What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Movies: Poor Things, Barbie and Oppenheimer are stuck in La La Land

Funny seeing people afraid of spoilers for The Odyssey considering it was written almost three millennia ago and pretty much everyone had to read it in high school, I actually had to read it twice: Sophomore English class and then in junior year I had to read it in the original for Greek class.

It is the highest rated movie of Nolan's career (98% from critics) and the two characters the Usual Suspects are frothing at the mouth over have mere moments of screen time in a 3-hour epic.
 
ticapnews said:
I actually had to read it twice: Sophomore English class and then in junior year I had to read it in the original for Greek class.
Click to expand...

In the original original, Homeric pre-Greek, or in modern Greek?

Either way I am blown away in admiration and envy. My HS did not offer Greek.
 
Kepler said:
In the original original, Homeric pre-Greek, or in modern Greek?

Either way I am blown away in admiration and envy. My HS did not offer Greek.
Click to expand...
The original. Junior year was Homeric Greek, Senior was Attic Greek. Greek was only available to Juniors and Seniors and you had to commit to taking both. If you continued past Latin II you had to commit to Latin III and Latin IV.

My Greek class had four people in it. There were eight of us in 3rd&4th year Latin.
 
ticapnews said:
Funny seeing people afraid of spoilers for The Odyssey considering it was written almost three millennia ago and pretty much everyone had to read it in high school, I actually had to read it twice: Sophomore English class and then in junior year I had to read it in the original for Greek class.
Click to expand...
I never read it. Though I do have it on my Kindle, and been meaning to read it...

(But I do know how it ends.)
 
ticapnews said:
Funny seeing people afraid of spoilers for The Odyssey considering it was written almost three millennia ago and pretty much everyone had to read it in high school, I actually had to read it twice: Sophomore English class and then in junior year I had to read it in the original for Greek class.
Click to expand...
I wonder how much of that is people assuming the story won't be true to the source? Yes I know I'm giving way too much benefit...
 
ticapnews said:
The original. Junior year was Homeric Greek, Senior was Attic Greek. Greek was only available to Juniors and Seniors and you had to commit to taking both. If you continued past Latin II you had to commit to Latin III and Latin IV.

My Greek class had four people in it. There were eight of us in 3rd&4th year Latin.
Click to expand...
I got 4 years of Latin in HS and another 2 in college. My college class was in summer. We started with 8. 3 quit after the first day (6 hours of class a day, every day, all summer.) The 3 of us who made it to the final exam walked down to the worst dive bar in Ithaca afterwards at 11 a.m., and drank all day until closing (2 a.m.). It's the drunkest I've ever been. We were as close as a Vatican Cardinal gets to fluent and we tried to speak exclusively in Latin but bagged out after a few hours, however we were chatted up all day by Ithaca College girls who thought "Italian" was sexy.

OMG I was sick for a full day after.

God I wish I still had the vocabulary but after 40 years I'm down to a trickle of tenses and cases. That was the hardest class I ever took including all the math and physics and Eng classes. The guy who taught us was an ancient Brit and he excoriated us all summer as the worst class he ever taught. There was no To Sir with Love moment -- we unironically hated him and he appeared at least to be disgusted with all "Americans" (one of us was Brazilian).
 
Last edited:
I thought I had forgotten all the Spanish I had learned, but my son being in a Spanish immersion school has reactivated that part of my brain and suddenly I can catch 3/4 of what’s said on telemundo. Still strongest at reading it, though. I can go as slow as I need there.
 
Kepler said:
I got 4 years of Latin in HS and another 2 in college. My college class was in summer. We started with 8. 3 quit after the first day (6 hours of class a day, every day, all summer.) The 3 of us who made it to the final exam walked down to the worst dive bar in Ithaca afterwards at 11 a.m., and drank all day until closing (2 a.m.). It's the drunkest I've ever been. We were as close as a Vatican Cardinal gets to fluent and we tried to speak exclusively in Latin but bagged out after a few hours, however we were chatted up all day by Ithaca College girls who thought "Italian" was sexy.

OMG I was sick for a full day after.

