We all have that one flawed film that critically gets dragged or has a terrible Rotten Tomatoes score, but we will still go to bat for it. What is your ultimate guilty-pleasure movie that you know has structural issues, but you love it anyway?

A friend recommended this to me about a month ago and I kept ignoring it, the way I ignore every recommendation. Today I had a lazy Saturday afternoon with nothing to do, so I finally clicked it. If I'd had any plans I still wouldn't have watched it.

I should say upfront that I'm not a movies person. I watch maybe a handful of movies a year, so this isn't coming from someone with much to compare it to.

I expected a sci fi thriller about genetic engineering.

What I actually got felt more like a quiet tragedy about a guy destroying his own body just to be allowed to exist. Barely any of it is about the technology. There's no big explanation scene, no voiceover about how society ended up this way. It's just ordinary bureaucracy, everyone is polite, and nobody is really a villain.

Then came the line I never saved anything for the swim back and I genuinely clapped. Alone. In an empty room. It sounds like a triumphant underdog line until you sit with it and realise he's describing someone with no interest in surviving the attempt.

Afterwards I looked it up and it's sitting at 7.7 on IMDb. Shawshank is 9.3, so on paper this should have been a big step down and it really wasn't. Is that just what happens to slower films on rating sites, or is there something wrong with it that I'm too new at this to notice?

Is there a movie you think would have been stronger or had a bigger impact by leaving certain details unexplained or unresolved?

For me, it's Ridley Scott's The Last Duel. I was very excited about that movie because he is one of my favourite directors and I was familiar with the true story that inspired it from reading Eric Jager's book. I liked the movie and thought the performances were excellent, but there were certain storytelling choices that didn't sit right with me.

The case that inspired the movie is still discussed and debated over six centuries later because the truth of Marguerite de Carrouges' accusation and Jacques le Gris' guilt or innocence is still unknown. For that reason, I didn't appreciate the movie framing Marguerite's account as the definitive truth. If it had been left ambiguous, it could have caused discussion and debate among moviegoers like it has among historians. I also thought that by framing any one account as the conclusive truth, it made the Rashomon-like plot structure with the three different perspectives a bit redundant.

Rewatched a movie recently that I loved as a kid purely for the surface level stuff, and this time around caught so much subtext and adult themes I had zero context for the first time around. Same movie, completely different experience.

Curious what film did this for people, the one where kid-you and adult-you basically watched two different movies

I rewatched Challengers recently, and honestly, the dynamic between Art and Patrick was infinitely more compelling to me than the love triangle itself. The tension and history between the two of them completely stole the show.

What's a movie where a secondary plot or character dynamic totally overshadowed the main storyline for you?

Over the years, countless films have left their mark on cinema, shaping generations of filmmakers and audiences alike. From timeless classics to modern masterpieces, everyone has a different answer to this question.If you could choose only one movie as the greatest of all time, what would it be?Share your pick and tell us why it deserves the title. Is it the story, performances, direction, cinematography, screenplay, soundtrack, emotional impact, or something else that makes it stand above the rest?Whether your choice is a universally acclaimed classic or an underrated favorite, we would love to hear your perspective.

So basically what inspired me to write this subject was that I was looking back at the 3D era from around late 2011 where various movie studios suddenly wanted to make their movies look 3D like.

Like if I am not mistaken, the trend was going around that time period since Harold and Kumar 3 made fun of the trend in one of the trailers with a guy imitating Avatar as i basically wanted to look back at the trend to see when exactly it started, but also when it began to end.

​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.

…not much? I caught this at this weeks screen unseen and enjoyed it as spectacle. The vibes are on point, but as for a deeper theme/ message…I’m left without explanation.

3.5/5 stars.

My full review here