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Jeff and Rebecca dive into a busy start to fall in books: 2026 book sales, Emily Wilson's new translation of The Odyssey, Lonesome Dove adaptation news, and much more. Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Join The Book Riot Podcast Patreon for bonus content and ad-free listening. Subscribe to The Book Riot Newsletter for regular updates to get the most out of your reading life. The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Discussed in this episode: the queer community is having fun with “performative males” (s/o to Danika) Publishing industry sales up in the first half of 2026 LONESOME DOVE ADAPTATIONNNNNNN Lincoln in the Bardo casting news and more casting news Emily Wilson is writing a whole new translation of The Odyssey Study shows library ebook lending damages industry sales Ron Charles's response: Libraries Are Not the Problem Google has launched an AI tool for ebook interactivity Nonfiction sales have transformed radically this decade This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Go to quince.com/bookriot for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. For a limited time our listeners are getting a FREE full sized Mascara on their first purchase. Just head to Jonesroadbeauty.com and use code BOOKRIOT at checkout. Today's episode is sponsored by Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free to start selling with no seller fees, so you keep everything you earn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Morgan and Gavia reunite to discuss Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, an ambitious cinematic endeavour that showcases Nolan's greatest strengths as a filmmaker - along with some of his recurring weaknesses. Among other topics, this episode covers the film's star-studded cast, its relationship with the original poem, and the way Nolan uses an ancient story to explore contemporary anxieties. Also, we dig into some of the surrounding discourse, including classicist Emily Wilson's controversial (and piercingly negative) review.
Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell, two of the leading novelists of the 19th century, shared a remarkable literary friendship. After Charlotte's death, Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë became one of the most famous--and controversial--literary biographies ever written. In this episode, Jacke talks to Susan Dunne about her new book Charlotte Bronte and Elizabeth Gaskell: Their Lives, Friendship and Writings, which tells the deeper story of the friendship between the two women. PLUS Jacke looks at the Odyssey kerfuffle that has entangled film director Christopher Nolan, translator and scholar Emily Wilson, and American novelist Joyce Carol Oates--including a surprising new development. AND previous guest Travis Franks, expert in Cherokee writer John Rollin Ridge, stops by to discuss his choice for the last book he will ever read. On Sale Now! For more information and to order Great Detective! An Adventure for Two People [2-Book Boxed Set] by Jacke Wilson, visit press.historyofliterature.com. SPECIAL OFFER! For a limited time, enter promotion code LOVE26 to get 20% off! And if you help us get the word out by posting two people enjoying the book on social media (plus a link to our website), we will refund money to your account. Learn more at press.historyofliterature.com! The music in this episode is by Gabriel Ruiz-Bernal. Learn more at gabrielruizbernal.com. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson takes readers on a tour through the ancient world for an entertaining examination of Greek and Roman literature and their impact on our modern world. Emily joins us to talk about the joys and challenges of interpreting antiquity, the stakes of poetic form and re-translating The Odyssey with cohost Jenna Seery. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app. Featured Books: Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho, translated by Anne Carson The Oresteia by Aeschylus, translated by Robert Fagles Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Marin Hammond The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Scott McGill & Susannah Wright The Poems of Catullus by Gaius Valerius Catullus, translated by Stephanie McCarter Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles
Ann's picks: Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson (releases September 1) Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo (releases September 15) Bread on Uncle Milad's Table by Mohammed Husayn Alnaas (releases October 6) Mystery Play by Elizabeth Kostova (releases October 13) Solace House by Will Maclean (releases October 13) Odette Rising by Julianne Edwards (releases October 13) Rottenheart by Kat Dunn (releases October 13) The Bookkeeper by Mary McGarry Morris (releases November 17) Halle's picks: Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason (releases September 29) The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw (releases September 29) Bad Words by Rioghnach Robinson (releases October 6) Once Again, Always by Amanda Gayle (releases October 6) Hollywood, Ending by John Green (releases October 6) Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li (releases October 13) Whale Harbor by Mary Beth Keane (releases November 3) Rabbit Rabbit by Jennifer E. Smith (releases December 15) What We're Reading This Week: Ann: Murder by Cheesecake by Rachel Ekstrom Courage Halle: The Land and Its People by David Sedaris Well-Read on Facebook Well-Read on Instagram Well-Read on Bookshop
Would you cheer for a hero who tricks a Cyclops but never sleeps with a witch? Classics professor Adam Kemezis joins Matthew Fox to dig into how Christopher Nolan's Odyssey reshapes Homer's most cunning warrior for a modern audience, and what gets lost when three thousand years of moral complexity gets smoothed down to relatable and redeemable.Kemezis, who teaches Greek and Roman mythology at the University of Alberta, and Fox work through why the movie's Odysseus loses his cunning and his affairs while keeping his violence intact, and how Emily Wilson's own translation, and her since-published critique of the film, shaped the conversation. Is a hero still worth rooting for once the trickery gets stripped away?Full show notes and resources**************************************************************************This episode is a production of Superhero Ethics, an Ethical Panda podcast and part of the TruStory FM Entertainment Podcast Network. Check out our website to find out more about this show and our sister podcast Star Wars Generations.We want to hear from you! Keep up with our latest news and send us feedback, questions, or comments via social media or email.TikTok · Twitter/X · Instagram · Facebook · EmailJoin the conversation in the Star Wars Generations and Superhero Ethics channels on the TruStory FM Discord.Want even more content while supporting the podcast? Become a member! For $5 a month or $55 a year you get access to bonus episodes and bonus content at the end of most episodes — and you can even give membership as a gift. Sign up here.You can also support us through our sponsors:Purchase a lightsaber from Level Up Sabers, run by friend of the podcast Neighborhood Master Alan.Use Audible for audiobooks. Sign up for a one-year membership or gift one through this link.Purchase any media discussed this week through our sponsored links.
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. About Artist Amy Trachtenberg:Amy Trachtenberg is a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes painting, collage, sculpture, installation, poetry and public projects. Diverse in their scale and material sources, hybrid paintings and objects exist between fiction and abstraction. By bringing what exists in the world into the work, awareness is aroused by the qualities of color, tactility, and an appetite for examining the remains of material culture. Structures woven together are built on memory and forgetfulness with relationships between architecture, the body and everyday objects.Visit Amy's Website: AmyTrachtenberg.comFollow Amy on Instagram: @AmyClaireTFor more on Amy's Exhibit "Abstract Objects of Devotion" CLICK HERE--About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWilFollow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast--CREDITS:Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson. Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 LicenseThe Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions. For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
On this week's episode, New York Times bestselling translator and classicist Emily Wilson joins us to discuss Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature (Liveright/Norton, Sept. 1). “Enchanting academic essays about translating the classics,” Kirkus writes in a starred review, calling this insightful, accessible essay collection, “a lively exploration of ancient literature.” THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: Revenge Is the Best Revenge by James A. ScottMall Goddess by Marilee DahlmanRevelations of Grimm Lohr by William PotterLife and Music by Idil Biret with Dominique Xardel, trans. by Gunesh Guran GeryParrot Heaven by Jessica Howland KanySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this week's episode, I take a look back at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Summer 2026 and rate them. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Armor series at my Payhip store: FALLARMOR The coupon code is valid through September 21, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 319 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 4th, 2026, and today I'm looking back at the movies and streaming shows I watched over Summer 2026. We will also have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Armor series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLARMOR. As always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through September 21st, 2026, so if you need a new ebook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report that the rough draft of Blade of Visions is done. It came to 99,000 words. It'd be kind of cool if it came to 100,000, but as I've learned in the 15 years I've been doing this, it's not a good idea to pad things for length. Editing is underway. I'm about 15% through the first pass of edits. I'm working on the cover design, so I'm on good track to have the book out before the end of the month. I also wrote a tie-in short story called Winter Crown and don't forget that [newsletter] subscribers will get a free ebook copy of that short story when Blade of Visions comes out later this month. So this makes a very excellent time to subscribe to my new release newsletter. I am also 12,000 words into Elven-Warlock, which will be the seventh book in the Half-Elven Thief series. Hopefully that will be out in October, if all goes well. In audiobook news, I think Blade of Thieves (as narrated by Brad Wills) and Cloak of Worlds (as narrated by Hollis McCarthy) are now finally available at all the usual audiobook stores, which includes Audible, Apple, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, Chirp, and all the others. So if you want to listen to those if you are going on a Labor Day road trip, you can check those out. A reminder that Stealth and Spells Online: The Complete LitRPG trilogy (narrated by C.J. McAllister) is also available on Audible, so check that out. That's 32 hours long and that would also cover all your Labor Day travels. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:22 Main Topic of the Week: Summer 2026 Movie Roundup So let's move on to our main topic this week. Our main topic this week is the Summer 2026 Movie Roundup and I always enjoy doing those. These episodes are a little less serious than some of the other episodes and it's fun to talk about things I enjoyed and that you might enjoy as well. And I did see a lot of new movies this summer. In fact, I went to the actual theater four times for Masters of the Universe, The Odyssey, Spider-Man, and Coyote vs. Acme, which is probably more than I've gone in a single season since before COVID times. So as usual, here are the movies I saw this summer (rated from least favorite to most favorite). The grades are totally subjective and based on nothing but my own thoughts and opinions. First up is The Breadwinner, which came out in 2026. This is basically standup comedian Nate Bargatze's act come to life as a movie. If you've seen Bargatze's standup, his usual routine is to portray himself as the dumb husband and bumbling Girl Dad, which is actually quite clever from a comedic standpoint since you're unlikely to have outraged mobs calling for your head if all you're doing is making fun of yourself. Anyway, Bargatze portrays Nate Wilcox, the best Toyota salesman in Nashville. (Don't worry, this is the first of only many product placement moments.) He lets his wife Kate manage the household and do the bulk of the work with their three daughters. When Kate's invention takes off on Shark Tank, she has to go to South Korea for two weeks to oversee manufacturing, leaving Nate in charge of the kids. Comedic chaos ensues. On the positive side of this movie, I did approve how this movie showed a married couple trying to work through a rough patch and do what's right for their kids and each other in a semi-productive way rather than blowing up their lives over nonsensical trivialities in the style of Eat, Pray, Love. On the downside, there was a lot of product placement, to the point where it at times felt like an extended commercial with bits of plot jammed in between product endorsement. No doubt most of the production budget came from product placement money. Will Forte was funny as an eccentric roofing contractor and Martin Herlihy as a shifty DoorDash employee. Kumail Nanjiani was funny as Nate's rival salesman at the