God I wish I still had the vocabulary but after 40 years I'm down to a trickle of tenses and cases. That was the hardest class I ever took including all the math and physics and Eng classes. The guy who taught us was an ancient Brit and he excoriated us all summer as the worst class he ever taught. There was no To Sir with Love moment -- we unironically hated him and he appeared at least to be disgusted with all "Americans" (one of us was Brazilian).
Click to expand...
Our Latin/Greek teacher (also Drama director) was super cool. We were supposed to read and translate Cicero over summer vacation and not a single one of us did. The first day of class he came in the classroom, opened the textbook (Ecce, Romani!") and never even mentioned the assignment none of us did. When he took us to Italy and Greece for March break we all chipped in and bought him a statue of Zeus. Was funny seeing him take it through customs. :LOL: It was devastating when he broke the news he was leaving after my junior year.

I don't remember much from the textbook, but the stuff we did for fun (like translate song lyrics into Latin) has never left me. I'll hear one of those songs come on the radio and start singing it in Latin.
 
I still sing Gaudeamus Igitur from memory when I hear it because of Mr. Stamp, my HS Latin teacher who looked and spoke exactly like Les Nessman.

He also taught us a billion tricks for remembering the Latin root of obscure English words so I never miss with propinquity, emolument, effulgent, internecine and a lot more.
 
Kepler said:
We were as close as a Vatican Cardinal gets to fluent and we tried to speak exclusively in Latin but bagged out after a few hours, however we were chatted up all day by Ithaca College girls who thought "Italian" was sexy.
Click to expand...
I guess Ithaca College's admissions standards weren't the only low standards in the area. ;)
 
The Odyssey

B+. Fun summer epic.

My only objections were, ironically, casting:

Good actor well cast: Samantha Morton (Circe), Charlize Theron (Calypso)
Good actor miscast: Matt Damon (Odysseus), Anne Hathaway (Penelope)
Bad actor enjoyable well cast: Joe Bernthal (Meneleus), Zendaya (Athena)
Terrible actor hilariously miscast: Tom Holland (Telemachus), Robert Pattison (Antinous)
What the fuck is this dumb invented character even doing here? Eliot Page (Sinon)

The messaging was mostly fine. Circe's rant was meh whatevs. Penelope's "empty throne" rant was laughable. Nolan's "sea people" addition was clever the first couple times and then as typical post-Memento Nolan became hammering away at the same note. We get it, Chris.

As a text adaptation, as long as Nolan stuck close to the text it was... really good!?! In particular I loved how it jumps around. The thing everybody hates about Nolan is the thing that the Odyssey actually does -- for reals! I loved that he kept it. I'm fine he replaced the Phaeacians with Calypso as Odysseus' memory board -- I bought the attempt at making it more personal. I'd have liked more about that relationship and the stressors on Odysseus' commitment to Penelope. He gets away too easy but you can see just the edge of what could have been a more interesting character. I love Damon but he was a nearly uniquely terrible choice for Odysseus. It was like George Clooney playing Faust. I mean... I guess if I squint? But now imagine Daniel Craig as Odysseus. Now you have a performance and a shot at greatness. It might even save Hathaway. Fassbender and Bale were also considered -- I can see either.
 
Last edited:
He's a very good one-note fill for certain hyper-bloviating, overly self-indulgent roles (Baby Driver, Wolf of Wall Street, The Punisher). He's a cartoon.

That's fine, De Niro has spent the last 25 years of his career as a cartoon. It's a lucrative, no effort gig. What else is Nick Cage but a really enjoyable cartoon?

But it isn't acting; it's delivering on a brand.
 
Kepler said:
He's a very good one-note fill for certain hyper-bloviating, overly self-indulgent roles (Baby Driver, Wolf of Wall Street, The Punisher). He's a cartoon.

That's fine, De Niro has spent the last 25 years of his career as a cartoon. It's a lucrative, no effort gig. What else is Nick Cage but a really enjoyable cartoon?

But it isn't acting; it's delivering on a brand.
Click to expand...
His roles go well beyond one note including the theater. Check up on his full history.
 
One of my favorite anachronisms in the Odyssey: they're rowing a Viking ship. It looks nothing like any Greek ship of any period.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top