually going to dwindle and it's going to become the equivalent of stage shows nowadays. There'll be a poor audience of very committed people who still go and see movies in a cinema, but most people will catch it on their streaming service at home or even on their phone or whatever while they're on the move. Maybe we're not quite there now.

28:33Maybe there's a little bit of the streaming bubble bursting, perhaps. We'll see. But there's a lot of, for all the good stuff that you get on these streaming services, I mean, come on, there's a lot of slop. Oh, there is a lot of slop. It blows my mind. Like, sometimes I'll just sit down. I don't know what I'm going to watch that night. I'll bring up Netflix. Let's have a look through. And 20 minutes later, I'll still be scrolling. I haven't found anything that I want to watch. And it's insane. It's too much choice almost.

28:58Francis Foster:There is. There is a lot of choice. But I think, I don't know, it feels to me like the big screen will always be there because it's such a special experience. And I think partly, even if you could build a cinema in your house, it's still not the same. I think there's something about going outside of your house, going to a place and sitting down in a venue with other people. It may be lots of them, maybe a very few of them, but something about that that just gives you the opportunity to be with this piece of entertainment, this piece of content, whatever it is, undisturbed, undistracted for two hours other than the twat next to you eating popcorn.

29:34Francis Foster:You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, look, you know, again, when we were talking about the Odyssey, it's, you know, done crazy business in IMAX because people want the spectacle of it. You know, that ginormous screen, the huge sound system, like really maxing out what you can do with cinema technology, giving you the most immersive experience you can. And great, you know, if people are still invested in that, then that's good to see. because I would rather it be that communal experience and that experience of shutting off everything else because you're never going to get this at home, are you? You're always going to have your phone there or whatever, and there's always that temptation.

30:12But to switch off the phone, to not have any distractions and just focus your attention for two hours on the movie. The problem, as you say, is just the things that surround it. You've got to sit through 30 minutes of adverts and trailers. You've got to deal with the asshole in front of you who's making loads of noise or someone who's talking behind you or whatever. But every experience is going to have its pluses and negatives. Overall, though, yeah, I'd rather see movies in that format if we can.

30:41Konstantin Kisin:This is a question I'd love to ask you. And again, it's going to show my age a little bit. To me, the apex of cinema in my life was late 90s, early noughties. Because what you had were movies that they may not have done well in the cinema, But when they came to DVD, they got that second lease of life. And it seems that you don't really get that anymore. DVD was so important, particularly when you think about movies like, you know, Good Will Hunting. That's how I discovered Good Will Hunting on DVD. So many and also classic movies as well, watching Goodfellas on DVD. Do you think that's really hit the movie industry hard when that technology went away?

31:23Definitely, yeah, because it was factored into their financial model. They would say like, well, there's movies that might not have quite turned a profit at the box office, but we know we're going to make like 50 % more in DVD rentals or sales further down the line. And so that movie then becomes profitable. And so when you do that, they are more willing to take chances on slightly unproven concepts or things that might not necessarily work in the cinema, but they'll eventually turn a profit from it. And so you get a better breadth of artistic material out there. You know, there's movies that people are willing to take these chances on.

32:04What you got in the post-DVD world, the post-physical media world, is more and more of a reliance on proven IPs, proven properties. That's why you got these endless franchise movies like Jurassic Park 19 or whatever, or like endless Marvel movies. because once you find that model that works and once you find a franchise that works, oh, you just keep making more of it. And that's why they kept raiding all these old things like, oh, we're going to do another Indiana Jones movie, you know, like 20 years after the last one when Harrison Ford's on a Zimmer frame. You know, just anything that's got like a built-in audience because we don't have anything else except the theatrical release window.

32:42It's got to make its money there. And so it's got to be a safe bet.

32:46Konstantin Kisin:And that's the problem is that there really are no safe bets in Hollywood. If you take the classic example of a movie that no one heard of, but did gangbusters, something like Dirty Dancing, who would have predicted that Dirty Dancing, a movie about essentially a holiday romance, would become one of the most iconic movies of an entire decade? They somehow capture the cultural zeitgeist, don't they? And become part of it. And I think what you see now is, We don't have that because there's that loss of the monoculture now. We're becoming so fragmented, not just because there's a million different streaming services.