car dealership. So overall, I would say this was blandly amusing and inoffensive with some funny slapstick moments. Overall grade: C- Next up is Supergirl, which came out in 2026. This movie really was sort of a strange combination of John Wick and the human trafficking subplot from 2020's Black Widow. The end result wasn't quite as good as Superman from 2025, alas. I did like this movie's interpretation of Supergirl. Kara Zor-El's departure from Krypton was way more traumatic than Superman's, so she's dealing with her unresolved emotional issues by traveling from planet to planet with red suns and getting hammered since the same yellow sun that gives Kryptonians their superpowers on Earth also keeps them from getting drunk because their bodies process alcohol too efficiently. However, Kara comes to a planet where a girl named Ruthye lives. Ruthye's family has been slaughtered by ruthless brigands yet led by Krem of the Yellow Hills and she's going on a quest for revenge. When Ruthye tries to recruit Kara for the quest, she's not interested, but then Krem steals Kara's spaceship and poisons her dog Krypto. Krem carries the antidote on his person, so now Kara and Ruthye team up to get vengeance on Krem and to heal Krypto. Krem is a nasty piece of work and he and his space gang travel from planet to planet abducting women to be their wives. I think the problem was that Krem was kind of a boring but nasty villain, but he was still boring. He was basically a space thug with too many piercings. Lex Luthor from 2025 Superman, by contrast, was a really interesting villain, this malignant narcissist who knows that his obsession with Superman is over the top, but he's going to act on it anyway. Additionally, I don't think this version of Supergirl is quite capable of being a lead character on her own. She'd make a superb secondary character, but I don't think she could quite carry a movie on her own. And Jason Momoa was pretty good as Lobo. Overall grade: C- Next up is Troy, which came out in 2004. I wanted to see this either before or after I watched The Odyssey this summer and ended up watching it the day before I went to see The Odyssey. I would say this movie was slow and ponderous, but I did enjoy watching it. This is an adaption of The Iliad and has the sort of slow stateliness of epic films from the '60s. It had good performances and good battle scenes. Brian Cox was enjoyable as a scenery chewing Agamemnon and Brad Pitt worked as Achilles. Interestingly, his version of Achilles reminded me of the interpretation of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from Dune 2 as sort of a violent psychopath with his own twisted sense of honor. Oddly, despite the fact that this was rather a long movie, the ending seems a bit rushed, like we needed to hurry up and get to the Trojan Horse. It was amusing how Achilles' relationship with Patroclus was changed to "cousin" for the modern audience, but Greek views on sexuality would definitely be unpalatable with both right-wing and left-wing versions of the modern mind, which is a good thing because while the Greeks contributed a great deal to the development of civilization, they were into a lot of unsavory stuff. So overall, I would say this was a fun, epic movie, but I think this walked so the 2026 version of The Odyssey could run. Amusing fact: Christopher Nolan was apparently supposed to direct this, but the deal fell through and he got Batman Begins as a consolation prize instead. Overall grade: B- Next up is The Dink, which came out in 2026. This is an Apple TV comedy movie about pickleball of all things. I feel like this was made because some Apple executive got made fun of by some tennis players for playing pickleball and then decided to take revenge through media. Jake Johnson plays Dustin Boyd, a washed up former child tennis star who now works at his father's tennis club. The club has difficulties because of a growing influx of pickleball players who the hardcore tennis players hate. Dustin's father decides to use the club's bylaws to force a duel match to decide the issue, in the grand tradition of wacky comedy stakes. Dustin really wants to play the duel match, but his wrist is injured in an accident. To get his wrist mobility back, the doctor suggested he play some pickleball and Dustin views this as beneath him, but he really wants to play again, so he signs up for pickleball. This ends up being a wacky sports company/buddy movie as Dustin gradually befriends an eccentric older pickleball player. Ed Harris should really do more comedic roles. He was great as Dustin's stern, yet unscrupulous father. I do admire Apple TV's dedication to making random stuff. Overall grade: B- Next up is Green and Gold, which came out in 2025, and this is a melodrama about a farmer and his granddaughter dealing with the grim economic realities of farming. This is set in 1992/1993 era Wisconsin. Buck refuses to modernize his dairy farm in Door County, Wisconsin. His granddaughter Jenny is a talented musician and also a skilled farmer, and Buck wants her to take over the farm one day, but Jenny's ambitions are looking elsewhere. Events come to a head when Jenny realizes that Buck is deeply in debt to the bank, which is about to foreclose on the farm. However, Buck and the chief banker have a personal animosity, so they settle on a bet. If the Green Bay Packers win a Super Bowl title in 1993, the banker will give Buck one more year to turn things around on the farm. Meanwhile, Jenny begins to wonder if her music ambitions might generate the money to save the farm. Of course, if you are familiar with the history of the Packers, you know that they won a Super Bowl in 1996, not 1993. The movie has carried on the back of the very strong performances of its actors. It also has an ambiguously happy ending, as is true with so many things in farming. I like this movie because I've spent a lot of my life in the American Midwest, [and] I did appreciate how it shows the difficulties of the farming life. Also, this is important: a fall from a ladder is a plot point. Ladder safety is important, people! If you are going up a ladder, for heaven's sake don't climb the ladder in high heels like the character in question does. Wear sensible, well-fitting shoes with good soles. A very long time ago, I used to work with a guy who would climb extension ladders in cowboy boots. It is nothing short of the mercy of God that he didn't fall off and shatter half the bones in his body. Overall grade: B Next up is Grumpy Old Men, which came out in 1993. Apparently this is set in Wabasha, Minnesota, which is amusing because filming actually took place in several areas in the Twin Cities in Eastern Minnesota, but not actually in Wabasha. I found that personally amusing because I'm quite familiar with the area and so I recognize several filming locations. Anyway, the movie is about two retirees, Max and John, who are enemies and have been enemies for years, but Max is lonely and wants to get married again, and John is about to lose his house to the IRS due to tax problems. Things come to a head when an attractive literature professor moves across the street and both Max and John take an interest in her and start competing for her affections. However, it turns out that Max and John are actually best friends whose love language happens to be hatred and practical jokes, kind of like Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, but more on them below. This was a good character comedy/drama. It was interesting that the professor was an early version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, albeit several decades before someone came up with the term. This is worth watching both as a character and comedy drama and a time capsule of the 1990s. Sometimes a movie ages a bit badly (Airplane and the Thomas Crown Affair from the Spring Movie Roundup come to mind), but this didn't. The sequel Grumpier Old Men from 1995 is basically the same movie, but with the characters acting about 20% dumber so a sitcom style plot can happen. Still entertaining, but not as good as the first one, so Grumpier Old Men only gets a B-, but Grumpy Old Men gets a B+. Next up is Masters of the Universe, which came out in 2026. It was amusing to read reviews of this movie because people thought way too hard about a movie that is essentially about battling action figures. Anyway, this was pretty good. It was nice to see a movie about a science fiction property that doesn't actually hate the source material. Basically it's a live action version of the cartoons from the '80s, albeit with somewhat more thoughtful moments. I heard someone suggest that it was close in tone to Thor: Ragnarok, and that seems accurate. The plot is that Skeletor conquers Eternia and 10-year-old Prince Adam is sent with the Sword of Power through a magical portal to Earth to keep him and the sword out of Skeletor's reach. However, Adam loses the sword while passing through the gate and 15 years later is working in human resources. He's still seeking for the sword despite his therapist trying to convince him that it was a trauma-induced fantasy. However, his persistence pays off and he does find the sword. Teela, who is one of the resistance leaders against Skeletor's rule, comes to Earth to find him and bring him back, but Skeletor's minions arrive to claim the sword as well. Adam and Teela escape back to Eternia and it's up to Adam to find a way to use the Sword of Power to become the hero that Eternia needs. Dolph Lundgren's cameo was great. Overall, I would say this is a fun movie to watch, especially if you're a Millennial or Gen Xer who saw the cartoons or the live action movie back in the '80s. Jared Leto has something of an increasingly questionable reputation these days, but he did a good job as Skeletor, played him halfway between the solemn gravitas of the 1987 version and the malevolent comedic cornball of the cartoons. Of course, in my opinion, the Frank Langella version from 1987 is the best version of Skeletor since he placed it with all the seriousness of a Shakespearean villain monologue at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In hindsight, it wasn't terribly surprising that this underperformed at the box office. It felt like it was made for guys my age, not for kids. I would've been comfortable bringing an eight-year-old to see The Mandalorian and Grogu or Super Mario Galaxy, but I would've been less certain bringing a kid that age to see Masters of the Universe. Additionally, it seemed very Marvel in tone, and I think the overall mood of the US these days is less "Marvel Cinematic Universe quips and banter" and more sort of the grimness of The Odyssey, which we'll talk about shortly. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Young Washington, which came out in 2026, a biopic of the early life of George Washington, covering how he more or less accidentally started the French and Indian War and how he recovered his reputation at the Battle of Braddock's Field. To be fair, the international situation at the time meant that someone was going to start the French and Indian War. It just happened to be Washington, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Overall, I liked this. It was reasonably historically accurate, though some of the emotional and family dialogue at times was a bit clunky. Additionally, Washington was portrayed as having revolutionary leanings much earlier in life than he actually did, since when he was a young man, he had no thoughts of being anything but a British subject and officer. That said, some of the most implausible stuff in the movie actually happened in real life. Like if I were to write in a novel that the future president of the United States personally rallied the army's rear guard to save as many men as possible from an ambush, and in the process had two horses shot out from under him and ended up with bullet holes in his hat and coat (all while fighting continuously), you would probably find that a bit implausible, but it actually happened that way. Washington's daring actions during that battle were one of the reasons he was appointed commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, that and there weren't many other colonials with as much experience of military command as Washington. In that vein, the battle scenes were the best part of the movie. They captured the brutality and messiness of 18th Century warfare without being especially graphic. Anyway, I'm glad this is getting a sequel. Maybe we'll end up with a Young Washington Cinematic Universe. