Episode 426.1 - The Way Nolan Intended

**Aviv** (0:10)
Quick Rubenstein recommends, ba ba ba, Hot Take, you're never gonna hear this from anybody else, The Odyssey.

**Matthew Reuter** (0:17)
Yeah, you know, I was gonna say, so Aviv, did it reinvent cinema for you? Is it life before The Odyssey and then life after? Like the air smells sweeter, colors change, and so on?
I think it's the same for the other two. I think it's the same for the other two. They smell sweeter, colors are brighter.

**Aviv** (0:30)
You jest, you jest. I will say, there is an element of that that I felt, but specifically with Nolan's filmography. Obviously, Christopher Nolan is like the filmmaker of our time, of our generation. He's like the guy.
Most, he's our Stanley Kubrick or whatever. Like everyone thinks that he's the bee's titties.

**Matthew Reuter** (0:59)
Sure.

**Aviv** (1:00)
And so I was watching this, it's a three hour epic, and there are many three hour epics, right? There's Ben Hur, there's the Spartacus, there's fucking another Ulysses, another Odyssey movie. There's plenty of stuff. But as I was watching it, I was like, wow, it is amazing to me that Christopher Nolan has never made one of these before, because it feels so natural to his style.

**Matthew Reuter** (1:30)
Sure.

**Aviv** (1:31)
And so that is like the before and the after for me that you're kind of making fun of, which is like, in his filmography, I think there's before the Odyssey and after the Odyssey.

**Matthew Reuter** (1:42)
So we'll see going forward, you mean?

**Aviv** (1:44)
Yeah, maybe. I mean, it also feels like the culmination of a lot of things.
There are elements of Batman. I'm not trying to spoil anything, but there are elements of Batman, there are elements of Inception and Interstellar, and the prestige and all of his greats fit into this. There's elements of Oppenheimer, like a Matroshka doll. And if I'm being realistic, it's probably the opposite. It's probably that the Odyssey, the story is so influential that it's like, we were seeing the effects of the Odyssey on the other movies and not vice versa. But it does feel like the most Nolan movie. Anything that is a Nolan trademark, he does it.

**Matthew Reuter** (2:36)
Okay. Got it.

**Aviv** (2:38)
Weird time jumps, he does it.

**Matthew Reuter** (2:41)
You don't say.

**Aviv** (2:42)
Big practical effects, he does it.

**Matthew Reuter** (2:44)
Yeah.

**Aviv** (2:45)
Just like dudes being bros, he does it.

**Matthew Reuter** (2:49)
Dudes being bros, huh?

**Aviv** (2:51)
Dudes being bros. The one Nolan thing that he doesn't do is the wife is not dead.

**Matthew Reuter** (2:58)
Oh no.

**Aviv** (2:59)
Well, I mean source material. Penelope is alive, yeah. But Anne Hathaway is great in it. Everyone's very, very, very good in it. John Leguizamo is in it, who's one of my favorite actors.

**Matthew Reuter** (3:10)
I heard he has a great performance. I mean, everyone being great in the film.

**Aviv** (3:14)
Everyone's quite good. There's one thing, so we haven't really talked about, I don't know if I've talked about this on air or with you, but I think that Christopher Nolan is the best filmmaker in the world in one particular thing.
Have you seen Oppenheimer?

**Matthew Reuter** (3:37)
No, I never got around to it.

**Aviv** (3:39)
Well, this is not a spoiler for Oppenheimer, but have you seen Interstellar?

**Matthew Reuter** (3:44)
Yes.

**Aviv** (3:45)
Okay, same thing. Christopher Nolan is really, really good at identifying an actor that everyone likes, who is deeply sinister, like a dark, evil human being underneath.

**Matthew Reuter** (4:02)
You're saying as characters or IRL?

**Aviv** (4:08)
So IRL, right? He can see it IRL and then he casts them as deep, dark, sinister characters. So look at like Timothy Chalamet and also Casey Affleck in Interstellar, where it's like, oh, that's my son, Aw Shucks. And then he's like, he turns out to be like a real, real fucker, real dark guy.

**Matthew Reuter** (4:25)
Yeah, okay, sure.

**Aviv** (4:27)
And Casey Affleck also shows up in Oppenheimer as like a military interrogator, and it is a literal jump scare when he comes in. Like Oppenheimer's like sitting across the table from somebody, and he's talking, and it sounds like Casey Affleck. I'm like, that sounds like Casey Affleck. And then cuts to him like, Jesus fucking Christ. And in this movie, Hot Take, it's Mia Goth.
He can identify that she is a dark, dark person.

**Matthew Reuter** (4:58)
But here's the thing, we've known that for years.

**Aviv** (5:01)
But he would still really like her.

**Matthew Reuter** (5:03)
Sure.

**Aviv** (5:05)
I think that there's something. I don't trust her. There's like a, I don't trust her.