33:26You've got YouTube, you've got all the online stuff that are competing for people's attention. And so that world of like, oh my God, I just went and saw this amazing movie at the cinema at the weekend. You should go and see it too. That's dwindling now. And so we don't get those shared experiences. And so less and less, these movies are becoming part of the culture and becoming memorable, which is a real shame.

33:50Francis Foster:That's so true. And I think it's so much driven by technology. I remember as a young boy staying with my grandparents in Ukraine in the village in the summer and walking past the tiny local cinema. It would have been like a 10-seater, 15-seater, 20-seater. And there was a giant post, I didn't speak English at the time, of Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of his movies at the time. It was in the 90s. you just like we now live in the era of mass customization where everything is so tailored to you that you have the exact politics that you want the exact beverage the exact food the exact everything that that it's it's probably one of the reasons that you will never get actors who are as big as that going forward because just not everyone is going to watch that movie because there's so much other stuff that you could watch that is going to be much more tailored to you specifically.

34:39Well, give it a bit more time and you'll be able to tailor movies to your particular tastes. Like AI will be able to rustle it up for you. You know, you can be like, oh, give me Titanic all over again, but with a happier ending. And it'll be able to render it for you. And that's where we might end up, where people get their own customized movie experiences and there literally won't be a shared version of a film anymore.

35:00Francis Foster:That will be quite cool though, because you can watch the same movie many times and see it go in different directions depending on choices you make. That's what video games are like now. It's one of the reasons I enjoy them, because you make choices that take the story in a different direction, and it gives the thing repeatability and enjoyment. And also, the participatory value of that is very engaging.

35:23Konstantin Kisin:I don't know about that. In my happy ending, Leonardo DiCaprio would always drown. But no, it's interesting you talk about video games there, because that, as an industry, dwarfs movies in terms of revenue it's like 10 times as much um on an annual basis and it's only getting bigger yeah so i mean like that could well be the future of entertainment and well there's a reciprocal thing with that as well because now you're seeing more and more adaptations of popular video games in cinema you know that was always the holy grail for them like back in the 90s they would try they would fail like we've we all seen like the mario brothers movie from But I'm still having therapy for that.

36:02But they're starting to crack it now. And these are turning out to be very profitable. Like the new Mario movie or the Sonic movies or whatever.

36:11Konstantin Kisin:The Minecraft movies were huge.

36:13Francis Foster:Is there a Fortnite movie? I imagine there should be. Probably, yeah. Probably. There's definitely Halo one. Yes. The TV show, yeah. The TV show. I watched a few episodes of that. It was decent. Speaking of which, there used to be a video game way back when called Dune, which reminds me of the Dune movies. What did you make of those? The Dune movies? Yeah, they were great. I mean, good sci-fi. The second one especially felt like an event movie. Like there was something really significant going on there. I think it was a great adaptation of the book. I read the book when I was a teenager, so some of the scenes they nailed pretty well.

36:47Pretty challenging world to render into movie format. Obviously, Lynch tried it back in the 80s and that was...

36:58I'm weirdly ambivalent about the third one though I don't know I feel like the third one is going to be Chani was right about everything and Paul needs to get punished for it so we'll see what comes of that but weirdly it's another Zendaya movie this year we can't get away from her

37:16Konstantin Kisin:Do you know I'd love to talk about this with you so I've got a theory as to why Hollywood isn't as good as it used to be. Okay. It's the death of the shagger. It's like, and I'll tell you why, think about the bad boy, the good looking bad boy, both the actor.

37:35Francis Foster:Oh, I thought you were going to talk about Javi Weinstein. I was like, I mean, he did, he did make some great movies, but I was just leaning out of shot there going, I'm not sure about this. So you're on your own. You carry on.