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Meet the Parents, which came out in 2000, and this is probably one of the apex forms of cringe comedy. Ben Stiller plays Greg Focker, a nurse who's in love with schoolteacher Pam Burns. Greg wants to marry Pam, but overhears a phone call with her sister where she says her fiancé asked permission of her traditional father first. Greg decides that he's going to ask Pam's father's permission first to get off on the right foot, and so accompanies Pam to her sister's wedding and her parents' house to, as the title says, Meet the Parents. However, Pam's father is the former CIA counterintelligence officer Jack, and he and Greg immediately get on each other's nerves. To make things worse, the airline has lost Greg's luggage. From these two starting premises follow a cascading series of hilarious disasters that accumulate in a septic tank fire on the lawn. I'm not sure, but I think I saw this one in the theaters when it came out in 2000, and I thought it was funny then. With 26 years of additional life experience under the belt, I still think it's pretty funny, though you could still tell that this movie was filmed before 9/11 because if Greg had his airport meltdown seen today, the consequences would've been much worse. Overall grade: B+ Next up is O Brother Where Art Thou, which came out in 2000. This is a very, very, very specific adaptation of The Odyssey directed by the Coen brothers. George Clooney plays Everett, a convict who escapes from a chain gang in Mississippi during the Great Depression. He wants to find a treasure and he recruits fellow convicts Delmar and Peter to assist him. Along the way, Everett and his team encountered 1930s era versions of the Sirens, the cyclops, the blind prophet Tiresias, and other characters and foes from the original Odyssey myth. Everett and his friends end up running a scam where they pretend to be a Christian music group, but as it turns out, they're actually pretty good at singing, so this leads to unexpected hilarity and opportunities. This was also a very funny movie. Imagine The Odyssey is a comedy with a lot of singing set in the Deep South during the Depression, and you're there. If you're a fan of bluegrass music, this is worth watching. If you've seen Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, it's worth watching this just to ponder how the same source material can produce such wildly divergent interpretations. If you don't care about The Odyssey, then this is still a fun movie to watch. Proof: I mentioned to someone that I had seen this and she responded that she both loved the movie and was surprised to learn that he had in fact been inspired by The Odyssey. Overall grade: A- Next up is Hoppers, which came out in 2026. Like most Pixar movies, this was very high concept. Unlike many recent Pixar movies, it wasn't too depressing and didn't disappear up its own tailpipe. In the city of Beaverton, hot tempered girl Mabel bonds with her grandmother in their favorite place, a woodland grove favored by beavers. Years later, Mabel is a biology student under Dr. Fairfax, but is neglecting her studies to face off against her nemesis, the popular yet sketchy Mayor Jerry of Beaverton. Mayor Jerry wants to build an expressway that will wipe out the woodland grove, and he's perfectly within his rights to do it since no animals have been found living there. Since Mabel's grandmother has died, she's unwilling to give up the grove. However, Dr. Fairfax's research might give her a way. Dr. Fairfax has worked out a way to temporarily transfer human consciousness to a robotic beaver capable of speaking to real beavers, much like the plot of Avatar. In a funny scene, Fairfax angrily denies that it's just like Avatar. Mabel gets the idea to use this to convince real beavers to settle in the grove, thereby thwarting Mayor Jerry's plans. This touches off both a wacky yet poignant adventure. The plot was very well structured and it followed the proper rules of story structure, which I've talked about before. Mabel definitely is a protagonist who takes action, but experiences setbacks and problems of her own creation. It was pretty good. I say it was a return to form for Pixar after some of their weaker movies in the 2020s. Overall grade: A Now it's time for my three favorite movies of summer 2026, all of which I actually saw in the theater. First up is Coyote versus Acme, which came out in 2026. This movie had an extra surge of popularity from the fact that Warner Brothers canceled it as a tax write-off, but distributor Ketchup Entertainment revived it. That makes it a plucky underdog since Warner Brothers senior executives are kind of like the apex version of soulless corporate bug men. Like if I wrote characters in my books who acted like Warner Brothers senior executives, people would think I was being didactic and heavy-handed. Anyway, after decades of failures in efforts to capture the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote decides to sue Acme Corporation for its numerous defective products. Coyote teams up with a lazy strip mall lawyer named Kevin Avery, who specializes in getting small settlements from Acme. However, Avery and Coyote end up filing a massive lawsuit against Acme, which means they'll face the full wrath of Acme Corporation, including its ace lawyer Buddy Crane and its ruthless CEO, Foghorn Leghorn. What follows is a comedic courtroom battle as Coyote and Avery try to defeat Acme Corporation, defeat its sinister plans, and Coyote starts to realize that Road Runner might actually be his best friend. Both quite amusing and touching, and I'm glad this was rescued from the tax write-off vault. Overall grade: A Next up is The Odyssey, which came out in 2026. This wasn't quite as good as Oppenheimer in 2023 in my opinion, but it was still very good and very much worth seeing. It was weird that The Odyssey was briefly a football in the never-ending US culture war scrum because the movie isn't really political and doesn't really have a message beyond "war is destructive and bad", which every sensible person would agree with, and a lesser message of "violating the law of morality has unforeseen cascading bad consequences, including the destruction of civilization", which is also quite true and was one of the themes of Oppenheimer. Nolan himself dismissed the controversies as "irrelevant" and "part of the territory" since no one had actually seen the movie yet, and given that The Odyssey has made a billion and a half dollars as of this recording, I think that may have proved his point. I imagine the scrutiny from Batman fans back in the 2010s was way more intense since in the modern era, many people care more deeply about the accuracy of Batman than The Odyssey. I do think the debate over the historical accuracy in The Odyssey is pointless because the Odyssey is myth, not history. The Iliad and The Odyssey are a lot like Arthurian myth in terms of their actual historicity. Even when Arthurian legend was massively popular with English kings and nobles in the late medieval and early modern period (for example, Henry VIII's older brother was named Arthur in imitation of King Arthur), the version of Arthurian myth they celebrated and wished to emulate had virtually no connection to the reality of Britain in the 500s AD and was instead a sort of fantasy version of their own time in the 14th and 15th centuries. By the time The Odyssey was written down, no doubt a similar process was underway. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey and the Arthurian cycle probably have a kernel of historical truth buried underneath the tales of magic swords, sirens, cyclopses, and vengeful witches with magic islands. There likely was a Romano-British warlord who might have been named Arthur (or possibly Ambrosius Aurelianus) who held off the Saxons for a while before he was overwhelmed and killed. Likewise, Heinrich Schliemann was a highly eccentric and very sketchy crazy rich guy, but he did prove that there really was some version of the city of Troy that was destroyed at the end of the Bronze Age. But everything beyond those basic details came from thousands of years of embellishments and flourishes from later poets and writers. So arguing about the historical accuracy of The Odyssey is a bit like arguing if Star Wars portrays faster than light travel in an accurate way. That kind of argument is just missing the point entirely. It's also interesting to see how modern standards clashed with the ancient mindset. You know how I always say that everywhere in the United States is exactly the same right until it really, really isn't? I think ancient people are just like us until they really, really weren't. Like ancient people would have been superstitious to an extent that even the most credulous crystal and aura influencer on TikTok would find horrifying and frequently violent in a way that the most strident self-defense advocate would find shocking. The Odyssey's version of Odysseus feels guilt and remorse over his actions in a way an actual ancient Greek probably wouldn't have, but so what? This is The Odyssey viewed through the lens of the 21st century, just as those English nobles viewed the myth of King Arthur and his knights through the lens of their time. As I mentioned with Troy above, the ancient Greeks were often quite brutal and would celebrate sacking an enemy city. One side note before we get to the movie, I probably found it funnier than I should have how Nolan favorably cited classicist Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey as a source, and Wilson then had an extended and unintentionally comedic multi-article crashout about how much she hated the movie and of course how much she hated the commemorative Trojan Horse popcorn bucket. Apparently Wilson hated the movie so much she's going to do a new translation of The Odyssey, much to her publisher's baffled dismay. No one does offended huffy petulance quite like an academic. Anyway, back to the movie. It follows the familiar story of Odysseus through Christopher Nolan's preference for non-linear storytelling and practical effects. I did think it was interesting how in this interpretation, Odysseus explicitly connected the ruse of the Trojan Horse with the collapse of the Bronze Age and the rise of the Sea Peoples. It's also probably the most supernatural film Nolan has ever done with actual fantasy and supernatural elements as opposed to science fiction like Inception, Tenant, and Interstellar. Odysseus talks to Athena throughout the movie and it's left up to the viewer's interpretation whether or not he's actually talking to Athena or his own guilt-ridden hallucinations. That said, Odysseus encounters a witch with actual magic powers and travels to the underworld to speak with the shades of the dead, so it's entirely possible he's talking to the actual Athena. In this version, as I mentioned, Odysseus is guilt-ridden over the ruse of the Trojan Horse, which is shown as a violation of the sacred hospitality of Zeus's law and as great a crime as the creation of the atomic bomb in Oppenheimer, which of course is similar to Oppenheimer, where Oppenheimer's creation of the atomic bomb is treated similarly. There are also some genuinely scary sequences in the movie. The bit with the underworld is very spooky, the cyclops is actually quite frightening, and the character of Circe reaches the level of scary previously attained by Heath Ledger's version of The Joker in The Dark Knight. If Nolan ever decides he wants to do a horror movie, it will probably be one of the scariest ones ever made. To sum up, The Odyssey has great performances, great spectacle, great cinematography, and great action sequences. As an interesting interpretation of the original myth, definitely worth seeing. I think you can tell it was a great movie because of all the arguments on the Internet about "what does it really mean?" Great art often has that effect. Overall grade: A The final of my three favorite movies of [Summer] 2026 is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which came out in 2026. There's a rumor, and I don't know if it's true or not, that Tom Holland found the experience of working with Christopher Nolan on The Odyssey so eye-opening that he insisted that if they made another Spider-Man movie, it had to have a reason for existing other than "make a lot of money". If this story is true, it clearly worked. Previously, I though the two best Spider-Man movies were Spider-Man 2 from 2004 and Spider-Man: No Way Home from 2021. I must now amend that opinion to say that there are three best Spider-Man movies and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is one of the three. It is pretty good. I would've trimmed it here and there, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and is an excellent Spider-Man story that totally captures the essence of the character within a good story. It takes place four years after the events of No Way Home erased everyone's memory that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Peter has now been crime fighting full time, but it is taking a severe toll on his emotions and personal life that he's deliberately ignoring. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has become the beloved crime fighter of New York, trusted by both the NYPD and the Federal Department of Damage Control, which is a reoccurring frenemy for superheroes from other movies. When someone launches an attack on the headquarters of Damage Control, the director recruits Peter to fight their new enemy, a mysterious figure who uses telepathy to possess people from a distance. Peter is the only one who can sense it thanks to his spider sense, and he's also the only one able to resist the telepath's possession abilities. But despite his resistance to possession, fighting a telepath is a dangerous proposition for someone with as many emotional issues as Peter, and things start to spiral out of control when the telepath starts digging into his life. But there's another lesson Peter has to learn. People (and especially superheroes) who take the federal government at its word tend to regret it. For that matter, ignoring his emotional issues is causing Peter's spider powers to start acting in strange ways. But of course, at the end of the day, Spider-Man always follows his conscience, no matter how high the cost to him personally. Definitely an enjoyable movie. All the scenes with Spider-Man and Punisher were great, and the two of them had a great dynamic together. A few other Marvel Cinematic Universe people show up, but this is probably one of the most standalone movies the MCU has done in a while. Of course, the risk of MCU Continuity Lockout is always there (which is one of the reasons I started writing Half-Eleven Thief in 2023). Overall grade: A So I would say it was a pretty good summer for movies. It's also valuable lessons in not taking the Internet too seriously, which too many people do nowadays. There are all these dedicated analyses on X, Threads, and Reddit in June and May explaining why The Odyssey was going to fail for whatever reason, and instead it made $1.5 billion. So I think that's a good lesson in not taking everything you read on the internet a little too seriously. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show enjoyable. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.
