Matt damon

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

Does The Odyssey confirm that Christopher Nolan is camp?

Sir Christopher Nolan is many things. The Spielberg/Lucas/Cameron manqué of our time. A double Oscar-winner for Oppenheimer, a picture that is nowhere near his best work. The most acclaimed director of film bros, who somehow ignore his standing as a white, British privately educated filmmaker. But what nobody has ever seriously asked before is “Is Sir Christopher camp?” I hesitate to say that. The (relatively) newly knighted director is as serious a figure as has ever been seen in the film industry. But after watching the new trailer for his magnum opus, The Odyssey, it is a question that I must ask. We have Good Will Hunting himself, Matt Damon, as Nolan’s conception of Odysseus. All good there; I myself would have cast Michael Fassbender, but hey-ho.

odyssey

Tuesday

Alexander Larman

What is Travis Scott doing in The Odyssey?

As far as teaser trailers for summer blockbusters go, it takes quite a lot to make jaded audiences – or cynical critics – sit up and say, “What the hell?” But what’s exactly what the latest trailer for Christopher Nolan’s eagerly awaited The Odyssey has done. Not because it has featured a couple of new shots of Tom Holland’s Telemachus squaring off with Robert Pattinson’s villainous Antinous, or Matt Damon’s Odysseus participating in the bloody sack of Troy with his fellow Greeks, but because it introduces the most unexpected cameo of the year, possibly of the decade. Ladies and gentlemen, enter the latest feature of Nolan’s all-star cast: the hip-hop artiste Travis Scott, appearing in the somewhat unlikely role of a staff-beating herald.

travis scott

Thursday

Roger Kimball

Why can’t Democrats speak frankly about Iran?

The manicured grounds of Harvard University are tranquil. Ditto the expensive quads of Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford. All across the fruited plain, the self-denominated paragons of virtue who just yesterday sported “Free Palestine” buttons and joined in “No Kings” rallies are greeting today’s greatest enormity – the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens by their insane Islamicist government – with the repetition of that hit by Simon and Garfunkel: "The Sounds of Silence." Or, as the headline of a story in National Review put it: "Iranian Civilians Are Being Massacred to the Sound of Progressive Silence." Accurate numbers are hard to come by since the murderous Islamic regime in Iran has shut down public access to the internet.

iranians

Thursday

The Spectator

This month in culture: August 2024

The Instigators In theaters August 2, Apple TV+ August 9 Boston crime movies are back! Starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck — and produced by Ben Affleck, of course — The Instigators is a heist comedy-thriller about a robbery that goes wrong, causing Damon’s therapist to get dragged along for the ride. Affleck/Damon productions have consistently been solid — from the ultimate Boston crime movie The Town to last year’s Jordan 1 sneaker-origin story Air — and this is directed by one of the best working action directors around, Doug Liman, who was responsible for The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow and (the underrated) American Made.

culture

Monday

Alexander Larman

Why we hope something will go wrong at the Oscars

This Sunday, the annual orgy of back-slapping, expensive frocks, frenzied behind-the-scenes campaigning and self-promotion will finally climax with the 96th Academy Awards, taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The ceremony itself is perhaps the most predictable and consequently least exciting for years. Barring an upset of unimaginable proportions, Oppenheimer will win Best Film and Best Director, and its co-star Robert Downey Jr. will win Best Supporting Actor — a popular award for a popular figure — and Da’Vine Joy Randolph will win Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers.

oscars academy awards

Friday

Oliver Wiseman

Gerontocracy watch

There has been no shortage of reminders of the gerontocracy in which we live lately. Last week brought two in the Senate.  One was Mitch McConnell’s worrying freeze-up at a press conference when he had to be helped away from reporters. The second came courtesy of Dianne Feinstein, who had to be prompted several times when asked to cast her vote on the Defense Appropriations Bill. “Say aye,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington told her ninety-year-old colleague from California. There are presumably other examples courtesy of the octogenarian commander-in-chief, but they are so frequent these days that it can be hard to keep track.  Feinstein’s age-related shortcomings have made news again.

hot divorced world leader summer
Cockburn

It’s Hot Divorced World Leader Summer!

Are you a NATO member, single and ready to mingle? Following former Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin’s split from her husband of nineteen years, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau announced, via a heartbreaking Instagram post, that he and his wife Sophie were set to separate. Rumors that two of the world’s most photogenic leaders could shack up appear to be jumping the gun — but Cockburn is somewhat curious that Sophie, a close pal of Meghan Markle’s from her Suits-taping days in Toronto, is set to ditch her powerful hubby. Needless to say, the leaders of Finland and Canada could have existed in marital bliss had they only considered the very French option of marrying your schoolteacher, as Monsier le President Macron did... Jared Kushner’s uncle donated to... Chris Christie?

Wednesday

Amber Duke

Stillwater and the rise of the blue-collar American in Hollywood

Blue-collar folks are having a moment in Hollywood. Multiple directors and actors have dropped the usual disdain we see on television and the silver screen for the working class, instead unpretentiously telling the stories of down-on-their-luck rural Americans. Nomadland, which won Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards in April, followed a woman who started living out of a van and working seasonal jobs after losing her job due to the closure of a local construction materials plant. Kate Winslet adopted a Yinzer accent in HBO’s Mare of Easttown, playing a small-town Pennsylvania detective that vapes and drinks her way through family trauma and a grisly murder case.

stillwater