37:48Konstantin Kisin:Let's look at Miramax's canon. Exactly. Exactly. Just in an all-male environment. No. No, but if you look at, for instance, you kind of look at the Mickey Rourkes of the time, you know, the good-looking bad boy who everybody kind of talked about and would make, you know, he was problematic in many ways. You put a camera on him, boom, you got dynamite. And it's also not just off-screen, but the characters on screen, like the John McClains. You knew this guy was trouble. You You knew there was darkness there, but also he was magnetic. You don't get the Jack Nicholson. You don't get that anymore, do you?

38:27Well, there's a high degree of pussification in Hollywood now. So that's probably the reason for it. Like the actors and the characters that they play are, they're not allowed to be dangerous like that anymore. Right. So this filters into all aspects of the industry, because if they are dangerous, if they're too domineering or they're too much of a loose cannon, they're seen as problematic. And that's scary for people.

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40:14Konstantin Kisin:To grab the offer, go to cyberghostvpn.com slash trigonometry or click the link in the description of this episode. It's completely risk-free. So check it out today. I was talking to a friend of mine who's a comedian and he's been in Hollywood all his life and he's quite well known. And he was just, he said something to me in a green room in a comedy club. And I said to him, how's LA? And he went, dude, everyone's terrified. everyone's terrified and you just go that is obviously awful but how can you make great art if you're terrified because great art is about risk it's about taking that chance yeah it's about going i don't know if this is going to work but let's try anyway well it's also having the ability to tell the truth like because that's what art is really isn't it ultimately it's expressing truth and allowing people to make their judgments on it but if you're not allowed to express whatever truth you have in mind and it's just got to be the pre-approved version, well, then you're just going to get the same crap over and over again, the same exact viewpoints, the same exact worldview.

41:18And you see it, you see it in Hollywood movies. Like the only one I think that's different from that is maybe the Taylor Sheridan's of the world that we talked about before, where he sort of leans slightly the other way and he's not afraid to say that now because he's successful enough that he can get away with it. But generally speaking, yeah, I think the climate is one of fear because all it takes is for an actor to say the wrong thing in an interview, to express the wrong opinion about one particular issue, some hot topic. And that could be it.

41:49Francis Foster:That could be their career down the tubes. I was just going to say, I mean, Taylor Sheridan, to me, is a very interesting example, because I do think, you know, we talked about the kind of woke era. I think the woke era also produced this idea that, you know, the way to make a great movie is to be like really, really, really not woke. And then it sort of dragged in a lot of people who were leading with that. Whereas Taylor Sheridan is clearly very good. I mean, did he also direct 1923 and 1887, the prequels? Those just purely from an artistic point of view are incredible. For me, way better than Yellowstone, which I actually wasn't that much of a fan of.

42:29Francis Foster:But those two prequels are really, really high quality. And that's kind of where I always wanted it to go. I didn't want a woke movie because it's annoying. I also didn't want an anti-woke movie or something that's expressly political. Yeah. I see this on my videos occasionally where I might be criticizing some movie, whatever, that's not woke by any normal measure. And so sometimes people will say like, well, it's not woke. I mean, what do you want? And I'm like, well, I want a good movie as well. Like there's plenty of reasons why a movie can suck. It doesn't have to be just because it pushes identity politics.

43:07It could be badly written, badly directed, whatever it might be. And so, yeah, I think we have to be very careful that we don't just lump everything into that one basket. Like, oh, well, it doesn't push any obvious politics, therefore it must be good. No, we still want to champion good art. And that's a whole separate question. But as long as I think if we can get back to that era of assessing films on their own merits, it's not about the politics that they push, then that's great. I mean, that takes the horrible, like, culture war stuff out of it, and it allows us to just get back to, you know, being geeky over Star Wars or whatever it might be, rather than, you know, oh, your politics disagree with mine.

43:50Guess you're going to have to die then. That's what the level of discourse is like in a lot of cases.

43:57Francis Foster:Well, right. And look, in sort of defense of the people who feel strongly about the culture war, I mean, it really does matter because it is, you know, certainly in my conception, an attempt to undermine the very essence of our civilization. And it was important to counter. But I think what has happened is, you know, if you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you. And now people are walking around with this sort of like woke, anti-woke filter in their brains and they see everything through that. Yes. And you can end up seeing enemies around every corner with this sort of thing.