Absolute potato! This week, TWIFH is delighted to bring you a special preview of Femme & Furious, a new pod-friend and great listen for fans of fandom, and especially for listeners who liked our old behind-the-scenes pop culture rundown episodes for Patreon. In this episode, our friend Julia Portela looks with a feminist lens at five (secretly six) pieces of extremely current media: Obsession, The Drama, Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Sterling Point, and the novel Girl's Girl by Sonia Feldman. Julia is funny, smart, and definitely a fangirl. Listen to our #Gamergate episode over on her feed, too!---This week on Femme & Furious, we're breaking our own format because while it's technically a "Fast 5," we've got six properties on deck, because there was too much good pop culture to cover this month. Spoiler-free pitches up top for each one, then we go all the way in with spoilers, feminist analysis, and a few unhinged theories. What I'm covering: Obsession — the viral horror hit that outran Supergirl in theaters, the "man or the bear" discourse hiding in plain sight, and why Bear is absolutely a dog guy. The Drama — Zendaya and Robert Pattinson's wedding-week-gone-wrong dark comedy from Kristoffer Borgli, and the racial double standard baked into who gets forgiven for what. Odyssey — Christopher Nolan's mythic epic, the Emily Wilson feud, and a full breakdown of Circe, Calypso, Helen, Clytemnestra, and a theory about who Athena really is. Spider-Man: Brand New Day — Tom Holland's loneliest Peter Parker yet, the Frank Castle friendship that's carrying the movie, and a hard pass on that Little Caesars order. Sterling Point — Amazon's CW-coded YA drama, a love triangle the writing doesn't quite earn, and the most joyful period scene we've seen on TV ever. Girl's Girl by Sonia Feldman — one of my favorite books of the year, a queer coming-of-age story about girlhood, friendship, and phones as a silent second language. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This fall, Crack the Book is heading into the ancient world with an epic reading project: Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, followed by Virgil's Aeneid. We'll move at a beginner-friendly pace, keeping our eyes on the forest rather than examining every leaf, while exploring the history, mythology, translations, movies, and enormous cultural influence of these stories.I'll be reading Robert Fagles as my primary translation, while dipping into versions by Emily Wilson, W.H.D. Rouse, and Sarah Ruden to see how translation changes the experience. Along the way, I'll share practical strategies for handling the intimidating number of names, gods, heroes, and places—and bring in guests and experts for other perspectives.Most importantly, you don't need to know Greek mythology or be an expert to begin. These books have survived because they are great stories. Come find out why they still have the power to surprise us.Next week: The Iliad, Books 1–5.BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEHomer, The Iliad — Robert Fagles translation, Penguin Classics Deluxe EditionHomer, The Odyssey — Robert Fagles translation, Penguin Classics Deluxe EditionVirgil, The Aeneid — Robert Fagles translation, Penguin Classics Deluxe EditionHomer, The Iliad — Emily Wilson translationHomer, The Odyssey — Emily Wilson translationHomer, The Iliad — W. H. D. Rouse translation (prose)Homer, The Odyssey — W. H. D. Rouse translation (prose)Virgil, The Aeneid — Sarah Ruden translationApuleius, The Golden Ass — Sarah Ruden translation CONNECTThe complete list of Crack the Book Episodes (Amazon affiliate links): https://cheryldrury.substack.com/p/crack-the-book-start-here?r=u3t2rTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ Like what you heard? Buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/crackthebookLISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bdApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm
Join us as we explore the worldwide phenomenon behind the revival of Homer's 3000-year-old story, the kaleidoscopic and hallucinogenic return of Odysseus to Ithaka, the Greek island that has become an icon for home itself. There is the immense beauty of the poem itself and the historical importance of Homer's accomplishment, but what does the story mean to us now, how can it help illuminate the chaos of our lives today? Composed by the Poet Known as Homer, around 650 BC, it was based on a story about the Trojan War that was already hundreds of years old. Since then, the story about the hallucinogenic adventures of Odysseus, his son Telemachus, and wife Penelope have cast a spell over cultures around the world, haunting poets, playwrights and philosophers, and taunting the efforts of archaeologists, linguists and now filmmakers to render it in modern terms. Our conversation will explore the myriad life lessons of Homer's masterpiece that have inspired readers, listeners and now viewers for millennia, with a focus on the central theme of the nostoi, the return stories of ancient Greek soldiers, adventurers, philosophers and scientists coming home, and the wider question of what home meant to the ancients—and what home means to us now, the most rootless people in recorded history. Along the way, we will have an animated exchange about the wide range of translations, from Alexander Pope, T. E. Lawrence, and E. V. Rieu, to Richard Lattimore, Emily Wilson and Daniel Mendelosohn. Finally, we will playfully review the myriad movie versions, from George Melies' four-minute version in 1905, to the 1956 Ulysses with Kirk Douglas, and the freshly minted Odyssey helmed by Christopher Nolan. Finally, there is the surprising realization that it is five female characters (Penelope, Athena, Calypso, Circe and Nausicaa) who helped guide Odysseus homeward, and the centuries-long influence on art, literature and cinema. Join us for a celebration of the soul-saving power of this ancient Greek tale, which sings of the aftermath of a savage war and the restoration of our hero's home, all the while insisting on need to say “yes” to life. About the Speaker Phil Cousineau is the author of The Wisdom of the Odyssey and over 40 other books, including the bestselling The Art of Pilgrimage, and The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. Cousineau is a writer, teacher, filmmaker, storyteller and cultural historian, who has consulted on mythology and story for major studios, including Warner Brothers., Pixar and Lucasfilm, and has led mythology travel programs to Greece for more than three decades. Cousineau has been featured on NPR, CNN International, the BBC, the Smithsonian and Discovery channels, and was the host of PBS and Link-TV's "Global Spirit." He lives in San Francisco. Visit him online. Valerie Andrews is the founder of the digital magazine and podcast "Reinventing Home," the author of Our Story of Home: Tales of Longing and Belonging, and A Passion for This Earth: Toward a New Partnership of Man, Woman and Nature, and the editor of Sanctuary: The Inner Life of Home. Her articles have appeared in Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, Intuition magazine, Esquire, Vogue, and The Sun. She has moved—or rather been unmoored—33 times and understands the wandering Odysseus. The Bay Area has been her home since 1990. A Grownups Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Organizer: Denise M. Michaud Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Send us Fan MailNolan turns one of the oldest adventure stories into a modern IMAX gut punch, and we have a lot of feelings about it. We start with some real life chaos, including newborn sleep shifts, late-night watches, and the odd comfort of slipping back into games like Final Fantasy when your schedule makes no sense. From there, we pivot into The Odyssey, the Homeric epic that basically taught Western storytelling how to build a hero's journey, and what it means when a filmmaker as confident as Christopher Nolan decides to reshape it.We get into the adaptation choices that sparked the most debate: the tone shift toward horror, the Cyclops sequence that feels more nightmare than myth, and the Cersei transformation scene that is so disturbing partly because it looks practical and physical. We also talk about translation and accessibility through the lens of Emily Wilson, plus the bigger question of what changes are harmless trims versus changes that rewrite the entire point of the story. Along the way we argue about the missing “Nobody” energy, the way temptation and crew motivation are framed, and how a star-studded cast can either elevate a scene or pull you out of ancient Greece when the actor is too recognizable.The core of our critique is Odysseus himself. In the original Odyssey, he travels from boastful cunning to humbled survivor, and that arc powers the meaning of homecoming and even the roots of “nostalgia.” When the movie starts him emotionally “finished,” we think the journey risks losing its reason for being, even if the filmmaking is undeniably brilliant. If you care about Greek mythology, Homer, movie adaptations, and how the hero's journey works when you change one key beam, you will have opinions right along with us.Subscribe for more deep dives, share this with the friend who loves Nolan or hates book-to-film changes, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What is one adaptation change you will never forgive?Support the show
Fresh off the first Cascadia Men's Conference, I'm pleased to share my first long-form podcast episode in some months. Right now, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is storming around the world, a $1.3 billion phenomenon that has returned one of humanity's oldest stories to the center of our cultural conversation.My guest today is a man who has been steeping in this epic for years. Phil Cousineau is the author of newly published ‘The Wisdom of the Odyssey: Twenty-four Life Lessons from Homer's Epic' and more than forty other books, including the bestselling The Art of Pilgrimage and The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. He is a writer, teacher, and storyteller who has consulted on myth and story for Warner Brothers, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, led mythology travel programs to Greece for more than three decades, and hosted the PBS television series Global Spirit.In our conversation, Phil invites us to look at why The Odyssey has risen once again. He suggests the epic poem is Western culture's first articulated case of PTSD and the consequence of war and conquest. We speak of the women who guide Odysseus back to himself, the terror of crossing your own threshold after twenty years away, and what it means when love rather than fame becomes the gravity that pulls a man home.Phil reminds us that the Odyssey is everybody's story, and the courage required to bend down and kiss the earth in gratitude for the chance to begin again.Here in full is the Rumi poem I reference (translated by Haleh Liza Gafori)LOVE, YOUR waters, your melodieswhirl me and whirl me.I'm the wheel in a mill.Whirl me forever.When my heart is troubled,when my heart has fled,keep me close.No branch, no leaf, no piece of straw drawn to amberwill move without a breeze.Unless desire stirs it, nothing in this world will dance.Every element, every particle of every elementis a whirling lover, drunk on union.The generous host lays out a feast.Animals graze the sweet grass.Didn't the ants tell secrets to Solomon?Didn't the mountains singwhen David sang his songs of praise?The sky is your lover.Lay your head on its peaceful chest.The sun is your lover. Drink its light.Love moves through every mountain and field.How else would green grow from earth's dark body?LINKS * Phil Cousineau - Official Website* The Wisdom of the Odyessy - BookHeads up, if you are a man seeking to explore the mythopoetic path, you are invited to check out The Archetypal Compass. This mini-guide is designed to help you navigate the internal archetypes of the soul, providing a map for those ready to move beyond personal inquiry and toward a more conscious stewardship of their lives and the world.Also, the next cohort of The Deep Masculine, my 3 month online journey for men begins Sept 20th. Join a mythic brotherhood aimed at re-patterning your relationship to sex, soul and purpose.SHOW NOTES00:04 — Quebec and Detroit Roots: Phil traces his ancestry to Jean Baptiste Cousineau, one of the nine founding families of Montreal, and his mythic upbringing in Detroit.00:06 — A Family of Readers: Growing up reading Homer, Grimm, and Canadian folk tales aloud together, and the inherited practice of read, pilgrimage, and the Long Conversation.00:10 — The Odyssey Sketched: A whirlwind through the enchantment at Olympus, the judgment of Paris, Helen, and the 1,156 ships sailing for Troy.00:16 — The First Documented PTSD: Why Odysseus is arguably history's first case of post-traumatic stress, and why a soldier cannot go straight home from war.00:22 — The Bard Scene: On the island of Phaeacia, when Odysseus hears his story sung, takes it back, and the healing begins.00:25 — Why Myths Rise Again: James Baldwin on reading as the antidote to unprecedented pain, and why myths that never happened are always happening.00:33 — The Masculine Arc: From the hunger for kleos (glory) to being pulled home by eros (love), and the grief of men who have achieved everything yet feel lost.00:39 — Polytropos: What it means that Odysseus is "many-turning" — the colossal, radical act of a man capable of changing his mind.00:42 — The Six Women: How Athena, Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa, Eurycleia, and Penelope guide Odysseus home, making the epic the world's first romance.00:46 — Achilles in the Underworld: The axis mundi where glory confronts the choice for one more day of sunshine over eternal fame.00:52 — Gratitude and Kissing the Earth: On Rumi, Coleman Barks, and Odysseus bending down to kiss the beach as literature's first grateful male hero.00:56 — The Beggar's Return: Odysseus comes home not in triumph but humbled, bent, and listening — a diminishment that is actually a deepening.01:06 — Nolan's Ending vs. the Greek Original: Why sailing away into the sunset is American Western mythology, not a Greek ending, and what the film sacrifices.01:10 — Talking Until Dawn: Penelope's fierce "My heart can take it" and the moment husband and wife talk and listen to each other until dawn.01:13 — The Wisdom of the Odyssey: Phil's new book, recommended translations by Lattimore and Emily Wilson, and upcoming mythology tours to Greece. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themythicmasculine.substack.com/subscribe
