Jul 31, 2026 · 2 hr 13 min · 12 segments
John and Ben get topical and talk about John's #1 Op's new movie: Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey". We chat about our relationships with the source material, Christopher Nolan's aesthetic sensibility…
I think even a cursory reading of his films, because I think that Nolan is someone who clearly thinks of himself as like a consummate craftsman, an incredibly smart guy.
Like he's so good at like leveraging technology to do like interesting visual things.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, the the stuff that works in like Inception is the stuff where he's, you know, bringing M.C. Escher paintings to life.
Yeah.
Even if I think that's like a pretty boring like thing to do with the infinite tapestry of human dreams.
Right.
You know, it's it's it's something it's it's striking.
Uh.
I think that Nolan, you know, is generally received by by culture at large is like, again, like a craftsman, a smart guy who makes, you know, maybe not.
I think that Nolan kind of has a reputation is like a dumb guy's idea of a smart guy.
Right.
A little bit.
But I still think that particularly with Oppenheimer, especially since then, you know, there's been a lot more kind of talk of him as someone who has.
Big ideas.
I think you look at Nolan's oeuvre, and to me, it's like, oh, this is an incredibly, like...
He is like the flattest romantic like to exist, like who's working today.
Like every single Nolan film is actually just a recapitulation of like romantic heroic tropes of the most like one note, dull varieties just cast through this lens of like technical mystique and self-serious realism.
Yeah.
You know, right.
Yeah.
The
realistic.
Yeah.
You know, I think this is particularly true with the Dark Knight trilogy, which at the time were really lauded for being, oh, you know, compared to, you know, the much better Joel Schumacher, Batman and Robin film.
I think even a cursory reading of his films, because I think that Nolan is someone who clearly thinks of himself as like a consummate craftsman, an incredibly smart guy.
Like he's so good at like leveraging technology to do like interesting visual things.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, the the stuff that works in like Inception is the stuff where he's, you know, bringing M.C. Escher paintings to life.
Yeah.
Even if I think that's like a pretty boring like thing to do with the infinite tapestry of human dreams.
Right.
You know, it's it's it's something it's it's striking.
Uh.
I think that Nolan, you know, is generally received by by culture at large is like, again, like a craftsman, a smart guy who makes, you know, maybe not.
I think that Nolan kind of has a reputation is like a dumb guy's idea of a smart guy.
Right.
A little bit.
But I still think that particularly with Oppenheimer, especially since then, you know, there's been a lot more kind of talk of him as someone who has.
Big ideas.
I think you look at Nolan's oeuvre, and to me, it's like, oh, this is an incredibly, like...
He is like the flattest romantic like to exist, like who's working today.
Like every single Nolan film is actually just a recapitulation of like romantic heroic tropes of the most like one note, dull varieties just cast through this lens of like technical mystique and self-serious realism.
Yeah.
You know, right.
Yeah.
The
realistic.
Yeah.
You know, I think this is particularly true with the Dark Knight trilogy, which at the time were really lauded for being, oh, you know, compared to, you know, the much better Joel Schumacher, Batman and Robin film.
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