44:31I think the most ludicrous example I ever saw was a remake of a video game. I think it was called Dead Space, some survival horror game in space. And there's a restroom in it at one point on this space station that's overrun with horrifying monsters. And it's some gender-neutral bathroom. And people lost their minds over that, saying, this game is woke. And it's like, you're stomping mutated creatures into the ground with your boots or chainsawing them in half. How is this? That's where it becomes absurd. And so, yeah, there needs to be that perspective, I think, and just try not to go crazy with it.

45:08Konstantin Kisin:And I think it's interesting, because we're looking at the last of the movie stars with Ryan Gosling, and one of Ryan Gosling's superpowers is his intense likability, is that even though he's this big, handsome guy who could pretty much get any guy he wants, you still really like him. Whereas we compare him with the movie stars of earlier, particularly like the Mickey Rourke's, There was something fundamentally broken about Mickey. And as a result, to my taste, is it made for a more interesting performance on screen. Like you look at The Wrestler, for instance, the Aronofsky movie. I don't know any particular actor now who would be able to have that type of performance on screen.

45:49It's the tortured artist effect, isn't it? Yeah. And yeah, he's a prime example. Obviously, he paid the price for it long term. You know, if you've seen him recently, he's not in a good place. But I think, generally speaking, yeah, you kind of expect a certain intensity from your artists, over and above big popcorn movies or whatever. But the people who are creating more serious films, they should have that balance of light and dark in them, whether it's trauma, whether it's inspiration or drive, whatever it might be. It creates a more interesting performer, ultimately. And I've heard it described nowadays as like these actors, they seem like they just come across like from an assembly line.

46:33You know, they've all had the same experiences. They all had that Southern Californian upbringing, same worldview. They've never really had anything bad happen. And so you don't get the same level of nuance from them. You don't get the same interest. You don't get the same intensity. And maybe it's the same with writers as well in Hollywood. Again, people who are working there now have lived less interesting lives than the hard-drinking, hard-smoking, hard-partying guys of the 50s, the 60s, the 70s. Those people all came from, a lot of the time, a tough background. They had to claw their way into the industry.

47:11They had interesting life experiences that molded them into interesting people. That then came across in their writing. Maybe you don't get quite as much of that now. It's much more controlled, safe, coddled and boring.

47:23Konstantin Kisin:Well, you look at, again, just to go back to Ryan Gosling, I think he was in the Mickey Mouse Club, was he? Was that Ryan Reynolds, maybe? Again, but...

47:33Francis Foster:He just liked the Ryans.

47:33Konstantin Kisin:Yeah, just liked the Ryans. Anyone called Ryan. Anyone called Ryan. But if you look at the Steve McQueen's, for instance, you look at Steve McQueen's journey, how he started out. I mean, he was in, I think he was in a care home for kids and then when he left and then he did a variety of jobs and slowly made his way. But that bled onto the screen. It gave an authenticity that, for me, nobody is able to match that. No, the same with guys like Kirk Douglas or Charles Bronson. These guys all came from tough backgrounds and went through all kinds of deprivations in their childhood to eventually claw their way into an industry that wouldn't accept them necessarily, but they forced it to.

48:16you don't get so much of that nowadays they're they're manufactured now and i guess that's to

48:23Konstantin Kisin:me that's a real problem because ultimately and again you could argue this is a taste thing it creates a less interesting and compelling story because i like nice people i i i like nice people nice people are nice to work with and nice to hang around with and whatever else Do I want to see a nice person on screen? Do I want to listen to a nice person's album? Not particularly. Yeah. It's the same with, what would I compare it to? So, you know that new TV show that's been out for a few years now, The Rings of Power on Amazon, right? That's their adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, all that Tolkien lore and so on.

49:03You compare the actors that you see on that. They're all very soft, very amiable. like they look like they just want to wear a nice cozy jumper, you know, and have a cup of cocoa. Compare that with like the Lord of the Rings from 25 years ago. You had guys like Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, like those guys look like you could just dump them in the wilderness and they would survive no problem. You know, it's a different, they had a different upbringing, different experiences, but it molded into much more interest in people, not just in their performances, but how they look, how they carry themselves, the confidence they have.