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. Emily & AIA is glad to partner with The Svane Family Foundation's Culture Forward initiative — a $5 million grant program to support arts and culture projects in downtown San Francisco. In the first of episodes, Emily chats with Kelsey Issel, a neon artist and also the Director for the Culture Forward initiative. Kelsey traces her path from organizing the renegade Fountain Art Fair in the early 2010s (including a memorable "war of the inflatables" with union protesters at the 69th Regiment Armory) to co-founding She Bends, a women's neon arts collective. She discusses the foundation's unconventional approach to philanthropy, which began with giving 100 artists $10,000 each during COVID and evolved into Culture Forward — a general-support grant designed to get cash quickly into artists' hands with the explicit understanding that "some projects might fail." The episode also highlights the foundation's earlier million-dollar gifts to the Headlands Foundation Fellowship Program and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which enabled the acquisition of works from 30 local contemporary artists — several of whom have been past guests on the podcast. About Artist Kelsey Issel: Kelsey Issel is a culture worker, artist and curator whose practice centers the ethos of craft—learning through doing, cultivating attention, and recognizing the social responsibility held within materials. She leads Opie Project (space), an arts and culture firm that develops cross-sector programs investing in cultural capital, with partners including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Headlands Center for the Arts, the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the Port of San Francisco, and Coca-Cola. With a background in alternative photography, car mechanics, and neon, Kelsey's hands-on material practice informs her approach to curating, programming, and public initiatives. Her work bridges art and infrastructure, sustaining cultural ecosystems and the communities that grow around them. Issel was the 2025/2026 Antigravity Residency Artist with Corning Museum of Glass and Rockwell Museum and sits on the Board of Directors at Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Learn More About "She Bends" Women In NEON - CLICK HERE For More On The Svane Family Foundation & The Culture Forward Initiative - CLICK HERE Follow Kelsey on Instagram: @KelseyMarieIssel Follow The Svane Family on Instagram: @SvaneFoundation -- About Podcast Host Emily Wilson: Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco. Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast -- CREDITS: Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson. Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions. For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
We are diving into the archives this week to bring back an absolute favorite classic episode of Everyone's a Critic!Comedian Emily Wilson stops by the studio to defend the 2011 Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston rom-com, Just Go With It. We break down why the critics were entirely wrong to give this film a 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, arguing that it is actually a sweet, character-driven comedy elevated by the incredible real-life chemistry of its leads. We dive deep into the bizarre but hilarious supporting cast, including Nicole Kidman playing a mean-spirited sorority bully, Dave Matthews playing a rude, wealthy husband, and an early movie appearance by Keegan-Michael Key. We also examine the genius of Adam Sandler's career, his tendency to cast his friends, and the shocking Rotten Tomatoes scores for classics like Click and Master of Disguise. Away from the movie, Emily talks about the success of her Edinburgh Fringe show, Fixed. She shares the wild true story behind the show: auditioning for the American X Factor at age 15 alongside her closeted best friend, getting ripped apart by the judges, and somehow still making it through to the live shows. We also chat about our favorite eras of Saturday Night Live, the magic of live UCB improv shows in New York, and why Emily absolutely hated the acclaimed Paul Thomas Anderson film Licorice Pizza. ⭐ Support the show on Patreon for: Episodes 24 hours earlyAd-Free listeningBonus ContentExclusive Polls and Updatespatreon.com/everyonesacriticpod
Firstly I suppose I should say... *Spoiler Alert*Although let's face it, the story is over 3,000 years old. By now you should probably have heard of it. Secondly, there is a Post Script here to listen out for. An 'after the credits' scene if you will. Definitely stay tuned for that part. It ties the episode together. The episode itself has been brewing for the last month, since the release of Nolan's The Odyssey in cinemas worldwide. Of course, everyone with even a pinky toe in the world of Greek Mythology has commented on it by now. And in that sense, I'm certainly late to the party. Still, it didn't feel right to miss the opportunity altogether. So here is my contribution.After watching the movie I went back to read the Iliad followed by the Odyssey. About 30 hours of reading. I wanted to become steeped in that mythic landscape. To imagine myself in an ancient hall, lit by torches and the hearth, being transported into another world by the rhythmic tones of the bard.It was that trance state I wanted to enter, as best as one can when actually just reading lines on a page translated into English that don't actually retain that rhythm and flow. And juxtapose that trance with the modern version of staring at a screen.Both of these forms take you to another world. The bard exercises your ability to generate images inside of your mind. The movie screen generates the images for you. All this to say, I wanted to speak from my personal experience of Odysseus, as our most polymorphic of literary characters, and how it connects to the great quest of our lives: becoming who we actually are. I consider that to be what the sun is symbolic of in astrology. Not as seperate from the moon, but as an extension of it. To be oneself and fully related. That would be the 'soli-lunar' task of becoming. So this episode, which is a BONUS episode within the planets series, is a chance to enter Odysseus' world. His naming ritual that coincides with his wounding. His movement out of the cave and into the light past the threshold guardian. The owning of his name, his lineage, his place and his fame. And his return home to reclaim his throne. A throne that is threatened by many false selves that we know as 'the suitors'.I'd love to hear what stirs for you in the story. Particularly the places that your mind and soul keep returning to. That (t)horn in the side that draws you back to it again and again. As wounds that have bestowed upon us the endless gifts of our mortal lives. YouTube and Patreon seem to be the best place to leave comments these days. See you there. Cover Art is Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - Homer's Odyssey. Joseph Mallord William Turner. 1829. Oil on canvas.The translations I returned to (The Iliad and The Odyssey) were both by Emily Wilson.Join the Newsletter!Podcast Musician: Marlia CoeurPlease consider becoming a Patron to support the show!Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.
We love it when our interests align with a pop culture moment! We're taking this opportunity to dig deep into The Odyssey - maybe you've heard of it? We touch on Emily Wilson's text and the lingering cultural impact of this millennia-old myth, as well as Nolan's specific take and some other adaptations. Homework for the episode: The Odyssey (Homer, translated by Emily Wilson); The Odyssey (2026, dir. Christopher Nolan); Contempt (1963, dir. Jean-Luc Godard), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, dir. the Coen Brothers)
Two short years ago, another adaptation of “The Odyssey” hit movie theaters. This one cast a jacked Ralph Fiennes and mysterious Juliette Binoche as Odysseus and Penelope, chronicling only the “back on Ithaca” conclusion of the epic poem. My lifelong friend Tim Lundy is here to review “The Return.” He's an educator and book editor, who came ready to discuss the canonical buffness of Odysseus, how silence is an underrated storytelling quality, and translator Emily Wilson's beef with Nolan's "Odyssey," plus play some demented Wishbone trivia.
Returning guest, Dr. David Schenker, a professor of classics at Mizzou, returns for a 6-year catch up! At the time of this recording, he had just taught his final formal class after 35 years at the University of Missouri. Luckily, he will continue working through delivering occasional lectures, committee work, and Greek reading. In today's episode, he discusses shifting from “Classical Tradition” to “Classical Reception,” and updates us on his cross-listed course, “Black Dionysus: Greek Tragedy in Africa and the African Diaspora.” The conversation also covers curriculum debates, Emily Wilson's campus visit to Mizzou, reactions to Christopher Nolan's new Odyssey trailer, AI in teaching, and department restructuring. Lastly, he provided insight into the “Schenkerthon” retirement event held in honour of his retirement and his hopes for his departmental legacy and other retirement plans. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week's exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded May 7, 2026.Learn more about Dr. Schenker: https://car.missouri.edu/people/schenker Listen to his first AOH episode: https://www.ozymandiasproject.com/podcast/episode/37933cbe/episode-2-dr-david-schenker Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this episode we sample two coffees from Lineage Coffee Roasting. Then we talk about what it means to be the privileged one, Bolts Brew Fest 2026, why we hate to miss a fest, Orlando coffee, finally being included, scorekeeping, Colombia Rosado, a coffee novel, a strong mucilage, firm hand grasps, channeling the love of a dentist, eating coffee beans, big summer of movies, 8/10, trying to Nolan things up, the hesistancy of whether or not the story will be worth telling, apparent magic, the subject of the narrative, a satisfying take on the story, war crimes, are we the villains, interiority, you don't know the full nature of what you've done, Greek names are difficult to follow, where does the real growth happen, Ethiopia Worka, smelling wet and dry beans, danky nose, garden sized plot, punchy bitter, Kyle's so fancy, picking some nits, all of the extra people, a big grey booger, American accents, too long, Emily Wilson, and Zeus's law. Support Us On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DrepandStone We'd love to hear from you! https://linktr.ee/DrepandStone Don't forget to subscribe! Episode 359
This week, Alex and Kate discuss the rise in anti-intellectualism and willful ignorance. They discuss how the internet has destroyed people's abilities to argue, the total loss of literacy, and especially how this has shown up in the public response to Emily Wilson's review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Plus a bunch of MTG talk!
