Director Christopher Nolan is no slouch when it comes to making a cinematic spectacle, and "The Odyssey" has really delivered both critically and at the box office. HCC film professors Marie Westhaver and Mike Giuliano have a lot to discuss as this podcast episode analyzes Nolan's 172-minute epic. Although Mike believes the film owes more to Hollywood than to Homer, he agrees with Marie that the Trojan horse and other famous episodes are impressively staged. Matt Damon portrays a PTSD-afflicted Odysseus, and others in the starry cast include Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Bill Irwin, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton, Lupita Nyong'o and John Leguizamo. Marie and Mike also discuss a very different film, director Olivia Wilde's deliberately claustrophobic "The Invite," in which a couple played by Wilde and Seth Rogen invite the upstairs neighbors, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, for a dinner party. Their awkward and at times acrimonious conversations take "The Invite" into quirky psychological territory. Every scene may not totally convince, but you'll be an alert viewer.

Link to Episode Transcript Available Below:

https://www.howardcc.edu/discover/arts-culture/dragon-media/dragon-podcasts/podcast-transcripts/at-the-movies/the-odyssey--the-invite.php