49:35and we're just kind of losing that I think now in cinema.

49:40Konstantin Kisin:And that's to me the real problem because again, I just don't think nice people create great art, if I'm being honest. You look at, you know, people go for instance Picasso and they'll go, oh Picasso was like this and he was problematic or any other type of artist. And I just go, yes, but what did they create? what would you rather go to? A nice person who creates art that's, eh? Or would you rather go and see a great artist who, let's be fair, may be a bit of a cunt? Yeah. So basically what you're saying is you want to see actors suffer more. But you read about the Kubricks of this world. I don't think being an actor on a Kubrick set was particularly enjoyable or fun.

50:27Yeah.

50:28Francis Foster:Having said that, being evil doesn't make you a great artist. Hitler would be a good example of that. Yeah. And, you know, I've done many videos about like movies that have had difficult productions, whether it was actors, directors clashing with each other, whatever it might be. And sometimes it results in great art or great movies. Like, you know, James Cameron is a notoriously hard driving director, Stanley Kubrick, obviously. Other times you end up with complete garbage at the end of it, like the island of Dr. Moreau. So obviously there needs to be talent behind it all. But yeah, as you say, a bit of friction is necessary, I think, to create something really good.

51:07Francis Foster:Speaking of challenging production, you reminded me, we went to the premiere of The Rise of Merlin. Have you seen that? Is that the TV show? It's The Daily Wire made, Jeremy Boring made. Yes. Have you seen that one? I've seen like the first episode of it. What do you think? It was interesting. They were trying to cram a lot into it. There's a lot of lore. There's a lot of characters. There's time jumps and stuff. And I feel like they were trying to do a lot of heavy lifting very quickly. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Definitely. But what I found was it was interesting, rather, that that I think they didn't have a massive initial release in the US, but it's now on the stream.

51:45Francis Foster:I think it's on Amazon now. And it's become very popular. Yeah. Very, very popular. So good on them for doing that. Critical Drinker, great to have you back. We're going to ask you some questions from our supporters in a second. But as you know, final question, always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we shouldn't be? Oh, man. I had a good answer for this last time, and now I'm not sure, because we've talked about so much in this. Why is Zendaya in everything all of a sudden? She was so horribly miscast as Athena. She frowns a lot. That was her role.

52:18Konstantin Kisin:I don't understand. Athena is meant to be this majestic, imposing figure who's a mixture of the warrior and the intellectual. We didn't get that really from the Odyssey, did we?

52:31Francis Foster:She was kind of, she sort of came across as more like his conscience than a goddess. Yeah. Which is, this is the bit where actually I'd agree with Francis, where it was so inauthentic to the ancient Greeks, because to them, gods and goddesses were, they had agency. They were living beings who had their own agendas, their own flaws, their own faults. and to sort of have a goddess be this sort of almost like a spiritual thing that just is there to reflect you back to you in some way and guide you along the path. That's not the way the Greeks thought about gods and goddesses at all. No, and I think it's what happens when you get a man of science who fundamentally doesn't hold with religion or with mysticism or spirituality and then ask him to weave a story in a world that's saturated with that and demands that stuff.

53:19you get this weird attempt to rationalize the gods as, well, they're just, Poseidon is now a storm on the ocean, and Zeus is like thunder in the sky or whatever. And it doesn't fundamentally work with a story like that. They should be an active part of the story, the narrative.

53:37Francis Foster:All right. Great to have you on. Thank you. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where we're going to ask the critical drinker your questions.

53:46Konstantin Kisin:Don't forget to click the link in the description of this episode to grab the special CyberGhost VPN discount. It's completely risk-free, so check it out today.

53:58Francis Foster:Besides the recent success of The Odyssey, it appears that the Hollywood model for producing movies, i.e. creative casting, shoehorning ideology into storylines, is failing. Why hasn't the ship course corrected yet?

54:23We'll see you next time.