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area. This week, host Emily chats with Miguel Novelo, a multidisciplinary artist from the Yucatan, Mexico, now based in the Bay Area. Miguel's solo exhibition Inframundo is on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose through August 23rd. Inframundo is a large-scale, immersive installation featuring sculpture, video, and sound. Inspired by the cenotes and caverns of the Yucatan — underwater cave systems formed by the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago — the work explores Mayan cosmology, the cycles of nature, and what Miguel calls "techno shamanism": the use of emerging technology to evoke shamanic experiences and altered states of consciousness. About Artist Miguel Novelo: Miguel Novelo is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and researcher who focuses on emerging media and community organizing. Currently working on algorithmic movies, technoshammanic installations, thermodynamic hypnotism, and friendly computer viruses. Novelo earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2018, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from Stanford University in 2022. His work has been exhibited at various institutions, including the de Young Museum, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City, and numerous international film festivals. Currently a lecturer at Stanford Art and Art History Department and San Jose State University. Visit Miguel's Website: MiguelNovelo.com Follow Miguel on Instagram: @xMiguelNovelo For more about his exhibit Inframundo, CLICK HERE. -- About Podcast Host Emily Wilson: Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco. Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast -- CREDITS: Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson. Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions. For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Jeff and Rebecca check in the last gasp of Emily Wilson's The Odyssey discourse, The New York Times' list of the Best Thrillers of the Century so Far, on-going developments in AI accusations in publishing, recent reading, and much more. Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Join The Book Riot Podcast Patreon for bonus content and ad-free listening. Subscribe to The Book Riot Newsletter for regular updates to get the most out of your reading life. The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Discussed in this episode: Update: The Wilson pan of The Odyssey is so big that The Onion parodied it, and Emily Wilson wrote another one! Book with $2.4 million advance pulled over AI allegations NYT names the 50 best thrillers of the century so far Apple is developing an adaptation of Whitehead's Harlem Trilogy Naomi Alderman's “couch to 5k” for reading GRRM issues our regularly scheduled reminder that The Winds of Winter is never happening This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Go to quince.com/bookriot for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mal and Jo answer all of your questions about 'The Odyssey'! They discuss everything from Emily Wilson's criticisms of the movie to what Nolan-verse regulars should have been cast! Later, they each give their current rankings of Nolan's filmography.(00:00:00) Intro(00:02:26) The Odyssey Inspired Mailbag(00:59:26) The Official Nolan RankingsHosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nearly 3,000 years after Homer's epic was first told, The Odyssey remains one of the most influential and frequently retold stories ever created. Christopher Nolan's new film has brought Odysseus back to the center of popular culture, but no single adaptation can explain why this story has survived for millennia. In this episode, Mike and Casen explore the origins, structure, translations, and evolving legacy of The Odyssey. We examine how generations of writers and filmmakers have reinterpreted Homer; what different adaptations preserve, change, or misunderstand; and why Odysseus remains such a fascinating and difficult hero: clever, resilient, selfish, brutal, and relentlessly determined to return home. From Homer, Chapman, Alexander Pope, and Emily Wilson to the 1997 miniseries, The Return, and Christopher Nolan's adaptation, this is a conversation about the strange power of a story that has outlived civilizations, and why it will continue to be told for another 3,000 years. Which version of The Odyssey first captured your imagination? Time Codes: 1. Intro (0:00) 2. Casen Recites The Opening Lines Of The Poem In Greek (4:56) 3. Mike's Personal History With The Odyssey (11:17) 4. The Many Translations Of The Odyssey (27:04) 5. 7 Different Versions Of The Opening Lines: Which Should You Read? (50:44) 6. Summary Of The Original Story In The Poem (1:06:20) 7. The Screen Adaptations Of The Odyssey (1:23:26) 8. Ulysses 1954 (1:24:29) 9. L'Odissea 1968 (1:27:45) 10. The Odyssey 1997 (1:29:49) 11. The Return 2024 (1:55:42) 12. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey 2026 (2:16:05)
【聊了什么The What】 克里斯托弗·诺兰的《奥德赛》已成为2026年无可争议的文化现象,我们也从书柜的角落里把奥德赛淘了出来。这期节目我们对比了3000年前的荷马文本与2026年的好莱坞叙事——这究竟是对荷马史诗的忠实改编,还是诺兰式的现代男性忏悔录?本期《疲惫娇娃》,我们聊了聊Emily Wilson译本中那个复杂的男人如何被马特·达蒙演绎成了稳重的中年大哥,探讨了佩内洛普、喀耳刻等女性角色在诺兰镜头下如何变得薄如纸片。为何诺兰总是执着于拍“做错事的男人”在内心博弈,而忽视了受害者应有的分量?为何马特·达蒙的脸让人想投他一票,却消解了原作中骗子英雄的油腻感? Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has become the undisputed cultural phenomenon of 2026, so we dug our own copy of the Odyssey out of the corner of the bookshelf. This episode compares Homer's 3,000-year-old text with Hollywood's 2026 retelling — is this a faithful adaptation of the epic, or a Nolan-style confession of modern masculinity? On this episode of 疲惫娇娃CyberPink, we talk about how the complicated man of Emily Wilson's translation became a reliable middle-aged PTSD vet, and how female characters like Penelope and Circe turn paper-thin under Nolan's lens. Why is Nolan forever fixated on the inner struggles of "men who did something wrong," while giving the victims none of the weight they deserve? And why does Matt Damon's face make you want to vote for him — while dissolving the sleazy, trickster-hero quality of the original? 【时间轴 The When】 02:23 - 《奥德赛》剧情概览:奥德修斯的长路与归乡 05:47 - 工业电影的诚意:演员在船上泡了四个月的真实质感 14:41 - 导演的作者权力:从《奥本海默》的成功到《奥德赛》的空白支票 22:22 - 作为流动的西方正典,为何翻译即创造 39:01 - 独眼巨人Polyphemus:动作奇观对叙事复杂性的牺牲 50:01 - 核心主题:宙斯法则(Xenia)与当代社会对他者的恐惧 62:35 - 麦特·达蒙的“好人脸”与奥德修斯的油腻感 69:34 - 艾略特·佩吉的角色与跨性别政治的潜文本 74:51 - 纸面化的女性群像:喀耳刻、卡吕普索与佩内洛普的改编缺憾 89:01 - 王子成长记:荷兰弟饰演的忒勒马科斯带来的日常温情 100:34 - 尾声:在台下传纸条的听众比老师的课堂更重要 02:23 — The Odyssey plot overview: Odysseus's long road home 05:47 — The sincerity of industrial filmmaking: four months of actors actually soaking on a boat 14:41 — The director as author: from the success of Oppenheimer to the blank check of The Odyssey 22:22 — The Western canon as something fluid, and why translation is creation 39:01 — Polyphemus the Cyclops: action spectacle at the cost of narrative complexity 50:01 — Core theme: the law of Zeus (xenia) and contemporary society's fear of the other 62:35 — Matt Damon's "good guy face" vs. Odysseus's sleaziness 69:34 — Elliot Page's role and the subtext of trans politics 74:51 — Flattened women: what the adaptation loses in Circe, Calypso, and Penelope 89:01 — A prince grows up: the everyday warmth Tom Holland brings to Telemachus 100:34 — Closing: the audience passing notes in the back row matters more than the teacher's lecture 【拓展链接 The Links】 Instagram上跨性别权益倡导者@justflintisfine对奥德赛的点评 译者对诺兰奥德赛的批评 An Uncomplicated Man Elliot Page的专访 Elliot Page Is Ready for This Moment The Penelopiad Middle-Aged Matt Damon is Your Guy What Translator Emily Wilson Thinks of Christopher Nolan's ‘The Odyssey' Why ‘The Odyssey' Is the West's Greatest Story 【买咖啡 Please Support Us】 如果喜欢这期节目并愿意想要给我们买杯咖啡: 海外用户:https://www.patreon.com/cyberpinkfm 海内用户:https://afdian.com/a/cyberpinkfm 商务合作邮箱:cyberpinkfm@gmail.com 商务合作微信:CyberPink2022 If you like our show and want to support us, please consider the following: Those Abroad: https://www.patreon.com/cyberpinkfm Those in China: https://afdian.com/a/cyberpinkfm Business Inquiries Email: cyberpinkfm@gmail.com Business Inquiries WeChat: CyberPink2022
Comenzaremos la primera parte del programa hablando del presidente electo de Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, quien anunció que cerrará 14 embajadas y romperá lazos con Cuba y Nicaragua. Hablaremos también de un decreto que permite negar el ingreso o expulsar extranjeros que promuevan mensajes de odio contra Argentina; y del gobierno chino y sus nuevas medidas para proteger a sus ciudadanos de las relaciones sentimentales con chatbots de IA. Por último, hablaremos de la traductora de La Odisea, Emily Wilson, y su crítica a la adaptación cinematográfica de Christopher Nolan. La segunda parte estará dedicada a la lengua y cultura de América Latina. En el diálogo gramatical seguiremos ilustrando ejemplos de The Imperative Mood mientras conversamos sobre la trilogía para jóvenes de Isabel Allende, Memorias del Águila y el Jaguar. Cerraremos la emisión explorando el uso de la frase Ponerse los pelos de punta. En este segmento hablaremos de las salamancas, las cuevas donde se reúnen los brujos en el folklore latinoamericano. - El nuevo gobierno de Colombia cambiará su política exterior - Milei responde con un decreto a la supuesta campaña antiargentina - China pone límite a las relaciones sentimentales con la IA - La traductora de La Odisea critica la nueva adaptación cinematográfica - Isabel Allende incursiona en la literatura adolescente - La salamanca, un aquelarre indígena
In this edition of Study Break, we discuss the questionable decisions behind the scenes of the Possession remake, the historical accuracy cottage industry reactivated by the release of The Odyssey, the latest in infidelity surveillance via Jay Guapo, and new releases from Adela, Tyla, and KATSEYE. We also highlight a recent cornucopia of Euroweird excellence from the Depardieu family's blissful film festival outing to the fabulous brainrot opera debut of Beata Mona-Lisa, Greta Thunberg's perplexingly buxom sister— plus we react to fashion announcements including Marine Serre's bankruptcy and the upcoming John Galliano–themed Met Gala.Links: Margaret Qualley and Callum Turner on the set of the Possession remake in New JerseyJulie Depardieu and Philippe Katerine pose with their 2 sons Billy and Alfred at the Monte Carlo Television Festival (Alexi's viral QRT)Billy Blanchard at Jean-Paul Gaultier F/W 2026 Couture via Lyas“EXCLUSIVE: Marine Serre Seeks Investor Amid Financial Restructuring” in WWDThe Met Announces the Spring 2027 Costume Institute Exhibition, John Galliano: Horizons“John Galliano Returns to Fashion Via a Creative Partnership with Zara” in Vogue“An Uncomplicated Man” (review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey) by Emily Wilson in The London Review of BooksMillie Bobby Brown responds to bad wig accusations on BBC Radio 1@chthonicthorn on TikTok (Hellenistic practicioner?) “Greta Thunberg's Sister Beata Mona-Lisa Does the Splits” by Billy Parker in InterviewBeata Mona-Lisa on InstagramPianist Yuja WangNymphet Alumni Ep. 114: Grisch“The Folk Singer Linda Perhacs Is Found and Is Safe, Authorities Confirm” in The New York TimesTyla - “THAT GIRL” (Official Music Video)Nymphet Alumni Ep. 147: Cherry Emoji Dark FeminineTyla in custom Phoebe Pendergast polka dot hair clip at Disney with Kai Cenat“Valley of the Marc Jacobs Dolls” by Carwyn McIntyre in ToBe“The Surreal, Sublime Worlds of Szilveszter Makó” by Lauren Jackson in The New York TimesAdam Green's Aladdin - Full Movie (Official) on YouTubeKATSEYE (캣츠아이) - “Animal” (Official Music Video)KATSEYE EP 3 ‘WILD' (Wild heart ver.) teaser images on InstagramADÉLA - “Ain't In LA” (Official Music Video)Gabbriette in custom Matières Fécales bridalAndrea Mauri @babedrea33 on Instagram“Married elite NYC lawyer, 45, is caught red-handed with underling, 29, in passionate Central Park rendezvous” in The Daily Mail“How Leopold Aschenbrenner, the ‘golden child' of the AI trade, was laid low” in The Financial Times This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nymphetalumni.com/subscribe
On this episode, with JD's birthday coming up later this week, we thought it would be fun to discuss our Top 5 movies from 1985 (his birth year)! We also discuss the phenomenal box office weekend for SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY, new X-MEN casting and the controversy around Emily Wilson. - Opening (0:30) - Spider-Man Box Office (5:04) - Other Marvel Stuff (30:20) - Emily Wilson (37:55) - Glen Hansard (54:36) - Top 5 Movies of 1985 (1:01:05) Visit insessionfilm.dashery.com to support the show with InSession Film merch! Episode sponsor: koffeekult.com - Get 15% OFF with the code: ISF26 Episode sponsor: Libsyn - Get your first month FREE + 50% OFF the next two months: https://goto.libsyn.com/c/3029290/3894437/52813 Thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe! Become a Member today to get exclusive bonus content! Follow us on Twitter! @InSessionFilm | @RealJDDuran | @BrendanJCassidy
In Part 2 of our discussion on Homer's Odyssey, translator Emily Wilson returns to discuss the cinematic spectacle of Christopher Nolan's film, the different responsibilities of translation and adaptation, and the challenges of weaving together multi-layered narrative episodes and characters into a single movie. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a MacArthur Fellow. In addition to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of The Odyssey, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393417937. Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.
Sing, O Muse, of an adapted poem - specifically Homer's Odyssey as adapted for the silver screen by filmmaker Christopher Nolan. That's right, we went to an actual movie theater to see the blockbuster film that everyone is talking about (including friend of the show Emily Wilson). And don't worry, our personal Age of Bronze isn't collapsing - we'll be back to books next week. You can read Homer's poem along with us in our very first longread series Stop! Homer Time.This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Jeff and Rebecca talk about Emily Wilson's pan of Nolan's The Odyssey, before checking in on the Booker longlist, Obama's summer reading picks, and the most troubling AI/publishing story yet. Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Join The Book Riot Podcast Patreon for bonus content and ad-free listening. Subscribe to The Book Riot Newsletter for regular updates to get the most out of your reading life. The Book Riot Podcast is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Discussed in this episode: Emily Wilson hated The Odyssey, actually, and her unedited remarks to the AP Joyce Carol Oates has entered the chat And everybody wants to learn Greek Booker Prize longlist Obama summer reading list The most read books on Goodreads this year A viral BookTok hit might be largely AI-generated This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Go to quince.com/bookriot for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The panel you know and love returns to discuss E3, user generated content, and Ryan Baby Goose. Hosted by Alex Jaffe, with Frank Cifaldi, Ash Parrish, and Brandon Sheffield. Edited by Esper Quinn, original music by Kurt Feldman. Watch episodes with full video on YouTube Discuss this episode in the Insert Credit Forums SHOW NOTES: The Criterion Channel Kiyoshi Kurosawa The Samurai and the Prisoner (2026) Akira Kurosawa Gatorade Zero Glacier Cherry Costco Water Vitamin Water XXX xXx (2002) Stella Sacco 1: What's everybody been up to lately? (03:13) San Diego Comic-Con Funko Pop Marvel Cinematic Universe Star Trek Steve Ditko Kimba the White Lion Batman Hutchinson Island Sea turtle Crow Lemming Sea cucumber Rabbit Florida Keys Jellyfish America the Beautiful 2 What was E3 like? (12:06) E3 Dreamcast PlayStation 2 Crash Bandicoot NEC Interchannel PC Engine The Video Game History Foundation E3 Collection Carolyn Rauch The Beatles: Rock Band Sega Saturn PlayStation Electronic Gaming Monthly Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Game Informer Spider-Man 3: What are the best implementations of weather effects in video games? (19:27) Haunted Mansion Soulslike Final Fantasy X Ghostwire: Tokyo The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker Super Mario series Looney Tunes Journey to the West Astro Boy Astro Bot Ken Griffey Jr Presents Major League Baseball Peanut Butter the Speedrunning Dog Jerry Rice & Nitus's Dog Football Hollywood Reporter: ‘Air Bud Returns' Movie Reboot Sets Cast Ahead of 2026 Release Variety: Ryan Gosling Cast as Ghost Rider in Marvel Movie Baby Driver (2017) Ryan Gosling Gosling 4: Design a dating game that takes place at the Cheesecake Factory (25:05) Cheesecake Factory Applebee's Bucca di Beppo Chipotle Pia Carrot e Yōkoso!! series Date Everything 5: Room Check! (32:24) Game Developer Conference Children's Fairyland “It's Just Emulation!”: The Challenge of Selling Old Games It's Still Emulation: Saving Video Game History Before It's Too Late Preserving Game History: It's Just Us Bubsy Gunpla MS-09 Dom Advanced Variable Geo 6: SteveWithAB asks, what was a major inflection point for video games that didn't feel like one at the time? (40:04) Roblox Dreams LittleBigPlanet Minecraft Elden Ring Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America Inc. 7: What is the Emily Wilson's critique of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey of video games? (45:29) Emily Wilson Christopher Nolan The Odyssey (2026) NPR: ‘Odyssey' translator Emily Wilson says Nolan shouldn't have written the movie himself Hideo Kojima Capcom Dante's Inferno Console Wars The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) Stellar Blade Bayonetta Dracula Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Sephiroth Anne Rice LIGHTNING ROUND: Notable Patreon Characters (54:22) Recommendations and Outro (01:05:31): Brandon: Game Industry Hardship Bundle Ash: Drink more tea Frank: Go somewhere without an agenda Jaffe: Magic Every Day with Esper Quinn This week's Insert Credit Show is brought to you by patrons like you. Thank you. Subscribe: RSS, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more!
In Part 1 of our discussion on Homer's Odyssey, we welcome translator Emily Wilson to discuss Odysseus as a complicated character, the roles of women and divine beings in the poem, and the centuries-old stories within stories that pose questions of hospitality, power, fatherhood, and time still relevant today. Part 2, coming tomorrow (8/4), will center Wilson's reaction to Christopher Nolan's recent film. Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a MacArthur Fellow. In addition to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.To learn more or purchase a copy of the Norton Library edition of The Odyssey, go to https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393417937. Learn more about the Norton Library series at https://wwnorton.com/norton-library.Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter at @TNL_WWN and Bluesky at @nortonlibrary.bsky.social.
Christopher Nolan's new film ‘The Odyssey' is a box-office hit, but classics scholar Emily Wilson, who translated Homer's poem from the original text, says the film's script is abysmally written, lacking in emotional depth and character development. She talks about her translation and divisive criticism of the film. Also, we hear from actor Jon Bernthal who plays Menelaus, King of Sparta in ‘The Odyssey' and the Punisher in the new Spider-Man movie. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy
President Trump signals he wants to continue his fight for his anti-weaponization fund and IRS tax immunity for himself and his family. John Fugelsang, Christina Greer, W. Matthew Dodge, and Emily Wilson all join the 11th Hour with Ali Velshi. To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
We discuss the already over-discussed Christopher Nolan adaptation of Homer's classic poem. Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al discuss their cinema-going experiences, Ludwig Göransson's soundtrack, choices re. the book-to-film transition, the various performances, the Emily Wilson connection, and more. Get more at prettymuchpop.com. Get an ad-free experience, plus bonus talking for nearly every episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. Sponsor: Get 15% off OneSkin with the code PMP at oneskin.co/PMP.
This week's episode of the Empire Podcast sees Chris Hewitt — freshly returned from Comic-Con and San Diego — sit down for a lovely chat with Spider-Man: Brand New Day director, Destin Daniel Cretton. Either side of that, Chris is joined in the podbooth by Helen O'Hara, Amon Warmann, and Ben Travis to discuss their favourite Spider-movies, look back at Comic-Con and a whole bunch of trailers, and review Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Ish. They also get into Emily Wilson's scathing criticism of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and discuss authors and writers who dislike movies based on their works. We've yet to hear from Homer, but we do have an ask in with his publicist. Enjoy.
Erin Ryan and Sami Sage (Betches Media) dig into the Trump administration's move to terminate millions of dollars of federal grants for teen pregnancy prevention and what that says about the administration's vision of women. Then, they dive into Emily Wilson's scathing review of the Odyssey. Plus, Annie Andrews, Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in South Carolina, stops by to discuss her race and how the death of Lindsay Graham is shaking things up. And as always, we end with sanipetty.Emily Wilson: An Uncomplicated Man Government Overhauls Teen Pregnancy Program to Focus on Marriage and Starting Families (NYT 7/22 + NPR 7/7)A Nobel Prize winner decodes why people aren't having kids (NYT OPED 2025 + Claudia's Original Research & Ruben Gallego 7/23)
Comedians Emily Wilson (host of Tuesdays at the Red Room, host of Call Your Parents, and currently touring her special Fixed: How I Got Rejected by Reality TV) and Erica Hernandez (Search Party, 9-1-1, and Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat) join Jameela to trade their most humiliating near misses, from a snow day bus wipeout to a paranoid grilled cheese standoff.Emily revisits the reality show disaster that turned into her one woman show, and Erica confesses to a college fueled conspiracy theory that had her power walking sixty blocks to feed a friend who was not, in fact, starving.Plus, Colby discovers he has a latex allergy in the most humiliating way imaginable, in this week's Misery Loves Company.Jameela's Substack is A Low Desire To Please, you can also find her on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.Our consulting producer is Colin Anderson.Wrong Turns was created and produced by Jameela Jamil and Stewart Bailey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
With the recent release of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and buzz around Emily Wilson's translation of Homer, we thought we would unlock this special Stop! Homer Time episode originally released to Patreon supporters in early 2024.In November 2023, the acclaimed translator returned to the show to chat with us as we embarked upon our Iliad read. She spoke with us about her process, what it was like to have an audience clamoring for her translation, and what happens when the muses make you forget how to play guitar. For more information on longreads series like Stop! Homer Time, please head to patreon.com/overduepod.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Renowned classics scholar Emily Wilson caused a stir when her critical review of Christopher Nolan's ‘The Odyssey' went viral. Wilson explains her reaction to the film and why she's translating the poem again. She spoke with Dave Davies about trolls, tattoos, and why she balks at her work being categorized as “feminist.” Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air ArchivesSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy
#899: FIFA president Gianni Infantino plans to sell stake in the World Cup and its governing body hates it. Apple wants you to upgrade your iPhone with the option to lease. JPMorgan and Ohio State ink a record sports deal that shows the professionalization of college sports. Europe's richest man, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault publicly disputes any rumors of family in-fighting. Finally, Odyssey translator Emily Wilson hated Christopher Nolan's ‘The Odyssey.' Got difficult questions? Head to https://www.claude.ai/mbd to answer them. Get tickets for our trivia tournament! https://caveat.nyc/events/the-morning-brew-trivia-tournament-2026-07-30 Grab tickets to our Performance Revue show! https://www.morningbrew.com/events/brew-performance-revue-2026?utm_campaign=performance_revue_2026&utm_source=mbd Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Zohran Mamdani doxxes every property owner in New York City, launches a nationalized grocery store, and spits in the face of 9/11 families. How the hell did we get here? Plus, Hunter Biden sits with Nick Fuentes and feminist scholar Emily Wilson hates Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. Ep. 2473 - - - Today's Sponsors: Shopify - Every self-made person started somewhere. Yours starts free at https://shopify.com/shapiro PureTalk - There's a better wireless choice out there. And at just fifteen bucks a month for your first three months on ANY plan… now's a great time to choose PureTalk. Simply go to https://PureTalk.com/SHAPIRO to claim this offer. Supersure - Go to https://Supersure.com/shapiro. One SuperAgency. One powerful platform. All your policies in one place. Paid for by Supersure Insurance Agency, LLC, a licensed insurance agency. - - - DailyWire+
Liza Libes is a writer and literary critic at Pens and Poison. Her parents escaped the Soviet Union. She went to Columbia. She found that Columbia's English Department had replaced literature with Marxist theory, postcolonial studies, and critical theory. She's been pushing back ever since. We talked about: the teachers who made us both writers; reading Wallace Stevens's The Snowman — out loud, in full — and the seventh grade class that made Liza stand in the snow for an hour to understand it; Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and the fascism problem; what happened to Columbia's English Department and why it matters for publishing; why Marxism is fundamentally an ideology of resentment (Bertrand Russell said it 100 years ago); the novel Yesteryear and what it reveals about contemporary literary self-righteousness; why writing characters who disagree with you is the whole point; the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey and what "a complicated man" does to Odysseus's character; and Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film — specifically the Cyclops scene he cut, why it was the scene that defined Odysseus, and why its absence drains the heroism from the entire story. Follow Liza at Pens and Poison on Instagram → @pensandpoison TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 — Intro — who is Liza Libes and what is Pens and Poison? 1:20 — Looking back on your 18-year-old writer self 2:51 — The teachers who made us writers — Brother Patterson and Poetry Friday 5:34 — Standing in the snow to understand Wallace Stevens — The Snowman read aloud 10:31 — The Lost Generation: Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot — and the fascism problem 13:03 — Shakespeare and Co., Paris, and missing Notre Dame before the fire 14:57 — Columbia's English Department: literary theory replaced literature 16:58 — Marxist literary theory, critical theory, and postcolonial studies explained 18:28 — Her parents escaped the Soviet Union — why she takes Marxism personally 19:28 — What literature used to be — humanistic inquiry vs. class consciousness 21:41 — Academia made literature esoteric — and publishing followed 23:01 — The DSA voter: overeducated, underpaid, and resentful 24:44 — Yesteryear — the trad wife novel, Anne Hathaway, and literary self-righteousness 26:03 — When the author's voice drowns out the character's voice 27:14 — Dostoevsky, Lionel Shriver, and characters the author disagrees with 30:23 — Writing outside your experience — her trans character, Lou's gay character 33:22 — Lou's story published alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Junot Diaz 35:20 — Her new novel — exploring faith and Jewish theology 37:32 — Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Waiting for Godot 39:03 — The Emily Wilson Odyssey translation — "a complicated man" vs. "cunning" 41:10 — What makes Odysseus great — the Cyclops, the cunning, the hubris 43:25 — Nolan's film: the Cyclops scene is gone — and why that ruins everything 45:42 — Greek hubris — Icarus, Arachne, and why pride destroys heroes 47:24 — The sirens scene: what it should have felt like vs. what Nolan did 48:30 — The overall verdict on Nolan's Odyssey — heroism is missing 49:46 — Outro — find Liza at Pens and Poison Watch full episodes on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Vb53s4I0A&list=PLb5trMQQvT077-L1roE0iZyAgT4dD4EtJ Listen on Apple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lou-perez-podcast/id1535032081 Listen on Spotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/2KAtC7eFS3NHWMZp2UgMVU Co-host of Happy Hour Econ → https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happy-hour-econ/id1863476697 Lou's book — That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore: https://amzn.to/3VhFa1r TheLouPerez.com | info@thelouperez.com Newsletter: https://substack.com/@louperez #Literature #LiteraryFiction #LizaLibes #PensAndPoison #Odyssey #ChristopherNolan #Columbia #MarxistTheory #ClassicLiterature #LouPerezPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jeff and Rebecca enjoy The Odyssey afterglow, lament AI slop biographies, cover a bunch of adaptation news, recent reading, and much more. Jeff gets off some takes before the show gets going to talk about Amazon's best-selling books of all-time, a formidable new AI lawsuit, sales of THE ODYSSEY editions, recent reading, and much more. Follow the podcast via RSS, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Join The Book Riot Podcast Patreon for bonus content and ad-free listening. Discussed in this episode: Emily Wilson's comments on Christopher Nolan's Odyssey Book Riot's best adaptations of the century so far Judge approves settlement in Anthropic copyright case Scammer caught after publishing 5,000 AI slop biographies New Taylor Jenkins Reid novel in March (same day as Percival Everett) Apple already has the rights to adapt Rebecca Yarros's next (non-Fourth Wing) novel Sony picks up The Silent Patient for fast-tracked adaptation This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Go to quince.com/wellread for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. It's now available for our friends in Canada too! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Everybody's talking about Christopher Nolan's latest film...and so are we! We've got Eurovangelists co-host Dimitry Pompée with us to discuss the first movie ever shot in 70mm IMAX film, adapted from one of history's oldest and most famous works of literature...it's THE ODYSSEY! Then we'll talk about some of the books we read in high-school that have been (or should be) adapted for the big screen. What's Good? Alonso: vegetables that don't give you explosive diarrhea Drea: Blue Diamond Dill Pickle Nut-Thins Dimitry: The Ottoman Empire (Rise of Empires: Ottoman on Netflix) Kevin: the Other Mommy trailer ITIDICHollywood Deems the Box Office “Back” – Big TimeA Rotoscoped TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is in production The Odyssey/We Bought a Zoo meme A Letterboxd List: High-School Reads Staff Picks Alonso: The Good House Drea: The Return Dimitry: Polite Society Kevin: The Long Walk and other great movies to fall asleep to, if you're Kevin Listen to Eurovangelists! Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinmaxfilm Follow us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram, or LetterboxdWithKevin AveryDrea ClarkAlonso DuraldeProduced by Marissa FlaxbartSr. Producer Laura Swisher
Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' has brought one of history's oldest stories back into the spotlight. It's also sparked a fresh debate about what it means to adapt a classic. Today, Derek is joined by acclaimed classicist and translator Emily Wilson, whose celebrated translation of 'The Odyssey' helped inspire Nolan's film. They explore why Homer's epic has remained the foundation of so much Western storytelling and what gets lost and gained in the act of translating. Thenm Wilson gives her take on Nolan's adaptation. She lets us know what it captures brilliantly, where it departs from Homer, and what those changes reveal about both the ancient world and our own. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainEnglishwithDerekThompson If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Emily Wilson Producer: Devon Baroldi Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This Friday, “The Odyssey,” directed by Christopher Nolan, hits theaters. Even before the movie's release, though, it's proving to be a cultural event. Spirited discussions of Nolan's cinematic interpretation of the epic poem already abound online, and they are likely to intensify after the public sees the film. Why does a 12,000-line poem that is nearly 3,000 years old still feel resonant today? In this episode of “The Sunday Daily,” Natalie Kitroeff talks about the “Odyssey” with two writers who have produced some critically acclaimed and widely read modern interpretations of Greek classics: Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate the “Odyssey” from ancient Greek, and Madeline Miller, the author of the best-selling novels “Circe” and “Song of Achilles.” On Today's Episode: Emily Wilson, a professor, classicist, author and translator of the “Odyssey” Madeline Miller, the author of “Circe,” “Song of Achilles” and other books Background Reading: We'll Help You Find Your Next Great Book. (Spoiler: It's the ‘Odyssey.') The First Woman to Translate the ‘Odyssey' Into English Book Review: Turning Circe Into a Good Witch Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.